Divine Milking System

Chapter 297: 297 | Monster is Reductive [PS BONUS]

I dropped.

The first five rounds went fine. Better than fine, actually, because the remnants of Aurora’s Silver essence still circulated through my muscles and the sexual training multiplier from last night had pushed my Endurance stat to the edge of C-rank. My body responded with the reliable performance of someone whose physical capabilities had been upgraded through supernatural lactation and aggressive fornication, which was a sentence I could never say out loud without sounding like I belonged in a padded room.

Round six started the decline. My arms remembered they’d been supporting my weight above various people for extended periods throughout the night, and the push-ups began to feel less like exercise and more like the ground was personally offended by my existence and wanted me closer.

Vale watched from a chair he’d pulled from somewhere, legs crossed, tablet in hand, occasionally making notes that I assumed documented my progressive decomposition. He sipped coffee from a mug that said World’s Okayest Hunter in a font that suggested the mug had been purchased ironically and then kept unironically.

"Elbows in, Monroe. You’re flaring."

"My elbows are considering secession from my body." freёweɓnovel.com

"Tell them the union requires continued participation."

Round eight. The sit-ups became an exercise in creative interpretation of the word upright. My abdominal muscles, which had been performing admirably for weeks under the combined influence of Limit Breaker and Silver essence, now registered formal complaints about the workload increase. Each rep felt like someone had installed a ratchet mechanism in my spine that only moved in one direction and required significant effort to reset. freewёbnoνel.com

"Core tight."

"My core is filing for bankruptcy."

"Denied. Keep going."

Round ten. The squats. Oh god, the squats. My thighs burned with the specific kind of fire that meant the muscle fibers were tearing faster than the Silver essence could repair them, which meant actual damage accumulation, which meant tomorrow I would walk like a man who’d been kicked by a horse on both legs simultaneously. The wall became my best friend during the final reps of each set, supporting weight that my quadriceps had abandoned responsibility for. Sweat dripped off my nose and hit the expensive gym floor in small puddles that multiplied with each round.

"Twelve more to go," Vale offered helpfully.

"You’re a monster."

"I’m a Platinum-tier hunter with a Limitless spatial manipulation ability and tenure. Monster is reductive."

Round twelve. My vision started doing that thing where the edges got soft and the center got too sharp, which meant my blood pressure was fluctuating from the exertion. I tasted copper and sports drink in the back of my throat. The push-ups devolved into controlled falling followed by reluctant rising, each rep taking three times longer than the first round. My arms shook so badly that the vibrations transferred through the floor and rattled equipment nearby.

"You’re aware that I could simply die here and save everyone significant trouble?"

"If you die during warm-up, I’ll mark you absent rather than deceased. Less paperwork."

"Warm-up? This is still warm-up?"

"This will always be warm-up, Monroe. I told you yesterday. What happens after this is training."

I wanted to quit. Every reasonable part of my brain, which admittedly occupied a small and frequently ignored portion of the overall real estate, screamed that twenty-two rounds of bodyweight exercises on four hours of sleep was medically inadvisable. The System itself seemed confused by the inputs, sending me micro-notifications about physical stress levels and recovery recommendations that I dismissed with the desperation of someone swiping away spam during an emergency.

But I kept going.

Not because I was brave or dedicated or possessed of some iron willpower that separated me from lesser men. I kept going because Vale sat six feet away watching me with those mismatched eyes, and somewhere behind the expensive sunglasses and the annoying smirk and the cryptic mentorship that expressed itself through near-lethal exercise routines, Dominic Vale had chosen me. Out of every student at this academy, every guild-trained prodigy, every legacy heir with generational advantages and trust funds larger than my entire point balance, Vale had decided that the lottery kid who showed up to elite training smelling like three women and looking like he’d been assembled from spare parts was worth investing in.

I would not waste that investment by quitting during warm-up.

Round fourteen. My body entered a state I’d never experienced before, somewhere beyond exhaustion and short of unconsciousness, where the muscles stopped hurting because the nerves responsible for transmitting pain had gone on strike. Movement became automatic, mechanical, driven by something below conscious thought. Push-up. Sit-up. Squat. Repeat. Push-up. Sit-up. Squat. Repeat. The numbers blurred together until counting became optional and the only metric that mattered was whether I was still moving.

Vale stopped making notes around round sixteen and simply watched. The coffee mug sat abandoned on the floor. His posture had shifted from casual amusement to something more focused, more intent, like a scientist observing a reaction that had exceeded projected parameters.

Round eighteen. I tasted blood from where I’d bitten the inside of my cheek during a particularly brutal set of squats. The Endurance stat bar in my peripheral vision flickered, climbed half a segment, and stabilized. Progress. Real, measurable progress purchased with suffering and paid for in sweat.

Round twenty. My knees hit the mat during the push-ups and I finished the last ten from that position because my arms simply could not support my bodyweight from full extension anymore. Vale said nothing. No correction, no criticism, no witty commentary about vacuum cleaners and lipstick. He just watched.

Round twenty-one. The sit-ups became half-sit-ups, my body rising to maybe forty-five degrees before the abdominal wall refused further cooperation. The squats became controlled descents followed by wall-assisted returns to vertical.

Round twenty-two.

I finished the last squat by gripping the wall with both hands and pulling myself upright through arm strength alone because my legs had officially retired from the workforce. Then I stood there, breathing like I’d just sprinted a mile through a swamp full of monsters, sweat soaking through my shirt and pooling in the small of my back, every muscle fiber in my body vibrating at a frequency that suggested imminent structural failure.

"Done," I managed.

"I know," Vale said quietly. He stood from the chair and walked over, stopping just outside arm’s reach. "How do you feel?"

"Like I need a priest."

"Good. That means you’re still alive." He checked his watch, a simple gesture that carried no urgency.

"Now the actual training starts."