(The story takes place in a parallel world, so please don't take the facts described in the story as real. Thank you.)
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Japan, Aichi Prefecture, Ama City. Shimokayazu District. 2022, July 8th.
The early July sun poured down from a clear blue sky, with no clouds in sight. A light breeze helped make the heat a little more bearable.
Shimokayazu lay just three kilometers from the busy city of Nagoya, known for its traffic and large South Asian community. The area was both residential and industrial, attracting people who wanted quick access to the city but cheaper rent.
Near the Kayazu Bridge over the Shin River stood rows of factories mixed with low-cost apartments. In one of these, a two-story building with ten units, faint grunts could be heard from apartment 203 on the second floor—even from outside.
The apartment was roughly about 50 square meters in area: a small living room, a moderate kitchen and a separate toilet and bath, and a spacious bedroom with a balcony that gave a proper view of the factories.
498…499…
Within the room and on the tatami floor was a man with his upper body naked, sweat glistening down his fair skin and on his fair face a serious look as he counted and did one push-up after another, his gaze lingering on something only he could see.
A progress bar that only he could see floated before his dark eyes in the void and with each push-up the blue bar moved towards completion, as finally the man let out one big grunt and counted for one last time.
500!!
THUD!!
"HA!! It's finally finished!"
He said in a relieved tone as he plopped on the floor, his breathing heavy and ragged but in his eyes a look of expectation for what was about to happen.
{Panel Activation Task "100000 Pushups within Six Months" Completed}
{Task Completion Reward: - Skill Points 5, Attribute Points 5}
Host Panel: -Name: Kenji Tanaka Age: 24 Physical Attributes: 8 (+) Spiritual Attributes: 6 (+)
(A.N: A normal healthy male is 5 and peak is 10. Physical Attributes encompass everything from agility, endurance, strength, etc. Spiritual Attributes of a normal healthy male are also 5 and peak is 10.
It encompasses everything like intelligence, environmental awareness, memorizing ability, etc.)
Skills: English (Advanced) (+), Japanese (Advanced) (+), Cooking (Medium) (+), Driving (Medium) (+), Fighting (Beginner) (+), Shooting (Beginner) (+), Renovation (Beginner) (+)
(A.N: Skill Levels are divided into five categories: Beginner, Medium, Advanced, Perfect, and Breaking the Limit. Ordinarily Perfect is the highest level possible and only through the panel is it possible to reach the Breaking the Limit level.)
"It was worth it," muttered the man while drawing in another big breath, trying to regulate his breathing as slowly he sat up, his slick black hair framing his face, his sturdy chest rising and falling slowly, and sweat droplets trailing down his perfect abs.
After a while, when the man felt his breathing had settled down completely, he stood up, stretched, and moved his arms around to get rid of the numbness due to the continuous push-ups. He was tall, about 185 cm, quite rare for a Japanese. He had a lean but muscular build, though not the type with excessive veins popping everywhere, each muscle perfectly how it should be.
His features carried a certain seriousness to them—not brooding but the kind of quiet, composed expression that made people pause for a second glance. But his black eyes, which clearly contained laziness, betrayed his serious features. The slight sheen of sweat on his due to the workout added to his attractiveness.
Kenji Tanaka, 24 years old this year, a renovation assistant at Mirai Reform Co, Ltd. Last year he had graduated from the University of Nagoya, doing a bachelor's in Civil Engineering.
On the surface he seemed nothing more than an ordinary young man, maybe a bit more attractive, but in terms of career it seemed he had a normal life ahead—maybe one or two lucky promotions in life, getting married, having kids, getting a house on mortgage, and then going with the flow.
But he carried a secret, a secret of a previous life. It was a concept that people have debated over for years but with no conclusive proof. In his previous life he was nothing like in this life; he was completely an outlaw, fighting, killing, whoring, not taking his life seriously and hurting those around him—those who had expectations of him, ruining their lives.
Having died in a shooting in his last life and given another chance, he learned his lesson and completely reformed himself. But growing up he had noticed while he was reborn in Japan as a Japanese, he wasn't exactly in the same world as many things in history, folklores, events—they were all different compared to his past life. This was the reason he couldn't take advantage of his foresight to amass a lot of wealth.
In his previous life he had lived from 1998–2025 and in this parallel world he was reborn in 1998 again but into a Japanese family. Many events like 9/11, the establishment of social media platforms from his previous life—they all didn't happen.
Adding the facts like some parts of history being different—Japan in this world not nuked and not under the indirect rule of the USA. It had its own completely independent military and in history it wasn't radical like the Japan in his previous life was before it got nuked.
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Kenji, now feeling relaxed, propped down on his work chair with his focus fully on the panel.
He first studied the panel thoroughly, understanding the importance of attributes and skill points, and then began to ponder how to use them.
Only he knew how hard he had worked to activate the panel; these attribute and skill points were hard-earned and he wanted to use them in a way that they would bring him maximum benefits.
First he settled his gaze on the attribute points and after a long thought added 2 to his physical and 2 to his spiritual attributes, pressing the + sign with a thought.
Physical Attributes: 8 → 10Spiritual Attributes: 6 → 8
The moment he added the points, Kenji felt his body going still on the spot, his mind buzzing at the same moment, in a strange situation, not able to think or feel anything. A mysterious force was acting on his body, his muscles wriggling to the visible eye, his bones under the skin getting dense, his hair getting thicker, his skin falling off and revealing a much smoother one underneath, no calluses or acne anymore.
