Chapter 166 The Consequences of Showing Off

’Another attribute crit?’

Seeing the continuous notifications pop up on his panel, Chen Jue broke into a wide grin.

This afternoon’s Swimming session had truly been a pleasant surprise. The attribute points were rolling in like they were free.

While the Temporary Attributes from the nitric oxide supplement hadn’t faded yet, Chen Jue planned to swim a few more laps and keep pushing, squeezing out every last drop of stamina he had left.

However, since he didn’t have much stamina left, Chen Jue didn’t plan on attempting any more underwater swimming.

According to Coach Wang, underwater swimming had very high physical fitness requirements and was extremely dangerous. It should only be attempted when one was in peak condition.

Moreover, after his Swimming Skill Level increased to Lv3, Chen Jue found his forward speed in the water was getting faster and faster.

To test his theory, he surfaced and asked Coach Wang to time him with his stopwatch.

Coach Wang didn’t refuse. Chen Jue’s rate of improvement was honestly a bit terrifying.

He had mastered the four strokes—backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and the medley—almost as soon as he learned them. Furthermore, his breathing rhythm and timing, clumsy at first, had become more and more proficient.

Seeing this, Coach Wang grew even more curious about what kind of results this auditor from outside the university could achieve in the sport of Swimming.

"Ma Qiang! Get over here and swim a 200-meter with your senior!" Coach Wang beckoned to Ma Qiang, who was in lane 7.

Ma Qiang saw him and eagerly swam over to the starting line. "Coach, what’s the stroke?"

"Let’s do the medley!"

"You two will start on my whistle. I’ll time you by hand," Coach Wang proposed.

Chen Jue had no objections. He followed Ma Qiang out of the water and onto the starting block.

Formal individual swimming competitions start from outside the pool, and the starting block is as crucial as the ones used in track sprints.

However, since Chen Jue had never practiced a racing dive, he fumbled for a moment on the block before imitating Ma Qiang’s posture, settling into a sort of crouching forward bend.

The moment Coach Wang blew his whistle, the two of them shot like arrows, diving diagonally into their respective lanes.

It was Chen Jue’s first time attempting a dive start, and the initial burst of power felt much stronger than pushing off the wall.

After entering the water, he extended his arms, and his torso and legs undulated like a fish. Riding the momentum, he quickly reached the 15-meter limit for underwater swimming.

There were clear markers on the bottom of the pool, and since he entered the water face-down, his goggled eyes could spot the mark instantly.

As his underwater glide ended, Chen Jue began to surface and power forward, starting the first leg of the medley: the butterfly stroke.

The butterfly technique resembles a dolphin leaping from the water, and the way a swimmer’s arms spread and pull forward is very much like a butterfly fluttering across the surface, which is how the stroke got its name.

Because Chen Jue had set himself the goal of grabbing that large gold brick, his prior training had focused entirely on upper body strength.

As a result, his butterfly stroke was exceptionally powerful. After breaking the surface, he started accelerating with a high stroke frequency, his speed in no way inferior to Ma Qiang, who had been training since he was a child!

By the end of the first 50 meters, Coach Wang, who was timing them from the side of the pool, frowned. ’Looks like that kid Ma Qiang has made some decent progress lately, actually breaking 26 seconds on the 50-meter butterfly.’

’But this auditor, Chen Jue, has some real talent. His technique is still a bit unpolished, but his explosive power is incredible. He managed to break 26 seconds, too!’

Coach Wang was somewhat taken aback. Hand-timed results were less accurate than electronic ones, as they were subject to human reaction time, but in the hands of a professional coach, the discrepancy was at most around 0.3 seconds.

In other words, Chen Jue’s first 50-meter butterfly leg had taken just a little over 26 seconds!

According to the athlete classification standards for the butterfly, anyone who could swim the 50-meter butterfly in under 27 seconds had already reached the level of a First-Class Athlete.

While the First-Class Athlete standard might not sound that impressive, Chen Jue had only been practicing professional competitive strokes for a single afternoon. His potential for improvement was enormous.

If Chen Jue weren’t already over the age limit for university-level competitions, Coach Wang would have been tempted to recruit him directly onto the Jiang University swim team!

So what if he was an auditor?

Many sports competitions had foreign players or wild card entries; making an exception for Chen Jue to compete wouldn’t have been a problem.

Besides, this time was achieved during a medley race, with another 150 meters still to go. Athletes typically had to pace themselves and manage their stamina throughout.

Sure enough, after completing the 50-meter butterfly and executing a neat underwater turn to transition into the backstroke, Chen Jue’s arm movements became even wider, and his speed increased yet again, surpassing his butterfly pace.

Unlike the unfamiliar butterfly, the backstroke was a stroke Chen Jue had known since childhood.

It was his self-taught backstroke that had allowed him to survive his childhood habit of recklessly swimming in dangerous places like reservoirs.

Now, armed with the proper professional technique on top of the explosive power in his arms, Chen Jue’s speed surged. He left Ma Qiang in his wake, pulling far ahead.

By the end of the 50-meter backstroke, the gap between them had widened to a full five meters.

