Rise of the Zerg in the World of Gods

The next day, Xu Luo arrived at No. 1 High School on his bicycle, sporting faint dark circles under his eyes.

Yesterday, he forgot to ask about the dosage of the medicine, so he applied it all over his body based on his previous experience with applying cologne.

At first, he only felt his skin heating up, without noticing anything else.

But later, he felt extremely energetic and couldn't sleep all night.

By the time he felt drowsy, it was already past five in the morning.

At this point, Xu Luo understood what Qianqian's warning meant.

This stuff's effect was quite potent!

With insufficient exercise and excessive dosage, it was like using a stimulant. During the medicine's effective period, he was full of energy and didn't feel tired, but after the effect wore off, it was quite uncomfortable.

This was Xu Luo's current situation.

Not knowing the dosage led to using a bit too much, resulting in a sleepless night. Although the physical fatigue was there, he didn't feel it during the medicine's effective period. However, once it passed, all the accumulated fatigue hit him at once.

When he arrived at the training ground, others saw Xu Luo's dark circles and laughed immorally.

They had actually experienced this before.

Yesterday, no one warned Xu Luo about this, partly because they wanted to see him embarrassed.

This wasn't malicious intent, it was just... well, actually it was just mischief.

When you've had bad luck yourself, seeing others in the same situation makes you feel more balanced.

"How much did you use?" Xiang Lu approached.

Here, besides Qianqian and Jiang Xintong whom he met yesterday, Xiang Lu was the only person Xu Luo knew.

"Don't mention it. I used about five drops. Who knew the effect would be so strong? I couldn't sleep all night," Xu Luo smiled bitterly.

"You guys aren't fair. Not one of you warned me!"

Seeing a familiar face, he couldn't help but complain.

"Hehe, we just wanted to give you a welcome gift. But with your exercise amount yesterday, using five drops and still being able to get up now, you're pretty tough!" Xiang Lu sincerely admired.

He didn't tell Xu Luo that even with their full day's training, they would use at most four drops. With less training, they would appropriately reduce it.

Only Qianqian and Jiang Xintong could probably use five drops.

Xu Luo only did tests yesterday. His exercise amount was certainly not small, but it wasn't at the limit either. Using one drop would have been enough. Even two drops would just make him feel very energetic.

But he directly used five drops. Xiang Lu felt that if it were him, he wouldn't be able to calm down for a day or two.

Yet Xu Luo only had faint dark circles, just like an ordinary person who had stayed up all night.

This physical condition made him very envious.

He had only been training for a few months and certainly couldn't compare with the others.

"This medicine is so potent. Isn't there a fixed dosage?" After a bitter smile, Xu Luo quickly asked. He didn't want to experience this again; it was quite suffering.

"No!" Xiang Lu shook his head decisively.

"In Coach Zhang's words, mastering your own body condition is also part of our training. Knowing what level your body has reached and how much medicine you need to use all need to be controlled by yourself. If someone can't master it well and affects training, Coach Zhang won't care. But if it slows down the training progress, he'll directly kick the person out!"

Speaking of this, Xiang Lu felt lingering fear.

When he first came, he couldn't control the dosage well. Too much would make him too excited to sleep, too little would result in his body not being repaired by the medicine, causing pain the next day and poor training.

Now, after a few months, he had only roughly mastered it a bit. Many times he preferred to use less. If the medicine's effect wasn't enough, so be it. He would endure a bit of discomfort.

After all, having trained for so long, he was already used to a bit of pain.

This was also the approach of many people here.

Only a few people like Jiang Xintong could perfectly control the medicine dosage. Even Qianqian couldn't do it completely.

This girl was particularly favored by Zhang Jian only because of her excellent combat talent.

"It's your first day of training today, so take it easy!" Seeing Zhang Jian coming, Xiang Lu patted Xu Luo's shoulder, gave him a "good luck" look, and started going upstairs to prepare for training.

These people all had their own training plans. Zhang Jian tailored them according to each person's situation, so they weren't the same. Other people's training plans had no reference value.