Kenji was statue-like like this for at least five minutes before he finally felt his thoughts flowing again and his body gradually returning under his control.
But the way he felt was completely different from a while ago; his eyes widened with surprise at this feeling.
"This power… Unbelievable," muttered Kenji as he clenched his fists, only he able to understand the force hidden in it. By system standards his physical qualities had reached the highest point possible for a person—he was a peak physical specimen in every way, whether it was strength, agility, endurance.
The two-point increase in spiritual attributes had done wonders also, feeling his thoughts much clearer, some memories that were fuzzy now much clearer—a truly refreshing feeling.
After a while of enjoying the wonderful state he was in both physically and mentally, Kenji focused on the panel again and seeing the remaining attribute point, out of curiosity added it to his physical attribute again.
{Attribute Allocation failed. Please use the limit-breaking point to bring your physical potential to 20.}
Kenji frowned at this reminder, the question what are limit-breaking points and how to get them forming in his head. Next moment Kenji felt a lot of information pouring into his head, making the whole situation clearer.
Humans had limits whether physically or spiritually and they can't be broken by a normal attribute point and so a special limit-breaking point was required, which the panel would grant after completing a task—a task which would be issued anytime in the future, maybe now, maybe tomorrow, maybe a month later or even longer; it all depended on the panel.
The same scenario was for skill levels; after reaching Perfect a special limit-breaking skill point was required to elevate the skill to a level no human had attained whether in the past, present or even future.
After going through the information in his head, Kenji pushed aside the thought of elevating his physical attributes to another level and added the remaining point to the spiritual.
Spiritual Attribute: 8 → 9
Once again, Kenji showed a blank, thoughtless look in his eyes, completely expressionless but that lasted only for a few minutes, his eyes brighter than before, an intoxicated look on his face due to the clear-headedness. All the stress, worries seemed to have evaporated, leaving him with a satisfied and worry-less head.
Next Kenji turned his attention towards the skill panel, thinking about how to use the five skill points he had. First he crossed out both English and Japanese skills; he felt what he had was more than enough and there was no need to waste points over them.
Then he turned his attention towards the remaining and Kenji couldn't help but show a conflicted look. Whether it was cooking or driving, while he wasn't the best he still was better than your average person. There was no need to upgrade them to higher level unless he wanted to specialize in them and he felt not much thrill at the thought of a career in cooking or driving.
Next came fighting and shooting and these felt even more useless. He was in Japan with very strict gun laws and where from growing up till now, he has not been involved in a single real fight—the type of fight where your life was on the line, the one he was involved in a lot in his previous life.
Lastly was Renovation, his work-related skill, and the thought of using his hard-earned points to help his boss get another Porsche quickly repulsed him greatly.
"Maybe I should learn a new skill and then use these points to upgrade it to the highest level, something with safe and high financial returns," thought Kenji as this felt much better than using his hard-earned skill points on his existing skills.
With a rough plan in his head for the future he set aside the skill points for now and happily went to take a shower. After the shower, changing into a comfortable home attire, a plain black t-shirt with black shorts, making himself some yakisoba and grabbing a can of Strong Zero from the refrigerator, sitting before his PC.
"Gulp!"
"Ha… this is the life," Kenji muttered after downing half the can in a single gulp, an episode of the world-famous series, Sexter Morgan, playing on his PC.
Vroom!! Vroom!!
Just as Kenji was living in the moment, his phone placed on the table trembled and began to buzz, breaking his immersion as clicking his tongue he picked it up and raised his eyebrows after seeing who was calling.
After contemplating for a second whether he should pick up or not, he finally, shaking his head, pressed the green button and brought the phone to his ears.
"Hello Team Leader. Don't tell me you are missing me already? I'm just halfway into my first day of paid leave," said Kenji after picking the call, being humorous with his immediate boss as their relationship was pretty good.
"I'll kill myself the day I end up missing you and on the contrary I was enjoying your absence as ladies remembered to look at me as well. I would have liked for this to continue but alas, as they say, what you resist persists. I need your help."
A bad feeling welled up in Kenji's heart at his words and the impulse to hang up the phone immediately was stronger than ever, but still knowing basic manners, asking with faint hope in his eyes:
"What happened?"
"You remember the project we finished at Shinsei Security last week? Kato messed up with the ceiling vents at the top floor really bad. They want them fixed within the next six hours as they are expecting a VVIP tonight and don't want anything to go wrong,"said Nakamura, Kenji's Team Leader, his voice laced with worry and even some dread.
I shouldn't have picked up after all, sighed Kenji inwardly as a regretful look appeared on his face, blaming himself for not trusting his intuition.
"What about Haru? Ryota? Or Kato himself? You know how hard-earned a paid leave is, Team Leader, and I really don't want to spend it working," tried Kenji to convince his team leader to pick someone else, not really in the mood to leave his cozy place and go out and work.
"If they had been available I wouldn't have bothered you, believe me. I would have gone myself to fix it if I didn't have a project meeting with the site manager, please, I'm counting on you for this."
Kenji went silent at his words for a few seconds, eventually letting out a deep breath and speaking. "Make sure today counts as an active work day, Team Leader."
"Of course," agreed Nakamura, the team leader, immediately to his request.
Hanging up the phone, Kenji looked at the half-finished Strong Zero can and the paused episode before him, letting out another deep breath and walking towards his closet.