Wednesday, October 17, 2018

New LitRPG - Level Up: The Knockout



Level Up: The Knockout
by Dan Sugralinov and Max Lagno




Release - January 9, 2019



Chapter One. The Hallucination.

 

I used to be an adventurer like you. Then I took an arrow in the knee.
Skyrim


EVEN THOUGH Mike Björnstad Hagen was partly of Scandinavian extraction, he resembled a Viking roughly the same way a Chihuahua resembles a Great Dane. He had a variety of nicknames such as Crybaby Mikey, Little Mikey, Mikey the Wimp, or even Hey, you cocksucker! No one has ever referred to him as Mr. Hagen.
The only time it almost happened was during a visit to a bank Mike had visited once in hope of getting a mortgage loan.I'm so sorry, Mr. Hagen, but your loan request has not been approved, said the man behind the counter without so much as trying to refrain from grinning smugly.
Mike would have smashed his face gladly if he only knew how to fight.
A home... A dream of a home of his own, one he could share with little Jessie, was all that had kept him going for three years. Then Jessica had deserted him for a trucker thug from Arizonaor was it Texas? At that point, it didn't really matter anymore.


What did matter, however, was that Hagen had dated no one for the following five years, and the reason certainly wasn't his pining for Jessicathere was none. It was just that no one ever found him interesting enough, including Sheila, a glum Goth girl covered in tattoos, who worked in the shop across the road. The shop sold comics, and Hagen would frequent it to buy fresh issues of Rat Queens and Extremity.
There was an occasion when Mike had had quite a few at Chuck's Bar and managed to get brave enough to invite her to see a movieanother installation of The Avengers. That was when Hagen had the temerity to declaim, feeling brave and cocksure, Girlfriend, how about taking that glorious body of yours out with the coolest guy in the neighborhood?”
Sheila was flabbergasted. Cool? You, of all people?” She then gave him the textbook phrase about him being the last man on the planet and her utter reluctance to spend any amount of time with him even in that scenario.
Mike didn't wait for her to finish the sentence. Hit by the realization of him having been rejected, his brain instantly launched the standard coping mechanism Hagen had developed back in grammar school whenever he’d been called a freak and gotten pelted by a barrage of leftovers at the school canteen: See no evil, hear no evil.”
He barely managed to move his legs, which seemed like foreign objects, as he left the comic shop never to return. Thenceforth, he had to order his comics online which isn't quite the same thing as everybody knows.
Hagen didn't bear any grudges against Sheila. But how could he ever visit her shop again? That would be the worst humiliation one could possibly think of.
Then there was the evening when he’d come home from worka Friday right after Thanksgiving. However, a family holiday seemed like any other day to Hagen. He'd never seen his father, and his mother had passed away a couple of years back.
Hagen's mother was the only person in his life he'd ever truly loved. Some might have called her love overbearing, but Baby Mickey could never even think of it like that. She was his mother, after allas well as his friend, and the most interesting person to talk to. Jessie tried to claim this partit seemed like a success for a whilebut then she walked out on him. When Hagen returned to his mother after his first life cruise, as his Uncle Pete had put it, mother was already deathly ill. The doctors said her treatment would have a thirty-percent chance of success, but there wasn't any money to pay the medical expenses, anyway. Another thing was that he'd have to go to Philadelphia. How could he possibly? His job and his home would never let him. Nor would anybody else.
Hagen's mother died in terrible pain, and he spent all her last days with herholding her hand unable to hold back his tears.
Mike spent the first year after her death as though he were trying to learn how to live again. He's gotten used to cooking, and tried to wash his own clothes and wake up on time, with varying success. The mother who had always taken care of her son was gone. There was no one to take her place, so it was the second time ever Hagen decided something for himself as an adult (the first one being moving in with Jessie).
He wouldn’t give up. He wouldn’t let himself crack under pressure. He would have no specific objectives; hed go with the flow, but he would definitely stay alive.
So he eventually managed to cope with it. Mother's cooking was replaced by Chinese takeaways. Once a week, Hagen would go to the Laundromat, and the alarm clock would wake him up every morning. Life seemed to have gotten back to normal but he still missed his mother a lot.
The only imaginable relative Hagen knew was Uncle Pete, Mom's elder brother. Uncle Pete used to be in the US Armed Forces. He'd been through campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan; the few times he’d visited Hagen and his mother, he did everything he could to be a male presence and help with his nephew's upbringing, but without any success. So Uncle Pete decided to skip the particulars and stick to enforce the three rules he considered important for every man: the ability to hold one's ground, to help one's mother, and to keep from whining, whatever the circumstances may be.
