Chapter 167 - 16-7 | Normal Progression [PS BONUS]
Chapter 167: 16-7 | Normal Progression [PS BONUS]
Jordan lowered himself onto the bench for his final set and stared up at the ceiling of the rec center, where fluorescent tubes hummed behind plastic panels that hadn’t been cleaned since the Clinton administration. One hundred eighty-five pounds sat on the bar above his face. His shoulders screamed their objections. His chest had filed a formal complaint with his nervous system approximately two sets ago.
He grabbed the bar anyway.
"You know," Kyle said from the spotter position, his hands hovering behind the rack, "I’ve been thinking about something."
"Dangerous."
"Shut up. I’ve been thinking about how you showed up three weeks ago looking like someone microwaved a sad college brochure, and now you’re benching one-eighty-five for reps and dating the hottest girl in our apartment complex."
Jordan unracked the bar. The weight settled into his palms with the familiar gravity of something that wanted very badly to kill him. First rep went up clean.
"Your point?"
"My point is that’s not normal progression. I’ve been lifting for two years and my bench went up maybe forty pounds total in that time. You’ve been in the gym for, what, a week and a half?"
Second rep. Jordan’s chest expanded under the load, his pecs stretching to their limit before he reversed the motion and pushed. The bar traveled upward in a smooth arc that his body had no business producing after only ten days of training.
"Good genetics," Jordan said through his teeth.
Kyle leaned forward until his upside-down face filled Jordan’s field of vision. "Your dad owns convenience stores and your mom does the books. No offense to your family, but that’s not exactly Olympic athlete lineage."
Third rep. Fourth. Jordan’s arms trembled on the fifth, the bar slowing at the midpoint like it had hit an invisible wall. He drove through it with a grunt that echoed off the mirrored walls.
"Maybe I’m just built different."
"Maybe you’re on something."
Jordan almost lost the sixth rep. The bar stopped dead an inch above his chest, his arms locked in a static hold while his brain processed what Kyle had just said. Kyle’s hands drifted closer to the bar, ready to grab.
"I’m not on steroids," Jordan said.
"I didn’t say steroids. Could be SARMs. Could be that turkesterone stuff that TikTok gym bros push. Could be anything."
Jordan pushed the bar up with a burst of irritation that translated directly into force. The rep completed faster than any of the previous five. He racked the weight and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bench to face Kyle directly.
"Kyle. Look at me."
Kyle looked at him.
"I am not taking anything. I cleaned my apartment, fixed my hair, started eating actual food, and showed up to the gym. That’s it. Some people just respond fast to training."
Kyle held eye contact for a long moment. His jaw worked like he was chewing on something he wanted to say and deciding whether to swallow it instead. Then he nodded once.
"Alright. I believe you."
"Thank you."
"But if your back breaks out in acne, I’m staging an intervention."
"Noted."
They moved to the dumbbell rack for shoulder work. Jordan grabbed a pair of forties and started lateral raises, watching his form in the mirror. The guy staring back at him still felt like a stranger sometimes. Broader shoulders than four weeks ago. Sharper jaw. Traps that actually existed. The Tune Up trait had handed him a body that normally required years of consistent training, and the daily workouts were filling in the details that the System’s baseline had sketched out.
Kyle was right to be suspicious. The transformation was too fast. Too clean. Jordan filed this under "problems I will deal with when they become emergencies" alongside "explain the System to Chloe" and "figure out how to afford a business license."
The morning crowd continued its steady rotation around them. A group of girls occupied the cable machine section, rotating through sets of cable kickbacks with the kind of synchronized choreography that suggested a shared TikTok account and a mutual understanding that gym content performed well on Wednesday mornings. One of them, a tall brunette with a high ponytail and compression shorts that left approximately nothing to the imagination, caught Jordan looking and smiled. He looked away immediately.
Not because he wasn’t interested in looking. Because Chloe had made it extremely clear through both verbal communication and a series of hickeys visible above his collar that looking was a privilege she controlled the distribution of.
"So this boxing gym," Jordan said, redirecting the conversation before Kyle could notice the exchange. "What’s it called?"
"Iron Coast MMA. It’s off Beach Boulevard, maybe ten minutes from campus. Run by this guy named Reyes who apparently used to fight professionally before he blew out his knee."
"Reviews?"
"Four point seven stars. Two hundred thirty reviews. The negative ones are all from guys who got their egos hurt because a girl kicked their ass in sparring."
Jordan snorted. "Sounds about right."
"They’ve got beginner and intermediate classes, open mat on weekends, and a bag room you can use anytime with a membership. Trial class is free. After that it’s a hundred and fifty a month for unlimited."
A hundred fifty per month times three people was four-fifty. Not cheap, but not catastrophic either, especially with the System paying Jordan to date Chloe and Kumiko. Every dollar he spent on her came back multiplied, and the multiplier kept climbing with her chemistry rating. At seventy-seven percent, he was clearing a fifty-four percent profit on every transaction. The math was disgusting in the best possible way.
"I’ll cover the first month for all three of us," Jordan said.
Kyle’s lateral raise paused at the top of the movement. "You don’t need to do that."
"I know I don’t need to. But Leo won’t come if he has to pay, and you’re already stretching your budget between tuition and food."
"I have a scholarship."
"Which covers tuition and books, not a hundred fifty dollar gym membership."
Kyle lowered the weights slowly, his expression caught between gratitude and the stubborn pride of someone who had spent his entire life paying his own way. Jordan recognized the look because he’d seen a version of it on Chloe’s face every time he bought her something.
"First month," Kyle said. "Then I’m paying my own."
"Deal."