Chapter 3 - Endless Torture

Randy walked past the gazes of the people after giving them a slight bow as a greeting. Right now, is the only time that he can fully enjoy himself and forget about his miserable life. That is, by immersing himself in physical training. He found out that he could only release his stress by working out extra harder in the training center. Although, it was not enough to change his fate, since no matter how harder he went at it in the gymnasium nothing happens, but it was enough to forget for a moment, that is right, just a moment of bliss is enough for him.

Randy walked up to an elevator and tapped the monitor on the wall with his student identification card and proceeded to wait. It did not take long for the door of the elevator to slid open, and he entered shortly after. The bottom floor was the reception area, so it does not count towards the number of floors this building is divided into. As such, the first section required one to take the elevator in the building to the first floor.

A couple seconds later, Randy walked out the elevator and looked around for a bit before heading toward a room that was unoccupied at the moment. There are different kind of rooms, some accommodates multiple people to be in it and some only for individual training hence they would be alone. Randy always picked the individual training room whenever he can, as usually those rooms are occupied most of the time. Today he was very lucky to find room that was not occupied yet, so he hurriedly moved his legs and tap his student identification card on it before anyone else comes.

"Wiish! Identification confirmed. Welcome Randy Smith. You currently assigned as the occupant of the Training Room RM-1C." A feminine voice of the AI resounded from the monitor next to the door.

With a buzz sound, the door to the training room opened with him registered as the occupant. Randy took off his backpack from his back and proceeded to head to the dressing room to change into a more comfortable attire for training. After changing, he pondered for a while, about which training he should do for today. He could run on a specialized treadmill to check his stamina or improve it. He could also lift weights to increase his upper body's strength, but he chose not to because these kinds of training had little effect on his current body, he needed a holistic training session. And so, he ended up deciding on using the Graviton Room specialized for training one's body holistically.

The Graviton room was a room created utilizing science and magic technology combined. The whole process was so intricate with no clue as to how it was made, and only magic engineers are privy to such information regarding its creation. Well, that does not matter. What really matters is that he can use this graviton room to increase his body's limits. The entire process was unbearably painful and if you do not take care and use too much gravity, your entire body would crush under the weight.

Despite this, Randy did not mind it at all, this was not his first time using such a room. He had been using it ever since he found out two years ago that he still cannot awaken his ability. With a resolute expression, Randy pushed a button on the room in front of him and the door slid upward, and he proceeded to walk in, and the door slid down behind him immediately after walking in. One can operate this room using their voice as a regulator or sort. And so, using his voice to start up the room, Randy shouted in the silver sheen room.

"Start up with 200 Pounds!"

Ding!

Immediately, there was chime as the system registered his voice and right after the weight inside the graviton room started changing. Randy could feel that the pressure in the room started changing as if a boulder weighting two hundred pounds had been placed on his back, but this kind of weight was nothing to Randy as he yelled out again.

"400 Pounds!"

The weight in the room was increased again. Randy could feel his muscles tingling in his body as he felt the pressure of more than twice his own weight.

"Grrgh!!" Randy gritted his teeth as he bore with the weight that seemed as if it wanted to crush his bones. But this was not his limit. He wanted to go farther, he wanted to see how much his current body can take him before it cannot handle it anymore. Although, his body's weight was about two hundred pounds, his explosive power from his fist reached about 400 pounds when he goes all out. But when dormant, his muscles always had less power accumulated. So, they cannot exert any force higher than his body's weight without him flexing his body and channeling all his strength into his fist to release a powerful punch that is equivalent to four hundred pounds strike.

This is one of the perks of the current era; most people are born with strong bodies naturally, especially if their parent also had abilities. Of course, Randy's parents were ability users, but for some reason, he could not awaken his ability despite his siblings being able to awaken theirs. With these thoughts, Randy shouted again, his voice sounding hoarse due to strain on his body.

"500 Pounds!"

Hum! Buzz~

"Kukk… Argh!"

