On Astral Tides: From Humble Freelancer To Astral Emperor

Thirteen

I opened my eyes to the early dawn light streaming through my window. The ache of fading bruises stung a bit, but it was less painful than the last time. If anything I was more mentally tired than anything, as I had been practicing my Chakra training for well over a dozen hours straight in the Boundary. Unfortunately I had still not managed to make a breakthrough in terms of my Chakra nodes, however I felt that I could possibly see how a breakthrough could be made.

After doing a few stretches to loosen up my stiff muscles, I went to my computer. I didn’t feel fully rested, due to my long and action-packed trials in the Boundary overnight, but I could always grab a quick nap later. For now I needed to get things set in motion.

While I could feel myself being a lot stronger and faster, it was obvious to me that this was purely down to the power I had gained from levelling up. It wasn’t actual muscle strength or training. If I was to do something about that, then I thought my performance would likely improve. Running a few internet searches on spear martial arts such as Sōjutsu, I turned up some interesting articles on using the spear in Chinese Bajiquan, as well as some schools of Sōjutsu such as Fuden Ryu and Saburi Ryu. There were also some western spear techniques, although most of those were more skewed to fighting in an infantry unit.

I continued to search, finding out information on which muscle groups were used in higher level spear combat, and then further searches were done on how to best train them. Several hours later I was on Amazon.jp looking at a shopping cart filled with weights and other muscle training equipment. The price was making me sad, though.

Am I sure I really want to do this? All this stuff is expensive, and while I can afford it due to all the extra work I’ve done recently, and the promise of more work to come through my old colleague, it will wipe out my extra earnings. Besides, I’ve never been a fan of sport and physical activities… it wasn’t that I hated sport, not really, I was just far more talented at artistic and intellectual endeavours. The fact that at our yearly town baseball matches, when I had been forced to participate I had sucked badly and been mocked for days afterwards each time, didn’t help my liking any… My sister got all the energy and sporting talent in the family. Now if my sis had been the one chosen, she would have kicked that zombie's ass without any problems. Give her a bow and she’d have put an arrow through its head in a heartbeat…

“Oh to hell with it. I can always give the gear to her if I end up not using it.” With that I clicked on accept, and the order was placed for next-day delivery. It had been a very extraordinary week, equal parts exciting and terrifying. Still, I had the soul of an otaku, so I couldn’t deny that being one of the chosen ones and battling for power to save the world appealed to me. If I was to decline, I would likely only end up regretting it later, especially if some of the other chosen ones turned out to be terrible people, greedy for power. If one of them ended up hurting my family, or Eri-chan, and I had the chance to stop them but didn’t take it… I shook my head, clearing those gloomy thoughts.

No, the safest course of action is to gather what power I can myself, and make all efforts to avoid getting myself hurt, or God forbid, killed! To that end, it is time to bulk up and turn into a pro athlete! Won’t everyone be surprised when I next see my family?

Next up was my emails, and there was one from Hayato-san, with a schedule of expected delivery of the upcoming work he was outsourcing. It looked like a ton of debugging was going to be available in the next couple of days, so I could certainly start making headway on that, while Hina-chan and the others cracked on with the 3D modelling and background touch-ups. There were a few other emails of some importance, but nothing else I needed to deal with today.

Since I was free and my gym equipment hadn’t arrived I moved on to the next stage of my levelling up plan. Visualisation seemed to be the key to using both aether and the Chakra network, so I would search online for the best methods. I had quite a visual mind, being artistic and into design, so I was confident that with the right method I could make headway on my difficulties opening the Chakra nodes.

It didn’t take too long to find a few usable ideas for increasing visualisation prowess online, and I quickly began to practice them. The one that I found the easiest was looking at an object, and then trying to remember and manipulate the image in my mind. This was probably due to my 3D work, which required good spatial awareness. As I continued with this for several hours I felt a slight prickling heat forming in the base of my body, faint but noticeable.

Once this feeling was fully ingrained in me I returned to my methods of trying to stimulate the Chakras. It was definitely easier to imagine and feel the flow, prickling heat building, but it was still like trying to push syrup through a straw. I could definitely feel the heat building a little, a tiny few prickles even flowing higher up my body. Wiping sweat from my brow I opened my eyes and went to the fridge to get a drink.

“This is pretty hard. I guess those who had their nodes forcibly opened would not have to go through this, but if they have no room to grow then eventually I’d surpass them if I train enough…”

Having done enough mental exercises that I felt drained, it was time to move to physical conditioning. I would go for a jog, the first time since… well damn, surely since school. Changing my clothes to something more suitable I left the apartment, ready to work up a sweat…

********

My jog took me around the surrounding areas. This quiet suburb didn’t have very many sights, just a load of two or three story apartment blocks, a few small shops and a shrine high on the hill. I jogged up the hill to the shrine, feeling slightly out of breath. My muscles were feeling pleasantly strained, and I was starting to feel the appeal of exercise.

Of course, if I didn’t have this power from the Boundary I would have collapsed long ago. It really is the shortcut to self-improvement.

