Chapter 8 - Body Tempering  

"Hey! Who the hell is he?"

"Is he trying to get some attention by doing these weird poses?"

"Dude, yoga class is 3 streets down. Go do your cat and cow poses there!"

"How embarrassing? You should just uninstall the game already!"

"What a sissy! Look at how clean his skin is! I bet he is the bottom for some dude."

Liam, however, did not even hear the taunts which were aimed at him and what he was doing.

Using medicinal herbs and beast essences to remove impurities from the body was just the basic starting step.

In order to truly temper one's body and make it a perfect vessel to use and absorb mana, there were still lot more steps left to be done.

And among all the things, Liam had chosen to focus on this particular one first.

Even though he had learned many lessons the last time around, all of them in the hardest way possible, one of the most important lessons was the significance of the body's foundation.

If the foundation was not perfect, then everything after that would forever hold flaws and one would never be able to reach the pinnacle of power and strength.

So Liam ignored the several eyes that looked at him mockingly and continued doing the series of body tempering movements, the purpose of which was to remove the second layer of impurities in his flesh and muscles.

In fact, these movements were not some ancient secret art and were nothing flashy.

They were just simple movements and just like someone had commented, they were a combination of strength training and flow yoga exercises.

This would be soon revealed to other players in a month or so but by then the game would have already exploded and several people would regret not having done these basics when they were just starting out as this was the most optimal time to condition one's body.

Of course, it was also possible to do it later on, but the effects were not as pronounced.

And there was also one more reason why Liam had chosen to do this set of exercises in the training hall right in front of everyone and especially the instructor!

This was the trigger for a unique quest!

Liam worked hard, his body covered by a layer of sticky sweat as he continuously wrung himself into various shapes and sizes.

Almost 3 hours had passed and the crowd around him waxed and waned, everyone coming in and out of the training hall watching him for a bit before they chuckled to themselves and left to continue their own quests.

Only a few had stayed continuously and had been observing Liam from the beginning. These were the players grinding with the scarecrows for extra stats.

"How many hours do you guys think this fool is going to burn? I want to see what the idiot accomplishes." A tall, lean and muscular guy commented as he swung his sword, hitting the training dummy skillfully.

Next to him, there were two young women who seemed to be in their early twenties and were also quite eye catching.

They had a slender body with ample curves and also good facial features.

The one on the right, with long red hair added to the man's comment. "You should stop worrying about others and look at your own progress."

"Aye! Alex, stop being so mean to me!" The tall guy immediately sighed to which the woman named Alex simply scoffed in return.

"This is taking long. I don't think there is any more point in doing this. Let's go." Mia added, the woman on the left with long curly blond hair.

"Ahh… But I really want to see what that guy is up to."

"Shut up, Rey. If you want, you keep wasting your time. Alex and I will be leaving."

"Alright. Alright. Sis, please. Don't say such drastic things." The tall guy named Rey folded like a pack of cards and relented to his two headstrong sisters.

However, he only did so because unlike his other girl friends, his two sisters were in fact monsters when it came to gaming.

If they had wanted they could have easily made a career in esports, but they just played for fun occasionally with him.

All three of them were from wealthy families and did not have the need or necessity to work for their money or food.

The returns from their investments alone were enough to feed their next nine generations.

They had only logged into 'Evolution Online' because of the craze the game had created by hacking and crashing all the other games into oblivion.

Since almost everyone and the news channel were talking about 'Evolution Online', the three of them also entered the game to see what it was all about.

And Rey did not want to miss this golden opportunity to be carried by the two goddesses. So he tagged along with them to explore this new and mysterious world.

The three of them chatted and quickly gave up on rote grinding for bonus stats and went into the training hall to select their class.

Players were able to select a specific class to play any time starting from Level 1, but once they select a class it was not possible to undo their selection or pick a new one as selecting a class was not as simple as tapping an option on the status screen.