Savage Awakening 594. The Final Training Montage (V)

More days went by, then weeks, each satisfyingly strenuous.

Zane spent his days stacking Z-Platinum all over his body. It wasn’t an even distribution, precisely. Part of that was due to what he was training. Dead hauls and deadlifts tended to hit the pulling muscles, so his back and biceps got plenty of tempering. He also made sure to get in plenty of chest work via machines. Those were definitely the muscle groups that gained strength the quickest. He could actually see it in the Astral Plane—they just looked denser and brighter than the rest of him.

Curiously, his chest looked every bit as dense as his back, even though he was pretty sure he gave it less stimulus… though his chest had always been his strongest muscle group. Maybe there was an in-built muscle distribution aspect there too. His body just seemed to like stacking chest muscle.

He wasn’t complaining there.

His strength gains showed clearly in his deadlift numbers. Over two and a half weeks of lifting, he’d gone from 970-mile lifts to 980, then 995—if this kept up, he was just a few days away from hitting his first 1,000-mile lift.

He just liked seeing his strength visibly go up nearly every day. 

The Sage had mentioned that a 700-mile deadlift was about the strength level you’d need to fight most half-step T1s with physical strength alone. By now he was well past that. He was getting solidly into T1-fighting territory on just his raw strength. Which did factor in his Asura Body and some essence, since it fueled his body; that also held some Starfire Law. But still.

He could feel himself entering a cycle of strength—this virtuous cycle he sometimes found himself in where strength simply begot strength, over and over.

His nights he spent as usual, eating steel and loading in Law. It often took two nights to load in all of his comprehension. His Law-focused ‘B’ days were pretty stacked, featuring up to 6 hours of total crusher time and several Kaijuu fights right after.

Some nights, the Sage also broke out some juicier meats now and again, which they’d cook over a bonfire.

The Sage was always happy to share a story. Most nights they featured him and Fluffy getting into shenanigans, such as the time they’d fought all the Silver Winds at once, or the time he’d gotten all the Beast Kings in the Desolate Wilds to hunt him down—only for him to turn around and hunt them down instead. The Sage didn’t win all those fights, and they often featured close-call escapes. They were the kinds of stories that’d seem made-up if not for the fact that they featured the Sage. The old fellow just knew how to live life, Zane felt.

One story stuck out to him, though.

“I never told you about that one time me and Fluffy fought the Dreamcore Grand Knight, did I?”

Zane shook his head.

“Hells, that was a good one…” chuckled the Sage. “Bit embarrassing for me, granted. I went down to the Galaxy Core when I’d just finished with my first Boot Camp training cycle. Now, mind you, you’ve got to remember, this thing’s… actually, I’m not really sure how strong it was. Never got a chance to go back and check. It had to be at least peak T3, though, I’ll tell you that. One of the early Steelheart heads discovered it on a core mining mission, this great crystal knight standing watch over a dreamsteel door.”

When he saw Zane perk up—“That’s right,” chuckled the Sage. “That’s what I thought too. Might be the Creator’s left it.”

The Sage knew the Creator as this fellow Zane met once in a dream or something—he wasn’t totally sure the Sage was clear on all the details of how Astra worked. The Sage just knew it’d resulted in Zane getting some kind of special store access; “The System Store I’ve got sure as hells doesn’t have a Quake Bone in it, I’ll tell you that right now!” was what he’d told Zane. 

Back in the present—

“So I was thinking, who knows what’s behind that thing?” said the Sage, working his teeth with a bone. “Well, I gave it a whirl, and let me tell you, that giant sword it’s got wasn’t just for show. I swear I still get twinges to this day, with how bad that ass-whooping got!”

The Sage took a cheerful munch of drake leg. 

“You think there’s really something down there?” said Zane, blinking.

“That’s what they say. It’s just a rumor, though… I always did mean to get revenge on that tin can someday.” The Sage scratched his chin. “That was ages ago, and it was hard as hells to get that deep… Haven’t heard of it ever since. Might be whatever was down there’s already plundered by now.”

Zane still did make a mental note to go check out that Core sometime. Maybe after all of this was over.

For now, he was back to the grind.

***

Just about a month into his time at Boot Camp, Zane returned to the Demolition Zone.

It was the station with a bunch of giant javelins and a field full of planets to explode. He didn’t come here all that often. 

Part of the reason was that it was mostly just useful for benchmarking. You didn’t get much physical training out of tossing javelins or punching planets. And even for benchmarking, he generally preferred the Wrecking Bag.

There was also the fact that the first few times he’d come here, all within the first week, he hadn’t even been able to lift a javelin. He’d come close his last visit, but it kept slipping out of his fist.

This time, though, he could grab and heft a pillar-sized javelin with ease. It felt snug in his grasp.

He gave it a chuck and managed to explode one of the planets marked ‘I’ on a scale of I to X—he aimed pretty badly, granted. But the force proved enough to shatter it. He was pleased to see he had enough inertia on it to send a few smaller continent-sized chunks of steel flying. The javelin flew back to the roster and the planet rebuilt itself right after.

