Chapter 23 - Theories

7 PM

"Boss."

"Mr. Kichirou."

"Owner!"

Fumio, Miss Konno, and Arina greet Red as he steps in the lounge area of Muscle Masters.

"Oh? I thought everyone left?" Red asks the guests in false surprise.

The guests, including the ones who already finished their massage in the morning, are still present. He grits his teeth looking at the mess, but realizing that it is natural for things to be messy with such number of guests around, he calms himself down.

"The team just want to thank you as a group for our first massage session in your shop." Arina says.

Her words trigger different forms of sincere thanks to Red from the girls.

"I'm just glad you are all satisfied with our services. I hope that you all come back soon." Red says in a shallow but polite bow.

"Mr. Kichirou, may we stay until you close shop?" Tomoko, the fifth oldest member, and the bubbliest of the group asks.

Red's face freezes for a split second at the request.

"Well. I know you all want to stay, but Mr. Kichirou here worked non-stop for eleven hours. Besides, it's already late, and you still have practice tomorrow." Miss Konno however knows better of the situation.

"Okay, manager." Tomoko can only accept, realizing her unreasonable request.

"Girls! We're rested and energized because of Mr. Kichirou. Why don't we show Mr. Kichirou our newest choreography?" She suddenly suggests to her group, which they are more than willing to do.

"PHUP!—" Fumio almost bursts out laughing.

"…" Arina and Miss Konno too are trying their best to hold in the awkwardness they are feeling as they already realized during their first visit, of Red's persistent disinterest of Musume46 and their music.

"Dear guests, while we'd love to, it's best if we see you all dance when we're fully rested. That way, we can appreciate it more. Instead, we'll go to your concerts!" Fumio says.

Red gives Fumio an approving glance. "We promise that." He says.

"Then how about we take a photo with Mr. Kichirou?" Tomoko suggests instead.

A minute later, Red and Fumio are the only one left in the shop.

"You're going to their concert alone." Red says as he shuts the door with his spiritual energy.

"You promised though?" Fumio scratches his head as he collects the last of the trash from the guests' take-out food and snacks.

"You can just wear an illusion of me. Their music is not my type." Red shrugs.

Fumio is speechless. "Shall I make you tea, boss?" He can only offer.

"Yeah. Sure." Red accepts as his throat is dry from talking all day to the customers during their sessions.

A few minutes later, Fumio is now serving Red tea at the common table.

"Boss. What did you put in that tea by the way? I've never was that focused on a job before." Fumio asks as he sits down.

"Hmm. Confidence?" Red chuckles.

"Come on…" Fumio gets frustrated at Red's non-answer. "Well. Whatever it is, it took the fun out of seeing Musume46." He says as he pours his own cup.

"You can go wild at their concert." Red says as he sips on his tea.

Fumio simply scoffs. He is about to ask something when Red puts his cup down, leans his back against the backrest of the chair and closes his eyes. He can only sip his tea as they descend to a comfortable silence.

A minute later, "HEHEh…" Red suddenly chuckles.

"…What's wrong, boss?" Fumio gets anxious feeling a cacophony of emotions in Red's simple chuckle.

"Oh. Nothing's wrong. It's just amusing, and mysterious, this world, is all." Red says.

While Fumio is a curious person, he feels as though Red's concern is too vague for him to even start a question.

Red meanwhile, is both disgusted and puzzled at what he has seen in his guests during their massage service.

After finding out Fumio's spirit root, he decided to scan more people more closely to see how common spirit roots are and his guests were the perfect candidates.

With Shigeo, Red did not find a spirit root in the man's brain stem. While trying to get a closer look however in other perspectives, he found out something that disgusted him. Spirit Root Mutation and a type of which he has never seen before.

Shigeo's spirit root is spread out thinly across his body; so thin that he would have missed it had he not focused, or would have not missed it had he been using his spiritual sense as an immortal.

While Red's spirit sense is not strong enough, he sees that the branches of the spirit root are running along where Shigeo's spirit meridians should be; another thing that disgusts Red. The spirit root and spirit meridians should be connected, and not merged.

Red also discovered the same thing with the 16 members of Musume46.

He then figured that those disgustingly mutated spirit roots are the cause of the Superioris Phenomenon.

While scanning his guests' spirit roots, he also sent sparks of his own spiritual energy on them, and he found that their mutated spirit roots are conducive to spiritual energy.

In Arina's case, when Red sent spiritual energy to her spirit root, Arina's powers glitter ability activated. While Red was startled at his discovery and was a bit apprehensive of getting caught in the act, Arina simply brushed it off as an accidental activation due to the pleasure of the massage.

These observations resulted to Red coming up with a few theories about the Superiori.

One, the superiori's spirit roots being mutated also forcibly mutated their biology, just like the types of mutated spirit roots he saw before.

Two, they use their spirit root to activate their abilities. They unknowingly use absorb spiritual energy, convert it to 'Superioris Energy' which the people of this world theorized, and use that theoretical energy to power their abilities.

Red is confident that 'Superioris Energy' exists as he felt it the most apparent during Shigeo's psionic scan on him and while fighting Fire Colossus when Fire Colossus' fire gauntlets exploded at him.

