Then I pushed myself up.
It took longer than it should have.
"… Fine."
I wiped the corner of my mouth. At some point during the lightning strike I had apparently bitten my cheek. I tasted copper.
"Ten kilometers, right?"
A weak laugh came out of me, unbidden.
"… Guess I'm going for a run."
• •
But before I reached the door, Nova's text reappeared — not a quest update, just a statement, flat and precise in the way that Nova's statements tended to be.
[ Nova ]
Your body must be conditioned before you use your abilities.
"… Conditioned?"
Current state: unstable.
Power output exceeds biological tolerance.
"Speak like a normal person."
A pause. Then:
If you activate your abilities in your current state, your body will fail.
"'Fail' meaning what, exactly."
Collapse. Rupture. Termination.
I blinked.
"… You mean explode."
Not externally.
Internally.
My throat went dry.
Your physical structure has been rebuilt.
Your neural pathways and internal systems have not yet adapted to it.
Sudden power usage will cause critical structural failure.
"… So if I use my skills without training first —"
You will die.
Silence settled in the room.
"… And you're telling me this now."
You asked.
I closed my eyes for a moment. Then I laughed — not because it was funny, but because it was that or something worse, and laughing was easier.
"… Ten kilometers, huh."
I grabbed my jacket off the hook by the door.
"… Guess I don't have a choice."
I pulled it on. Paused. Looked down at myself.
By the way — my clothes are all oversized now."
Noted.
"… That's not a solution."
No response.
I went for the run anyway.
• •
The Run
I don't remember when my legs stopped listening to me. Only that at some point they did, and I was still moving, which meant the body had found some other system to operate on — something more basic and less rational than conscious decision-making.
I staggered to a stop on a stretch of riverside path with no one else on it, caught myself with both hands on my knees, and stayed there for a while with breath tearing in and out of my chest in a way that didn't feel entirely voluntary.
"… What the hell."
My legs were shaking. Not the mild tremor of overexertion — the violent, structural shaking of something that has been asked to perform past its current capability and is registering a complaint.
"I just ran ten kilometers," I said, to no one in particular. "For the first time in my life. I think my legs are about to —"
[ Nova ]
This level of physical distress is within expected parameters.
"'Expected' —"
I let out a sound that was technically a laugh.
"You call this normal?"
[ Quest Update ]
▪ Run: 10 km ✅ Completed
▪ Push-ups: 0 / 100
▪ Sit-ups: 0 / 100
▪ Squats: 0 / 100
I stared at the update panel.
Slowly. Very slowly.
"You've got to be kidding me."
Proceed to the next task.
"Right now? I can barely —"
Yes.
I looked at my shaking arms. Then at my legs, which had already started to cramp in the specific way that legs cramp when they have been pushed past what they consider reasonable and are now issuing formal objections.
Then I got down on the ground and started the push-ups.
•
What followed was not impressive by any metric.
Every time I collapsed — and I collapsed often, face hitting the pavement with a regularity that would have been embarrassing in any other context — the lightning came. Sharp. Absolute. And then I was awake again, back at the same count, same position, same burning in every muscle that had not been given the courtesy of resting between rounds.
I lost track of how many times I failed. Ten. Twenty. More. At some point the number stopped mattering. Only the next repetition existed. Only the next breath.
'94…"
My voice had gone thin. Something in my throat had dried out somewhere around the forty-kilometer equivalent of effort and had not recovered.
'95…"
The trembling in my arms was violent enough that I could see it.
'96…"
Everything felt distant, like I was operating from somewhere slightly behind my own body, watching my arms move and not entirely sure whose decision that was.
'97…"
My elbows buckled. I locked them back through pure, abstract stubbornness.
'98…"
My vision flickered at the edges. I was reasonably certain I blacked out for approximately half a second and came back without losing the position.
'99…"
"… One hundred."
My arms gave out.
I hit the ground — hard, face-first, not catching myself.
But this time:
[ Quest Completed ]
No lightning. No reset prompt. No instruction to restart from the beginning.
Just the ground, and the sky above it, and the sound of my own breathing gradually returning to something that resembled a sustainable rhythm.
"… Hah."
A weak laugh came out of me from somewhere near the floor.
"… Finally."
And then I collapsed anyway, because the quest being done did not mean my body was.
• •
The Reward
When I came back to consciousness, the first thing I saw was not the ceiling.
It was the window.
[ Nova ]
[ Initializing reward for today's quest… ]
"… Finally."
I sat up. Slowly. My entire body catalogued its complaints in order of severity. I acknowledged all of them and set them aside.
The screen shifted, four options unfolding in front of me, each one pulsing faintly like something with a heartbeat.
[ Select Your Reward ]
▪ Divine Box
▪ Cursed Box
▪ Normal Box
▪ Mystery Box