He failed in every case.
Hagen would get hysterical at any experience of physical pain, and preferred to give up or run away at once instead of holding his ground, even though he'd always dreamed of learning to fight like the famous Mighty MouseDemetrious Johnson, the UFC flyweight champion. Yes, the very wrestler that had managed to become a champion eleven times with his heightless than five foot three, and weighing under 126 pounds.
Poor puny Hagen often imagined himself as Johnson's true heir. Crybaby Hagen. Height, five foot two. Weight, just a little over 123 pounds. And a UFC champion nonetheless! Such an unfunny joke.
Helping his Mom? Oh, that was so boring. So much more fun playing video games or reading comics. Not that his mother ever demanded anything of the sort from her only child, anyway.
And as for keeping from whiningHagen tried as hard as he could, but without much success. What could he do if his first reaction to a hurtful comment had always been tears? Hagen was nearly thirty at that point but he would still sometimes find himself unable to hold them back. Just to think of that dumb customer with his damned laptop — a certain Mr. Goretsky. Hagen was the only person who’d any idea about computers in the shop selling digital devices where he worked. Each time Mr. Goretsky would have another virus infect his hard drive browsing through illegal adult sites, there'd be just a single person to sort it out. Namely, Baby Mikey. And Mr. Goretsky had gotten his Self-Importance and Asshole skills up to a level sufficient to blame Hagen for the infection each and every time.
So, the Friday Mr. Goretsky visited the shop again, he didn't guard his words in the least. Apart from the fact that he had onion and garlic on his breath, which almost made Hagen throw up, he erupted with expletives. The mildest expressions he used were dumb freak and pimply bastard, although there were plenty more epithets and characteristics. It must be fun to be as badass when you're six foot tall and your forearms are wider then my legs, thought Hagen, feeling the levee breaking and the tears running down his cheeks. It wasn't his best day all in all, Friday or no Friday.
Feeling utterly discombobulated, Hagen headed right for Chuck's Bar. His main objective was to get into a state of complete inebriation; the secondary one was fueled by the hope of picking up a chick against all odds. Anyone at all. Just someone moist enough for him to stick it in. He'd even managed to notice a likely candidate sitting on a bar stool and downing straight whiskey like there was no tomorrow. Still, he never gathered enough courage to approach her, although he was fully intending to. And once his ass finally left the chair, it was already too late. The lady in question guffawed at the stupid joke of some smug bastard wearing a suit and tie in the most vulgar manner.
So Hagen got fueled up with rotgut and headed homeward, wallowing in self-pity. He spent some time playing his favorite MMA fighter game on the PlayStation in his bachelor's lair imagining himself kicking seven shades of shit out of that bastard Goretsky, after which he watched a horror B-movie on his cable for a while, then just passed out.
He woke up almost at midnight to take a piss.
That was when everything started to happen.
The distance between the sofa and his bathroom would normally take some five stepsit was a cheap rented apartment, after allbut Mike still stumbled on his way. He never knew himself to be particularly agile, but crossing a completely level floor to reach the bathroom hadn't ever been a problem, no matter how drunk.
However, when he rose from the sofa and headed toward the can this time, the world seemed to blink. Hagen felt himself hanging in the nothingness of the universe for a few seconds, feeling no gravity, smells, sounds, lights, or air entering and leaving his lungs.
He didn't even have any awareness of his own existence. He felt enshrouded in utter darkness.
Once the world around him returned, his body continued with a series of panic-induced commands given by the brain: his diaphragm spasmed, his arms started to wave, and his legs eventually attempted to take one step after another. As a result, Hagen fell to the floor, bruising his chin rather badly in the process and almost biting his tongue.
It took him a while to decide to rise, feeling the kind of vertigo anyone who'd ever had more liquor than they could hold would recognize quite well. There were white dots in his vision which formed themselves into strange symbols resembling the runes from The Predator. Hagen went silent, trying to keep himself from throwing up. He lay down on his back and closed his eyes, waiting for the white dots to stop moving so chaotically, but to no avail.
He tried to blink until they went away, and then tried to rub them out with his hands, but the shining dots clearly weren't of a physical nature. They disappeared some ten minutes later.
Hagen managed to catch his breath. Then he got up gingerly and made a few slow, deliberate steps, trying to ensure his feet wouldn't fail him on his way to the business that had woken him up originally.
Then he went back to his room, got undressed, and fell asleep, leaving his clothes on the floor.

