Systematic Survival

30 - Internal Struggle

Matt woke up before his alarm again. He rubbed his eyes and saw he once again had a lot of time before he needed to go to work. It seemed like he really only needed around 6 hours of sleep now with his healthier body.

He headed to the kitchen and quickly ate breakfast. He subconsciously tried to finish it up fast because there was something he wanted to test out. But then he remembered that time didn't move in the mind palace.

Ever since he found out he could learn skills and level them up from watching videos, an idea formed.

'Ok, might as well try it.'

He activated the mind palace and was transported back to the familiar world. He walked outside the small hut he had made and stood in the grass.

'Since time doesn't pass here, this could be super OP.'

He activated his karate skill and started going through the motions, punching and kicking the air. He kept going and it felt like hours had passed. Though, he wasn't concerned about time obviously.

In this space, he didn't get physically tired either, since all he was doing was thinking basically. But it had been a few hours and he was starting to get bored. Doing the same set of moves over and over was a bit repetitive.

He knew if this were to work, he at least needed to give it a few hours. But after that, he would claim that the experiment had failed.

He kept going and the minutes kept passing. He had started to think it wasn't going to work and he was just wasting all this time for nothing. But he was determined to find that out.

If he had given up after only a few hours, he would have learned nothing. He assumed that after around 10 hours if it hadn't gone off by then, it would never happen, because training in his mind must not have counted toward skills.

But, after a total of 6 mental hours of practicing karate, he finally heard a sound.

__________

[Karate] has leveled up!

[Lv.1] -> [Lv.2]

__________

'YES!'

He was sick and tired of doing the same thing for so long. For him, it felt the same as actually doing it for 6 hours straight in real life, just without the physical exhaustion. It was mind-numbing.

'I can't believe it actually worked! I was about to give up too. But, I'm definitely not doing that again for a bit. That was miserable.'

Though he had gotten tired of the moves, he did them once more to see how much his proficiency had increased. After performing a few kicks and punches, he noticed that he was much more accurate, and his attacks had more force as well.

Though, it wasn't by a ton. He seemed to now have the karate skills of someone who had practiced for roughly 3 months. It was a nice increase at least.

'Not bad.'

He felt a bit annoyed since he realized, now that he knew it worked, it meant he'd have to do this again. Many times. He wasn't the type to let advantages slip through his fingers. But he decided he really needed a break in between at least, or else he'd go insane from lack of entertainment.

'I didn't get a stat point for training that long, but it's because I was just doing it mentally. I'm glad because that would've almost been too cheaty.'

He deactivated his mind palace and his apartment appeared around him again. He saw that the clock hadn't changed. He had almost forgotten he had to go to work since it had already felt like half a day had passed. But it was still only 7 a.m.