I tidied up my office and sorted the medicines, putting them into a cabinet. There were medicines for external injuries, internal injuries, and a kind of medicine that didn't heal but could help the horse girls recover their energy quickly.
I replaced my tea cup and coffee grounds with the ones I bought from the real world, as they all had special effects that could increase a horse girl's comfort, improve her mood, and relieve her fatigue. These things seemed unrelated to training, but I found that reducing a horse girl's fatigue would decrease the energy she used during training, thereby increasing her training efficiency.
A horse girl's stats weren't fully displayed on the UI; some were hidden. For example, charm. Many accessories could increase a horse girl's charm. After they put them on, I felt they looked much prettier, but it was hard to quantify the exact increase.
I had to figure out these hidden stats little by little. I had already figured out two. First was the fatigue value. Horse girls would accumulate fatigue after training, and even sleeping wouldn't completely eliminate it—it would still linger. The higher the fatigue, the more energy the training would consume. Massages and items could reduce their fatigue, so the same training plan would require less energy.
Comfort could give the horse girls an extra training boost. If a training session usually increased speed by two points, with high comfort, it might increase by one more point. However, this was a probabilistic trigger. Training gear, high comfort levels, low fatigue, massages during training, and finally, these energy-boosting snacks—my training efficiency was now increasing exponentially. In just over half a month, I had increased Tokai Teio's speed by almost fifty points.
At the beginning, I was only increasing Teio's stats by one or two points a day, and now it was closer to three or four.
However, no matter how much Tokai Teio's stats improved, Sky and the others didn't get the same boost, or rather, the effect was significantly reduced. The same equipment that dramatically boosted Teio's stats might only have a tenth of its original effect on an un-debuted horse girl. Their stat growth was slow, and I wasn't sure if it was a problem with the horse girls or the world itself.
According to the game's lore, horse girls have a "true potential" phase where their physical abilities grow rapidly in a short period. Other times, their growth is slow. If Sky and the others hadn't entered their "true potential" phase yet, it would be difficult to improve their stats.
I even tried it on a few other un-debuted horse girls. I brought them to my room, gave them coffee and snacks, and then took them to the track to train. Their energy recovery was normal, but their training efficiency didn't increase.
Then there were the medicines. They had the same effect on both debuted and un-debuted horse girls. I found a debuted horse girl and an un-debuted horse girl who had sprained their ankles. I brought them to my room, took off their shoes and socks, and wrapped their ankles in bandages. After I was done, their recovery time was reduced by twenty-four hours. The effect was the same for both of them.
However, I found a bug—no, a feature. After I finished wrapping the bandage, I could wrap it again, and it would reduce the recovery time by another twenty-four hours. I could do it repeatedly.
Even in a game, items would have a cooldown, but in this world, there was none! Maybe it was because there was no game designer, otherwise they would have definitely made it annoying for the players.
This meant that no matter how serious an injury was, I could heal it quickly just by using the medicine repeatedly. But at the same time, this also meant a significant consumption of medicine. The two girls' four-day recovery time was healed in just five minutes, at the cost of using up almost half of the gauze.
"Thank you, Trainer."
"Thank you..."
The two horse girls thanked Luo Cheng, and their affection levels increased by five points.
Huh? This can increase affection too?
It seemed that treating a horse girl was categorized as "helping a horse girl," and it gave a decent affection boost.
But don't think you can get free medicine from me just by saying thanks. These things are very precious. Once I'm in a story event, I can't get more.
I reached out and petted their ears, then massaged their tails. The two horse girls squeezed their thighs together, their bodies softening as they leaned on me. Having dealt with countless horse girls, I knew exactly how to pet their tails and where their most sensitive spots were. Feeling their tails twitch under my fingers, I let out a long sigh of relief. I had my fun.
"Go train." The two horse girls leaned on me, one on each side. After a long while, they regained their strength. Wiping the sweet sweat from their foreheads, they said goodbye to me and left.
After confirming the effects of the items, I called the Chairman's office and told them I was going to the VR room. Soon after, Handyman Hayakawa came over.
"Good morning, Trainer Luo Cheng. Which horse girl would you like to train?"
"I'm here for myself."
"Alright, please follow me."
I followed Handyman Hayakawa to the equipment room. I lay down in the VR pod, and Handyman Hayakawa adjusted the equipment. Through the glass, I could see her busy silhouette. Handyman Hayakawa would obey my commands, but it was just a program setting. She wouldn't answer any other questions.
So... The world was as it was.
I put on the VR goggles, and a flash of white light enveloped me. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself standing in a large dining hall. A large group of horse girls were eating, and some in uniform passed by me. I stared at the scene blankly.
Who am I? Where am I? Did I trigger an event again?
I was a bit bewildered. Even though I was used to traveling between different worlds, I still couldn't quickly grasp the situation.
"Yo? Isn't that Little Lamb?"
A horse girl with a red top and brown skin, dressed like an exotic dancer, walked over. Daring Arabian held a wine glass and gave me a dazzling smile. "Welcome."
"Daring... what's going on?"
Seeing her, I finally realized this was a VR space.
"A celebration. They're all the people who contributed to this project."
"What project?"
"The creation project. To test the comfort of the new courses, they came to be volunteers. The process was quite brutal. It's a good thing it wasn't open to the public yet. I can't believe the clipping issues brought the horse girls into the simulation too. As expected, roller coaster creation has a lot of problems; it even derailed."
"What are you talking about?"
"Godolphin must have told you, right? The new map is finished. Come on, Little Lamb, I'll show you." Daring handed me the wine glass, then took my hand. A flash of white light, and we were on a beach.