I admired the torii gates at the shrine entrance. Behind them was a large set of carvings resembling snakes. There was also the usual array of shrine buildings, and set further back in the trees crowning the hill was a couple of large outbuildings that served as quarters for the shrine priest. It was quite picturesque, although not everyone was keen on snakes. I like them way better than dogs though… Taking in the view for a few moments I steeled myself and then jogged down the hill, running beside the wide stream that came from the foothills and flowed down towards the Tokyo outskirts proper.

Reaching the bottom I crossed the somewhat ornate red metal bridge that spanned the river, pausing halfway to look back up the hill. My breath was coming fast, yet I still felt I had more energy remaining. With a final burst of energy I ran the last kilometre back to my dwelling at a sprint, only staggering to a halt when I reached my apartment building.

Sweat was dripping from me now, and even in the cooling heat of the evening I felt warm. My muscles were definitely feeling the pain now, hot and tight. I was pretty impressed by my performance, despite all that. Sure, it wasn’t going to set any records, but it was certainly well above what an average person could do. With speed and endurance like that, I could probably join a local track team or something…

As I mounted the stairs to my room I saw that someone else was out on her balcony, face flushed in the fading light of the evening. A rather impressive selection of empty beer cans was scattered about her feet, along with a full ashtray. When she saw me looking, she raised one eyebrow and spoke.

“Oshiro-kun… wasn’t it? I didn’t take you for one who worked out.” She took another swig of beer from a freshly opened can, and smiled at me somewhat mockingly, I felt.

“I’ve just got into it recently…” I said politely, wracking my brains for her name. I had only spoken with her a couple of times in the past, and while we saw each other in passing as we came and went that was the only contact we had with each other. “… Watanabe-chan…” I ventured, remembering her name. “A bit early in the evening for hitting the beer so hard isn’t it?”

Watanabe-chan let out a dry laugh, snorting with amusement. “Chan, huh? You do have good manners, that’s for sure. Do you want a drink with me? I wouldn’t say it is too early, not with the day I’ve had.”

Watanabe-chan raised a can of beer to offer me, droplets of condensation sliding down the sides. A cold beer after a hot workout did seem tempting. She was watching me, so I examined her a bit more closely. She was possibly in her thirties, though telling a woman’s age was difficult for me. She was wearing a business suit, dark charcoal blazer over a white blouse, and pencil skirt to match. The heat of the evening sun had caused her to sweat, smearing the makeup around her eyes, giving her a sad look. Her hair was pulled into a tight black bun, held in place with a pair of silver hairpins. I suddenly flushed a little, as I could see the outline of her bra through her shirt which was going transparent with sweat. Looking away, I coughed to ease the tension.

“Sure, I’ll have a cold one.” I agreed, feeling embarrassed.

“Aren’t you the shy one. How unexpected.” she giggled, amused by my behaviour. I moved over to her and leaned against the wall, taking a sip of the beer. It was refreshing and cold, just what I had needed.

“So, what’s the cause of this impromptu party?” I asked, taking another gulp of beer.

“Oh, work troubles. Man troubles. Just trouble.” She said with a sigh, lighting up another cigarette. “My boss at work… he’s really been chewing us all out recently, and it’s starting to stress me out. It’s hardly our fault he’s going bald and getting divorced.” she said with some venom, clearly angry. “Does he think I really want to be working at his dead-end company at my time of life? It’s hardly going to help me land a man is it?” She chased her cigarrete with more beer and let out a rather unladylike belch. “Excuse me. Anyway, my boss said…”

I listened to her for a while, nodding sympathetically when required. Before I knew it I had polished off a couple of beers and she was still going.

“Let me tell you, having a good job is the foundation of happiness. If you have a terrible boss and crummy co-workers, then every day is miserable.”

“Well, I’m a freelancer myself for now.” I answered her. “But I’m building up a client base, so hopefully soon I can get steady employment.”

“Make sure you do. Nothing is sadder than being stuck in a dead-end job. Well, other than being single. Where have all the good men gone?”

This was a dangerous subject, so I thought I’d change it. “Hashimoto-san from a couple of rooms over was having trouble as well. Daughter troubles, I think he said. I guess we all have problems.”

“Hashimoto-san huh?” Watanabe-chan snorted. “He’s a deadbeat as far as I can tell, no wonder his daughter is ashamed of him. Still, even he must have had a wife at one point… why is it so hard…?”

I listened to Watanabe for another hour or so as she unloaded. In the end I bade her farewell with the promise of repaying her for the drinks at some point in the future. Hopefully that won’t involve too much trouble. If I have to take her out to a pub she’d eat me alive. She was looking pretty hungry at the end there…

I shuddered involuntarily at the thought. There was nothing really wrong with Watanabe-chan, even if she was quite a bit older than me. She wasn’t unpleasant to look at or anything like that, and her boobs were decently sized, from what I could tell, but she seemed pretty needy. Although that could just be the booze talking, I guess. It seemed that everyone in this building had their own problems. Mine were still definitely the strangest though!

Since it wasn’t yet time for bed I grabbed a bite to eat and started working through my mental exercises. Tomorrow when my new equipment arrived I would be ready to really start working out!

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