Even Coach Wang on the deck did a double-take at his stopwatch. "Hand-timed backstroke at 27.03! That’s almost the time of a World-Class Athlete!"

Of course, achieving such a time was also thanks to the nitric oxide supplement Chen Jue had taken earlier.

Boosted by the Temporary Attribute points, his bodily functions were enhanced by as much as 10%, and his explosive power and stamina were significantly greater than that of the un-supplemented Ma Qiang.

However, the individual medley is incredibly taxing on one’s stamina. Combined with the fact that Chen Jue had already been training for over an hour, his energy levels had already dropped significantly.

After his explosive burst in the first 100 meters, his speed in the second half—the breaststroke and freestyle—declined sharply.

By the time he finished the 200-meter medley, Chen Jue’s hand-timed result was 2 minutes and 13 seconds.

Ma Qiang, however, came from behind. Relying on his consistent, National-Class Athlete level of swimming, he ultimately touched the wall before Chen Jue, finishing with a time of 2 minutes and 7 seconds.

"Senior, you’re incredible!"

"You just learned the professional strokes and you’re already swimming at a First-Class Athlete level. If you keep practicing, you could definitely enter official competitions!" Ma Qiang said with a look of pure shock after hearing Coach Wang announce the times.

He had practically watched Chen Jue’s form improve from underwater during the race. He never expected that a simple contest would push Chen Jue’s individual medley time past the threshold for a First-Class Athlete.

According to the athlete classification standards, a swimmer only needs to finish the 200-meter individual medley in a 50-meter pool in under 2 minutes and 19 seconds to be considered a First-Class Athlete.

"It was just a fluke. I had a burst of energy in the first half, but my stamina couldn’t keep up and I just died out at the end," Chen Jue said, waving his hand humbly.

From the deck, Coach Wang offered an objective assessment. "Chen Jue, it’s only your first day of training, so it’s perfectly normal that your stamina isn’t on par with Ma Qiang and the others. However, your backstroke is incredibly fast. If you strengthen it, you’d definitely be qualified to compete in professional 50-meter backstroke events!"

Professional swimmers like Ma Qiang were usually scouted for teams and started training as early as kindergarten. Chen Jue was a complete newcomer, brute-forcing his way through with nothing but his panel and his raw physical attributes.

But after that stream of effusive praise from Coach Wang, Chen Jue couldn’t help but get a little carried away. ’I could actually participate in professional swimming competitions?’ he thought.

However, when he heard that the top international swimmers could break 24 seconds in the 50-meter backstroke, that notion was extinguished completely.

At his current level, there was still a massive gap between him and the top international tier. At best, he could make an appearance at a provincial-level competition. On the national stage, he wouldn’t be considered a standout performer at all.

Besides, Chen Jue’s goal wasn’t to become a professional sports star; he just wanted to use Swimming to improve his overall physical condition.

Since his ambitions lay elsewhere, after chatting a bit more with Coach Wang and Ma Qiang, Chen Jue got out of the water and slowly walked out of the pool area.

...

After leaving the pool, Chen Jue glanced at his attribute panel. The afternoon of weighted training and Swimming practice had netted him over 0.10 in attribute value—a rate of progress that was on par with his gains from the previous two or three days combined.

On top of that, after the single race against Ma Qiang, his Swimming Skill had gained another +80 in Skill Level, which made Chen Jue grow quite fond of the Jiang University natatorium.

He felt he should come here more often to train. The feeling of such rapid progress was as satisfying as cashing-in in an RPG to use a 3x Experience Scroll. The more he did it, the more addictive it became.

But such high returns obviously came at a price!

Just as Chen Jue had learned in his finance major: high returns always come with high risks.

After returning to the locker room and changing back into his clothes, the countdown on his nitric-oxide-boosted Temporary Attributes ended. Chen Jue was immediately hit with an abnormal fatigue, so severe it bordered on total exhaustion. He could barely even lift the 27kg weighted gear he had worn on his way there.

His entire body felt as if it had been hollowed out and filled with lead. Every step he took felt strangely unsteady.

’Damn it!’

’As expected of a full-body workout, I’m completely wiped after swimming,’ Chen Jue lamented internally, his eyelids already starting to feel heavy.

As he staggered from the locker room to an electric massage chair near the natatorium’s front desk, a new notification popped up on his panel:

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[Ding!]

[You have completed an aerobic exercise that surpassed your limits. Your body is now in a state of extreme fatigue.]

[Your stamina has dropped significantly, and various attributes have suffered temporary penalties.]

[Please replenish your energy and nutrients as soon as possible and arrange adequate rest to ensure your body returns to a normal, healthy state.]

---

Chen Jue read the new notifications and hurriedly switched to his attributes section. Sure enough, red debuff values like "-0.10" had appeared next to his Three-dimensional Attributes: Strength, Constitution, and Spirit.

An intense wave of exhaustion washed over him, and his drowsiness surged. He plopped into the electric massage chair, forcing himself to stay awake just long enough to pull out his phone, scan the QR code, and pay. Then, amidst the mechanical kneading, he passed out completely.

It couldn’t be helped.

He was just too damn tired!