The new day began with the kind of quiet that felt like an exam room. Sunlight pooled in a narrow strip on the floor and trembled as a tram rattled far below. Rian woke before the alarm inside his head nudged him. The bed felt stiff. The apartment felt smaller than it had the night before, as if the walls had drawn in to make room for the responsibilities that had settled on him.
The panel floated in the corner of his vision like a patient teacher.
System Notice: Beginner Stability active.
Daily Objective:Complete 3 Basic Life Skill microquests.
- Laundry (+5 XP)
- Sweep + Clean (+5 XP)
- Create a Weekly Budget (+15 XP on success)
Bonus:Complete all three for Weekly Growth Bonus: +50 XP.
Rian stared at the list, then rubbed his face with both hands. The words were simple. The work behind them would not be. He swung his legs over the bed and stood. His knees complained quietly. He told himself this out loud like a promise.
"Laundry first," he said. The sound of his voice felt steadier than his hands.
The laundry basket sat by the door. Inside were shirts that smelled faintly of oil and dust, socks with holes, a pair of pants that had been patched at the knee, and a small towel. He had washed clothes before someone had always shown him how. But this time no one would stand over his shoulder. No one would take over when he slowed down.
He filled the sink with warm water and a splash of dish soap. It was not ideal, but it worked. He scrubbed the shirts, fingers learning the rhythm of rubbing and rinsing. The pipes coughed and spat but did not break. He rinsed the soap out and wrung the fabric with a learned pressure that left his palms tingling.
A soft chime.
Microquest complete: Laundry.
XP +5.
Attribute gains: Responsibility +0.1.
A small animation pulsed where his Responsibility bar sat. Numbers ticked upward. He smiled despite himself. It was a tiny thing, a number, but it meant the system had noticed.
Next was sweeping. The apartment had crumbs and dust braided into the corners like little dark nests. He found the broom missing its handle but managed to prop it against the wall and use the remaining stick carefully. The motion was awkward at first. He swept crumbs into a pile, collected them on cardboard, and carried the little trash bundle out to the alley. The simple motion cleared more than dirt. It cleared a little of the fog that had sat on his chest.
Microquest complete: Sweep + Clean.
XP +5.
Attribute gains: Responsibility +0.1. Discipline +0.05.
Two small checks done. Twenty XP left to the next level requirement still felt like a mountain, but the slope was gentler now.
The last task made him swallow. The system had asked for a budget. In his first life, bills and money had been someone else's problem. Now a new line item blinked at him on the panel.
Weekly Budget - Task: Create a plan for food, rent, utilities. Estimated costs attached to local rates. Success grants +15 XP. Failure penalty: −10 XP and Confidence −0.1.
Rian dug the stack of landlord notices out of the drawer again and examined numbers. Rent. Utilities. An approximate food baseline scrawled on the margin of one note. The numbers felt like a different language. He had never actually sat down to make a spreadsheet.
A small, practical voice in his head pushed him out the door. He wrapped the patched jacket around his shoulders and stepped into the hallway.
The building stairwell stank of old paint. He pressed the buzzer and descended into city noise. Outside, the market thrummed with people. Vendors shouted about produce and tools. Rune-lit signs winked at him like foreign alphabets. He had to learn not just money, but the cadence of this place.
He walked to a small corner stall where a woman sold vegetables and instant noodles. She kept a paper ledger and a calculator. He watched her add numbers, lips moving. He felt ridiculous standing there, a grown seventeen-year-old with no clue.
"Hey," she said without looking up. "You buying or gawking?"
"Buying," he said, then realized the word sounded thin. "I...I don't have much. I need to figure out costs. Could you ...." He swallowed. "Could you tell me how much a week of basics costs? Rice, eggs, bread, a little oil?"
The woman raised an eyebrow and slid the ledger toward him. "You want the budget, kid? It ain't free. But I'll tell you: rice, good for three meals a day with stretch, twenty coins. Eggs, cheap if you buy in tens, but we sell three for five. Bread, two for one. Oil depends. Utilities? That's not me. Basics, you're looking at forty a week if you're careful."
Rian tried to do the math in his head. The numbers blurred. He had coins at home , three silver, seventeen copper. It wasn't enough.
"Do you have a calculator?" he asked, embarrassed.
She laughed softly and handed him a worn slate calculator. He tried to multiply and divide and lost track. The clerk at the next stall overhead him and made a small joke about students. Some people around him snickered. A hot flush of humiliation rose up and burned his neck.
Penalty triggered: Social Humiliation detected.
Temporary Debuff: Confidence −0.1.
He felt smaller than the cracked pebble at his feet. He almost left. The budget task suddenly felt like a public trial.
He closed his eyes, drew a breath the way the system had taught him in a calm voice during a tutorial: inhale, hold two counts, exhale slowly. He opened his eyes and started again. This time he wrote down the numbers slowly. Rice: twenty. Eggs (three for five): approximate. Bread: two. Multiply by weeks. Factor in the rent estimate. He made marks for utility estimates and a tiny emergency fund one silver coin saved every two weeks.
It was messy. The sums did not line up. He had a gap.
He could have walked away and failed. He could have let the penalty sit like a stone on his shoulders. Instead he did what the system expected: he went to a second stall to ask about cheaper alternatives. He found a small alley shop selling bulk rice at a lower cost and bartered for a slightly lower price with a shaky charm he did not know he had.
Back at his apartment he laid everything out and adjusted figures until the math almost balanced. He still did not have rent fully covered, but he had a plan to pick up extra parcel runs, and he had trimmed food budgets sensibly.
He submitted the plan through the panel.
Budget Review: Submitted.
Result: Conditional success.
XP +15.
Attribute gains: Intellect +0.1, Responsibility +0.2.
Bonus: Weekly Growth Progress +1/5.
A bright chime rang. Relief was a tangible thing, warm and round, filling the space behind his ribs. He had failed publicly and then fixed it. The penalty had stung, but it had forced him to learn.
He sank onto his bed and let the sheet cool the sweat on his neck. The system pulsed gently.
Daily Objective Complete: 3/3 microquests.
XP gained today: +25 (+5 laundry, +5 sweep, +15 budget).
Beginner Stability increased.
Rian tapped the display and watched numbers cascade: small, precise victories stacking into something larger than each. He felt tired, yes, but steadier.
He looked around his apartment, at the two eggs tucked carefully in the carton, at the pan drying on the rack, at the grocery list in his hand. None of it felt like doom anymore. It felt like practice.
He breathed out and whispered to the empty room, "One day at a time."
The system pulsed like an approving blink.
Note: Weekly Growth Bonus remains achievable. Continue diverse tasks for faster progression.
Rian closed his eyes and allowed himself to believe, just a little, that he could follow this strange map. The penalty still burned, but the lesson it left glowed brighter: failure was part of the road. How he met it would decide everything.