CHAPTER 38: POWER CONSOLIDATION.

When the sun started peeping through the veil of the night, Morales finally stopped his cultivation. After a whole night of cultivation, he discovered a few more surprises.

Though he did not level up, he detected a visible increase in proficiency of his main and sub-class skills like basic body control and basic energy control.

As he slowly pulled himself out of the fuzzy feeling brought by cultivating, he heard a knock on the door. He didn’t even have to think, he knew that his wayward roommates were back.

“You guys finally decided to come back”. He said flatly after opening the door.

“Hey, how did it feel staying alone without us? Did you miss us? Oh, I almost forgot, thank you for the dojo points. The night was a blast, we really enjoyed ourselves”.

Chloe quickly pushed Morales aside and entered after he opened the door, with her mouth already shooting off words at the pace of a machine gun.

“Good morning”. Rose and Dave finally greeted from the back before they also entered.

Morales noticed that they both had dark eyelids clearly from exhaustion, only Chloe was as energetic as always. See! Before going out to enjoy yourself, check out the companion you’re going out with.

“Where exactly did you guys go?” Morales was curious.

“Outside the dojo of course. We easily bribed the guards with 2 dojo points, and we had a whole night for ourselves to enjoy outside”. Despite feeling sleepy, Dave’s tone was proud.

“You guys really have guts”. He gave them a thumbs up.

“Wait…, why do I feel like you suddenly grew stronger overnight”. Chloe was about to enter the bathroom, but she stopped and turned to look at him suspiciously.

“I’m a genius”. Morales smiled.

Snorting, Chloe ignored him. “Have you had your bath? If you’ve had, please wait for me, let’s go to the virtual simulation hall together”. She quickly added before entering the bathroom.

As soon as she entered, Dave and Rose waved embarrassedly at Morales before finding their beds to plop down and sleep. They were exhausted, and now they needed recharging.

Morales only chuckled. “What a bag of lazy bones”.

“I heard you…” Dave said in a sleepy tone, but he couldn’t say more as he fell asleep the next moment.

After Chloe came out, Morales finally went in to have his bath. It was during this that his system gave him another notification, and its content was shocking.

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Parameters for first Version launch have been met.

Countdown to Version 1.0 launch: 365 days.

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Bam!

Seeing this, Morales was beyond shocked. He almost destroyed the bathroom after losing control of himself for a moment. What the hell did he just see?

“Hey! What’s happening in there?” He heard Chloe’s puzzled voice.

“…”

“Nothing”.

“Version 1.0? What the hell does this mean? Does this mean that players will be coming? That doesn’t make sense?” He felt horrified, thinking that he was maybe going mad.

The system gave him a mission to find other earthlings, and now other earthlings in the form of players would be arriving. How does that make sense?

“System, can you tell me what’s going on?”

“…”

He cursed silently. This was one of the main things he hated the most about the system, it never replied to him, only giving him notifications like he was a bot.

Putting his hate for the system’s antics aside, he started a fierce brainstorm to make sense of the notification that just showed itself to him. This again could change most of his plans.

“Is it earthlings like me that would come as players? Can other earthlings even access this world? What if…, Space World was not just a game like advertised, but a world that was created?”

He shuddered on this thought.

“Have humans advance so much that they can now create a world? What if the NPC experiment was all a conspiracy to get us in here? What if we were just test subjects to the game developers?”

He gritted his teeth in frustration and slight anger as all these thoughts went through his mind.

He already adapted to this world did not mean he did not still find it strange. Though he was a soldier in his previous life, it was not easy to adapt to a world where strength was the most respected.

And he was now even hiding for his life just because of a ridiculous fight for the throne. He gnashed his teeth in indignance.

After taking a few minutes to calm himself down, he started thinking from another angle. “What if all my assumptions are wrong? Perhaps, an apocalypse happened, the earth is already destroyed and I and 4 others were the only survivors”.