* * *

HE WOKE the next morning feeling parched as hell. It was Saturday, and he didn't have to go to work.
He cracked his joints as he stretched out, and headed toward the fridge. He polished off a carton of OJ in a few gulps and started to think about heading down to the supermarket for some supplies.
He sat down at his kitchen table, half of which was covered in computer parts such as video, RAM, and Ethernet cards. That’s when he realized something was wrong. And it wasn't the headache from the six pints of beer he’d drunk last night.
There was an object looking like a desktop icon in his field of vision, and it wouldn't go away. He’d noticed it after waking up, but his initial assumption had been that it was just something in his eye or on his eyelashesa bit of lint, perhaps.
Mike blinked, but the bit of lint didn't go away. If anything, it seemed to have gotten larger. He thought he needed to wash his face, so off to the bathroom he went.
As Mike splashed some water over his face, he decided to shave. He didn't do it oftenthere was no reason to waste time on scraping his face with a razor, after all. But why do it today? The very urge surprised him.
He rubbed some shaving gel on his hand and started applying it to his face, looking at himself in the mirror.
That was when it hit him. There were two lines of text hovering over his head with its thinning fair hair. It looked like the kind of stuff you'd expect to see in some damn computer game.

Mike “Crybaby” Hagen. Age: 29
Level 1

Hagen ran his hand through the space above his head, his face covered in foam. The hand passed through the text without feeling any resistance. Could this be a practical joke of some sort? He looked at the mirror carefully, but found no signs of anyone tampering with it.
What could it possibly be, then? A hallucination?
Suddenly Mike had a morbid idea that made him back away from the mirror. His legs buckled under him, causing him to collapse in a heap to the floor.
Could it be cancer? The kind his mother had?
And what would happen then? He wasn't even thirty yet. He hadn't really managed to get any worthy experience in his life and come to know the joys it could bring. He'd been thinking everything was still ahead of himthat he would have time enough to get as strong as Mighty Mouse.
And what about women? He's never had anyone but Jessie. The thought that his time had run out and that he'd never get to know anyone intimately until the end of what would be a very short life made Hagen cry without making a single sound.
Then he started to bawl uncontrollablybut his mother was no longer there to hug him and comfort him, and it felt like his very life poured out of him as tears went by. A dark depressive state came upon him. Hagen no longer had any wish to do anything anymore, so he just washed away his tears and the froth, rubbed his face with a towel, and went back to bed. He closed his eyes and stayed like that until evening came, unable either to fall asleep or get up.
Long after sundown, Hagen realized he could stay that way no more. His body felt numb; his muscles ached for some exercise, and his brain finally switched from thoughts about imminent death to the basic instinctsnamely, thirst, hunger, and sheer lust for life. His wish to stay alive made him grit his teeth, and he decided to find out what was really going on.
He got out of bed and stood up, staring into the darkness of his apartment. Still, no matter which way Hagen looked, some 3D object remained at the periphery of his vision. He seemed to be watching a movie in 3D, but he wasn't wearing any 3D glasses.
He focused his sight on the object and noticed its reaction. The icon, flat until then, started to rotate like a Christmas tree bauble spinning at the touch of a cat's paw, transforming into a cube with a human head silhouette at each side. Viewed from a certain angle, it actually resembled Hagen himself.
The young man reached for the cube. As if accepting his invitation, it floated towards his palm and became larger. Hagen touched it with his fingertips and felt some sort of tangible response. The cube blinked and turned into a window. Even if it was a hallucination, it was really top-drawer.
The window that appeared featured a topless Hagen in 3D wearing trunks. It was a ridiculous sight. He was thin, all ribs, but the expression on his face was one of pure malice. There was a text bar underneath Hagen. The active tab had two columns. The first one had the following written in it:

Mike Crybaby Hagen
Age: 29
Level: 1
Health: 4000 pt.
Battles/victories: 0/0
Weight: 123 lbs
Height: 5’2

Mike read through the text, studying every line. As he focused, he saw pop-ups with prompts explaining the meaning of each of them. There was also some extra info for the first linehis ethnicity, nationality, as well as place of birth and current residence.
The second prompt explained the process of leveling up. Experience grew in combat, no matter what kinda street fight or a training match would both count for something. The only condition was that the opponent could not be a minor. One had to have as many victories as one had on the current level to get to the next one. Defeats did not give any XP points, but nor did they take any away. Victory over a stronger opponent made the progress faster, but there were no details on just how much faster.
The second line appeared to reflect physical stats.

Main stats:
Strength: 1
Agility: 2
Stamina: 4
Hagen browsed the entire list, focusing his attention at each item as they came along.


The Strength stat equals 10% of the overall average for human strength.
It affects the damage one deals.

The Agility stat equals 10% of the overall average for human agility.
It affects the precision of your attacks and your chances to evade those of your opponent.

The Stamina stat equals 10% of the overall average for human stamina.
It affects health and its regeneration, as well as the fatigue rate during physical activity.

