Chapter 29 - The 2g Zone (1/2)
With the pylon dropped, Cynrik took a deep breath before walking forward into the 2g Zone. When his foot crossed the invisible thresh hold, two notifications trigged simultaneously along with the sudden increase in force on his body.
- Current Gravity = 2g -
-Hosts will have a threefold increase in Affinity, Codex, and Circuit training.-
Cynrik's face scrunched up with his eyes closed as he stood in place while attempting to regulate his breathing. Brance stood still to his right, focusing on the feeling of two-times Vinestra's gravity on his body.
{This is manageable; Tobs, open Stats panel and highlight my Stamina in red,} opening his eyes, Cynrik watched as Tobs followed his request and changed the color of his Stamina from black to a bright red. Instead of just thinking it to himself, he opted to use the mind link so Tobs would do the same for Brance.
Watching his Stamina slowly drop the longer he stood in place, Cynrik opened up a second window with his Status Panel so he could watch the changes to Body Tempering and Gravity Resistance. While watching these numbers change, Cynrik was also counting in his head to calculate the exact gains per second under 2g.
Knowing his brother was making calculations, Brance took it upon himself to watch for any virtual creatures that may pop up and try attacking. Minutes ticked by slowly under the pressure of the two-times Vinestra gravity, it didn't take long for both boys to work up a sweat under strain, and before long, 30 minutes had gone by uncomfortably.
Cynrik let their Stam drop to 10/160 before giving the signal to step back into the 1g Zone. By moving back only a couple of steps, it was like a colossal weight suddenly disappeared from their shoulders, and soon they were able to breathe normally again instead of in short quick bursts.
Panting heavily and drenched in sweat, both boys collapsed onto their backs for several more minutes; the only sound they could hear was their hearts beating loudly, their heavy breathing, and the synthetic ambient music Odin had put in place.
Eventually, Cynrik sat up and began explaining his findings. ”30 minutes in 2g drained 150 Stam. In contrast, the rewards were decent but kind of disappointing. I won't bore you with the math, but we are roughly getting 0.002% in Body tempering and Gravity Resistance per second, which brought us a total of 3.6%. But, of course, this is just by standing in one place; if we were to spar in 2g, we'd be lucky if our Stamina holds out for like 5-10 minutes.”
By the time Cynrik finished explaining, Brance was sitting up and monitoring his Stamina's recovery speed. ”Looks like it'll be 30 minutes in gravity and 30 minutes out. If my guess is correct, it should take roughly that much time to get back to a full tank, so in the meantime, we may as well work on our Affinities while our Stamina recovers.”
Crossing his legs, Brance spun the Mana in his Codex and made a batch of small wind gusts dance around his body as both a form of training and a way to cool off. Cynrik watched this for a moment before sitting in the same position as his brother before summoning two small fireballs and making them chase each other.
The two had already long found out the most efficient way to train up their Affinities was to use them until their MP was nearly depleted, so by the time their Stam was replenished, they had already burned around 40% of their MP.
”Threefold gain is pretty good. I was able to get another 3% for my Fire Proficiency,” extinguishing the two fireballs Cynrik stood up and patted his butt a couple of times before looking at the imaginary line representing where the 1g zone stopped and the 2g zone began.
”Let's get this over with, so I can go back to grinding my Wind Affinity; I'm getting close to 25%, and Dad said I'd be getting my next skill at that checkpoint,” Brance took the initiative to step forward first this time.
They went back and forth like this for several hours until, on the 14th cycle, they both received a notification from Tobs.
-Your body has started to adjust to two-times Vinestra's gravity; as a result, the Host's Proficiency gain in 2g will be halved, as will the amount of Stamina required to stay in the zone.-
The boys let out victory cheers because, for the last day, all they had done was repeat the same process of standing in place for 30 minutes, then collapsing for a bit before sitting up and training their Affinities. A quick check over their stats showed that they had both hit the 50% mark for 1g Gravity Resistance and Tier 0 Body Tempering rose to 20%. But, that wasn't all; the two had been able to raise their two auxiliary Affinities significantly.
The only problem was, they realized they were capped with their growth again. Cynriks Fire Affinity had capped at 10% of Tier 1, and his Wind had capped at 25% of Tier 0. Brance was in the same situation; Wind had capped at 25% of Tier 0 and his Earth at 10% of Tier 1.