The moment Randy uttered these words of order to the system, there was a muffed buzz sound as he felt like a whole mountain had been dropped on his body and he scream uncontrollably, this time he could not take it anymore. He wanted to give up… How could he handle this much weight when he does not have any energy source like everyone else who had awakened their ability. He only managed to not get kicked out due to his high basic statistics when compared to the others. But at this moment, he wanted to give up after all this time? No! He cannot give up now. If he does not raise his body's potential, how could he know whether he could awaken his ability that way or not.

The reason why every student was required to do basic body training is because some abilities needed you to have a better constitution. And so, the academies required their student to at least reach a hundred in their Physical Strength and or stamina. That way, when they awaken their ability, there would be less problems. Randy went to one these institutions dedicated for awakening one's ability, but he failed every single time to the point of despair. Right now, his only hope was to make his physical strength break through its limit and maybe, just maybe he might awaken his ability that way. With that in mind, Randy's voice bellowed in the graviton room as he endured the bone cracking pain.

"Argh! 600 Pounds!"

"Kak!"

"Kahk!"

The sound of bones making cracking sounds and joints dislocating reverberated throughout the graviton room. If anyone was in the same room with him right now, they would have felt goosebumps all over their body, sending a chill to run down their spines, which would elicit an involuntary trembling from anyone due to the disturbing sounds Randy's body was making at this moment. Nonetheless, Randy continued enduring the pain by cussing out loud in the lonely graviton room.

"Fuck! It fucking hurts! Arghh!!" Randy screamed the moment the weight increased on him again. At this point, he was lying on the ground unable to move a single muscle as he endured the increase in gravity on his body. Despite the disturbing sounds of his bones rubbing against their joints, they were not broken, he only felt slight pain coming from his joint. That was due to his already strong physique that stem from being born from two ability users. Randy had always noticed that he had strong bones and durable muscles which enabled him to push his limits every time in training center.

"Arghhh!!!" Randy's screamed reverberated throughout the graviton room due to the pain his body was suffering at this moment, but he did not give up just yet. He wanted to maintain the six hundred pounds on his body a little more to temper his muscles. After a while, he increased the weight again followed by an agonizing scream louder than the other. Randy kept this up for a while. He would endure the different weights and then when he adjusts to the pain that an increase in weight brought on his body, he will increase the weight again, repeating this process over and over again, all the while screaming from the excruciating pain.

"Ahhhh!!"

"Kakk!!"

"Arghhhhh!!!"

"Kakkk!"

"Gahhhh!!!!"

Bones were making cracking sound and an ear-piercing scream followed after that. It went on like this for about two hours non-stopped. Randy increased the weights gradually and the pain that he felt each time made him feel like he would die any time soon, he could also feel his brain being pressured by the weight. It was a really agonizing experience that no one with sane mind would ever try. The endless self-torture ended when he increased the weight to thousand pounds. At that time, Randy could tell that if he stayed in that state for a couple more seconds, he would have really died and so, he ended the experience with a hoarse voice full of exhaustion.

"S-S-Stop…" Randy barely managed to utter these words but, luckily the AI system was design to stop the gravity from pressurizing the room when the trainee utters the word 'Stop.' Even if it was in low voice, with the amplified voice recognition built in system, the AI could easily pick up the voice of the trainee and bring an abrupt end to the training session. At this moment, Randy laid flat with his face on the ground panting heavily as if his life depended on it, it was so ragged that one would feel disturbed just listening to his audible pants.

"Huuk! Haak!" "Huuk! Haak!" "Huuk! Haak…"

After panting like that for about five minutes, Randy finally turned his sweaty body around and proceeded to stare at the ceiling while controlling his breathing. He was sweating profusely at this moment with all his training attire soaked in sweat as if he had purposely jumped into a swimming pool with his clothes on.

"T-That really hurts… I don't think… I can do this too often… Otherwise, I would really die before even awakening any ability…" said Randy barely with a bitter smile on his otherwise weary face.