All of the above made it clear that Hagen was very weakten times weaker than any average human being, five times less agile, and had two and half times less agility. But he’d known this ever since he’d been a snotty kid. Tell me something I don't know, he thought.
The most important thing was that in order to get to Level 3, all he needed was a single victory over any opponent. Every level-up gave Hagen an ability point as well as a stat point which could be used to up his Strength, Agility, or Stamina.
Thus, ability levels could be leveled up in other ways but training, and upping Strength did not necessarily require a gym.
Once he managed to process that, he switched to the second tab.
It turned out to be inactive, with a silhouette of an attacking Hagen on it.
Mike tapped it without thinking and saw a series of icons with different abilities depicted on them. They were: Punch, Uppercut, Low Kick, Medium Kick, High Kick, Clinching, and Grappling. All the icons were gray with a lock displayed above them. The only one with color was Punch. It had the number 1 displayed in the bottom right corner over a green icon.
Hagen focused on it. A prompt bubble popped up over it.

Punch: Level 1.
Damage: 100.
You have to use the ability more often to level it up.

Below it was a progress bar at 2%.
Everything had too much detail to be a hallucination caused by an unquiet mind. The periphery of Hagen's consciousness registered the fact that he would have to see a doctor on Monday for a check. It wouldn't hurt, at any rate.
Hagen had a sudden brainwave and assumed what he considered to be a fighter's stance; then he started throwing punches at the air. His right hand, then his left, then the right, and then the left one again. He tried to imitate shadowboxing, made about a hundred punches, stumbled over a gamepad that lay under his feet, and got sweaty and exhausted as a result. However, it was worth it: the progress bar had reached the 3% mark.
Hagen kept punching the air until late at night, only making breaks for snacks and visits to the bathroom. His low Stamina stat revealed itself in fullhe would get tired easily. In the left corner of his vision, underneath the icon with his face showing his current level (which was 1), he also saw the HP and Vigor stats.
Vigor was the very thing he kept running out of. He grew so tired he was barely able to raise his fist. HP points were perfectly real, tooMichael found that out for himself as he punched the wall. His hand felt acute pain. The system message below told him he’d taken 100 damage points, and his HP bar had shrunk.
Hagen leveled his Punch ability up to 2 by midnight. Flame erupted from his fists. It may have been virtual, but it looked terrifyingly real. It made his hands warm, but it didn't burn, so Mike didn't even get any time to panic. He was sweating all over and looking at his hands with sheer delight. The flames were gradually dying down.
Then he saw a system message appear right before his eyes.

Congratulations! You’ve received a new skill level!
Skill name: Punch

Hagen opened the stat window to make sure the ability level had in fact grown.

Punch: Level 2
Damage: 200
You have to use the ability more often to level it up

Thus, the level-up allowed him to deal more damage.
That was incredible!
Mike was as excited as any gamer who'd ever leveled up their character in a video game. The rays of the rising sun were already peeking through the gap between his curtains, and there he stood, punching air obdurately, pissed off by the fact that he'd have to throw a hundred punches more to level up again. Two hundred punches amounted to one percent of his ability growth. The first level had taken just a hundred. The third one would take three times as much.
However, those weren't the only features of the System, which was the term Hagen had invented to describe the new guest in his mind. He’d woken up famished in the middle of the night. There were no nutritious items in his fridge, so he’d had to order a takeaway from a pizza joint open 24/7. His starved body was in urgent need of calories, after all. So Mike ordered two Mexicanas at once, and went at them like a cat finding a pot of cream as soon he’d shut the door after the delivery man.
Once he’d finished his meal (he’d polished off everything there was, including the bits of topping stuck to the bottom of the box, up to the very last slice of olive), the System gave him another notification,

Calories consumed: 2,536. Proteins: 7.4 oz. Fats: 6 oz. Carbohydrates: 12.6 oz.

The Hunger debuff that had been hovering somewhere on the upper right of his vision had now disappeared. However, he got a new one: Sleep Deprivation. That lowered his Vigor by 25%.
By the morning, the Sleep Deprivation debuff reached Level 2, lowering his Vigor by 50%. Mike started to get tired faster, and had to take more breaks to restore himself. By sunrise, when the Punch progress bar reached 67%, Sleep Deprivation suddenly reached Level 4, reducing Vigor by 99% and giving Hagen another debuff by the name of Fatigue. This debuff did not lower any stats. However, it stopped the regeneration of Vigor completely. Thus, he had to go to sleep eventually.
Hagen wasn't disappointed too much, at any rate. His whole body hurt, his arms felt numb, and his eyes felt full of sand. He fell asleep the instant his head touched the pillow.

Chapter Two. Good Afternoon, Mr. Goretsky!

