Chapter 11. The Price of Progress

After I closed the dictionary, hundreds of new words were still swirling in my head like a disturbed swarm of bees. Spanish, which had always seemed like an impregnable fortress to me, suddenly began to yield. I felt an incredible surge of euphoria, something akin to an electric discharge coursing through my entire body. Opportunities that once seemed unreachable were now literally resting in the palm of my hand.

I had never been good with foreign languages. At school, every lesson turned into torture: I had to hammer grammar rules and word lists into my head just to get a mediocre grade. At some point, exhausted by this hopeless struggle, I listened to my teachers and focused on subjects that came more easily to me. The dream of becoming a polyglot was buried under a pile of math and economics textbooks. And now, in just two hours, I had mastered almost all the words in the dictionary under the letter “A”. My head buzzed unpleasantly, my temples throbbed, but the excitement inside drowned out any pain. If the system allows learning languages this quickly, then what is stopping me from going further? Why limit myself to just a military career? With a tool like this, I could become a PhD in any field I wanted.

My thoughts raged, giving me no peace. My skull felt like a boiling cauldron. Despite the deep night, sleep would not come. On the contrary, I felt nauseous from the mental strain, and colored spots floated before my eyes. A month ago, I would have suffered: I would have taken a painkiller and tossed in the dark until dawn, cursing my insomnia. But now I had other methods.

[Special Command: Fall Asleep Instantly]

[Warning! Recovery Mode Activated]

[Trainer Presence Optimizes Sleep Cycles]

[Recovery Efficiency: +200%]

[Warning! Special Commands: 0/3]

Wow, now that was unexpected. It was the first time I had managed to burn through the entire limit. Morning training, an evening Spanish marathon, and now forced sleep, my daily reserve was completely drained. On top of that, I had already figured out through experience that these commands do not recover gradually on some kind of timer. They only return in full after genuinely high-quality, deep sleep. Looks like I need to be more careful and always keep at least one charge in reserve for an emergency shutdown like this.

The moment that thought fully formed, darkness, thick and velvety, swallowed my headache, my nausea, and my very identity. I dropped into oblivion instantly.

Morning greeted me with perfect silence and a feeling of absolute freshness. No negative consequences from yesterday’s knowledge assault. It was pure bliss to feel completely renewed. For a moment, I recalled my college years, those awful nights when I drank too much, barely crawled into bed, and then woke up feeling like a truck had run over my head. After those “fun” evenings, it took another full day to recover. Maybe I should start drinking again? No, that was a bad joke. Even back then alcohol brought me little pleasure, and now, when something much bigger is at stake, wasting time on such nonsense would be a crime.

I glanced at the wall clock and nearly jumped out of my skin.

[10:14]

How?! I always woke up exactly after eight hours, the Trainer never failed. And now, a full ten hours of uninterrupted sleep!

I quickly turned on the computer and opened my precious Excel file, where I meticulously recorded all observations about the system. The numbers did not lie. My analytics formed a clear, though not very pleasant, picture: the first time, six hours were enough for full recovery. After I used hyperfocus, sleep increased to eight hours. And now, after activating it twice in one day, the cost had risen to ten hours.

So that is the price of progress. Every use of hyperfocus is paid for with accumulated fatigue and two additional hours of sleep. Not exactly pleasant, but entirely manageable. Considering how fast I was advancing, it was more than a fair trade. Especially since I was in no rush: no job, no burning deadlines, and for the money I paid them, the instructors would welcome me with open arms at any time of day.

The invigorating smell of breakfast greeted me in the kitchen.

“¡Hola, mamá!” I called out cheerfully as I entered the room.

Mom froze with a ladle in her hand and raised her eyebrows in surprise while serving me a portion of tuna with chicken.

“What got into you today, amigo?” there was a hint of irony in her voice.

“Nothing special, just decided it is time to get serious about Spanish,” I smiled broadly and sat down at the table. “Danny said it is a very useful skill in the current reality.”

“Are matadors preparing to attack our country?” Mom snorted skeptically, adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her nose.

“I asked him the same question,” I poured myself a full glass of milk, enjoying its coolness. “But Danny insists it is necessary for communication with allies. Looks like my childhood dream is finally coming true, I am going to start traveling. At the very least, across Latin America.”

Mom paused for a moment, turning away from the stove, and looked at me seriously.

“So now you are supposed not only to run around training grounds, but also cram textbooks?” she shook her head disapprovingly. “Our army is demanding too much from you. Are they at least going to pay you extra for this? For the additional strain on your brain?”

“Honestly, I have no idea,” I admitted, putting the first piece of tuna into my mouth. “But that is a great question. I will definitely clarify it at the next meeting.”

“Then invite him to our house,” Mom oddly, almost predatory, ran her hand over her notebook, where she usually wrote down recipes or to-do lists. “I have a couple of questions for your supervisor as well.”

I genuinely felt sorry for the guy. Mom had a talent for conducting intense interrogations disguised as polite conversation. I decided to myself that I would only invite Danny in the most extreme case. He had just started to grow on me, and the last thing I wanted was to watch that beach boy slowly die under my mother’s hospitality.

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After breakfast, I headed to the gym. It was already almost noon, two hours later than my usual schedule. Office workers and students had not yet flooded the machines, and the housewives who usually occupied the gym at nine in the morning had already scattered to their errands.

I stood in the center of the hall, took a deep breath, tuning myself to the right mindset, and activated the command.

[Special Command: Train All Muscle Groups with Maximum Efficiency]

The world around me instantly narrowed down to the grips of machines and the weight plates on the barbell. The surrounding reality lost its sharpness, turning into a blurred background. Time seemed to jump: I did not feel pain in my muscles, did not notice sweat running down my back, I simply fast-forwarded through several hours of exhausting work, immediately arriving at the final point. My body hummed with overflowing strength, every muscle filled with lead, yet it was a pleasant heaviness.

System message windows began to appear before my eyes one after another:

[Strength +1]

[Agility +1]