Savage Awakening 583. Boot Camp (IV)

The deadlift platform had an industrial feel to it. It looked like the kind of thing he might see around shipping containers. It was twenty feet thick and built of some of the highest-grade steels and runes in all of Boot Camp. It was clearly meant to take some pretty heavy loads.

There were three main parts to it—the deadlifting platform itself, which was a bar situated on a forklift-like lift. There were a series of hooks welded to the edges, through which the Sage cheerfully laced a giant chain. There were also winch systems off to the sides.

“This station should be your workhorse,” the Sage told him. “Your bread-and-butter physique trainer. Strong enough to take you all the way from Level I to Level X, all the way to the Fifth Titanform. You’ll get some good gains from the machines. But this beauty right there—”

He slapped it affectionately. “It’s all you need to get to the top! I’m still using something like it myself, actually, even now—see that big ol’ thing, all the way out right?”

Zane nodded. It was pretty hard to miss. The Sage was pointing to the other big black hole, which sat at the far edge of the camp.

“That one’s got most of the higher-category Kaijuu in there,” said the Sage. “Some real fun ones—a whole bunch of Category IIs, even a Category III, this ferocious ol’ thing I used to have a hard time with, even when I was in my prime! I’ve got that one rigged up already. Can’t wait to get on it myself, once we get things underway… Here, lad. You’ll need this.”

He handed Zane a thick leather weight belt, which he wrapped around his belly. “Hook the chains on, will you? There you go.”

“Will you be working through Fifth Titanform levels or something?” Zane had never actually seen the Sage doing hard physique training, now that he thought about it. He’d seen the old fellow fight, but he’d never seen what that Fifth Titanform could really do up close—what it even meant.

“That’s the hope! I’ll try damned hard to get there, that’s for sure. Most of my work’s rehab. I’ve still got a ton of that grunt work cut out for me.” The Sage stopped his work to frown down at his physique. “The worst of that little snake’s Destruction’s faded by now. And I’ve wrestled away control of a good chunk of it, especially after that last romp in the Ruins… but hells, does healing take a while. Paid the price of defeat. Hells, did that one sting…”

The Sage grunted. “Don’t you get injured, lad, that’s the lesson. ‘Least, not like I did—that kind of bone-deep, soul-deep Destruction. Nothing sets you back worse than a bad injury.”

Then the Sage thought about it some more. “Actually, scratch all that. The lesson is, just don’t lose! Then you won’t have to deal with all kinds of nonsense.”

They shared a grin. “I could ask Reina about it,” Zane offered. “I’m sure she could get some of her Grand Alchemists to help. She’s had a lot of luck with fixing up that Haxorax guy too.”

“Might be I’ll take you up on that,” chuckled the Sage. “After I’m done with the worst of it, though. What that snake did, it’s scarring down to the deeper level of the soul, lad—no elixir’s fixing that. That battle’s one I’ll have to face on my own. Which is just how I like it, as it happens… Right! Try giving me a good hard stomp, will you?”

Zane did, and found he only blasted off about three feet before the chains yanked him back for a crash landing. The Sage nodded. “Now, I normally wouldn’t bother with these things. And it’s not for safety, mind you.”

For some reason, the Sage felt that was important to clarify. “It’s to lock you in for the dead hauls. When you’re doing hauls at your limits, if you’re not anchored down, it’s pretty damned hard to avoid getting thrown overboard. What you’re doing is essentially playing tug-of-war with a damned black hole, after all.”

The Sage seemed pleased at the thought. “You don’t need the chains so much for deadlifts, since most of the force’s going straight down on those. You fail bad on a deadlift, you’ll just black out, wake up on the platform with a few torn muscles—that’s fine.”

“...What exactly are dead hauls again?”

At this point, the Sage realized he hadn’t actually introduced what Zane would be doing yet.