“That’s the stuff!” laughed the Sage.

It really was surprising how easily he could manipulate large objects now. He was pretty sure he’d gained enough hand size to grab most meteors straight out of the sky.

“You ever think about adding spear stuff to your arsenal?” said the Sage as he gave it a few more test throws. Just because it was pretty fun to grab giant spears and chuck them.

“I don’t really have the weapon for it,” Zane explained. Though it’d work quite well with Starfire, now that he thought about it… Just watching the way that spear moved—Starfire was best at boosting straight-line movement. None of his weapons took full advantage of that right now.

“Just something to think about,” said the Sage. “Spears are mean as hells. You can think of ’em as very sharp hammers.”

The Sage’s brows furrowed. “Actually, scratch that—that doesn’t make any damned sense.”

They just left it at that.

Zane did go into the Demolition Field afterward to smash up some planets, just because he could now. Size was a skill in Zane’s mind. Which was to say—if you had the size, you really had to practice using it. It was the sensible thing to do.

He also just liked smashing a bunch of planet-sized rocks. He found he was able to one-shot up to planets graded up to ‘III,’ good for near-peak Divine Profound. 

***

Boot Camp: 6 Weeks In

Six weeks in and Zane managed to load Pure Size past the 2% mark, which translated to him achieving his first half-mile punch, a figure he was quite pleased with.

His adventures in Kaijuu-punching continued, and it was a night-and-day difference compared to when he’d first started.

His punches just looked like they had weight to them now, which was a clear sign of his progress in Pure Size’s inertia and heft aspects. When he’d first arrived in Boot Camp his punches had done damage, but he didn’t really feel it like he wanted. He didn’t get that satisfying snap-back of the head, or see any Kaijuus truly stumbling.

Now every time Zane landed, he got a noticeable effect. It wasn’t just cosmetic, either; getting thrown around genuinely off-balanced these Kaijuu.

He was also pretty sure inertia would help in non-punching endeavors too. For instance—pulling down that King Astrolith just a few months ago. If he had the inertia to match it, he was sure he could’ve dragged it down much easier.

Even what he had now would’ve made a serious difference. 

“You load in another few percent, and we’ll start getting you on some bigger Kaijuu!” laughed the Sage.

He was still getting blasted pretty far whenever he got hit directly, whether by shell-smash or tail-swipe… he was quite looking forward to the day he’d see one of those things hit him and not even budge him.

…He actually wasn’t sure how possible that even was. But he’d definitely aim for it.

Kaijuu punching also exposed another growing frustration of his. 

Despite gaining a level and being noticeably stronger, his body was still shattering far too easily for comfort. Whenever he cranked back a full-power, gravity-assisted blow, his hand, and sometimes his whole arm, was still sure to explode. He was working on it every day with his eating and his lifting. That Origin level-up couldn’t come fast enough.

On a side note—he did start to see a few familiar faces among the Kaijuu he’d fought, which were still mostly Hammerhead Kaijuu and Shellsters. He’d actually fought the Day 1 Kaijuu thrice by this point.

After the first few days, the Kaijuu had quickly learned all he wanted to do was have a good scrap. The Sage had taken one look at the turbulence in the black hole and said, “Look at that—they’re just chomping at the bit to fight you! Must be the most fun they’ve had in ages, you coming in here and dropping bombs.”

He got the feeling he was gaining something of a reputation among the Kaijuu. A reputation he was happy to back up. 

After a particularly strenuous day—6.5 Crusher hours, plus 3 back-to-back-to-back Kaijuu fights, a day that pretty much collapsed Zane as soon as he was through with it—he asked the Sage about his durability issue.

“Hm.” The Sage considered him. “You’ll hit Origin grade next level for sure, lad, don’t you worry. How much’ve you got left there?”

“I should be more than halfway there,” Zane told him.

“Won’t be long now, then… you’ll notice the difference the moment you hit it. Don’t you worry about that either.” The Sage gave him a hearty slap on the back. “I swear—I never saw a man take to a damned Concept like you’re doing to this Pure Size!”

He ruffled Zane’s head.

“Here I was, thinking it could take three decades, what with all the comprehension, and the loading, and doing all this physical work in between. But you’re taking it like a godsdamned champ! I’m telling you right now, lad—the moment you perfect this physique you’re working on, get that last Concept down—the moment you can break through to True God, maybe even snag that Bone in the System Store… you’ll have Endbringers checking under their beds at night, with all the nightmares they’ll be having about you!”

Every day, just before Zane went to sleep, he’d also take a little journey to the edge of Boot Camp. There was a single mailbox there, which the Sage had installed in partnership with the Scryer’s Guild at his own request.

A mailbox that was meant to be stocked every few months. It was a bit of a journey to get all the way out here, but he still wanted it done.

He was pretty sure his first letters from his friends would be arriving soon. He was quite looking forward to that too.

***

2.5 months in—

Just after dinner—

Level up!

Asura Titan’s Body, Fourth Form II -> III

With that, he achieved that Origin-grade physique.