The mirror was cracked.
A thin diagonal line ran from the top right corner to the bottom left, splitting Rudra's reflection into two mismatched halves. The mirror hung on the wall of the hallway—the narrow corridor that connected the living room to the bedrooms. It was barely wide enough for a person to stand in front of, let alone swing a cricket bat.
But it was all Rudra had.
The clock on the wall read 5:47 AM. He had returned from his morning run twenty minutes ago—another 500 meters, another 5 EXP, Stamina now at 17/100. His legs still ached. His lungs still burned. But the run was done. Now came the real work.
He positioned himself sideways to the mirror, feet shoulder-width apart, head turned to face his reflection. The Kashmir willow felt heavy in his hands—not the balanced, featherlight English willow he remembered from his previous life, but a cheap piece of wood with a thick handle and a dead sweet spot.
Doesn't matter, he told himself. The bat doesn't make the batsman. The repetition does.
He raised the bat. Backlift straight—no, wait. Too high. The System had taught him in his previous life that backlift should be comfortable, not exaggerated. He lowered it slightly, then brought it down in a slow forward defensive stroke.
The blade of the bat met an imaginary ball. His left elbow was high. His head was over the line of the ball. His front foot had moved forward and across, smothering the spin.
Good.
[Skill: Batting Timing — Shadow Practice Detected]
[Repetition 1 of 500]
[EXP: +0.1 per 10 repetitions (cumulative)]
0.01 EXP per repetition, Rudra calculated. *Five hundred reps = 5 EXP. Not much. But if I do this every day...*
He reset and played the shot again.
Forward defense. Head still. Elbow high. Bat straight.
Two.
Forward defense.
Three.
By the time he reached fifty, his shoulder was burning. The Kashmir willow wasn't heavy by adult standards—maybe 1.1 kilograms—but for a twelve-year-old's untrained muscles, it might as well have been made of iron.
One hundred.
Sweat dripped down his forehead. His forearm trembled. But he didn't stop.
One hundred fifty.
The System logged his progress silently.
[Batting Timing Lv 01 → 1.5/100 EXP]
One point five, Rudra thought. After 150 shots. This is going to take forever.
But that was the point. The System didn't reward talent. It rewarded volume. One thousand repetitions to level up from Lv 01 to Lv 02. Then two thousand for Lv 03. Then four thousand. The math was brutal.
Two hundred.
His mother's voice came from the kitchen. "Rudra? What's that thumping sound?"
"Shadow practice, Amma!"
A pause. Then: "In the hallway?"
"It's the only mirror!"
Another pause. Then a soft laugh. "Don't break anything."
Two hundred fifty.
He thought about his previous life—about the hours he had wasted. The evenings spent watching TV instead of practicing. The weekends spent hanging out with friends instead of going to the nets. The natural talent he had coasted on until it ran out.
Three hundred.
His arm was screaming now. The bat felt like lead. But he had made a promise to himself: 500 forward defenses every morning. No excuses. No shortcuts.
Three hundred fifty.
He adjusted his grip. The System had flagged a flaw in his previous life—his bottom hand was too dominant, a common problem for young batsmen who wanted to hit hard instead of play straight. He forced his top hand to take control, the V between thumb and index finger pointing down the handle.
Four hundred.
The shot felt different. Smoother. More controlled.
[System Note: Technique adjustment detected. Bottom hand dominance reduced by 12%. Efficiency of repetitions increased by 8%.]
Eight percent, Rudra thought. That's not nothing. Over 500 reps, that's 40 extra reps of value.
Four hundred fifty.
His reflection showed a boy who looked older than twelve. Not in appearance—the face was still soft, the body still thin—but in intensity. The way he moved. The way he focused. The way he ignored the burning in his muscles and kept going.
Five hundred.
He played the last forward defense slowly, deliberately, holding the pose for a full three seconds after the imaginary contact. Then he lowered the bat and let out a long breath.
[Shadow Practice Complete]
[Forward Defenses: 500/500]
[EXP Gained: Batting Timing +5]
[Batting Timing Lv 01 → 6.5/100 EXP]
Six point five, Rudra read. After one session. At this rate, 20 sessions to reach Lv 02. Less than a month.
He set the bat against the wall and stretched his shoulder. The muscle was tight, bordering on sore. He would need to ice it later—another lesson from his previous life. Ignoring minor pain led to major injuries.
But I don't have ice, he realized. Not really. The freezer has ice cubes for drinking water, not for sports recovery.
