And she does, after finishing lunch and putting everything away again, taking a half hour nap to rest her aching legs and fuzzy mind, that turns into a two hour nap which she wakes up from groggy and confused and with kind of a migraine and aching legs.

What...? Oh, right. Well, it's 3 in the afternoon, she can make her way home, pack up enough stuff to stay here for a month or two, then maybe go preemptively grocery shopping too. Get back around six... And then try for a third strand with a bit more of that partially used pill, but without the kicking technique. (Urgh. That sounds pretty unpleasant, but well, no pain no gain.) Yeah, that sounds like a plan.

She puts it into practice.

After another three hours of work, she tries the meditation again - but her fuzzy brain can't focus enough to perform the final drawing-out-and-fusion. The half-formed strand slips away from her completely, and by the time she's recovered enough to make a second attempt, the blood and qi have drained away. She's left exhausted and with nothing to show for her evening.

Okay. That was a thing. She doesn't use a blood-and-qi pill to alleviate the exhaustion. It'll go away on its own, probably. And it goes to show her what doing too much all at once will do: Waste effort for no good reason.

Two is still good for her first day, apparently. So.

Her life is about cultivation now. Tomorrow she's going to do this ridiculously intense magic workout again and she can not fuck it up. Though relaxing her mind enough to actually focus on it is probably a good plan.

Shower. Flop into bed. Try to watch youtube videos, fall dead asleep soon after instead.

In the morning, she texts her friends some and just randomly browses the internet, not quite wanting to get back to training just yet. Anything in the chatroom?

So, newbie made it through her first day without dying?

Dying inside maybe but I bet she's physically fine. Two strands, did you hear?

Better than my first day. 

I did better, but people keep calling me a genius.

lol humblebrag much

Just giving points for comparison.

Yeah, I am not very happy rn. but I am not gonna stop. Tried for a third and couldn't yesterday. I think I'm going to pretty muchj stop having a life while I do the hundred days foundation building, so... idk where I was going with that.

No wonder you look tired to the true self meditation. Take some time for yourself, hey? Enjoy your backing. Buy some shiny things, get it out of your system. If you overtrain it'll hamper you as much as undertraining.

Honestly I want to see how far you can push it.

Is my record in danger?~

Not likely.

I think Ravenous Blade has a point. The idea of training more right now fills me with dread. Nice restaurant and new laptop and etc sounds pretty nice. I don't really have a ton of friends to enjoy time with tho.

I could come drop by, I'm in the area. 

Eep. Well, slight eep.

No rudeness. And Black Claw isn't actually going to hurt her, right?

If you'd like to, Senior. It'd be interesting to meet someone higher level in person! Or I could take the day for myself, I could kind of use that as much as social time I feel like.

Don't call me Senior, I'm twenty-five. Save that kind of talk for the real seniors. 

Two P.M. work for you?

Two PM works fine. See you then.

Between now and then, though, she... Goes out to a nice breakfast place and orders two entrees and eats it all. Wanders into a department store and wanders out with clothes worth a week's wage. And buys a console and several Nintendo games.

She fusses with the console and the really nice TV for a bit before going back to the gym (at 10:30 AM, plenty of time) and working out with the fist and mobility and meditation techniques, trying for a new strand.

She gets it in two hours, same as her first one. That's three.

She's not going to push herself as hard today. Instead she swims, showers, lunches, cleans her three sets of dishes and puts them to dry, and then plays Super Mario Odyssey. 

...This is fun!

Eventually there's a loud buzz from the front door, followed by a clipped British voice:

"Abyssal Bride?"

Jump. Pause. "That's me!"

She goes over and opens the door. She's dressed in new black jeans she really liked and a black T-shirt with the NASA logo sprawled all across the front. "Hello! Black Claw?"

Black Claw comes around the corner. He's a slight, dark-haired boy a few years older than Trys, wearing a t-shirt with silver Nordic runes on it and a big grin. 

"Hey! Nice to meet you in the flesh. I'd hug you, but..." He shrugs. "You can call me Cocoa, my real name sucks. Super Mario Odyssey?"