 

The world is full of suffering, then you die.
GTA Vice City Stories


ON MONDAY Hagen went to the clinic to tell the doctor about his inexplicable hallucinations. The doctor hummed and hawed in a bewildered way for a while, and then told him to get an MRI. It didn’t find any pathological symptoms related to Hagen's brain. Therefore, the doctor's diagnosis was stress from overwork. He prescribed him a course of mild sedatives and recommended him to take a break from work.
His employers didn't mindit was the first vacation Mike had taken in three years, so he suddenly became free for three weeks. As Hagen was leaving the shop, he saw Mr. Goretsky looking for his notebook and not finding it. I really wouldn't advise you to visit any illegal sites within the next three weeks, he thought with pure Schadenfreude.
A system message popped up in the air right above Goretsky.

Gregor “Moose” Goretsky. Age: 38
Level 4
HP: 22000
Battles/victories: 9/6
Weight: 251 lbs
Height: 6’ 3”

Hell's bells! was the first thought to cross Mike's mind. Five times my HP!
Goretsky's Stamina equaled 16. However, Hagen didn't manage to check out any other stats. He tried to open the window with the big man's profile, but the system kept sending him the same incomprehensible message:

The current level of your Insight skill is insufficient to access the information you’ve requested.

He had never come across this skill before but he decided to definitely sort it out later on.
Mike could already see he didn’t stand a chance against the man. Even given his double damage, he'd have to deal an opponent like this around eighty punches minimum, which was simply a non-option.
So there you are, shithead!
Hagen was so lost in his thoughts he missed the fact that Mr. Goretsky had finally found him. He loomed over Mike, who had hunched his back by sheer force of habit, grinning at him lopsidedly. Get your finger out and give my laptop back, you dumbass!
Hagen tried to make his face look as friendly as possible.
Good afternoon, Mr. Goretsky!
If you try my patience for another three minutes, it won't be as good for you! Get my laptop back at once! This time we'll examine it carefully to see just how well you fixed it!
I'm on vacation, Mr. Goretsky. Please address one of my colleagues with this issue.
Hagen kept thinking about how much he'd have to level up his Punch skill to knock out a giant like the Moose with a single blow. Math had always been a strong suit of Mike's, so he instantly made the calculation: he'd have to level up to 160, which would take him some ten years of daily twelve-hour practice. However, he was basing his calculations on his current level of Strength, which could be leveled up as well...
Hey, you little geek! Did your brain freeze? Do I have to punch your lights out to reboot you, slowpoke?
Hagen came back to his senses only to see Goretsky's face a few inches from his own. He was getting a full load of spittle on his nose alongside the barrage of expletives.
Hagen wiped his face automatically. Other sales personnel and a few customers came out as they heard the shouting, but no one made any effort to intervene even though they observed the tableau with some concern. Someone called the manager.
Mike gathered up what remained of his self-esteem and said, his voice quavering with hurt, I'm sorry, Mr. Goretsky, but you should stop giving me all that verbal abuse. I am technically not a DigiMart employee at the moment, since I am on vacation. Please try another colleague of mine.
Are you that dumb? I don't give a shit! Goretsky spat out. You work at the shop, I gave you my laptop. So you're the one who’s supposed to fix it, and you're the one responsible!
I am sorry, Mr. Goretsky, said Lexie, the senior sales executive. Allow me to serve you. She took the Moose by the arm. Just give me your receipt, and I'll fetch the appliance in question at once.
The Moose looked at Lexie with appreciation and grinned. He was certainly pleased by the replacement.
You're lucky to have such cute girls work at your store, you slug,” were the Moose's parting words to Hagen.
Lexa gave Mike a barely noticeable gesture as she turned her head around and led the boorish customer away, allowing him to leave. Mike nodded in response and headed toward the exit, feeling the blood rush to his face and ears.
None of this is ever, ever, ever likely to end well,” he kept muttering.
It was bad luck indeed for the peak of his humiliation to have coincided with the arrival of Lexiethe only co-worker who'd never treated Hagen like a piece of shit. She appreciated him for his ability to find any defect in any computer in a minimum amount of time, and always managed to find a kind word for him, praising him for his work. She was three years younger than him, after all, and already a senior sales executive. Really pretty, too. Such a pity he had no chance with her.
And still he forgot all about Lexie once he got outside. Hagen now had a goal, digitized and perfectly understandable.
His greatest desire ever was to learn to fight nowa desire even greater than that he'd felt for Jessie after their first date. Actually, it wasn't even fighting that he wanted. It would be painful, after all. What he'd ever really wanted was to knock out any opponent with a single punch without letting the fight go on for too long. Just like that Irish Traveler Mickey did in Guy Ritchie’s movie. His endurance wasn't that great, after all. Hagen imagined Goretsky punching him on the nose and shuddered.
After the night Mike spent leveling up his Punch ability, he only woke up in the late afternoon. He was completely exhausted, for every muscle in his untrained body ached. His mood, however, was unexpectedly good. He tried to level up the ability, but his body reacted with acute pain. Mike didn't know what to do, so he kept on studying the interface.
His eyes rolled maniacally when he noticed another couple of icons hed not seen before. He stared at them and dragged and dropped them onto the panel. One of them had the legend saying “Program Features. When Hagen opened it, he saw the following.

Augmented Reality!7.2 Home Edition
Copyright © First Martian Company, Ltd. 2101-2118
All rights reserved
Registered owner: Michael Björnstad Hagen.
S/N S2L-7702B-1412010
One-year single user license
Account type: Premium
Activation date: 04/24/2018, 09:00
Expiration date: 04/24/2019, 08:59

A Google search revealed nothing about either the First Martian Company or the Augmented Reality! platform. However, it didn't take Hagen long to figure things out. He'd read too many comics to be surprised by something like this. It was pretty obvious: he’d somehow acquired an augmented reality interface from the future. Just how it had happened didn't matter at the moment. Mike could easily imagine every Earthling having an interface of this sort in the twenty-second century. Judging by the name of the company that had developed it, every Martian would have them, too.
The main thing he realized was as follows: time, too, was at a premium. He'd have to make full use of each and every day to make his dream come true.
He spent about an hour exploring the Settings tab to configure the interface just the way he liked it. There were lots of cool little features, including a built-in alarm clock that would wake you gently during your lightest sleep stage when waking up would be the least stressful, as well as making all sorts of data visible in one's field of view. The latter included quite a few useful thingsthe time, one's heartbeat rate, the temperature outside, calories used up since awakening, and lots more that one could theoretically look up on one's smartphone, but the augmented reality interface made it so much easier.
Mike also brought the progress bars of the main stats into his field of visionnamely, Strength, Agility, and Stamina. He spent about half an hour shadowboxing, trying to disregard the pain, and noticed that they had grown as well. Not at the same rate as the Punch ability, but it was something nevertheless.
He had the most success with Stamina. Hagen noticed that it would build up the most rapidly when he trained when his staying power was at his lowestwhen he'd have to gasp for breath, trying to overcome the pain in his chest and the feeling of heaviness in his shoulders.
There were two more main iconsCheck for Updates and Tech Support, but whenever he'd tap on either, they'd give the following error message:

Impossible to establish connection with the updates server.
It appears to be unavailable.
Please check your Universal Infospace connection settings.

Universal infospace? For real? A future internet?
Once Hagen had finished exploring the interface, he got back to his training. He put on a music channel on the TV and went on with kicking seven shades of shit out of his invisible opponent, imagining it to be Goretsky. He kept at it until late night when he reached a state of complete exhaustion. He took a shower and slept through the day; he probably wouldn't wake even if someone set his bed on fire.
This was his Sunday. He visited the clinic on Monday, then kept on shadowboxing at home, trying to progress as fast as possible. Tuesday was spent in the exact same manner. Wednesday evening Hagen suddenly had a bright idea and made a discovery.
He used a pillow from his sofa to form a punch bag of sorts, hanging it on the hook to replace the rather tasteless painting portraying a female gorilla in an evening dress and a hat. The name of the painting was Sunset on the Atlantic Coast, but it was all tacky rectangles in psychedelic colors. Hagen could never see the sunsetjust the gorilla.
It turned out that the ability leveled up much faster if he punched the pillow instead of the air.
By the end of the same day, Hagen leveled up his Punch ability to Level 8 and became capable of dealing up to 1600 damage points, since his Power finally leveled up as well. That was when he realized that his best bet would be to train at a boxing gym. There was one just downed the street, owned by an old Mexican.

* * *

HAGEN TURNED UP at the Roosevelt Street boxing gym early on Sunday. Mr. Guillermo Ochoa didn't bat an eyelid when the puny lad arrived at his gym. In fact, Mr. Ochoa stayed as cool as a cucumber even when Hagen declared his intent to train at the gym. However, when this feeble hobbit whom you could pierce with a straw, with his pencil neck, messy fair hair, colorless fair eyebrows and eyelashes, made it clear he wished to train for at least twelve hours every day, it was too much for old Ochoa. He started to laugh out loud.
The young man didn't seem perturbed by it. He patiently waited for the boxing gym's owner to finish laughing, his cerulean blue eyes staring directly at Ochoa without one iota of irritation. He was irritated, though. The old man was seventy years old, and he could read people well enough. The Mexican laughed so hard that snot flew from his large broken nose. But the young man stayed perfectly calm, regardless.
Once the old man had stopped laughing, Hagen took a wad of crumpled dollar bills out of his back pocket.Would this be enough for the first month, Mr. Ochoa?
The old man got serious. He counted the money and nodded.This will be enough for three months. And if you help me with cleaning the gym every evening, you can train for half a year,” Ochoa offered him his hand. “Welcome to my boxing gym, kid... Eh, what's your name, then?
Mikey, said the young man as he shook the Mexican's hand. But you can call me Hagen, if you like.
So, it's Little Mikey, then? All right. When would you like to get started? If you think that-”
Could I start right now? Hagen interrupted him.
The old man chuckled. Right now?
Yes, right now, the hobbit repeated.
Ochoa scrutinized Mike from head to toe, gave a whistle, then swept his hand theatrically around the empty gym.The gym is all yours, young man! The locker room is that way.
Hagen may have imagined it, but it seemed like there was something respectful in the way the old man addressed him. That was the first time in his life someone's ever spoken to him that way, and he liked it.
Five minutes later, having changed, Hagen started throwing punches at the punch bag with enormous enthusiasm. The huge aloha shorts that hung below his knees revealed legs so thin one could circle one's fingers around them. The oversize tee sleeves reached all the way down to his elbows, and his clumsy punches couldn't move the bag an inch. Nothing but the sullen look in his fierce blue eyes could convince anyone that puny Little Mickey was really meaning it.
So, by the end of the day, Ochoa took pity of the lad and started to teach him how to punch for real.