[System Note: Recovery resources limited. Recommend alternative: cold water immersion of forearm for 10 minutes post-training.]
Cold water from the tap, Rudra translated. Better than nothing.
The kitchen smelled of coconut chutney and fresh idli. His mother was at the stove, steam rising around her face. She turned when he walked in, took one look at his sweat-soaked shirt, and frowned.
"You're pushing too hard."
"I'm fine, Amma."
"You're twelve years old. You should be playing, not—"
"I am playing." Rudra sat down at the dining table. "Cricket is play. I just take it seriously."
Janavi studied him for a moment. Then she placed a plate of idlis in front of him, along with a small bowl of sambar.
"Eat," she said. "And tell me about this coach. Guru, is it?"
Rudra dipped an idli into the sambar. "Guru Rao. He was a fast bowler in his youth. Never made it past state level, but he knows the fundamentals."
"And he agreed to let you use the nets for free?"
"I clean the pavilion. Sweep the nets. Fetch balls. It's a fair trade."
His mother sat down across from him, her own plate of idlis untouched. "You negotiated that?"
"Yes."
"Like you negotiated with the property dealer? Like you negotiated with your father about the land?"
Rudra paused mid-bite. "Amma—"
"I'm not angry." Her voice was soft but firm. "I'm trying to understand. You've changed, Rudra. In the past few weeks, you've become... different. Older. Wiser. Sometimes I look at you and I don't see my son. I see a man I don't recognize."
The words hit Rudra like a bouncer to the ribs.
She knows. Not the truth—she couldn't possibly guess the truth—but she knows something is different.
"I'm just trying to be better, Amma. For you. For Appa. For our family."
Janavi reached across the table and touched his hand. Her fingers were warm, calloused from decades of cooking and cleaning and surviving.
"Promise me you won't forget to be a child," she said. "Promise me you'll still laugh. Still play. Still make mistakes."
Rudra looked at his mother—this woman who had died in 2019, who he had held in an ICU, who he had mourned for years. And now she was here, alive, asking him to promise something he wasn't sure he could deliver.
"I promise," he said.
The lie tasted like ash in his mouth.
School passed in a blur. Rudra answered questions correctly, submitted homework on time, and said nothing to his classmates about his morning runs or his shadow practice or the System living inside his mind.
At lunch, a boy named Akash sat next to him.
"You've been weird lately," Akash said, biting into a sandwich. "You don't hang out anymore."
Rudra looked at Akash—a face he remembered from his previous life. They had been friends in seventh standard, drifted apart in eighth, and never spoken again after high school. Akash had become an accountant in Mysore. A good man. A boring life.
"I've been busy," Rudra said.
"Busy doing what?"
"Cricket."
Akash snorted. "Cricket? You're not even that good."
Fair point, Rudra thought. In his previous life at twelve, he had been mediocre. A little talent, a little effort, nothing special. Akash had no reason to believe otherwise.
"I'm getting better," Rudra said.
"Whatever." Akash stood up. "Let me know when you want to play video games again."
He walked away.
Rudra watched him go, feeling a strange mix of nostalgia and detachment. These children—his classmates—were living their first lives. They didn't know about heart attacks or frozen dinners or the quiet desperation of middle age. They didn't know that the decisions they made now would echo for decades.
I know, Rudra thought. And that's why I can't waste time on video games.
He finished his lunch in silence.
At 4 PM, he walked to the Malleshwaram Cricket Club.
The nets were empty—the serious players practiced in the morning, the schoolboys in the evening. Guru Rao was sitting in his usual chair, reading a newspaper.
"You're early again," the coach said without looking up.
"I want to practice. Can I use Net 2?"
Guru folded the newspaper. "You know how to use a bowling machine?"
"There's a bowling machine?"
"Bought it last year. Second-hand. Works fine for medium pace." Guru stood up and walked toward a small shed near the pavilion. Rudra followed.
The machine was old—a Bola brand, probably from the early 1990s—with worn wheels and a control panel that looked like it belonged in a nuclear reactor. But it worked. Rudra remembered using similar machines in his previous life, back when he had access to real facilities.
"You set the speed here," Guru said, pointing at a dial. "Slowest is about 60 km/h. Fastest is about 110. Don't touch the fast setting. You're not ready."
*110 km/h,* Rudra calculated. *That's faster than any twelve-year-old bowler in Bangalore. But slower than what I'll face in Under-14.*
"I'll start at 60," Rudra said.
Guru raised an eyebrow. "Confident?"
