Since my brother and I were passing the days playing card games, time seemed to speed by for the first time in a long time, and with the two of us adapting to how the game was played, it didn’t take long for our matches to get heated.
Not in a boiled-over-with-rage kind of way; surprisingly, the only thing that could do that were specific fighting games. It was just a metaphor for intense games, and I am ashamed to admit Brenden got the best of me more than once after getting used to the game.
That was wholly unacceptable to me, and thus, the process of finding ways to cheat without being caught began. After a few days, I got so good at predicting and or knowing exactly what cards I was going to get next that I was practically unbeatable.
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However, things got to a point where Brenden became suspicious and forced me to show him my methods, allowing me to turn him into a monster at card games.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to plan out a Vegas trip once we got old enough to walk into a Casino…not that I couldn’t already if I used my talent, but it was the principle of being allowed into such an establishment where we could take the House for all it was worth and walk out that was attractive to Brenden.
Given my current abilities, I began thinking more and more about obtaining certain championship titles that had been a pipe dream for me during my career in the Origin Timeline. Still, all of that fell away the second I got the notification from Arkadia that Gnarnia had finished its upgrade.
At that moment, card games became secondary, and Brenden and I rushed to bathe in the Beta-Particles. It wasn’t that we were borderline addicts or anything like that; no, if I had to liken the sensation brought on by Particle Suppression, it was like having an unscratchable itch.
It would nag at the back of your mind for ages, always present and never fixable. Sure, Particle Water could curb that feeling as it would flood our bodies with alpha particles, but as we were on the cusp of Ranking up, it simply wasn’t enough any longer.
If there was one thing I had noticed after Ranking Up to Alpha, it was that my 6C body seemed to crave particles desperately. It was almost as if I was a fish out of water or something, a fact that caused me to drink down bottles of Particle water at regular intervals.
Unfortunately, apart from Slapping a bandaid on the issue, the only thing I’d be able to do is wait until the Descent of Arkadia flooded Earth with particles; only THEN would I get some reprieve.
Regardless of all that, the instant the two of us walked into the newly Upgraded Gnarnia, a sense of belonging washed over us along with the Particles, and it was a struggle not to sit down right there and Break Through.
Luckily, we were both prepared for this, and instead of jumping into things headfirst, we kept clear and level-headed; there was a plan that needed to be executed first, or else all our hard work would be for nothing.
"Shit, this is going to be harder than I expected," Brenden grumbled while walking alongside me as we headed toward the training room.
"I agree, but there are steps we must complete first, or else that free stat boost we get from our Racial Classification will be wasted. Before we can go through our rank-ups, we need first to max out the stats we can do with our circulation skills." I stated while opening the door to the improved training room.
Although it appeared that not much had changed on a surface level, that was far from the truth.
Originally, all the workout equipment was maxed out at Alpha-Rank, along with their modifications. Still, now that the Alpha-Rank equipment had transformed into Beta, we were allowed to strengthen ourselves naturally while in a particle-rich environment.
The latter part of which was the reason we were in the room in the first place.
"You’re sure your experiments are correct…right? It seems a little farfetched that all we need to expedite our Cycles is higher Grade particles than our Rank." Brenden asked as he changed into a pair of gym shorts and a tank top.
"Yeah, it’s a fact that I’ve proven multiple times, so long as we use our Circulation Skills here and utilize Beta-Particles, it will cut our Cycle time down by 50%, meaning it will take us less than 12 hours to finish all 6 Cycles." Ignoring the skeptical look Brenden was giving me, I brought up my Status and ran the number of cycles it would take me to max out my Physical Stats to 45 points.
’I need to make up 13.75 points in both stats; at 0.125 points per cycle, that’s 110 cycles; divide that by six Cycles a day, and it’ll take me a little over 19 days to reach 45 points.’
"It’s going to take me almost a month, 19 days well…18.3 to be exact, but you’re gonna need a few more than that, so we can say a month from now we can do our Rank-Ups." With that said, I didn’t pay attention to Brenden’s reaction, but I found a suitable place to sit on the squishy wrestling-style mats we had laid out in the training room.
"Oh, and one more thing, I know it will be tempting to push forward with your Rank-Up since the process is similar to using a Circulation Skill, but do avoid it at all costs."
"I got it, I got it, sheesh, why are you so annoying?" Brenden chirped while sitting down not far from me and closing his eyes so that he could begin his Cycles.
Thus began our daily routine: wake up, eat breakfast, spend time with dad and acting like kids, go into the training room for 12 hours, come out when finished, eat, watch DBZ on Toonami, bathe, rinse, wash, repeat.
As such, that was how Brenden and I spent the bulk of February and the beginning of March.