"Just one sleepless night, it's a bit beyond my expectation!" Seeing that Xu Luo only had slightly dark circles and looked a bit listless, Zhang Jian was actually quite surprised.

"It seems your physical condition is even better than I imagined. But this is better. You can directly skip those complex and tedious basic training and enter the main subject."

"Coach Zhang..." Xu Luo was about to speak but was interrupted.

"If you want to ask what's the meaning of this training, then don't bother. You'll understand by yourself later. Of course, if you feel this training is meaningless and want to improve your strength on your own, that's fine too. The door is over there; you can go tell Principal Dongfang yourself."

Zhang Jian was experienced.

Xu Luo opened his mouth but finally said nothing.

He didn't expect this result.

"You should know you're lucky. If Principal Dongfang didn't think you were promising material, you wouldn't have this opportunity at all," Zhang Jian walked in front, gesturing for Xu Luo to follow.

"The equipment here, not to mention those training devices, just one specially made game pod costs over 200,000 credit points to manufacture, and the maintenance fee is also very high. The medicine given to you yesterday is bought at a high price from alien civilizations. With human technology now, we can't produce it yet.

Just a small bottle costs over 30,000, and it doesn't last long at all.

For you to train here, the school has to provide nutritional meals. These are all extra expenses borne by the school. Each additional person is a huge burden for the school."

Saying this, Zhang Jian, walking in front, stopped and silently looked at Xu Luo.

"I'm telling you this not to show how wealthy No. 1 High School is, but because this cost is extremely high. I hope you won't disappoint Principal Dongfang's expectations!"

"Please rest assured, Coach!" Xu Luo nodded solemnly.

In his heart, he was truly amazed. A small bottle of medicine actually cost 30,000 credit points, which was ten years' salary for an ordinary wage earner today, and that's if they saved every penny without eating or drinking.

No wonder other schools couldn't build training grounds.

Firstly, they didn't have so many outstanding students worth cultivating.

Secondly, the cost of cultivation was truly too enormous.

The game pods were manageable. Although buying them was a huge expense and the subsequent maintenance costs were not low, schools could still afford it. But the game pods were just the basics. The nutritional meals and medicine were the key, and they were consumables. Using them was like pouring money down the drain.

"Don't say things like 'let me' and such. That's just a slogan, and anyone can shout slogans!" Zhang Jian turned his head and continued up the stairs.

"Show me with your actual actions that you're worth this cultivation!"

Taking a deep breath, Xu Luo finally didn't speak.

Indeed, as Zhang Jian said, in this matter, shouting slogans was useless. It needed to be demonstrated through actual actions.

After going upstairs, without minding the people lying in the game pods, Zhang Jian directly let Xu Luo open a game pod himself.

"Open one yourself. You can connect with your personal assistant. You've been given permission, so you can use it from now on. The personnel here are staggered; they don't need to come every day. You're here for special training, so you need to."

Zhang Jian spoke calmly.

"After entering, choose the training room mode, select your favorite weapon, then do 10,000 thrusting motions first. Do ten sets today!"

Full of doubts, Xu Luo still didn't speak in the end.

He also saw that Zhang Jian had a more practical personality, didn't like slogans, and preferred to prove with actual actions.

For such a person, talking nicely was useless. You needed to show him you were capable through results.

Lying down in the game pod, after choosing the training room mode in the mode selection, Xu Luo appeared in a training hall with a dummy in front of him, with red dots on various parts of its body.

"I'll make it simple for you today. Now choose a weapon and thrust at the red dot on the dummy's chest. When you successfully complete ten sets of 10,000 times, you'll complete this training session."

Zhang Jian's voice sounded in the hall, and then there was no more movement.

The other red dots on the dummy all disappeared, leaving only one on the chest.

In reality, Zhang Jian directly opened the projection screen, switched to Xu Luo's device, and began to watch his training situation.

Usually, he didn't come to the second floor much. For such basic training, he would let other students, like Jiang Xintong or Qianqian, supervise on his behalf.

