"Ahhh, damn it. I really don't understand any of this."
Whispered Shinka Kusaka, a fourteen-year-old boy whose elongated, weary shadow stretched across the wall of his tidy but small room.
The yellowish light from the desk lamp crashed against the pages of his notebook, illuminating a tangled mess of numbers and symbols that seemed to dance before his exhausted eyes.
The school holidays were just around the corner, but a slab of pending homework, the fruit of his mastery in the art of procrastination, kept him chained to his desk.
'Why?! Why did I leave this for the last minute again?!'
It was the eleventh hour of the night, and sleep weighed on his shoulders like a leaden cloak.
Each eyelid was an iron curtain fighting to fall.
'I just want to sleep! Damn it!'
It was the desperate mantra echoing in his mind, a final effort to infuse energy into his numb brain.
Mathematics, his personal nemesis, finally broke him.
His head, unable to stay upright, slowly tilted until his forehead rested on the cool surface of the wooden desk.
The conscious world began to blur, to mix with the first threads of sleep, when a shout ripped him from that limbo.
"Kusaka Shinka, I hope you've finished your homework!" His aunt's voice, clear and firm, pierced through the door.
Ahem!
"Ah, yes! I have it, Aunt. I'll finish soon..." he murmured, sitting up with a jump and rubbing his eyes forcefully. He readjusted his glasses and fixed his gaze on the notebook.
'Come on, I must hurry if I want to...'
The thought vanished abruptly.
It wasn't because of sleepiness, nor fatigue.
It was something tangible, impossible.
Before him, floating in the air with no support, a faint, ethereal blue light emanated from a translucent window, similar to a video game interface.
It wasn't a reflection or a stain in his vision. It illuminated his bewildered face, bathed his books and keyboard with a supernatural glow. In the center, a message pulsed calmly:
[You have awakened the Perfection System.]
Shinka rubbed his eyes so hard he saw stars. 'Oh god... This is what happens from not sleeping. My brain is fried.'
The window persisted.
New lines of text appeared.
[The system grants the capacity for continuous evolution for all your skills, regardless of their nature. Its purpose is to guide the user towards absolute perfection.]
Before he could react, the original window dissolved into particles of light, only to be replaced by another, more detailed one, titled simply:
[Status].
[Name: Shinka Kusaka.]
[Race: Human.]
[Titles: None.]
[Health: 50/50]
[Mana: 1/1]
[Attack: Low. (Human)]
[Defense: Low. (Human)]
[Speed: Low. (Human)]
[Number of Skills: 0.]
Shinka sat motionless, his brain processing the information drop by drop.
He blinked, held his breath, and then released it in a long, trembling sigh.
Almost by instinct, he thought about closing it.
The window disappeared immediately, leaving only the faint glow of the desk lamp and a confusion that made the floor feel unsteady beneath him. His expression was a perfect compendium of absolute bewilderment.
Intrigued and with a racing heart, he tried thinking about it again.
And there it was, floating, real.
After a few seconds to calm his nerves, he closed it again.
"This... is insane." He muttered to himself, his voice a thread in the silence of the room. The idea of going to sleep and chalking it all up to a lucid dream was tempting.
But a spark of curiosity, intense and dangerous, had already been ignited within him.
'I can't pretend this didn't happen. It's impossible. If that "system" says it lets me perfect skills...'
His gaze returned to the notebook, to the math problems mocking him. 'If this is real... could I understand this right now?'
With newfound determination, he pushed the notebook aside and opened his laptop. In a matter of seconds, he had a tutorial page open.
He immersed himself in the explanations, at first skeptically, then with a feverish concentration.
Approximately ten minutes later, when the video was explaining a concept that previously seemed like hieroglyphics to him, a series of blue notifications burst into his vision, superimposed on the screen.
[Skill added: "Mathematics (Academic)" to repertoire.]
[Due to prior knowledge, "Mathematics (Academic)" rises to Level 3.]
[For diligence in study, "Mathematics (Academic)" rises to Level 4.]
Shinka's jaw dropped.
A strange tingling, almost a sudden clarity, ran through his mind.
He looked at the problem in his notebook. The numbers and unknowns were no longer a mystery. He saw the steps, the logic, the solution, as if he had always known it.
He grabbed his pencil and began to write, the strokes sure and swift. In five minutes, the pages that had been blank for days were complete.
A wave of euphoria washed over him. 'I did it! Three days of being stuck and I solve it in minutes!'
Then, the real implication of the system hit him with full force.
'This isn't just about math. I can improve anything. If I study now, tomorrow at school... I'd be unstoppable.'
The moment that thought took shape, another notification appeared.
[Skill added: "Logical / Rational Thinking" to repertoire.]
[Due to prior thought patterns, "Logical / Rational Thinking" is Level 5.]
Suddenly, his mind didn't just understand math. It thought with crystalline fluidity. Choices, consequences, connections between ideas organized themselves in his head like a river finding its bed. A smile of astonishment and ambition formed on his lips.
"I'm never going to fail again!" He declared in a whisper laden with new purpose.
"Shinka! Keep your voice down!"
"S-Sorry!"
And, completely forgetting about sleep, he opened a new browser tab, searching for more advanced concepts, challenging himself, mesmerized by the silent sound of levels rising in his mind.
. . .
The first orange lights of dawn began to filter through the window, painting warm stripes across the desk, now littered with open books and digital notes.
The birdsong announced a new day.
Knock, knock.
A soft tapping on the door. A pause.
Knock, knock.
Receiving no answer, the door opened gently. In the doorway stood his aunt, a woman of elegant beauty, with her chestnut hair tied up and keen green eyes.
Her expression, initially serene, transformed into stupefaction and then into concern.
Her nephew was sitting in front of the laptop, back straight, eyes shining with an unusual intensity... but framed by deep, purple shadows that spoke of an all-nighter. The room smelled of cold coffee and concentration.
Shinka slowly turned his head. Meeting his aunt's penetrating, reproachful gaze, a shiver of guilt ran through him.
"H-hi, Aunt..." He mumbled, his voice hoarse from lack of sleep.
'I went overboard... I kinda abused the system a bit.' The thought, clear and logical thanks to his new skill, only confirmed that the punishment coming his way would also be perfectly rational.
He resigned himself to his fate with an internal sigh, as the System of Perfection remained silent, awaiting its next command.