Several days had passed since that ill-fated evening. Seito still felt weak, as if after a long illness. An echo of that monstrous pain resonated as a faint tremor in his fingers whenever he tried to pick up his toys. His parents, Ayame and Kenshi, watched him with doubled anxiety and care, his every movement causing them a fresh wave of worry.
Their love was a medicine, but Seito understood—he had inflicted this wound upon himself. His impatience, his desperate attempt to grab luck by the tail and forcibly wrest the world's secrets from it, had almost cost him everything. Now he looked at the system's translucent interface with a new, cautious wariness. It was not just a tool; it was a wild beast that needed to be tamed, not teased.
He noticed changes. The inscription "Magic Affinity: ———" now glowed with a steady, neutral light, without a hint of pulsing or mockery. The parameter table he had worked so hard to unlock was hidden again. It was as if the system had punished him, revoking his privileges and rolling back to an earlier, more information-scarce state. Only the basic data remained—name, age, height, weight—and the mocking smiley face in the corner, which now seemed not teasing, but ominous.
"Alright," he said to the system in his mind. "I get it. You're in charge. I won't push ahead anymore."
He returned to the basics. To what he could control. To his own body.
He started small again. Not with attempts to feel magic, but with simple physical exercises. He would sit on the mat in the corner of the room and slowly, overcoming his weakness, stretch his toes toward his nose. Stretching. He did sit-ups, lying on his back and struggling to lift his head and shoulders. He clenched and unclenched his little fists, training his grip.
The system was silent. No notifications about experience gains or stat increases. Only occasionally would a bland message flash: [Skill 'Concentration' activated].
Seito didn't give up. He was a mechanic. He knew that even the most seized bolt could be loosened if you dripped oil on it and methodically, without excess force, tried to shift it. His impatience was replaced by stubborn, methodical persistence.
And then, after a week of an almost monastic training regimen, the system finally responded.
He was just trying to stand on his feet, holding onto the leg of the low table. His legs trembled, his muscles burned. He took one step. Then a second. On the third step, his weak body swayed, and he barely managed to keep from collapsing.
And in that instant, a message flashed in his consciousness, bright and clear as never before. It was formatted differently from the simple notifications. It was in a frame, highlighted in bold font, and accompanied by a soft, unobtrusive sound, like the chime of a tiny bell.
[New Quest: 'Will to Move']
[Objective: Take 10 consecutive steps without support.]
[Reward: +1.0 to Endurance, activation of Daily Quests.]
Seito froze, still holding onto the table. His heart skipped a beat. *A quest*. A real, purposeful quest with a concrete reward. Exactly like he'd read in those web novels he sometimes skimmed in his past life during breaks between repairing cars.
"This... this actually works," raced through his mind, and a strange mix of exhilaration and awe washed over him. The system wasn't just passively recording his actions—it was *reacting*. It was offering him a challenge.
A challenge that now seemed like Mount Everest to him.
Ten steps. Alone. Without support. For a one-and-a-half-year-old child, not yet fully recovered from mental shock, it was nearly impossible.
But the reward… +1 to Endurance. A whole point! Not the measly 0.1 he got for dozens of squats, but a full, proper point. And even more importantly—"activation of daily quests." It sounded like the possibility of constant, systematic growth.
He slowly exhaled. Fear of pain and another failure fought within him against the burning desire to prove—first and foremost to himself—that he could do it. That he wouldn't break.
Desire won.
He let go of the table.
The first step was shaky, uncertain. The floor felt like shifting sand beneath his feet.
[Step 1]
A second step. A third. He swayed like a pendulum, spreading his arms wide for balance. His temples throbbed. The muscles in his legs screamed under the unfamiliar strain.
[Step 4]
[Step 5]
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his mother freeze in the doorway. She was carrying a basket of laundry and watched him with bated breath, afraid to move or call out for fear of breaking his concentration.
A sixth step. A seventh. He felt dizzy. His body remembered that previous pain, and a shudder ran through it. "No," he commanded himself mentally. "Not now. I am in control of you, not the other way around."
An eighth step. A ninth. He was almost at the opposite wall. His breathing became ragged, whistling.
A tenth step. He took it and almost immediately collapsed onto the floor, banging his knee. But it didn't matter. He had done it!
At that same second, the system responded with a triumphant, soft chime that only he could hear.
[Quest 'Will to Move' completed!]
[Reward received: +1.0 to Endurance.]
And immediately, a wave of revitalizing warmth spread through his body. It was nothing like the searing pain from before. It was like a gulp of cold water after a long thirst. The fatigue in his muscles receded, the trembling in his legs subsided. He felt a surge of strength he hadn't possessed a minute ago. He didn't just *understand* that he had become more enduring—he *felt* it on a physical level.
A second message followed the first.
[Daily Quests activated!]
[Today's Quest: 'Walk 50 steps'. Reward: Small amount of EXP, minor item.]
Seito sat on the floor, breathing heavily, and couldn't suppress a smile. A wide, childish, utterly happy smile. He caught his mother's gaze. Ayame, unable to hold back her emotions, dropped the basket and ran to him, scooping him up into her arms.
"Seito! My baby! You're walking by yourself! A whole ten steps!" She showered him with kisses, her brown eyes shining with delight and pride.
