Dawn's pale light had yet to warm the stone of the Courtyard of Dawn when Alaric was already moving. His body protested every step—a chorus of aches from yesterday's experiments and the deep, permanent song of his meridian damage—but his mind was a clear, cold engine. The system had reset its dailies.
[Daily Quest: Diligence]
Objective: Clean the training ground weapon racks before the morning bell.
Reward: +3 System Points, +0.1 DEX.
[Daily Quest: Foundation]
Objective: Perform your personal variation of the Four Seasons Breathing Form for one cumulative hour.
Reward: +0.1 VIT, +0.1 SPR, Meridian Weaving Progress +0.02%.
It was a numbers game. Every +0.1 was a brick in the dam holding back his own fragility. He moved to the training grounds, a wide expanse of packed earth ringed with wooden posts and racks holding chipped, blunt iron swords and staves. The bullies wouldn't be here for another hour; they prized their sleep.
The work was simple: remove dust, spiderwebs, and rust spots. But Alaric approached it like a speed-run. He didn't clean thoroughly; he cleaned efficiently. A quick wipe down the length of a staff, a flick of the cloth over the sword hilts. The system's objective didn't specify a standard, only the action. In fifteen minutes, the racks were technically cleaned. The chime sounded. +0.1 DEX. A faint, almost ghostly sensation of improved balance whispered through his nervous system.
Next, the form. He retreated to his crumbling sanctuary behind the Scripture Depository. Here, he didn't push his body into painful approximations. Instead, he sat against the wall, closed his eyes, and breathed. He visualized the flow of the form, the intent behind each season's transition. He focused on the 'Spring Budding' as inhalation, 'Summer Blaze' as circulation, 'Autumn Harvest' as condensation, 'Winter Stillness' as deep integration. He guided his single, tenuous thread of Qi through this imagined cycle, not through his broken meridians, but through the hollow spaces around them, a phantom exercise.
It was meditation, not cultivation. But the system, bound by its own definitions, logged it as form practice. The hour passed with agonizing slowness, marked by pinpricks of pain and the slow, satisfying double chime of completion. +0.1 VIT. +0.1 SPR. The Meridian Weaving progress ticked to 0.03%. It was a laughable figure. It was also real.
His Status now read:
VIT: 4.4
DEX: 3.3
SPR: 7.2
System Points: 21
The progress was microscopic, but it was linear. It was data. And data could be leveraged.
The weekly quest, [The Forager], loomed. He needed those Silverleaf Herbs. With his points, he accessed the system's rudimentary shop—a list currently populated with mundane items, their prices steep.
[Sturdy Walking Stick: 15 Points]
[Simple Trail Rations: 5 Points]
[Basic Beast Repellent (Questionable Efficacy): 25 Points]
[Minor Qi-Gathering Talisman (One-Use): 30 Points]
He couldn't afford the repellent or the talisman. The walking stick, however, was a necessity disguised as a mobility aid. He purchased it. The points deducted, and in a shimmer of light that would have looked like a trick of the sun to any observer, a stout, knotted length of yew appeared leaning against the wall. It was far superior to his broom. It had heft, and a twisted root at the top that fit perfectly in his grip. +2 VIT (Temporary, while wielded). A direct stat boost from an item. The power of equipment was not lost on the gamer in him.
Thus armed, he set out for the lower western foothills. The path was rough, descending out of the sect's manicured areas into wilder, rock-strewn slopes. The Map slowly peeled back the fog as he walked, revealing topography: a stream here, a thicket there. His Qi Perception, at its most basic level, tingled. The ambient energy here was slightly thicker, wilder, laced with the green, growing essence of plants and the faint, coppery tang of hidden beasts.
He found the Mossy Glen. It was, as predicted, picked clean. A few trampled stems of common herbs, no Silverleaf. He spent an hour combing the area, his eyes sharp, using the walking stick to probe damp crevices. Nothing.
A new, unlisted objective seemed to form in the system's logic.
[Sub-Objective Updated: Locate viable Silverleaf habitat. Proficiency in 'Herbalism' insufficient. Suggest environmental analysis.]
Analysis. That he could do. Silverleaf preferred damp shade and mineral-rich rock. He needed to find north-facing crevices near water. Using the sun and the rough map, he plotted a course away from the trodden path, following the sound of the stream downhill into a tighter, darker ravine.
The air grew cooler. The sense of being watched, a primal instinct his sickly former life never knew, prickled the back of his neck. He moved slowly, sticking to the shadows, his stick testing the ground ahead. He saw a glint. There, in a deep crack in a mossy boulder, sheltered by a dripping overhang: a cluster of three small plants, their leaves shimmering with a faint, metallic luster.
Silverleaf Herb x3 identified.
