Even with the Mana stone, Lohan did not stop absorbing the grass.
He would clear an area, stop, change position, and start the process again at a new spot.
This back and forth lasted all day, with him and the clone working tirelessly, focused on accumulating every gram of biomass they could find.
The Mana stone ended up being used up faster than he expected.
As Lohan used the biomass he earned to buy various upgrades during the day, his body began to demand more energy, accelerating the consumption of the stone.
When he finally stopped, the stone was already reduced to less than half.
The effort, however, took a heavy toll on his mind.
Spending so many hours coordinating two bodies completely exhausted Lohan.
At 10 p.m., he could no longer process anything. He simply disconnected from Elysium and went straight to bed, falling asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
-xXx-
The next day, a Monday, Lohan woke up refreshed.
Although yesterday had been an exhausting day, Lohan was very pleased with the progress he had made.
Surprisingly, despite only eating yesterday morning, Lohan was still not hungry at all, even slightly full and with a lot of energy in his body.
Looking at his reflection in the mirror, Lohan saw his new body, which looked more natural every day.
A 19-year-old, thin, very thin, with dry patches on his skin where he had scratched himself during the night, straight black hair slightly longer than a buzzcut, the result of having to clean himself with low-quality products and dirty water.
But despite the body showing signs of hardship, his blue eyes sparkled with excitement and unwavering determination.
Unlike the dead, detached eyes that this body had in his memories, Lohan now saw a path for himself and a promising future that he could follow, making his eyes shine.
Thinking about the exercises he had done the day before, Lohan prepared another glass of dirty water with nutritional powder and felt the energy filling his body again.
’The taste of this is terrible... but if this is what I need to consume to nourish my body and become healthy again, I’ll do it without thinking twice,’ he thought.
Even with that taste, the feeling of energy it was bringing him was addictive.
Not wasting this excitement, Lohan crouched down on the apartment floor and did the same exercises as the day before.
Without proper equipment and knowledge of exercises, Lohan was lost on what to do, so he just copied the bare-bones training routine he saw in an anime in his previous world and went with that.
His technique was completely wrong in several exercises, with his body unconsciously doing the exercises in easier ways, which reduced the gains, but even so, Lohan felt a slight sensation as if his muscles were swollen and satisfied after each exercise.
Excited and a little tired, Lohan even allowed himself the luxury of taking a real shower, with dirty water and cheap hygiene products provided by the government, but still, it was the cleanest he had felt since coming to this world.
The walk to the bus stop was much quieter than he had imagined, apart from a few people who looked at him for a second longer than normal, confused by something.
Strangely, his body was more agile than the last time he had made this journey, three days ago, with him dodging people more easily and even spending less time getting from his house to the bus stop, arriving at his destination with steady breathing and little sweat running down his body.
’Am I becoming more proficient in using a healthy body? Or is there something more to it?’ He wondered as he held onto a support bar above his head on the bus and stood upright, finding no vacant seat today.
’If it were just about control over my body, my lack of hunger, or more efficient energy digestion in nutritional powder wouldn’t make sense, right?’
’Wait... more efficient energy digestion... isn’t that because I evolved [Efficient Digestion Lv 8 → Lv 10], right?’
Once that theory entered his mind, it wouldn’t leave.
’That’s the only explanation I can think of... but making my digestion more efficient shouldn’t make me feel less hungry before I eat something else, right? What’s going on?!’
Lohan leaned his body to the side as the bus swerved to avoid a flying motorcycle above the flight limit, maintaining his balance with an ease that would have caused him to fall face first onto the ground three days ago.
He unlocked the cracked screen of his cell phone and typed in keywords that could bring up what he wanted, but also wouldn’t make it clear to the algorithm what he wanted to know, ignoring the synthetic food ads that popped up on the side.
[Elysium Players changes]
The results took a while to load on the bus’s slow free network, but what appeared confirmed that he wasn’t the only one paranoid about it.
As he imagined, the first news items seemed irrelevant, just talking about Players who were "changing" irrelevant things.
But as he continued scrolling down the screen, a post on a forum caught his attention.
[BigShield77: How strange... recently my back pain has decreased, getting better every day to the point that today I woke up feeling better than ever. The only thing I did this week was play Elysium, has anyone else noticed anything like this?]
[Stpd_Capitain: Be careful, they say that before you die, your body stops bothering you.]
[MetalLord666: Ignore the comment above, it must be some bored troll. As for the topic, I haven’t felt any change in my spine, maybe because I never have problems with pain there, but recently I noticed that my reflexes were a little sharper, but the change wasn’t very noticeable. In Elysium I’m an Archer, could that affect anything?]
[BigShield77: I play as a squire to an NPC Knight, he trains me constantly in the game, which seemed boring to me at first, but since I started this training, I felt that my pain in the real world slowly began to disappear.]
[YoBigMM: So you noticed it too? I thought I was the only one who noticed this... since my first day in Elysium, I felt that my mind was much clearer, even after disconnecting from the game.]
[MetalLord666: What’s your class in the game, @YoBigMM?]
[YoBigMM: I’m a White Monk, @MetalLord666.]
[Stpd_Capitain: White Monk? Squire?! You guys have unusual classes?! I’m jealous... but as a Monk you probably don’t get much Gold, right? @YoBigMM]
[YoBigMM: Hehe, although monks normally can’t accept money, as long as you don’t get caught, no rule is absolute @Stpd_Capitain.]
[...]
From that point on, the conversation shifted to the Players discussing how to earn Gold, no longer commenting on the changes in their bodies.
’I’m so jealous... I wish I could discuss the best methods of earning Gold with others too...’ Lohan sighed as he stood up straight and tried to notice anything different about his spine.
Since he had only controlled this body for a few hours before playing Elysium, he hadn’t noticed anything different, but searching through the memories of this body, Lohan realized that he should also have slight pain in his spine, to the point that he only felt comfortable when leaning slightly forward.
But now, he stood perfectly upright, with a straight spine and no sign of pain.
Looking around, Lohan noticed that everyone around him was standing slightly bent over. ’Is that why everyone has been looking at me strangely since I left home?
In order not to stand out, Lohan bent his spine slightly.
Returning to the search page, Lohan saw a few more posts mentioning changes, but these posts didn’t generate much traffic, attracting few responses.
"It’s only been 7 days since the game was released, maybe people haven’t noticed the changes yet?"
Feeling that this made sense, Lohan felt fresh, pure air embracing his body, as if the act of existing had become easier and more pleasant without the dirt and pollution in the air.
Knowing that this was his destination, Lohan quickly got off the bus and faced the college again.
Unlike his first time here, Lohan felt much better now, breathing in the fresh air of the college with a smile on his face before lowering his head, bending his spine slightly, and walking slowly to his class.
He was still aware of the dangers that wealthier, more influential, and powerful students posed to him, so he didn’t let these changes go to his head and acted as usual.