This station offered two main exercises: deadlifts, which Zane was pretty used to. There was a barbell there, and each end had a chain on it. The chains then lowered down to two cruise-ship-worthy anchors a few feet below the platform.

“Now, progressing the lift’s pretty simple. Just give the chains some slack—drop the anchors a hundred feet, and suddenly the Gravity Law acting on it’s a hell of a lot stronger. And the weight’s not just staying still, either, like your normal deadlift! It’ll feel like you’re getting sucked into a godsdamned whirlpool, since it’s swept up in all those Gravity currents. That’s where the ‘fighting the Black Hole’ bit comes in. Sometimes it feels like you’re wrestling with nature itself.”

The Sage had also drawn a series of chalk marks, each a few dozen miles lower, ending at the event horizon.

“You’ll need damn near peak T1-level strength to challenge the Event Horizon,” warned the Sage. “That’s tough for anyone. Though with all the level gains you’ll be making, and the Pure Size gains to boot…it’ll be a stretch goal, lad. But I’d say it’s a worthy one to put your mind to. That’s pure physical strength gains, mind you! We’re not talking Skills or other Laws or anything like that—you’ll just use your Titanform and the essence fueling it to make these lifts. The goal here’s to isolate your physique, make sure it gets all the gains. We’re talking sheer Zane strength.”

This approach made quite a bit of sense to Zane, and he’d done this kind of thing in physical training before with the Sage. He could stomp a bunch of times with Overlord Annihilation Charge to get the weight up. But the point here was to train and hammer his body.

“Sound good, lad?”

“Yeah, let’s do it,” said Zane, nodding. He saw what the Sage was going for.

If he managed to eventually build a physical base that strong—get up to T1 and beyond in just pure physical strength, leveling up his Fourth Titanform as he did—and then break through to True God right after…he quite liked his position. 

The King Astrolith fight, and his chains breaking there, had been a pretty stark wake-up call for him. He’d long considered his physique his strength, but he still felt he could never be complacent there.

Raising his strength metrics wouldn’t just let him take down Monsters like the King Astrolith much easier, physically speaking. With the way his Titanform worked, the more he tempered his physique, the more he tempered his soul weapon. He’d just be that much harder to break, too.

He asked the Sage about that, who confirmed it.

“You’re at peak Divine Profound now, lad. Won’t be long before you’re getting into Origin-grade durability. Just a few body levels, I’d wager. If you get deep enough into Origin, and I guarantee you that damned King would be a trussed-up pig! Couldn’t break your chains if it wanted to… there’s other benefits, too, ‘course. You said you were eyeing up that 100-Million-Year Bone in the System Store, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s next up for me.” 

“Still don’t know where the hells it got that,” said the Sage. “Even I’ve only got a 70-Million-Year Bone… anyway, my bone would only take me when I got past an Origin-grade physique. That kind of proud bone—damn near a one-of-a-kind bone—it’d need a top-tier physique to support it, too. What I’m saying is, there’s just no downside to getting strong. But you knew that.” 

Zane was pretty clear-eyed on what’d be up next now; this just confirmed it. He was entering a grind, a foundation-building phase for what might be the last time before… honestly, before he fought Malzareth. It was the kind of physical work that tended to pay dividends later when he started stacking Bones, and Skills, and shards on top of that foundation. When he started fighting T2 Monsters and stronger, he needed a body that could handle that load.

Though he did expect to see some significant gains up front. He was quite excited to see how far he could take this deadlift, actually.

“Let’s set this to… a five-hundred-mile lift ought to do it,” said the Sage, shaking him out of his thoughts. “Just a starter lift. You ready, lad?”

He nodded. “Give it to me.”

The Sage cranked a lever, the chains clanked taut, and all the weight hit the bar at once. Zane instantly felt the gravity, already heavy on his body, ratchet up a level. He grunted.

Then he breathed out, set his jaw, and pulled. A few seconds later, the bar locked out.

“There you are, lad!” roared the Sage.

He did a few reps, just getting a feel for the weight.