Triumph was short-lived. A low growl rumbled from the thicket to his left. A creature emerged—not a mighty spirit beast, but a Rock-Tusked Boar, a rankless beast the size of a large dog. Its hide was knotted like stone, and two chipped, dirty tusks gleamed. Its small, red eyes were fixed on him. It was a scavenger, an opportunist, but to Alaric, it was a tank.
The system flashed a warning.
[Hostile Entity: Rock-Tusked Boar. Threat Level: Moderate-High to User.]
Fight? Impossible. Flight? His crippled leg and low DEX made him a slow, stumbling target. The boar pawed the ground, snorting.
Alaric's mind raced, scanning his inventory, his stats, his environment. The walking stick. The beast repellent he couldn't afford. The stream behind him.
He didn't run. He slowly, deliberately, reached into his pouch and pulled out his only valuable possession: the remaining half of his hidden bread ration. He flung it in a high arc, away from the herbs, toward the thicker part of the thicket. The boar's head snapped toward the sound. It hesitated, torn between the easy, strange food and the threatening, skinny human.
Alaric didn't wait. He used the distraction to lunge forward, not away, but toward the rock. He jammed the hooked end of his walking stick into the crevice above the herbs and levered. With a crack, a chunk of mossy rock broke free, tumbling down and scattering the herbs but also covering them in debris. He scooped up the scattered, dirt-covered leaves, roots and all, stuffing them into his robe.
The boar, having devoured the bread, turned back, angrier now. But Alaric was already moving, not up the steep ravine, but sideways, toward the rushing stream. The boar charged. At the last second, Alaric used his stick to vault awkwardly over a narrow but deep section of the stream. He landed hard on the other side, pain shooting up his leg, but he was across. The boar skidded to a halt at the water's edge, snorting in fury but unwilling to plunge into the swift, unknown current.
Panting, heart hammering against his ribs, Alaric lay on the far bank. He'd lost his bread. He was bruised and drained. But in his possession were three crushed, dirty Silverleaf Herbs. The quest counter updated: 3/10.
It wasn't a victory of power. It was a victory of resource management and terrain exploitation. He'd used an environmental hazard as a barrier, a cheap item as a distraction, and taken a calculated risk.
The narrow victory, however, had revealed a pattern. The boar was territorial, not nomadic. It had claimed that specific ravine. By crossing the stream, he had effectively mapped a boundary. Using his newly honed [Environmental Awareness]—which now made him note the lay of the rocks, the density of the undergrowth, the subtle paths of smaller animals—he began a cautious, sweeping search upstream from the confrontation point, staying on the opposite bank from the boar's territory.
He moved like a ghost, his [Qi Perception] stretched thin, alert for the metallic shimmer of leaves and the coppery threat of other beasts. He found two more herbs in a sunny patch the boar likely ignored. Another was tucked under the roots of a lightning-blasted tree. The last three were the hardest, requiring him to climb—an agonizing, three-limbed affair with his stick as a brace—up a short, damp cliff face to a secluded ledge where a tiny spring trickled. They grew in a perfect, untouched cluster. Each acquisition was a mini-quest of its own, demanding patience, pain, and perfect silence over strength.
By the time the sun began its descent, his pouch held ten intact Silverleaf Herbs, their roots carefully wrapped in damp moss. His body was a tapestry of new scrapes and exhausted tremors, but the quest log glowed with pristine completion: 10/10.
As he limped back toward the sect, the final notification appeared, this one in a calm, neutral blue.
[Weekly Quest: The Forager - COMPLETED!]
Rewards Claimed: [Basic Healing Salve] x3, +10 System Points, +0.5 SPR.
[New Skill Unlocked: Environmental Awareness - Lv. 1.]
[Environmental Awareness]: Increases perception of terrain advantages and hidden threats. Synergizes with [Qi Perception].
The salves materialized in his inventory: three small, clay pots sealed with wax. Their value was immense. The +0.5 SPR was a substantial jump, making his spiritual perception sharper, the world's hidden energies slightly more defined. He now had 36 System Points. He had a new, practical skill. He had a small medical stockpile. The cost had been high in energy and fear, but the exchange rate was favorable. He was learning the economy of this brutal world: risk versus reward, stat investment versus payout.
The walk back was long and painful. But with each step, Alaric calculated. The salves would be his first real assets. The points would buy him a slight edge. The stats, atom by atom, were making him less of a cripple and more of a… survivor.
He was still far from safe. Marcus was still a predator. The system was still an enigma. But as he saw the Azure Sky Sect's gates ahead, Alaric allowed himself a thin, hard smile. He was no longer just playing the game. He was beginning to understand its fundamental math. And he was slowly, painfully, accruing the capital he needed to change the equation.