This time, he was completely excited by the prospect, feeling that a good seedling had appeared, so he wanted to personally give special training.

At this time, in the screen, Xu Luo chose a western sword and then unhurriedly thrust at the red dot on the training dummy's chest.

Zhang Jian nodded at this, quite satisfied.

In this kind of training, there was actually an assessment involved.

For example, the frequency of attacks, the choice of weapon, the force of attacks, and so on were all worth testing.

At this point, in Zhang Jian's view, Xu Luo was qualified. The specifics would be seen in later performances.

Now, he chose a western sword, firstly because it was light, and secondly because the western sword had a feature - it was a thin sword, suitable for thrusting.

Besides this, when Xu Luo was thrusting, he wasn't blindly pursuing speed, trying to complete the training task quickly.

Such a choice would only lead to a lower score.

Humans are not machines; they can't maintain a peak state of full effort constantly.

Merely pursuing speed would only lead to exhaustion later, making it impossible to complete the task.

The current approach was good, maintaining a steady rhythm, attacking unhurriedly.

This way, there would be an interval for breathing between movements, giving time for adaptation and rest recovery.

This way, he could be more enduring.

Having Xu Luo train the thrusting motion was firstly to temper his character, and secondly to hone his mental will.

If one couldn't endure hardship, no matter how high their talent, Zhang Jian wouldn't teach them at all.

This was just the beginning. Later, there would be other training waiting for him!

At the start of training, Xu Luo felt it was quite simple. It was just 100,000 thrusts. If he went fast, he could thrust two or three times in a second!

But when he really started training, he realized it wasn't that simple.

Although he chose the most energy-efficient weapon, and the thrusting motion was simple - just mechanically thrusting the sword in his hand to the red dot - when he actually started, he found it wasn't easy at all.

The dummy was face to face with him, only about a meter away. The red dot on its chest wasn't small and should be easy to hit. But once he sped up, he might miss, and in that case, the attack wouldn't count and he'd need to redo it.

Because of this, Xu Luo slowed down his speed, planning to accelerate after he adapted to this rhythm.

A few hundred thrusts, a thousand thrusts, he accurately hit the red dot, maintaining a constant speed.

But at this point, he gradually began to feel his hand getting sore.

Maintaining one posture continuously, and having to stay highly focused, consumed a lot of physical and mental energy.

At this time, his arm started to ache, his eyes also felt sore, but his feet were still okay because the duration wasn't long, so it wasn't too tiring.

Thrust out, pull back, just this one motion. Xu Luo didn't need to count how many thrusts he had made himself, because a mechanical voice was judging the number of his attacks and checking if they qualified.

Listening to the prompts from that voice, Xu Luo slowly attacked.

"Sixteen minutes!"

Looking at the time, Zhang Jian nodded, satisfied with this speed. He didn't blindly pursue speed to complete the task quickly. Now he had completed one set of 10,000 thrusts and still had energy to proceed with the next set of training.

Without anyone reminding him, for a newcomer to achieve this level was indeed very good.

Ten thousand thrusting motions, thrusting out and pulling back, one per second, would take nearly three hours.

And there was a tenfold time difference between inside and reality. Sixteen minutes was about 160 minutes, close to three hours. Xu Luo being able to persist with one motion and complete so many attack trainings was the reason for Zhang Jian's appreciation.

Among the current people in No. 1 High School, many took a very long time to complete one set of training at the beginning.

At first, they were all very fast, able to do three, four, or even five thrusts in a second. But as they continued, their endurance wasn't good. Some people, because they used too much force at the beginning, couldn't persist for long and had to rest in between. As a result, it took even longer to complete one set of training.

Even the top students of the three grades now - Fang Shuo, Jiang Xintong, and Qianqian - although they completed one set of training in one go, they had exerted all their strength. The subsequent impact was quite large, and it also took more than three hours, which was over 18 minutes in reality.

Of course, at the beginning, they hadn't undergone training, so their physical condition wasn't as good as Xu Luo's current state. This was where Xu Luo had an advantage now.