Lastly, which Red is yet to prove, is that non-superiori like Fumio, most likely have an untapped, unmutated, and natural spirit roots.

Red is curious how rare potential cultivators like Fumio are in this world, but for now, his spiritual sense is too important for him to use freely.

What bothers him the most in his observations today, is that he has no idea how these mutations happened in the first place.

But not knowing where to start, he drops the matter for now. He has a more important thing to deal with.

"Anyways. How do you feel? Do you feel tired?" Red asks.

"Not really… Come to think of it… Even though I didn't do much today…" While speaking, Fumio catches a smirk on Red's face and, "…I feel fresh.", he finishes his sentence while connecting dots.

"Boss. Is it that tea again?" He asks.

"Uhuh." Red nods.

"Okay. Boss. I really have to ask now." Fumio is offended and feels as if he is violated in a way, so he no longer holds back.

"Even though I owe you a lot, including you saving my life yesterday, I still have to know what I'm putting in my body. So, boss. What was in that tea? What did it do to me? Should I be worried of side effects and addiction?" He finally spills his concern and questions.

"You're right. It was wrong of me to give you something like that tea without telling you what it's for." Red nods, approving of Fumio's attitude.

"Just like my massage solutions, that tea's just 'nother thing only I can concoct. What it does is it blocks your emotions from affecting your thinking and actions. At the same time, it allows you to quickly fill your stamina back even without much rest." He explains.

"Wh-." Fumio processes before, "Are there any side effects?", he asks in worry, finding the effects too good to not have consequences.

"None. Don't worry. And it's not addictive too. Also, it only lasts for 8 hours, so it should have lost effect already three hours ago. After the effects wear off, you're back in the condition you were in before you drank that tea." Red explains.

"Oh… Okay." Fumio is relieved. "But… it's gonna mess with my sleep though." He shakes his head.

"Ah. You don't have to worry about that." Red says. "After all. You're starting your training with me tonight. And by the end of it, you will sleep the longest you've ever slept before." He discloses.

"Already?! Really?" Fumio stands up in excitement.

"Don't be too excited, kid."

.

.

.

"Uhhhh… shit shit shit shit shit…" Fumio feels that his muscles are at the point of tearing.

He is now currently on the floor of the shop, wearing nothing but his boxers, his legs spread apart almost at a hundred eighty-degree angle, only a bit short of a full side split.

"More… more…" Red who is seated at a lotus position just a step away in front of Fumio, orders almost dismissively while fiddling with his phone.

"Well. C-can you give me a hand, boss? It's just a bit, and I'm good." Fumio feels as if it is already his limit for a split.

"No. I am not a yoga instructor and this is not yoga. You, by yourself, have to achieve the poses from the start, or they will be useless." Red says.

"B-boss… I'm cramping again…" Fumio says as he starts to feel painful muscle spasms in his thighs.

Red reaches his left palm out to Fumio, makes it glow green, and touches Fumio.

A few seconds later, "Ahhh.. thanks boss.", the spasms are gone and Red goes back to his phone.

Fumio, getting another boost, tries again.

Soon enough, he is now on a full side split. His torso is upright and his hands resting on his legs.

"I did it! Boss! I did it!" Fumio celebrates as he rests the rest of his weight on his stretched legs.

"Good…" Red just nods, his reaction disappointing Fumio. "Now. Hold that position and try your best to relax... And close your eyes." He instructs again and Fumio obeys.

"Now, with your abdomen, inhale to the fullest your lungs can handle… Then hold it for three seconds. Good… Now exhale…"

A cultivator starts with body refining stage. Once they have completed refining their bodies to the limit, do they get promoted to the high mortal level. Red now is starting to teach Fumio one of the most basic breathing methods for body refining stage.

After ten repetitions of the breathing exercise, "Boss…", Fumio calls out with lungs burning.

He is also sweating profusely, but unlike his sweat earlier, the sweat dripping off of his body and forehead is oddly cold to him. "I think I'll faint…" He says.

"Alright. Back to regular breathing. For your first attempt, you did quite alright." Red nods.

While 10 repetitions of the breathing exercise are not that impressive to him, he is satisfied.

"Boss… *huff* Attempt you say? *huff* Attempt to what?" Fumio asks in between gasps.

"Yes. Attempt. Here's what we're trying to do… An inhale and an exhale are one repetition. You need 64 continuous repetitions to complete a cycle. And once you can complete a cycle can you graduate from this position." Red says.

"S-shit… and there's 15 more positions…" A huge pressure dawns on Fumio.

"What? These 16 poses are just to condition your body for the real training." Red says.

"Just conditioning…" Fumio is not sure if he heard it right.

Suddenly, "AH!", he yells out of surprise as his thighs start cramping up again.

"There… There…" Red performs a healing technique once again. "Alright. You can rest now." He says.

"Oh.. . thank goodness." Fumio then gets out of his splits with great difficulty.

"But damn… Yeah. This is indeed just stretching. I can't even imagine when the real work out starts." He can only sigh thinking about what is coming next for him.

"What? Ready to give up?" Red asks.

"Psh… Boss… If I can get even half your strength, I can take much more than this." Fumio chuckles.

"Good. Now, try again.." Red nods.