Time slowly passed by, as Felix and Olivia were almost about to finish their 5 km exercise. Felix trained with utmost focus, looking only straight ahead. Meanwhile, Olivia kept stealing quick glances at him.

If that was only it, Felix wouldn’t be bothered, but every time she peeked at him, she opened her mouth trying to say something. However, in the end, she closed it shut and continue to run in silence.

Annoyed yet somewhat piqued, he removed his air pods and asked, “Out with it. What do you want to say?”

Olivia stumbled on the treadmill almost falling flat on her face after being found out. He chuckled at this sight, making her cheeks flush red.

“Thank you, Felix, I appreciate your promise.” She avoided eye contact with him, as she shyly buried her head downward.

“Don’t mention it anymore.”

He waved his hand casually and wore his air pods back on, focusing on the last 500 meters left.

Olivia smiled and stopped peeking at him.

…..

4 minutes later…

Felix cleaned his body from sweat while drinking a small bottle of water. After finishing it half of it, he closed the lid and walked on the treadmill while stretching his shoulders, preparing for the next exercise.

After a while, Olivia finished as well. She turned off the treadmill and stood on the gym floor with her hands on her knees, breathing ruggedly.

It was not just her, but almost everyone was either training hard while breathing roughly with sweaty armpits and back, or lying on the ground unmoving.

If it was not for their chest that was rising and falling periodically, the rest would have assumed they had died.

A clear contrast to Felix who dropped into the floor after few minutes break, and began doing his required 50 pushups without making a sound.

For Felix who spent 6 months in the island training in the gym each day, this was merely a warm-up. However, for those juniors who probably never wore their training outfit, since the moment they began their mission, this was pure hell.

The family took into consideration their bodies’ long inactivity and lowered the fitness training to the bare minimum. This helped Felix breeze through it with ease.

His cousins just gazed in his direction with envious looks, wishing to trade their trashy stamina, that couldn’t even let them finish 20 pushups properly, with his.

Olivia stood next to him, staring in wonder at his endless stamina. She couldn’t help but ask with admiration.

“Felix, how did manage to build such good endurance? I have been training two times a week to keep myself always in shape, but my endurance did not improve much. I always get easily tired.”

Felix froze with his hands extended straight and stared at her with a serious expression. Olivia gulped at his solemn look, expecting to hear his secret. Eager, her ears wiggled slightly.

Too bad, she forgot she was dealing with Felix.

“Isn’t obvious? How could you have the same vigor as I, with your tiny lungs? You probably have difficultly even breathing normally.”

Furious at being played like this, Olivia stomped his head with her leg, while huffing, “You promised you will stop bullying me. This is your punishment for lying.”

Felix didn’t even get a chance to feel smug about his prank before his face got planted on the gym floor.

”What the fuck, did she really change that much? To actually retaliate and dare beat me up. It seems that Little Oli is serious in showcasing to everyone that she is not an easy target.’

‘Well might as well assist her.’ he grinned cunningly, unnoticed by anyone.

“Owwwww!! my face, you broke my nose, Olivia. How can you be this brutal? I was just teasing you like always.” Felix cried out loud pitifully while covering his nose with both of his hands.

He sent a wink at the dumbfounded Olivia, who thought her leg strength couldn’t even harm a fly; don’t even mention breaking someone’s nose.

Thrilled and excited at this turn of events, the juniors gloated at Felix who was whining on the floor. They never thought that Olivia, the sweetest flower in the family to actually hit someone. But god damn, if it didn’t feel good to see that devil on the ground like that.

“Good job Olivia, always hit him back if he bullies you.”

“That’s right, you don’t have to fear him, as he won’t dare to hit you, or else Elder Robert will cut his balls.”

“I never thought I would see her hit someone in my life honestly.”

“Same, she always got protected by seniors or us when she got bullied. That’s why I guess,”

“Let’s cheer for her, so she won’t forget this moment.”

“….” Noah

The cousins were not cheap in their cheers and applause, as they kept chanting her name with genuine smiles.

Olivia was the only cousin who had a friendly relationship with everyone. Her social influence was quite high to the point, if she made a request no one would say no to her face. Yet, she had no idea about any of this, as she never requested anything in her life.

