Chapter 268: Just Go Further In

Chapter 268: Chapter 268: Just Go Further In

"Yes! Absolutely! Thank you so much!" The waiter’s voice brightened considerably as he watched the "Submission Successful" prompt on the light screen. "Well then, I’ll take these fish with me now. Your prepared meal will be delivered on time this evening."

The waiter left, satisfied with his big pile of fish and the positive review he’d received.

Quiet returned to the mobile cabin. Seraphina Sinclair stretched her stiff muscles, her gaze once again turning to the howling Wind-carved Fissure outside.

’Keep training.’

’It doesn’t matter if there are diminishing returns. As long as I work hard, even a tiny increase in attribute points is still an increase!’

’Small gains add up over time, building a strong foundation!’

She pulled her clothes tight, straightened them out a bit, and gave herself a mental pep talk before striding purposefully out the door.

She had just stepped into the Wind-carved Fissure when she seemed to remember something. Without even turning around, she backed right out in the same posture.

Once inside the cabin, she turned her head and, just as she expected, saw a Sunflower huddled in a corner, doing its best to be invisible.

Seraphina Sinclair: "..." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

’No wonder I felt like I forgot to do something today. So this little guy has gotten smart, trying to fade into the background to avoid being exploited by humans.’

’But unfortunately, avoiding exploitation is impossible.’

Seraphina Sinclair crossed to the corner in a few quick strides, looking down at the Sunflower that was trying to shrink itself into the wall.

"Don’t play dead," Seraphina Sinclair said, gently tapping its flowerpot with the toe of her boot. "Same as always. Time to sunbathe."

The Sunflower’s leaves drooped visibly. Its flower head turned reluctantly toward Seraphina Sinclair, its inner voice saying...

"No sun, no sun... Sun makes me hungry... hungry!"

’It has to sunbathe even if it gets hungry!’

Seraphina Sinclair didn’t want to waste energy placating a Sunflower that didn’t want to sunbathe right before her own brutal training.

She took out the Black Fog Lamp. Regardless of whether the Sunflower wanted to sunbathe or not, she switched on the light.

The moment the ’sun’ came out, its inner voice immediately changed: "So comfy..."

But soon, as if realizing something, the Sunflower started screaming frantically in its mind again: "Sun makes me hungry... hungry! But it’s so comfy... hungry! Comfy... hungry! Comfy..."

The complex inner monologue left Seraphina Sinclair speechless.

She glanced at the time, making a mental note to come back and collect the sunshine on schedule, then stepped into the Wind-carved Fissure once more.

Having familiarized herself with it all day yesterday, the Wind Blades now seemed like unfriendly old acquaintances to Seraphina Sinclair.

They were still sharp and deadly, but she now had a rough sense of their trajectories and patterns.

Her figure was like the wind as she weaved between jagged rocks and crisscrossing Wind Blades. Her movements were more fluid and natural than yesterday, and she could even occasionally tune into the complex inner monologue, alternating between "hungry" and "comfy," still coming from the Sunflower in the mobile cabin.

After about an hour and a half of high-intensity training, Seraphina Sinclair felt most of her stamina was gone, so she retreated to rest.

She turned off the Black Fog Lamp and skillfully collected the sunshine into her door card.

The Sunflower’s head wistfully followed the direction of the extinguished Black Fog Lamp, its inner voice turning into a pure: "Hungry... so hungry..."

Seraphina Sinclair turned a deaf ear, simply sitting on the floor beside the Sunflower to rest.

Lucky finally woke up just then. It lazily lifted its head from a soft cushion in the corner, gave a huge yawn, and revealed its sharp little teeth.

It shook its fluffy fur and trotted elegantly over to Seraphina Sinclair, rubbing its head against her arm.

"Awake now?" Seraphina Sinclair said, ruffling Lucky’s head. The fur felt as good as ever.

She took some food out of her earring, broke off a small piece of jerky she had stocked up, and offered it over. Lucky sniffed it, then swallowed it with a flick of its tongue, letting out a satisfied purr from its throat.

In just a few short days, its body had grown quite a bit larger, a fact that filled Seraphina Sinclair with emotion.

But until Lucky was fully grown, it was just Seraphina Sinclair’s pet, and nothing more.

With a human, a beast, and a plant for company, her rest time wasn’t so hard to bear.

Once she felt some of her stamina had returned, she plunged back into the Wind-carved Fissure without a second thought.

She repeated this cycle over and over until evening, when the waiter delivered the prepared all-fish feast.

She wolfed it down, left a positive review as usual, and then threw herself back into her evening training.

After the sky turned completely dark, Seraphina Sinclair dragged her nearly broken body back to the mobile cabin. She forced herself to tidy up before finally collapsing onto her bed.

In the last second before falling into a deep sleep, she habitually glanced at her Attributes panel.

[Speed: 28]

It had increased by another point.

Seraphina Sinclair was groggy, on the verge of sleep, when her eyes suddenly shot open.

’That’s not right.’

’Yesterday, I only trained for one afternoon plus two hours in the evening, and I gained one attribute point.’

But today, she’d trained from morning until night! For nearly twelve hours! She’d even used an Advanced Medical Kit several times to relieve the fatigue in her legs.

’After all that non-stop training, the result was exactly the same as yesterday?!’

The realization was like a bucket of ice water poured over her, instantly extinguishing Seraphina Sinclair’s drowsiness and snapping her wide awake.

She shot up in bed, ignoring the ache in all her muscles, and pulled up the Attributes panel again, staring intently at the "Speed: 28" line.

That was right. It had only increased by one point.

"The diminishing returns... are this severe?" Seraphina Sinclair muttered to herself, her expression turning grim.

Although she had known about it and prepared herself mentally, she hadn’t expected the drop-off to come so quickly and be so drastic!

It was only her second training session, and the effectiveness had already been more than halved!

’At this rate, tomorrow, the day after... how many times more effort will I need to put in just to gain a single attribute point?’

A heavy pressure settled over her.

She had thought she’d found a shortcut to rapidly improve, but it now seemed this path was far more arduous than she had imagined.

The higher the attribute points, the harder they are to raise—this was an ironclad rule in almost all systems like this.

She glanced out the window at the pitch-black canyon, from which only the shrieking of the Wind Blades could be heard. For the first time, she felt a trace of... dread for the next day’s training. It wasn’t a fear of danger, but a dread of the powerlessness that came from effort and reward being so severely mismatched.

’No, I can’t think like that.’ Seraphina Sinclair shook her head forcefully, suppressing the negative emotions.

’Even if the returns are diminishing, it’s still better than stagnating!’

’Even if I can only gain 0.1 a day, it’s still progress! I understand the principle of small gains adding up over time.’

Besides, while her Attributes weren’t soaring, she could clearly feel that her control over her body, her dodging techniques, her intuition for weaving through the Wind Blades—all the things that couldn’t be quantified by numbers—were steadily improving.

’That’s a valuable gain in itself!’

Besides, she only needed to get her attribute to 29 here. It was just one more point; the goal was within reach.

’Even if I have to spend two whole days for that single point!’

Seraphina Sinclair took a deep breath and activated Water Stopping to clear her head. She was still on the very outskirts of the Wind-carved Fissure. If she really wanted to see results...

’...I have to go deeper!’