Chapter 63: Suffering Equals Exp

Ethan was already at the stove when Lila stepped into the kitchen.

The morning light bled through the dorm window as he put oil in the pan. The rice from the cooker sent up hot steam as he worked. He cracked the eggs, put them into the pan, and tried not to react when arms slid around his waist from behind and a forehead pressed on his back between his shoulder blades...

He didn’t even need to turn. "You’re clinging," he said.

"I’m supervising." Lila’s voice was still thick with sleep. "If I let go, you might vanish to the gym again and leave me with cafeteria trauma."

"I’m making enough for two."

"See? My supervision is working."

She stayed latched onto him while he plated the food, only releasing him when he turned with plates in his hans.

They ate at the table in comfortable silence first, long enough before they began talking.

"Class," Ethan said. "After that I’m going to the gym."

Lila looked up. "Can I come?"

"No."

"Rude."

"I’m not ready for an audience." He took another bite. His sore legs were reminding him that honesty was cheaper than pride. "I’m still pathetic on that gym floor. I’d rather have you come after I’m don’t looking like a dying rabbit everytime I did five pushups."

Lila laughed at that, then replied.... "Fine then. Go crazy. But if you collapse and Coach Merrick has to mail you back in a gym mat, I’m allowed to say I told you so."

"That’s fair."

"I’m always fair." she replied smug.

Ethan looked at her. "No you’re not."

She kicked his shin lightly under the table and they ate the rest of their meal in silence.

***

Class passed without much spectacle. No sight of Marcus breathing down his next, and no sight of Ava in the doorway which he was grateful for.

Professor Crane kept them on instability markers and recovery accounting until dismissal sent the room back into ordinary noise. Lila squeezed his wrist once in the corridor, then let him go toward the gym building with a look that said she was reluctant about all this.

The gym was quieter in the afternoon than at dawn. A few upper years owned the racks and Coach Merrick was in the office doorway with a clipboard. When Ethan entered, and the man’s mouth ticked upward in something too dry to be called a smile.

"Shaw. Second day. I was actually expecting you to chicken out on the first day and decide corpses were enough after all."

Ethan shrugged. "Well, I didn’t."

"Good." Coach Merrick turned towards the open floor. "Then earn the pass. Legs. Lungs. No dying."

Ethan called Bef from Storage. The Beowolf formed in a low black rush, shook once, and looked at him with its green eyes.

"Inside lane," Ethan told it quietly. "Go steady. Hold a speed I can keep without dying for breaths."

Bef moved ahead and Ethan ran.

The first lap still hurt. He was still sore from the workout the day before. But the collapse point moved. Where the first session had turned desperate by lap five, he held form through six and seven.

Breathing stayed ugly, but not to the point of collapse and Bef’s pace now became something he could match for stretches instead of only chase. Merrick watched from the office without comment until Ethan hit ten laps and forced himself into a walk before his stride broke apart.

"Better," Merrick said, though Ethan new it was not praise. "Still soft but less embarrassing. Core next. Then you’re done for this block. Don’t get greedy because you found one good day."

Ethan nodded, dropped to the mat, and worked until his midsection vibrated. No undead assistance, no system tricks, nothing.

When he finished, sweat went fdown his spine and his legs were spent; though it didn’t hurt as bad as before.

He dismissed Bef into storage, drank, and left the building with a faint sense of accomplishment.

***

When he got back, he prepared dinner for them...

Lila sat ate, stealing bites from his plate whenever he left it unattended to too long and giving complaints either of how low the portion sizes were or how Ethan was stingy with his meal.

After the worst of the hunger passed, Ethan opened the system.

```

[Name: Ethan Shaw]

[Age: 19]

[Awakened Class: Necromancer]

[Rank: E]

[Level: 5]

[EXP: 400 / 700]

[Death Energy: 700/700]

[Control Capacity: 54]

```

Four hundred.

He stared at for a long moment. A part of him thinking it was a glitched.

He blinked, hoping that it would clear up...

Once

Twice...

It didn’t.

Three hundred points from the next level— body training was stacking EXP with a steadiness corpse drills only matched when he had excellent material and time to burn Death Energy.

Physical training was, in a more practical sense, more productive right now. No failed raises. No public dungeon noise. Just repetition and a system that apparently counted suffering as progress.

Lila squinted at his expression. "You’re making that face again. System stuff?"

Ethan nodded. "Physical training is feeding EXP faster than I expected."

"So The Coache’s torture booth is useful."

"Unfortunately."

She looked far too pleased. "I’m telling him you said thanks."

Ethan’s head snapped towards her. "Don’t."

They did the dishes together because she declared that training partners who shared food shared cleanup rights

Ethan washed. Lila dried and bumped his hip with hers every time she took a plate, each time threatening to push him over as his legs were barley holding him up.

When the counter was clean, she followed him towards his room and past her own door without slowing.

Ethan stopped at his doorway. "Your room is behind you."

Lila blinked once, then walked into his room and sat on the edge of his bed. "Is it?"

"I’m pretty sure it does."

"I sleep better here." She said it the same way she’d said it before: plain, flat, impossible to argue with without becoming the kind of person who picked a stupid fight. "Unless you’re revoking access."

Ethan rubbed a hand over his face.

"...I’m not."

"Good." Lila claimed the left side of the mattress, dragged his blanket over her legs, and pointed at the empty space beside her. "Then stop standing there like a man locked out of his own room."

He turned off the main light, left the desk lamp low, and lay down on sore legs. Lila shifted immediately into his side, forehead against his shoulder, one arm thrown across his stomach as if she had the right to be there.

Ethan stared at the ceiling for a while, his Death Energy was full, and he gained EXP without even needing to raise a corpse.

He sighed, and let sleep slowly claim him. If the body paid in levels, then the body had to be trained....