That’ why; she was quite shy about thanking Felix for his promise. She was not used to such a thing.

Dumbstruck, Olivia stood with parted lips and wide eyes at this sight. She didn’t understand how her unconscious stomp would turn things this way.

She peeked at Felix, the propagator of this entire charade, and saw that he was scratching his nose with a finger.

Felix gave her thumbs up to encourage her after noticing her peeking at him.

Olivia felt her heart warm up at this sight. She figured out easily that Felix was trying to help her build an adult image. Just like she always wanted but never could.

She had no idea how to do so properly. It’s not like she could point her finger at someone and order him to treat her like an adult.

If she went forward and did that with her short height and cute face, her image would instantly get fixed as being childish forever. So, she really appreciated this opportunity and decided to play along with Felix.

Assertive, she puffed-out her chest (she had one in her point of view) and placed her little feet on Felix’s back like a champion.

“I will not let you or anyone else to bully or tease me like a child. If anyone did so, I don’t mind breaking his nose as well. Understood?”

Afraid and respectful, Felix replied loud and clear, “Yes Big sister Olivia, I will not bully you anymore.”

It would be fine and dandy, if he wasn’t making funny faces in the process, at Olivia to make her laugh and break out of character.

Olivia tried her best to hold her laughter while looking at his retarded face. “Good, this is the last time. Now scram to your room.” She ordered with a forced rigid face.

Felix understood her cue and escaped towards the elevator while holding his nose.

The moment he left the gym, the juniors broke into loud cheers after Olivia exiled the devil who traumatized them.

They grouped around Olivia and lifted her small body, throwing her in the air, like a bag of potato chips.

…..

Felix was currently in his room finishing the leftover pushups. “I hope that was enough to head start her image reform. Otherwise, when she visits the UVR, she will be bullied to death.”

After finishing the last push up, he took his phone and called his grandfather.

“What do you want rascal.”

“I will finish the training exercises in my room since I was kicked out by boss Olivia.” Felix chuckled.

“Haha, Boss Olivia. If she heard you say it, she won’t be able to sleep tonight properly.”

“Go ahead, you can do them in your room every day, but use the treadmill for running. FUCK! Got to go, Olivia just vomited over everyone’s head after being thrown in the air like a plaything.”

He immediately hanged up and announced through his microphone. “You rascals, go clean yourself up, and start training properly. And someone takes Olivia to the nursing room, she does not look alright. NOW MOVE!”

Felix held his waist as he laughed out loud. He couldn’t help but do so after imagining Olivia vomiting her breakfast from the sky on everyone’s heads, like rain from above.

‘Now they will truly fear you little Oli.’

….

Half an hour later…

Felix lay on the bed with turned on a laptop on his stomach, wearing cozy pajamas. He already finished all of his exercises and showered properly.

Without further ado, he clicked on the email the family sent, planning to check on the merit system and its shop.

In his previous life, he could only watch those resources pass by him, without being able to hold them.

All of the points he collected were used to secure two pain relief potions. It was not like he was richer than other juniors, rather, they focused on other resources ignoring those potions, as they had no idea how important shaving 20% duration off their awakening. They were too consumed with other cool looking items and substances.

Felix himself wanted to buy them as well, but each time he tried to so, he ended finding ‘out of stock’ written on the shop. So he could only use his points for those two potions.

Thank god for that.

After clicking the family email, he ignored the merit system explanation and scrolled down until he saw a link to a website.

Felix clicked on it and was transferred into a new tab. The connection was quite fast, as the page load instantly, displaying a shop with items, each with their price tag on and the number of quantity on its stock.

“Good, nothing has changed. The prices are still the same.”

He kept scrolling down the item list while nodding his head from time to time at their cheap prices.

Hell, Pain Relief potion was being sold outside for 10,000 SC, while here Felix could obtain it by trading 10000 merits. A two week of training without missing a single exercise.

But those were not his aim. He would leave them to his cousins to use. What he really wanted were the elemental stones. So he could start working on increasing his poison affinity to peak, ASAP.

“It’s time to put that lazy bum to work. Otherwise, she will feel too comfortable in my consciousness.”

Vexed, he rubbed his temples, expecting a headache at the thought of Asna, that freeloader who only wants to do the minimum possible effort to help him in his path.