"Realistic. I need to see the ball before I can hit it."
The coach grunted. "Fair. Set it up yourself. I'll watch."
Rudra rolled the machine to the edge of Net 2, aimed it at the batting crease, and loaded a bucket of practice balls—old, scuffed, some missing leather. Then he walked to the batting end, took his stance, and nodded.
Guru pressed the start button.
Thwack.
The ball shot out of the machine—faster than Rudra expected, even at 60 km/h. His twelve-year-old reflexes were slow, sluggish, unused to tracking a moving object at speed.
He swung.
Missed.
The ball hit the padding behind him and rolled away.
[Side Quest: The First Net Session — 1/50 balls faced]
[Batting Timing Lv 01 — No change]
[System Note: Visual tracking insufficient. Recommend focusing on the release point of the machine's wheels.]
Rudra reset his stance.
Second ball.
He watched the machine's wheels—the way they gripped the ball, the split second before release. His eyes tracked the trajectory.
There.
He moved his front foot forward and played a defensive shot.
Thunk.
The ball hit the middle of the bat.
Not the sweet spot—the dead part near the toe. But contact.
[Batting Timing Lv 01 → 6.6/100 EXP]
0.1 EXP for a single contact, Rudra noted. At this rate, 940 more contacts to reach Lv 02.
Third ball.
He played another defensive shot. Contact again. Better this time—closer to the middle.
Fourth ball.
A delivery outside off stump. Rudra left it alone.
Fifth ball.
A delivery on his pads. He nudged it toward square leg.
Contact. EXP.
Ball after ball, the machine fed him a steady diet of medium-pace deliveries. Some he defended. Some he left. A few he tried to drive, with mixed success.
At 25 balls, his eyes were starting to adjust. The ball seemed... slower. Not physically slower—the machine was still set to 60 km/h—but his perception of the ball was changing.
[System Note: Visual adaptation detected. Ball tracking efficiency improved by 15%.]
This is what the System calls "passive effort," Rudra realized. Not a skill unlock. Not a level up. Just... adaptation. The body learning.
At 40 balls, he tried a cover drive.
The shot was imperfect—his weight transfer was late, his head fell over—but he made contact. The ball rocketed off the bat, bouncing once before hitting the net.
Guru Rao whistled. "Not bad, kid."
Rudra said nothing. He was focused on the machine, on the next ball, on the rhythm of the exercise.
41. 42. 43.
At 48 balls, he missed again. The ball beat his outside edge and thudded into the padding.
49.
A full delivery on middle stump. Rudra played forward, bat straight, elbow high. The contact was pure—the clean, satisfying crack of leather on the sweet spot.
[Batting Timing Lv 01 → 7.5/100 EXP]
[Side Quest Progress: 49/50 balls faced]
One more.
50.
The machine fired. Rudra watched the wheels, tracked the seam, moved his feet.
Thunk.
Contact.
[Side Quest Complete: The First Net Session]
[Objective: Face 50 balls in a practice net]
[Reward: Batting Timing Lv 01 → Lv 02 + 50 bonus EXP]
[Batting Timing Lv 01 → Lv 02 (57.5/200 EXP)]
[Quest Reward Summary]
[EXP Gained: 50 (bonus) + 50 (for level up) = 100 total]
[Batting Timing now Lv 02]
Rudra lowered his bat and let out a breath.
Lv 02.
It was a small milestone—the smallest, really—but it was his. Earned through sweat and repetition and the grinding patience of a man who had learned, across two lifetimes, that shortcuts were lies.
"Well?" Guru said from behind the net.
Rudra turned. The coach was leaning against the net frame, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
"I want to do it again tomorrow," Rudra said. "More balls. Faster."
Guru studied him for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly.
"Tomorrow. 6 AM. We start with running. Then nets. Then cleaning."
"I'll be here."
"I know you will," Guru said. "That's what scares me."
Rudra walked home as the sun set over Malleshwaram. The Kashmir willow swung from his hand. His shoulder ached. His eyes were tired.
But the System panel glowed with quiet satisfaction.
[Day 4 Complete]
[EXP Earned Today: Stamina +5, Flexibility +1, Batting Timing +107.5]
[Stamina Lv 01 → 17/100]
[Batting Timing Lv 01 → Lv 02 (57.5/200)]
[Hidden Quest Progress: Static Vision — 50/10,000 balls faced]
Only 9,950 to go, Rudra thought.
He smiled and kept walking.
End of Chapter 5