Chapter 5: 5
The sky was an orange hue, the yellow sun had just begun to rise, and the silver moon still lingered faintly. It was like a paining, shades of deep blue streaked here and there, mixing with slight purple. Walking towards the boy's dormitory, the rays of the young star shining down on his sweat riddled body, Reed felt as if the morning had already proved its worth.
His muscles arched slightly, he had been in the weight room for quite a bit of time after waving Lizlian off, but there was a refreshing smile on his face. It was 4:50 AM and he quickly headed to the dorm showers. There was currently no one else occupying any of the stalls.
***
"Alright, Maria, I want to use that reward now," He spoke, sitting in front of his laptop. The light in the room was on.
[Affirmative, the '+1 Major Rank Physical Skill' will be used, what would you like it to enhance?]
[Physique] F+ [Strength] D [Agility] B [Endurance] C
Reed didn't have to think too much, each skill appeared clear cut in what exactly they attributed towards. Strength likely reflected the might of his muscles and Endurance reflected his stamina...however, he was quite unsure about his Physique?
"Maria, what does the Physique reflect?" He wasn't dumb enough to waste time and try and work it out himself when there was someone to give him the answer. If there was one thing he liked, it would be efficiency.
[Physique pertains to your resistance to the elements, pain, poison, and diseases while also reflecting the shape, sculptor, and overall look of the user.]
"Shape?" Reed raised a brow, "Will a high Physique make me look like a perfectly sculpted model or something?"
[Yes.] Maria affirmed.
"..."
He had only thrown something out there without thinking much on it, he had no idea that he would be right. Sucking in a cold breath, he wondered if he should choose it or Endurance.
"What about Endurance?" He asked, he realized he had made a mistake in underestimating the powers of the System once again. It seemed, to him, that the standards of the rankings and what they affected could break past the level and concepts of humans.
He wondered if he would be able to dodge bullets if his Speed was high enough?
[Endurance pertains to your stamina capacity and recovery. If it is high enough, you may be able to go a whole day with only 10 minutes of sleep. And if it reaches the highest rank, you will no longer have a need for sleep.]
"Use the reward on Endurance." Reed unhesitatingly spoke out.
[Are you certain?]
"Yes."
It was almost a no-brainer, there was no way he would pass this opportunity up. The benefits from increasing his Endurance was far greater than what Physique would give him right now—he had a want for the latter, but he needed the former. Plus, it wasn't like he was ugly anyway, he was still average.
[Ding! Your [Endurance] has increased to B rank!]
Reed nodded, content and asked one last question, "How much sleep do I need right now?"
[Three hours and thirty minutes.]
It wasn't much of an increase but it was still substantial, Reed wondered what he had to do to increase his endurance. Maybe running daily would really help?...wouldn't he become a star if he decided to join the track team with the right level?
"For now, don't change my sleep and awake time." It wasn't as if thirty minutes was a big difference anyway.
[Will do.]
Nodding to himself, Reed picked up his backpack from the ground, took out some supplies and a blank notebook. He added the print 'Art' to the cover then proceeded to turn his laptop on.
The screen blinked.
It was time to draw...draw...and learn how to draw.
In this masterful age of the internet, going about learning something was as easy as a click away, it was as if his System had been born from the untouched intellectual web—tapping into a source of almost limitless knowledge.
After searching YouTube for awhile, digging down to the basics, he found a channel called 'The Drawing Database' and a slew of playlists on that platform. What drew his eyes was one titled 'THE BASICS', it was exactly what he had been looking for, a type of 'guide' that would walk him through his first steps of drawing.
"The cube, sphere, and cylinder are your best friends, they really are. They can be made from simple two dimensional shapes like the square, circle, and rectangle and turned into three dimensional forms with depths…practice drawing them, practice...the eclipse is...perspective, perspective…it's also good to draw as much as you can whenever you can…if you draw, you're an artist."
Reed listened with his headphones plugged in and followed along with the man on the screen in his notebook. It seemed tedious but he earmarks anticipated an increase in his rank. Whether it was construction, perspective, or shading...everything seemed to come naturally to him.
"Maria, are you sure I will need 10 days to complete that mission?" Reed raised a brow in doubt.
[No, it was nothing more than an estimation based on your prior work ethic and familiarity with the subject.]
'Prior huh…How long do you think it will take now?'
[Likely 5 days.]
He smiled, humming as he continued.
Time flew and he became lost in his work. The sensation was almost foreign to him but there was a soothing familiarity that seemed a guide. His pencil and eraser both danced for dominance, with each line of graphite he made, there seemed to be an accompanying dust of rubber. For the first time, watching as his notebook became filled with all sorts of shapes and pictures, all sorts of ideas jumbling together to create 'art', he felt as if he was running towards a goal.
Running towards a goal with both mind and body as one.
'That girl is strange…' He muttered, 'It was almost like she could see through me.'
There was a bit of sweat on his brows, that was the level of focus he had reached.
An alarm blared.
He paused the video and turned left to see his alarm glowing blue with the led displaying 7:00 AM.
"Ah...that much time has passed huh." He had been working for almost two hours.
He hadn't even realized he had truly achieved a flow with his work. There was a sense of enjoyment, satisfaction, and pride in his heart. He wondered, should he become an artist? But he remembered...as long as he drew, he was already an artist.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone