Respawn in Reality: Game Over, Player One

Chapter 5

Leo held his hands up in front of his face. He concentrated. He wanted to see the menu again.

Instantly, the HUD responded to his brain waves. The glowing blue text appeared, floating right over his hands.

[Current Status Report:]

[Strength: 3/10]

[Intelligence: 7/10]

[Agility: 4/10]

[Luck: 1/10]

Leo read the numbers over and over again. This was his life, translated into raw data.

He remembered the fight in the alley. The HUD had not magically made him faster. The HUD had simply done the math. It had read the thug's body language, calculated the physics of the swinging pipe, and found the physical weak point. 

The nanites in his brain had simply sent the perfect signal to his muscles. There was no magic. It was just perfect, pure biological computing.

"But my stats are terrible," Leo said out loud. He looked at the Strength: 3/10. "I'm weak. I almost couldn't dodge that pipe because my body is too slow."

He looked across his small, dark room. He focused his eyes on an old, heavy dictionary sitting on the floor.

The HUD instantly placed a thin white box around the book. Text popped up next to it.

[Object: Book.]

[Estimated Weight: 4.5 lbs.]

[Material: Paper, cardboard.]

Leo’s mind began to race. The possibilities were endless. He could analyze everything. He could see the hidden truth of the physical world.

He pushed himself up off the floor. His muscles ached terribly. He was still wet from the rain. He stripped off his cold, wet clothes until he was wearing only his underwear. He stood in the center of his tiny, freezing room. His ribs showed clearly against his pale skin. He looked sickly.

"In a game," Leo muttered, his eyes narrowing with deep concentration, "when your stats are too low, you have to level up. You have to grind."

Grinding. It was a gamer's term. It meant doing hard, repetitive tasks over and over again to gain experience points. 

Most people hated grinding. They found it boring and painful. But Leo was a professional. He was a master of the grind. 

He had spent thousands of hours shooting digital targets just to increase his reaction time by a single millisecond. He knew how to suffer for a goal. He just had never done it with his real body before.

Leo dropped to the hard wooden floor. He got into a pushup position. His arms were shaking just holding up his own light body weight.

He lowered himself down. It felt awful. His chest touched the cold floor. He pushed himself back up. His muscles screamed. His arms felt like they were on fire. He was incredibly weak.

He managed to do exactly three pushups before his arms gave out. He collapsed flat onto the floor, panting heavily.

“Three pushups,” he thought with deep shame. “I am pathetic.”

But then, a warm sensation began in his chest. It did not feel like the burning pain of exercise. It felt like standing in front of a warm fireplace. The heat spread from his chest, down his shoulders, and into his weak arms.

The HUD in his vision flashed. A wireframe model of a human body appeared in the top right corner of his vision. It was a model of Leo. His arms were glowing a bright, warning red.

[Micro-tears detected in pectoral and tricep muscle fibers.]

[Initiating biological repair protocol.]

[Diverting energy to cell generation.]

Leo watched in absolute amazement as the red glow on the wireframe model slowly turned yellow, and then green.

The terrible pain in his arms began to fade away. It was replaced by a strange, tight feeling. His muscles were repairing themselves at an impossible speed. 

The microscopic machines in his blood were literally knitting his torn muscles back together, making them stronger in seconds instead of days.

A bright gold text box burst into his vision. It came with a pleasant, digital CHIME sound that only he could hear.

[Objective Complete: Surpass Baseline Limit.]

[Muscle density increased.]

[Reward: +0.1 Strength.]

Leo stared at the golden text. A wild, crazy smile slowly spread across his face.

The nanites could heal him. The HUD gave him quests. The real world was exactly like a video game, and he had the cheat codes. He didn't have to wait weeks to see results from a gym. He just had to do the work.

Mike had kicked him out because he was weak. Mike had laughed at his poverty. Mike had called him a loser.

"You made a mistake, Mike," Leo whispered to the empty room. His eyes were burning with a fierce, hot determination. "You put me on the hardest difficulty setting. But you forgot one thing. I never lose."

Leo pushed himself off the floor again. His arms felt fresh. The pain was gone. "Let's play," he said.

He got back into the pushup position.

This time, the HUD did not just sit there. It reacted to his intent. Bright blue vector lines appeared on the floor, showing him exactly where to place his hands for maximum chest activation. A digital protractor appeared near his elbows, measuring the exact angle of his arms.

[Biological Optimization Active.]

[Form corrected. Keep spine straight. Bend elbows to exactly 90 degrees.]

[Begin.]

Leo lowered himself. The HUD flashed a green light. Perfect form. He pushed up. The HUD kept track. One. He lowered himself again. Two.

He did ten pushups. His arms started to burn again. The lactic acid was building up. But he did not stop. He was a machine. He was grinding.

When he finally collapsed at fifteen pushups, the HUD instantly flashed the wireframe model again. The nanites rushed to his arms. The heat returned. The pain vanished.

[Repair protocol complete.]

[Reward: +0.1 Strength.]

Leo stood up. He did not waste a single second. "Legs next," he commanded himself.

He began to do squats. The HUD placed vertical blue lines over his knees, ensuring they did not go past his toes. It measured the depth of his squat perfectly.

“Down. Up. Down. Up.” He did fifty squats. His legs turned to jelly. He fell over, gasping for air. The nanites flooded his leg muscles. The heat repaired the torn tissue.