LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 15.1 New and Improved
Meeting up the next morning was, in a word, awkward.
When all four companions stumbled upon each other at the entrance to the baths, it became obvious at a glance that they all had gotten a bit carried away the night before. Amusedly, it seemed that none of them had any coital energy left in reserve aside from the few points they gained from their escapades that evening. Which Rick supposed was probably for the best.
Tyr was the least physically changed in the group since she spent most of her banked energy on the muscle mass she needed to finish the fight with the big bug monster and on growing taller right before her little game of cat and mouse. The rest went straight to her hips.
They gave each other embarrassed greetings before washing the night's events away from their heavily modified bodies. Tyr nearly drowned herself from laughing so hard when the two other women had to explain why they looked like they got doused in a bucket of jizz. Sade looked like she wanted to curl into a corner and disappear when Lilie recounted how the curly haired woman got a bit too carried away with her experimentation… Again.
While it was a bit disappointing, Rick didn’t really blame Sade for her overzealousness, especially when he had essentially done the exact same thing when Tyr assumed the position and started asking sweetly. It was, however, quite interesting to learn about the potent taste and side effects from ingesting Lilie’s secretions.
Tyr found the spell that Sade used to grow a temporary dick endlessly amusing, especially when Lilie mentioned how ‘tiny’ the thing was initially and how easily Sade rankled at the teasing. He would have to talk to her about that, if only to let her know that she wasn’t alone in dealing with inferiority complexes.
Which was a silly thing since both humans had finally cleared the online dating minimum height requirements after their respective spending sprees, neither of them would be considered small in any category anymore. Due to some strange cosmic coincidence, Rick and Sade somehow remained the same height even after dumping nearly a hundred units of energy between them. Rick felt it was just one more little thing that tied his first lover and him together.
After stories were exchanged, bodies were washed, and the laughter at everyone’s antics finally died down, the next issue to be addressed became immediately apparent. They had all outgrown their clothes.
The amount of stares the party garnered from the local populus on the way to the nearest tailor made Rick want to pack up his things and run away to live up in the mountains like Lilie’s sister did. The one silver lining was that however much his own clothes looked undersized and ill-fitting, it was nothing in comparison to what the women had to endure.
Tyr, ever the ‘naturalist’, simply tied some pillowcases together and a spare bed sheet to fashion a tube top and long skirt to keep her modesty. Rick saw many men, and more than a few women, stop and stare at the curvy amazon and her washboard abs as she strolled through the crowded streets.
While the elf drew many gazes to her, she didn’t command all of the attention. The two relatively smaller women were wearing actual clothes, just ones that had seams ripped in odd places and buttons that were holding on for dear life in order to keep the overtaxed fabric from letting everything all spill out right there on the street. While those little round soldiers held the line valiantly, there were still significant gaps in their defense that gave anyone who looked at their front a pleasant view of the fertile valleys beyond the fabric wall.
…
Rick shook his head to clear the unpleasant memory of their personal walk of shame from his mind.
The four of them were jogging along one of the more secluded sections of the coastline for training. After the fight with Rayna and her crew, the four of them had made it a priority to get back into training their stats with as much zeal as they could muster. While they held their own far better than their levels would suggest, if the reformed bandits had not been there when those strange monsters attacked, things could have turned out wildly different.
They all needed to get stronger. And so, since they didn’t really need to work and do missions to pay their bills any longer, they decided to spend the next month undergoing the harshest training any of them could conceive. Plus they also needed to acclimate to their new bodies.
Rick looked behind him to check on how the others were doing. Lilie and Sade were puffing along right behind him with Tyr lagging a bit behind. Rick wasn’t too surprised by the positioning. While he had weights tied around his arms, legs, and torso, Tyr had all of that, plus her own ‘little’ wooden log to lug around while she ran. That piece of wood probably weighed as much as the four of them combined, so the fact that she was able to keep pace for the past ten kilometers was downright impressive to say the least.
Sade and Lilie didn’t have any additional weight strapped to their bodies. It was deemed that the massive swaying weights already attached to their chests was more than adequate to serve their purposes. Getting those oversized pillows of flesh to stay in place while moving around had proved quite the hurdle for the first few days of training.
Thankfully Parva was a world with significantly advanced magic, and after asking around, they were introduced to enchanted chest wraps that were able to keep the bouncing fun bags in place while doing vigorous exercise. Those had cost a small fortune to acquire, but had proven more than worth the exorbitant expense.
All four of them continued their run down the coast, all the way to the cliffside that their home sat atop. Once they reached the rock wall, they all took a small break to catch their breath. Tyr took her log and slammed one end straight into the damp sand, embedding the wood like a fencepost deep enough so that it wouldn’t shift or go anywhere until she retrieved it later.
“So… any improvements today?” Rick asked no one in particular.
“My strength and endurance finally went up.” Sade said weakly. She had the hardest time adjusting to the new training out of anyone since she also had to focus on her studies and maintain her top rank at school. She lightly stretched her back and gave Rick a wonderful view of her burgeoning six pack that hid below her impressive bust. Those points into muscle mass really were well spent in his humble opinion.
“Just strength for me.” Lilie added.
“Nothing yet.” Tyr commented after checking her own progress.
“Really? That sucks.” Rick said earnestly. “Even I managed to get a point of strength after all this.”
The large woman lazily waved off his concerns. “Me stats are much higher than yers. Takes a might longer ta improve when near the peak than at the bottom.”
“Speaking of.” Lilie interjected and pointed up the cliff. “Are we ready to climb?”
