Chapter 163 Limit-Breaking Dive

Looking at the prompt that popped up on the panel, Chen Jue was a bit stunned.

When he swam properly, his [Swimming] Skill Level only increased with +1 notifications.

But not swimming properly could get him a +50 all at once, which was truly bizarre.

’Could it be that underwater swimming is the skill humanity was meant to master for survival?’ Chen Jue wondered.

He then recalled how he’d gained more [Climbing] Skill Level from climbing trees than from practicing Rock Climbing, and he instantly understood the reason.

The [Swimming] Skill was originally developed by our ancestors to catch underwater food for sustenance, as well as to escape natural disasters like floods and predators.

Swimming quickly was just one factor. Being able to stay under and dive deeper was what truly met the conditions for survival.

Besides, a swimming pool was a relatively safe environment. If he were to swim in a river, lake, or the ocean, he could probably trigger modifiers like "real combat" or "practical application," further accelerating his Skill Level growth.

...

After figuring out the logic behind the [Swimming] Skill Level growth, Chen Jue no longer obsessed over imitating and learning professional swimming techniques.

Anyway, he was practicing [Swimming] purely to improve his physical fitness and accelerate the growth of his attribute values.

As long as underwater swimming helped him achieve his goal, he would just focus on that and slowly perfect it.

At first, Chen Jue kept his head down and face submerged, floating a few centimeters below the surface. He would use the forward thrust from pushing off the pool wall to sprint past the halfway point, then accelerate into a glide.

With his current lung capacity, he could take one deep breath, submerge his face, and hold it for the entire 25-meter length of the pool.

A single lap of underwater swimming yielded +50 Skill Level. After two laps, his [Swimming] Skill Level shot up from Lv0 to Lv1.

As a strange sensation spread through his muscles, Chen Jue tried moving his limbs underwater again. He discovered that after [Swimming] reached Level 1, the force of his strokes had increased slightly.

With each stroke of his arms and legs, he moved forward an extra dozen or so centimeters.

Apparently, the panel had used its correction function to forcibly adjust his self-taught, unorthodox technique. His arm strokes became more efficient, and his kicks started to look much more standard.

However, after attempting another 25-meter underwater swim, Chen Jue discovered the Skill Level he gained had been reduced!

It had dropped from +50 on his first attempt to just +25.

Chen Jue surmised that because his [Swimming] technique had improved, the panel had judged the difficulty of the lap to have decreased significantly, so it simply cut the awarded Skill Level in half.

To test his theory, Chen Jue decided to increase the difficulty on his fourth 25-meter underwater lap.

Instead of floating just a few centimeters below the surface, he did a powerful plunge, sinking from the surface straight to the bottom of the pool!

Then, with a powerful kick, his body shot forward like an arrow, crossing the 10-meter mark in an instant.

But since he was at the bottom, his subsequent [Swimming] movements were no longer alternating strokes. Instead, he adopted a paddling motion, thrusting both hands forward and sweeping them out to the sides, while his legs maintained a freestyle-like flutter kick.

Using this bizarre posture, Chen Jue managed to stay submerged all the way to the end. When he surfaced, a new prompt popped up on the panel:

——————

[Ding~]

[You have completed a high-intensity underwater aerobic exercise. The explosive power in your limbs has increased, your Cardiovascular Ability has been effectively trained, and your swimming technique has improved significantly.]

[Swimming Skill Level +50]

[Strength Attribute +0.01]

[Free Attribute +0.01]

——————

[Ding~]

[Due to the impact of water pressure, your eardrum has suffered a minor tear.]

[Constitution Attribute temporarily -0.01]

[Friendly Reminder: The temporarily reduced Attribute will be restored once your eardrum has rested and healed.]

——————

"Huh?"

’Attributes can go down?’

Chen Jue was stunned. He hurriedly opened the panel to check.

Sure enough, next to his [Constitution] Attribute—which had reached 2.07 thanks to the ’nitrogen pump’ effect—a blood-red down arrow "↓" had appeared, along with the red text "-0.01".

This unexpected development instantly put Chen Jue on high alert.

Thinking back to that one-breath dive to a depth of 1.8 meters, Chen Jue suddenly realized he had indeed felt something strange at the start of the dive. A large amount of pool water had been forced into both of his ear canals.

When he was swimming near the surface, the feeling wasn’t as strong because the air inside his ear canals kept the water out.

But once he reached the bottom of the pool, the water pressure rose. The air trapped in his ears could no longer withstand the pressure and was naturally forced out.

As the pool water rushed against his eardrums, Chen Jue even heard a dull POP POP sound, like a membrane tearing, accompanied by a slight, sharp pain.

But at the time, he was moving at high speed and focused on sprinting to the end in one breath, so he had instinctively ignored the strange sensation.

He never expected the consequences to catch up to him the moment he got out of the water!

After seeing his [Constitution] Attribute drop by a small amount, Chen Jue immediately climbed out of the pool, ran to the front desk, and bought the best waterproof earplugs they had.

Before, relying on the panel’s powerful healing functions, Chen Jue had never taken training injuries seriously.

Now, having been taught a lesson by the swimming pool, Chen Jue finally realized that the human body wasn’t invincible.