After he finished the set, he almost instantly felt a familiar burning sensation in his limbs—one he hadn’t felt in ages. The feeling of his muscle fibers being forged by pure concentrated force.

“Five hundred miles moved easy as hell!” laughed the Sage. He gave Zane a proud head ruffle. “You haven’t let yourself rust at all down there… you damned freak, you!”

Zane grinned. It was one of the Sage’s most heartfelt compliments.

“I can do another 50%, at least,” he told the Sage. That felt like a good warm-up to him; he already felt a light pump building. Now he was quite curious to see just what he’d max out at. Five hundred miles was still pretty far from the event horizon—that thing sat something like three thousand miles in, judging by the chalk marks.

“We’ll have plenty of time to find your max,” said the Sage. “Let’s get you on the dead haul first, though. I’ve got this feeling you’ll like this one even more.”

This one was what most of the chains were for, according to the Barbarian Sage. There were a few tracks on the platform floor. The Sage shoved the side winches along them, joining them to make one giant winch.

“As you haul that chain, this’ll help wrap it up. All you’ll have to worry about is hauling that thing all the way… hmm.” The Sage considered him. “You still feeling fresh, lad?”

“Yeah,” said Zane. Then—“Just give me something that’ll push me a bit. I’ve got some capacity.”

The Sage looked a bit torn. “…I was trying to keep you from getting too banged up early, lad. There are a few exercises to go, including a damned Kaijuu fight… ah, to hells with it! You’ve got this!” 

Zane remembered the Sage saying this quite a few times, back when they were training with continents on Planet Press. He’d also gotten crushed a fair few times. So it gave him a moment’s pause.

But not too much pause. He still felt more excited than anything.

The Sage cranked it down to 700 miles. Deep enough that the anchor started swaying, twisting, and rattling—they could see the way the surface of the Divine Profound steel began to spark slightly, its bolts groaning and creaking…

It’d gotten sunk pretty deep into that Gravity Law whirlpool.

Zane set his feet and grabbed the chains.

“Bit of advice, lad,” said the Sage. “Make sure you don’t give it a damned inch. You let it get a little back, let it start wrestling you toward the edge, the lift’s as good as over… ready?”

Zane was, and he let the Sage know. 

The Sage cranked a lever, and the weight slammed Zane all at once, making him stumble just a step, making him grit his teeth and bear down—and the lift was on.

He roared, stomped, and wrenched hard.

The chains rushed back in a flood—links blasting by, wrapping into the winch, but his mind was already on the next haul. Keeping the momentum as he bent down, sank his fingers in, and hauled.

Again, and again, and again—those first three or four minutes were the hardest. Nine hauls in and he was already having to Limit Break; his muscles were screaming in protest. Then warlike chains broke all over his physique, and that gave him some margin to work with. It let him seize the momentum firmly.

“Start’s always the hardest—that’s when you’ve really got to dig in—you’re already past the worst of it, lad!” roared the Sage. “You keep on fighting, bring that damned anchor home!”

Zane did.

He never ended up letting that momentum go. Once he had it, he finished it—something he’d always been quite good at.

Deadlifts were the max power exercise. But he’d done max power before, even in the Pure Yang lands; he’d wrestled with the Astrolith King, which took a lot of that. He’d had to exert himself in fights. It didn’t hit his muscles as viscerally as a deadlift, but it felt like it worked something similar.

Dead hauls, on the other hand… it almost made him feel out of shape.

Which was a bit of an insane thing to think, even just looking at Zane and his physique. But it had him down to a knee by the end of it, sweat beading down his whole upper body.

“So how the hells was that!” said the Sage. “700’s damned brutal for a first haul… but I thought, ‘it’s the lad!’… You alright there?” 

Zane nodded as he got back to his feet, still breathing heavily, and wiped away some sweat. The Sage handed him a towel, which helped.

“Fuck,” said Zane, grinning. “I could get used to that.”