Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd In The Apocalypse!

Chapter 1376 Measuring Grip Strength

To be fair, handling the "pull" wasn't even half the battle when we go to Japan because one, it was only present in Old Man Kaiseki's mountain, two, those zones were scattered up and about—while there seem to be a few that would pop up randomly—and three, cardio was still fucking king because unless we bring a few ATVs to help with the ascent, it'd take us hours and hours just to reach the residential area by foot.

But I just had another thought.

"Hold up..."

"What is now?!" Quinn exclaimed, annoyed.

I waved them off, "Nah, it's better ready than sorry."

"Just tell us, dammit!"

"Why are you so pissed?! Fine! I just thought that if anything, we'd face more deadheads on flat ground than the mountain itself because if anything, Old Man Kaiseki's fucking territorial so he'd be running up and down the mountain several times with his oodachi, moving down anything that's trespassing..."

"Oo-what?"

"Oodachi. O-O-D-A-C-H-I! Just imagine my katana but bigger, longer, thicker, and fucking heavier. Not as heavy as Quinn's 'Staff' but it's a pain to swing it around, much less draw it from its sheathe."

Tatiana cut in, "Alright— Can we get serious? I dunno about you all but I'm nervous for some reason. I gotta know what to do so I won't embarrass myself."

"Tatiana?" Kaley looked concerned, "Why would you think that?"

She shook her head, "Nah, I just feel weird today. I don't know why. I haven't even pooped yet after three cups of coffee."

Then everyone else reacted:

"I haven't even pooped out the cum in my ass too! Same, same..."

"What?!"

"Hah? It has to exit somewhere, you dumbfuck!"

"Huh."

Enjoy more content from empire

"Isn't that a little too much info?!"

"Guys—"

"T-Three cups? You're crazy..."

"You're really glazed over that?!"

"Guys! Let's go back on topic, please!"

In any case, it became chaotic for a few minutes but looking at Tatiana, she really looked restless for some reason but to be honest, all she— no, all everyone needed to do was just to trust the fucking process and earn the rewards when the time comes.

So I addressed them again, "Alright, it shouldn't come as a surprise but to everyone here, I suggest doing a few more isolation sets for your forearms and add a bit of grip training too that would focus on each of your fingers every single day. Besides that, make sure to get your steps in—at least 10,000 or even 12,500—but do watch your caloric and protein intake."

But yeah, their regular routine aside, everyone else didn't seem too convinced about the different types of wrist curls to strengthen their forearms—even showing them the rice bucket method used by arm wrestlers to improve their grip.

Because despite Quinn's display followed by my own, almost everyone assumed it was due to Quinn being a freak of nature and me being, you know... me.

Aside from being from the opposite gender, they've seen me pull several times my weight when we were in the Rivas Estate, and doing simple exercises like this with very light weights—free weights at the current moment—didn't seem like the key to achieving the same strength standard.

Alexa looked confused, for one, "Wait, that's really it?"

I nodded, "Yep. Just do it AFTER your regular routine and you'll be set. If you do it before, you'll just gas out before your normal lifts since this is straight-up isolation of your forearm muscles."

Ella raised her hand, "Umm... Question?"

"Shoot."

"I umm... While I get that doing this could increase our forearm strength or whatever but is it really the only way to control the pulls you talked about earlier?"

"Hmm... I mean~ control doesn't necessarily mean equal strength but while strengthening that particular body part like, you know, just by itself and not using compound movements, you'd get a 'feel' for it—giving you control bit by bit. It's not an exact science but that's how I went about it."

Tatiana cut in, "Still feels weird for me but I can feel the pump despite going with lighter weights."

"It'd feel much weirder if you switch to cables but at the end of the day, all you need is stimuli—" then I had a thought, "Oh, fuck! I forgot to bring that out before this shit!"

"What now?"

"Hold on a sec, I'll be right back! Boy~ I am all over the place today, huh?"

In any case, I was back in a span of a few minutes because all I needed was to run over to Rin and ask where the GM150 HHD(Hydraulic Hand Dynamometer) was before bringing it up. Currently, I have this device with a display showing how much pressure they'd put on the grip handle attached to it, and I started the party by throwing it over to Tatiana.

"I think I know what this is, I just grip on it, right?"

"Yeah— but hold for three seconds."

"Alright, you dick, you should've brought this before we did these exercises!"

"You barely did them and if anything it just warmed you all up."

"Fair. Whooo... Lemme get my breathing first."

After maybe 10 seconds, Tatiana's muscles just tensed before she gripped the device as hard as she could and then tested the other hand right after a short break. Everyone could see how red her face had gotten even after letting go of it and surprise, surprise, the Sin of Gluttony scored 71.6kg(157.5lbs) on her right hand and 70.5kg(155.1lbs) on her left.

"Jesus fucking christ, remind me why you didn't pull with us that time in the Rivas Estate again?"

"I just ate?"

"Fair."

"Heh. What is your score then—"

I cut her off as I turned to the next person, "Kaley?"