* * *

BY THE END of the second week at the gym, Hagen's physical and mental condition had improved considerably. As it had turned out, his Premium account came with a triple leveling booster to all skills and stats. Mike found out about it in the Help section. The virtual helper was miles ahead of Siri. It had no problems with recognizing voice commands, and responded immediately. This is how Hagen found out that whenever a battle ability reached a level divisible by ten, he would get an extra skill. Punch, for example, would give him a 50% chance of canceling any of his opponent's blocks at Level 10. By level 30, this would be guaranteed.
At any rate, Hagen saw it for himself by the end of the first week of training, when his only ability finally reached Level 10.
Apart from the boxing ring and the boxing bag, Ochoa's gym turned out to have barbells and dumbbells. That's what the old man made him use on the second day, teaching him a few exercises that would develop different muscle groups. Aided by an intense workout routine with weights, this training made his Strength grow much faster and gave him an enormous appetite.
Hagen consumed huge amounts of meat, chicken, and fish; then it dawned on him that he could just buy an enormous jar of powdered protein. He'd been drinking at least three protein shakes every day since, not to mention eating regular food. Training made him hungry all the time, even at nighthe would wake up and make himself a shake which he'd gulp down and fall asleep again.
In two weeks, he gained a couple of pounds and even managed to grow taller, for whatever reason.
By the end of his leave, his stats were as follows:

Mike Crybaby” Hagen. Age: 29
Level 1

HP: 9000
Battles/victories: 0/0
Weight: 135 lbs
Height: 5 3

Main stats:
Strength: 5
Agility: 4
Stamina: 9

Hagen managed to level up all his stats and put on eleven pounds. He became stronger, and the beefed-up Stamina increased his chances to survive, giving him more time to throw a game-changing punch. The only stat that grew very slowly was Agility.
He didn't discover any new moves, so he decided to focus on leveling up Punch, the only ability in his arsenal. No matter how his opponent would dodge, Hagen's higher level would eventually let him throw lightning-fast punches no one could possibly escape.

Punch: Level 16
Damage: 8000
+50% to the probability of ignoring any block
You have to use the ability more often to level it up

This amazing ability to do damage was a direct result of his increased Strength. At Level 1, Hagen would only manage to deal 1600 points of damage (a hundred points for every level of the ability). But those 1600 points became multiplied by five, and eight thousand points were already something. He could knock himself out in a punch or two, regardless of his leveled-up Stamina. As for his older selfthe one that didn't have the interfacehe could swat it like a fly.
On the last day of his leave, Hagen approached the owner of the gym.My time off is about to end, Mr. Ochoa. I have to go back to work. As soon as I finish in the evening, I'll be right here.
The old man shrugged. You can come whenever you want, kid.
Thank you, Mr. Ochoa! I'm done for today...”
Hold on a second, kid, Guillermo interrupted him, pointing to the corner of the gym where a Latino guy with a nondescript face was shadowboxing. How about a match with Juan? He's a newbie, too, although he's been here for over half a year. But he doesn't do it the way you do. He comes around three times a week, and sometimes skips his training altogether. Everybody else I have here is tough as nails, and I can't find him a proper partner for the life of me.
We can try, said Hagen, shrugging.
He took a closer look at Juan and saw the following:

Juan Manuel Guerrero. Age: 26
Level 3

HP: 13000
Battles/victories: 7/5
Weight: 172 lbs
Height: 6 foot

All right. Wait, Ochoa said and went toward Mike's sparring-partner-to-be.
This guy won't be easy meat, thought Hagen to himself as he saw Juan Guerrero looking in his direction. Guerrero was strong, with long arms, and half as many HP as Hagen. But one had to start somewhere, after all. He couldn't just beat up old ladies in the street to level up, could he?
Once the ongoing bout was over, Ochoa told the sparring partners to leave the boxing ring and invited Guerrero and Hagen to take their place. They bumped their boxing gloves together. Guerrero nodded, and Hagen returned the nod.
Ready? Fight! Ochoa gave the command.
The training fight began.
Guerrero was circling around Hagen, trying to get on his left side but keeping his distance. Should he move closer? He might get hit. Should he wait for his opponent to attack? In that case, would it be possible to block or dodge the punch?
Hagen kept on circling and trying to stay face to face with his opponent who kept running around. He waited for his chance. A chance to deal a blow that might be his only opportunity in this fight.
“Come on!” shouted Ochoa, trying to motivate the fighters. “Fight! Get on with it!”
Hagen's opponent started to attack. He moved his body around a lot to confuse the other fighter. But then came the moment when Hagen realized he had to strike. He intuitively threw a punch at the face of the attacker without even realizing what he was doing, trying to block Guerrero's punch with his left hand at the same time. He nearly felt the other man's boxing glove touch his, but then the contact was lost.

You’ve dealt damage: 8,000 (Punch)
Your opponent’s block has been overridden

Later, Mike would see the next scene in his dreams in slo-mo for a couple of nights in a row. There's him throwing the punch; there's the fist that goes right through the poorly-executed counter-punch block and then proceeds to hit Guerrero right on the jawbone. His opponent's head comes upwards first, inertia making a trail of sweat drops in the air, and then the other man's feet leaves the floor as well.
That was how Hagen found out that if his strike dealt more damage than 50% of his opponent's HP, a knockout was guaranteed. That's exactly what happened to Guerrero. He was knocked out all right.
Hagen himself felt a rush of unbelievable pleasure. This was better than any orgasm. That was how the System reacted to his first level-up.
Hagen was standing inside a column of light invisible to anyone but himself. He didn't hear what Ochoa was saying. However, he could clearly see the following system message:

Congratulations! You’ve defeated your opponent in a fair fight!
Defeating an opponent whose level is higher than yours doubles the XP received!
You’ve received +2 to your level!
Current level: 3

New system points of main characteristics available: 2
New system points of combat skills available: 2

As he went to bed that night, Hagen consulted with the virtual assistant and distributed the system points between Strength and Agility. First he wanted to dump both into Strength, but it turned out that leveling up a stat by more than one point at once would be lethally dangerous. The system gave an absolutely clear warning about that.

Warning! We’ve detected an abnormal increase of your Strength characteristic: +1 pt.
Your body will be restructured in keeping with the new reading (6) to comply with your new metabolism and chronotropy values.

Changes required: accelerated growth of muscle tissue, sinews and ligaments.

There was also a lot of stuff about raising the levels of intramuscular phosphocreatine, glycogen, the internal mechanisms, intramuscular coordination, and so on. However, there was a very clear warning in bold at the very bottom:

Warning!
The restructuring of your body functions requires a considerable amount of nutrients. In order to avoid danger to your life, you’re strongly encouraged to consume a minimum of 10 oz. animal protein, 3 lbs. of carbohydrates and 3 oz. of animal fats. A shortage of nutrients may result in body function failure.
Warning!
Artificial characteristic boosting of more that 1 pt. at a time is strictly forbidden! Severe danger of fatality!

A similar system message and warning followed when he added an extra point to Agility:

Warning! We’ve detected an abnormal increase of your Agility characteristic: +1 pt.
Your body will be restructured in keeping with the new reading (5) to comply with your new motoric and coordination values.
Changes required: the restructuring of your central nervous system and the increase in elasticity of your muscle tissue, sinews, ligaments and joints.

The warning of a possible lethal outcome followed this, tooas well as advice to eat as much protein, fat, and carbohydrates as possible, accompanied by proper hydration.
So Hagen consumed an enormous amount of fried chicken and a few pizzas over the next two hours, washing them down with plenty of soda and water.
As he was eating, he suddenly realized he was no longer frightened of fighting Mr. Goretsky. As his Strength stat had grown, he could deal 9,600 points of damage which was more than enough to knock out the Moose, the required amount being 50% of the latter's HP.
Then he fell asleep, smiling all the way to the Land of Nod. Tomorrow would be the next daythe first day of the rest of his life.
He would keep on training and leveling up, and eventually take part in an MMA competition, and then... Who knows? Perhaps, one day he might hold his champion's belt proudly above his head.
But that would take time. And as for tomorrow...
Hagen smiled again. Tomorrow he’d finally ask Lexie to hang out with him.


Release - January 9, 2019

No comments :

Post a Comment