In that moment, Seito forgot about the system, the quests, his past life. He hugged his mother around the neck and pressed against her shoulder, inhaling her familiar scent of wood shavings and field herbs. He felt the beat of her heart—fast, excited, loving.
Kenshi appeared in the doorway, drawn by the noise. His face, usually serious and focused, was lit by a smile.
"Well, son, exploring the territory?" He walked over and ruffled Seito's chestnut hair, which was curly just like his own. "You'll be helping me in the workshop soon, handing me nails."
Seito laughed, happy both from his achievement and their reaction. For the first time, he felt not like a stranger, not an alien in this body and this family, but a part of it. His action, his small victory, had evoked genuine joy in them.
That evening, lying in his crib, he reflected. The system was the key. But his family… his family was the reason that key was worth using. He remembered the conversation about goblins. He remembered the helplessness in his father's eyes when he spoke about the need to hire wandering warriors. He didn't want them to be afraid. He wanted them to be proud of him. And he wanted to be able to protect them.
From that day on, his life took on a new rhythm. Every morning, the system gave him a daily quest. Sometimes it was something simple: "Eat all your food" (reward — +0.1 to Strength), "Run around the house 5 times" (reward — +0.1 to Agility). Sometimes the quests were strange: "Find the smoothest stone in the stream" (reward — a "Stone of Luck," which turned out to be just a very pretty pebble) or "Help mother hang the laundry" (reward — +5 EXP and an approving look from Ayame).
He completed them with the zeal of a fanatic. He ate even when he didn't want to. He ran until he dropped from exhaustion. He looked for stones and helped with the household chores as best he could.
His parameters grew slowly but surely. He could feel it. Now he could carry two apples from the garden instead of one. He could climb onto a low log that used to be chest-high. His child's body was growing stronger day by day.
One day, the daily quest was: "Show diligence in a craft." Reward: "A small bonus to understanding the basics of a craft."
Seito went to his father's workshop. Kenshi was, as usual, planing a board, his muscular arms moving with precision and strength. Seito sat down in a corner on the wood shavings and took one of the wood scraps and the blunt plane his father had given him "to play with."
He didn't just drag the iron tool over the wood. He concentrated. He remembered working with metal in his past life. The principles were similar: precision, carefulness, understanding the material. He tried to replicate his father's movement, putting not strength into it, but attention.
He sat like that for several hours, until his father finished his work.
"Well, Master Seito, what have we got here?" Kenshi asked with a smile, approaching.
Seito handed him the small plank. It was crooked, but one of its edges was surprisingly smooth and even.
Kenshi raised an eyebrow, astonished.
"Wow… Did you do this?" He ran his fingers over the smooth surface. "Almost professional. You have a talent, son."
In that moment, Seito received a notification.
[Quest completed!]
[Reward received: Understanding of Wood Processing Basics (Beginner).]
[Skill 'Craft (Woodworking)' obtained! Level 1.]
And along with it—something else. Fragments of knowledge surfaced in his mind: how to hold the plane, at what angle to guide it, what kind of shaving was considered correct. These weren't his memories. This was a gift from the system.
That evening at dinner, Kenshi couldn't stop praising his son to Ayame.
"Look what skilled hands he has! He'll make an excellent carpenter!"
Ayame smiled, her brown eyes beaming with happiness.
"The main thing is that he is healthy and happy."
Seito listened to them and felt warmth inside. He had achieved something not for the system, but for them. And their pride was the best reward.
But the most important quest came a week later. It was simple: "Reach the stream at the forest's edge and return." Reward: "A symbolic item."
Seito went to complete it after breakfast. Running to the stream wasn't difficult—it was very close to the village. He was about to turn back when his gaze fell on something under the water. Among the smooth stones on the bottom, something glinted. Not gold or silver, but with a strange, matte, milky-white light.
The curiosity of a mechanic, which had always driven him to take apart unfamiliar devices, made him wade into the water. He bent down and scooped up a handful of sand and stones. Among them lay a small, egg-shaped stone. It was perfectly white, opaque, and warm to the touch, like a piece of the sun warmed by the day. And from it emanated a faint, calming glow.
[Discovered: Unidentified Mineral. Aura: Calm, Hardness.]
Seito carefully clenched the stone in his palm. He had completed the quest, but he had found something more—a mystery.
When he returned home and showed the find to his father, Kenshi took the stone, turned it over in his hands, and shook his head.
"Haven't seen anything like it. Looks like an opal, but too warm and matte. Ask old Tobas, he knows about stones."
The old healer, upon examining the stone, furrowed his gray brows.
"An interesting thing. This is not just a stone. It has a bit of earthy magic in it. Very old, very calm. It's called a 'Stone of Patience' or 'Tears of the Mountain Spirit.' They say it helps find inner peace and strengthen the spirit. A rare find for a child. Wear it, don't lose it."
Seito clenched the stone in his fist. He felt its warmth again. "Calm. Hardness." Exactly what he lacked so much.
In the evening, the system confirmed the value of the find.
[Daily Quest completed!]
[Reward received: 'Stone Flower (Unrefined)'.]
[Special Property: When worn for a long time, gradually increases the 'Willpower' parameter.]
Seito looked at the stone lying on the mat next to him. It looked like an unopened bud. He touched it with his finger and felt a slight, almost imperceptible pulse—like a quiet heartbeat.
...
He went to sleep, clutching the stone in his palm. His last thought before sleep was that his path had only just begun.