Everyone nodded in agreement then reached for the ropes that hung against the rocky walls. Scaling the cliff would be the final leg of their daily physical training and would take them right back to their front door. Thankfully the climb wasn’t a full ninety degree slope and the party could just use the rope for extra stability. Rick didn’t think he could ever pull off a ‘Cliffs of Insanity’ type of stunt, he was neither a giant nor an infamous pirate captain on a mission.
That being said, it was still an utterly brutal workout. Hand over hand, foot over foot, each of them slowly made their way up the incline. Rick’s whole body burned with strain. Once or twice he even felt his feet slip out from under him, causing his chest and arms to slam hard against the rocks while he clung onto the rope for dear life. Just before his willpower began to flag, he spotted the patch of green that signaled the finish line.
With a roar of triumph he crested the lip and rolled to the side to clear the way for the others. He reached out his hand to help each of the women coming up behind him onto a safe patch of grass beside him. Tyr gave a grateful nod to him when her large frame was the final one to come into reach, signaling the end to their self-imposed trial.
“Thank goodness that is over.” Sade whined from where she lay sprawled out on her back.
“Ya did good everyone. I’ve seen elves struggle with doing something similar.”
Lilie looked at Tyr incredulously. “So you’re saying we’re more insane than forest elves?” That caused everyone to give out tired chuckles. Once they were done, she waved them all in. “Ok, let me get you all patched up.”
One by one, the healer’s magic flowed through them and soothed the various aches and pains they’ve accumulated throughout the morning. Rick and the others had spent many long nights talking with the shaytoni about how exactly her healing operated. It turned out, there were several techniques that all approached the subject of repairing the body in different ways. As the spell coursed through his body, Rick was glad Lilie knew how to adjust her magic to boost the body’s natural recovery as opposed to normally reversing damage outright.
This was going to be the key to their success. If they would use the more widely used form of healing magic, the kind that simply put everything back together the way it was before it got damaged, it would have undone any and all progress towards their goals. But by speeding up what the body was already going to do itself, then the natural process of repairing and strengthening muscles would continue at an accelerated rate. Essentially, they got all the gains with hardly any of the pain.
Well… There was still pain, a lot of pain. But by utilizing their healer effectively, they didn’t need to spend a full day groaning in pain while their bodies recovered from the abuse. They could just work out as hard as they could every morning and then go on with their day like nothing happened. It had only been a few days since they started and the results had already started to show themselves.
Granted, the occasional dose of coital energy here and there also helped.
“Mmmm… Thank you Lilie. I do not know what I would do without you.” Sade said, giving a sensual moan after her treatment was done.
“Ha! Knowing you, you would be doing the exact same thing as we are right now. The only difference would be the days where you all would wallow in agony before going right back to it.” Lilie replied with a snort. She held up a palm and stared at it for a brief moment. “Still… I feel like we’re cheating somehow.”
“It does feel like that, doesn’t it?” Rick agreed.
The healer shot him a peculiar look. “Wasn’t this whole thing your idea in the first place?”
“It was a team effort on that front.” He shot back while raising his hands in surrender. “Besides, the two of us going to university should know the difference between theory and practice. I’m more surprised no one else has thought of this method before.”
“I suspect people have, but the reason why it is not widespread lies along a similar vein to our discussion some time ago about leveling versus training.” Sade said casually. “While this method is extremely effective, having a skilled healer on hand is far too costly for most people to even attempt. Especially when raising their strength by leveling is a cheap and effective alternative.”
“Heh, imagine the look on that prissy cunt’s face when she finds out yer strength is just as high as yer intelligence.” Tyr chuckled darkly.
Rick was morbidly curious on what kind of fireworks would happen if Sade’s high elf rival and the wild amazon ever met. While he had yet to even meet the woman, accounts from both Lilie and Sade didn’t paint her in the best of light. He especially hoped that the rumors were exaggerated. He supposed he would find out for himself eventually.
“The last thing any of us need is having someone like Ariwyn looking too closely in our direction.” Sade said pointedly. “It is best we keep our secrets for now. We will need to be as strong as possible with as many commendations and honors as we can get. If her family or someone else like them decides to come after us, we need to be as unassailable as possible.”
“You really think that’s likely?” Rick asked.
Sade turned her fierce gaze in his direction. “Nearly all high elves in the kingdom are nobles or are in key positions of the government. If we are deemed a threat to their sovereignty in any way, then they would come at us from all sides, attacking our honor, reputation, and scrutinizing everything we or our families have done with a fine toothed comb for any blemish they could use against us. Even other noble houses with storied histories and strong ties to the royal family have been brought low by inopportune scandal.”
“I think you’re just being paranoid.” Lilie said while crossing her arms.
“Perhaps.” The dark skinned woman admitted. “But it is best to be as prepared as possible when dealing with such people. Since I have already caught the attention of one of their scions, I hope they just see me as a minor issue for her to deal with on her own, and not an upstart that needs to be taught a lesson for challenging her betters.”
Rick suspected there was a lot more to the story than what Sade had revealed. But that was talk for when they were home, fed, and bathed rather than standing outside next to a cliff.
“Okay, that’s enough heavy topics for now, I feel we’ve been carrying heavy things all morning. Besides, aren't we having guests over for the evening?”
“Indeed. I need to get ready for the study session.” Sade said and quickly made her way towards their home.
“Think they’ll like the outfit ya picked out?” Tyr whispered conspiratorially into his ear.
“Even if they don’t, I know I will.” Rick said with a smile.