Chapter 108: Training a New Way to Activate the Bloodline Trait (Part 3)

Magna thought back to the time he had to change the activation requirement of the skill from anger to something else.

He still wanted the skill to look realistic, so he decided to use adrenaline and accelerated blood flow as the trigger.

These two things were actually something a person could control to a degree, as the players in the game never complained about the skill again, finding it more useful this way.

For Renna’s bloodline trait, its first sign when activating was also related to her blood. It getting hotter was quite similar to how a person’s body temperature could increase when their heart rate and blood flow increased.

The other one was the increase in physical strength, which was again similar to the effect adrenaline had on the body.

Using these two things, he decided to try to imitate her rage mode just to see if it could be activated this way.

For the first thing, he planned to show her how to increase her blood flow.

"First, get up and come here." He moved to the middle of the room, to the open space.

Renna had already agreed to try, so she got off the bed and went over to him, with Faye of course following as well.

When the two stood in front of him, he started to give instructions.

"Take deep, rapid breaths through your nose and mouth. Fill your lungs completely over and over without stopping. This trick will fool your brain into thinking you’re facing an immediate threat, spiking your heart rate and forcing your blood to pump faster." While saying this, he also did it himself to demonstrate.

"Right on your last breath, lock it in your chest. Don’t let it out. At the same time, tense every single muscle in your body, your core, your arms, your legs, like you’re trying to push against a falling wall. Feel the sudden, immense pressure building up in your chest." He kept demostrating while watching the two.

The way their faces were turning increasingly red made it apparent that it was successful, as the blood started to rush to even their faces.

"Now release. The moment you let that air burst out and relax your muscles, that built-up pressure vanishes, and your heart flushes a massive wave of hot, oxygenated blood straight through your limbs. Your circulation hits peak speed in a split second."

This was actually the tactic, or some kind of cheat, he had found to activate the berserker skill he had created for the game.

He later published the tactic on the forums under an anonymous name so people could use the skill more easily.

But it had 2 stages, of course. After increasing blood flow came the activation of adrenaline release.

After making sure Renna had learned and succeeded in the first stage, he started explaining the second stage.

"Now relax. We are moving on to the second stage." He waited for their blood pressure to return to normal and started explaining.

For the technique Magna planned to use to stimulate adrenaline release, he combined two methods that were already well known online in his previous world.

The Wim Hof Method and controlled hyperventilation, along with the mental stress used in the Mental Arithmetic Stress Test.

None of them could produce a full adrenaline rush on their own, but together, they could trigger a noticeable sympathetic response in the body.

It wasn’t enough to flood one’s system with adrenaline, of course, but it was enough to push the body into a mild fight-or-flight state.

"First, we do thirty quick, deep power breaths. Fully in through your nose, letting it out smoothly through your mouth. Don’t pause at the top or bottom. Just keep the rhythm fast and heavy. On the thirtieth breath, exhale completely and hold it." He again started doing it himself to show the correct way.

Then, while Faye and Renna followed the instructions, he suddenly threw a question at them.

"Where does Honey-Glow Moss grow?" He also added the thing that would increase the stress. "First one to answer wins."

Though the girls didn’t quite understand what the sudden question was for, as soon as they heard it was some kind of competition, they both immediately answered desperately.

"At the tops of tall red-bee trees."

"Good. You both answered at the same time. Don’t break your breathing pattern."

It was an easy question, so he increased the difficulty with the next one to make them feel more stress.

"If Frost-Core Lotus only blooms inside sub-zero ice caves and instantly rots when touched by human body heat, how do you harvest it with bare hands?"

This was indeed one of the hard ones, as the girls started to think hard.

Then both of them answered at the same time, though their answers were different.

"You coat your hands in a thin layer of frost to form a thermal barrier, or just use an artifact with a cold property." Faye answered, as this kind of question fell into her category of ice and water magic.

"You grab the ice root underneath, not the flower. The ice acts as a handle, so your heat never touches the petals." Renna also sounded quite confident in her answer.

Magna paused for a second or two to increase the tension, then smiled and pointed at Faye first. "Correct."

He paused for another second, delaying his response and making Renna feel her heartbeat speeding up. Then he finally pointed his finger at her and said, "And correct."

Feeling stressed about losing to this midget, Renna took a heavy breath.

"Don’t break your breathing pattern." Magna immediately warned her, making her return to her breathing pattern.

They continued the game as Magna sometimes made the questions harder and sometimes easier, while making sure to have fun himself by watching the two girls desperately compete as if they were in a competition with a 1 million reward.

Only when he had gotten enough entertainment did he end it.

"I won." Faye jumped up in celebration, while Renna just gave her a side glance. "How did you win with 12 correct answers? I answered 21 of them."

Magna ignored their bickering as he said, "Okay, now you have experienced the 2 stages. It’s time to combine them and see what will happen."

It was time to see the result of the training.