He grinned. He had used his trait three times already today. Under normal circumstances, he’d have to take a long break now, but because he’d taken so much time between each use, he could simply just keep on going. The three consecutive times rule was more important in longer fights where you might need to trigger an ability multiple times in a row.

Max stood up and started rushing through the clearing. As he ran through the woods looking for monsters to attack, he thought about how many more monster cores he could collect that day.

Let’s do this, he thought.

46

By the time Max had used his trait for the natural maximum limit of six that day, he had collected 168 copper monster cores.

He slouched against a tree and took in his profile.

Name: Max Rainhart

Rank: Unranked

Trait (Unique): Mimic. Unleash the last move you were hit with at double the power.

Strength: 8

Agility: 8

Endurance: 7

Mana Affinity: 7

Passive Skills:

Kokoro (Warrior Spirit)

He grinned. His agility stat had gone up by one point. That made sense to him. He had been running around the forest all day. Plus, running around on floor-2 would help increase his stats further and faster because he was training in an area with greater mana density.

That gave him another idea. He was full of them today it seemed.

For the rest of the afternoon, he was going to do Sakura’s training regimen inside the endless forest!

* * *

Max returned to the apartment that evening, sore and exhausted.

He’d ran consecutively for over an hour in the endless forest, doing laps between the floor’s two teleporters.

After he’d finished that, he’d done one hundred push-ups and sit-ups each.

And after all of that, his stats had gone up...zilch. Nothing.

As disappointed as he was, he decided he was going to continue this training regimen for the next two weeks.

The plan he had devised in the library still wasn’t ready for fruition yet and part of him wondered if he even had to do such a crazy plan any more.

He had 168 copper monster cores! He should be able to rank up in no time.

Max had a nice hot shower and then cooked dinner for himself and Sakura. After he’d done the dishes, he sat down with his pouch and began to drain the copper monster cores of their mana.

E-Rank here I come!

By the fifty-third copper monster core, he’d raised his mana affinity stat by two points, going from seven to nine.

Only two more points until I rank up, he thought, eagerly getting to work on draining the next monster core.

An hour later, he’d drained another fifty copper monster cores and his stat hadn’t budged at all. More than this, draining the cores didn’t take much effort anymore and it felt like nothing happened to his mana vessels as he drained the cores.