“Hey! What are you still doing in there? Are you giving birth? I’ll leave you soon”. Chloe’s now annoyed voice sounded again, breaking him from his thoughts.

“I’ll be done in a moment”. He yelled back.

He quickly started washing his body clean with the water.

For now, he would forget about the implication of this notification. A year from now was not too long, he would know exactly what was happening when that time comes.

After having his bath, it did not take long before he was set. He and Chloe soon left their sleeping roommates behind.

For today, Morales was not only visiting the virtual simulation hall, he had intentions to go through all the training and learning quarters of the dojo.

His strength attribute was already 80, and only 20 more was needed for him to complete his class advancement mission. Through his free attribute points, that requirement could be considered done.

Before he advanced, he wanted to form a training plan ahead for his future, which was why he wanted to visit all the training quarters.

With his abundant amount of dojo points, he could afford to be extravagant.

Unlike Chloe expected, the virtual simulation hall was not his first stop. He just escorted her there as a friend, after that, he immediately left for the dojo library alone.

Entering the library, this time, he was able to admire the knowledge that was stored here in its full majesty.

The library room was designed like a hall, with lots of shelves holding books lining across all 4 corners of the room.

Chairs were arranged around a center table in the middle of the room, this was where the students practiced the Pugilist class knowledge.

All 5 main classes had knowledge of different qualities. The ones of the least quality were basic and advanced knowledge.

There were other ones of higher qualities, but the current Beiger planet had only up to advanced knowledge. Most dojos, including the Border town dojo, had no advanced knowledge.

To get such, Morales needed to go to dojos built in cities.

Of the 45-basic knowledge of the Pugilist class, Morales already learned 4 of which 3 were of the body branch, while 1 was of the cell branch.

The Border town dojo library only had 10 basic knowledge, which was better than nothing. He already learned 2 of them secretly the last time that he visited here, he was going to learn the other 8 today.

He quickly paid dojo points to get 2 of the 8-class knowledge, he would learn the others through his cheat-like system.

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You have comprehended and completed one session of basic self-learning of the Pugilist system.

[Brain Stimulation]

Progress rate: 100%

…

You have comprehended and completed one session of basic self-learning of the Pugilist system.

[Energy Convergence]

Progress rate: 100%

…

You have comprehended and completed one session of basic self-learning of the Pugilist system.

[Cell Replication]

Progress rate: 100%

…

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Morales closed his eyes to concentrate his mind as a huge amount of information was dumped into his head, he felt light-headed but at the same time feeling like a scholar all of a sudden.

“With so much knowledge about my body and cells, I think it's no exaggeration to say that I’m qualified to be a doctor back on earth”. He muttered to himself gleefully.

In Space World, one of the most common knowledge known by all players was that Mechanics fought with weapons, Espers had supernatural abilities after stimulating their DNA genes.

Mages fought by controlling arcane power from the universe, Psychics fought through their strong mental power, while Pugilists fought with skills derived from their bodies.  

           To some players, Pugilists are directly proportional to skills.

           It was not weird for a high-grade Pugilist to have thousands of active skills, which was the only way they could match up to the tricky ways of the other 4 main class holders.

           Pugilists could learn new skills by leveling up, learning from other masters, or cultivating to create their own special skills.

           In the Border town dojo library, apart from the class knowledge and other mundane subject books, a significant part of the library was filled with books housing different Pugilist active skills.

           Morales also aimed to increase his strength by buying some of the skills, but dojo points were required. Even as rich as he currently was, some skills were too expensive for him.

           He didn’t buy any active skill for now; he would do that later.

           After learning the 8 class knowledge, he left the library. For the rest part of the day, he spent his time in the heavy gravity buildings and the virtual simulation hall.

           In these locations, he finally spent a significant part of his accumulated experience to improve all his abilities that had room for improvement with experience.

           At the end of the day, he felt loaded and filled to the brim.

           He was ready to advance!