The window flashed, confirming the command before collapsing into a small tracker in the top corner of his vision.
[Quest Progress:]
[Push-ups: 0/100]
[Sit-ups: 0/100]
[Run: 0.0/5.0 km]
Rain didn’t go back to his room. He walked straight to the dirt training oval behind the gymnasium which he found thanks to the map.
He dropped his paper envelope and academy shirt onto a wooden bench near the fence.
He dropped to his hands and knees on the hard dirt.
"One," he grunted, pushing his chest off the ground.
His cracked ribs screamed immediately. A hot spike of pain shot through his left side, making his breath hitch in his throat, but he locked his elbows and lowered himself back down.
"Two."
By twenty, his forearms were shaking. By forty, his sweat was dripping onto the dirt between his thumbs, making small dark circles in the dust. The pain in his ribs wasn’t a dull throb anymore; it felt like a blunt knife pressing against his lungs every time he pushed up.
"Fifty-eight..." he gasped, his arms locking up. He held the position, his shoulders trembling violently, his forehead hovering two inches above the dirt. "Fifty-nine... sixty."
He collapsed onto his stomach, lying in the dirt for thirty seconds while his chest heaved. He didn’t stop. He pushed himself back up, doing them five at a time, three at a time, single reps where his hips sagged before his arms finally straightened.
When the counter hit one hundred, he flipped over onto his back, staring up at the blue sky while his lungs burned.
[Push-ups: 100/100]
He didn’t take a break. He bent his knees, hooked his feet under the bottom bar of the wooden bench, and started the sit-ups.
Every rep squeezed his stomach muscles directly against his bruised ribs. By fifty, he was making a low, wet wheezing sound every time he reached his knees. His vision blurred at the edges, red spots dancing across his eyes, but he kept his hands locked behind his head, pulling his weight up rep by rep until the screen beeped.
[Sit-ups: 100/100]
Rain dragged himself up off the dirt, using the wooden bench to stand. His legs felt like lead pipes. His calf muscles, still raw from the kinetic recoil of the skill from the night before, throbbed with a heavy, sickening pulse.
He looked at the dirt track.
’Five kilometers. So maybe, twelve and a half laps,’
"Go," he spat out, wiping sweat from his eyes with his forearm.
He started jogging. His form was terrible. He was limping on his right side, dragging his leg slightly to protect his ribs, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. Students walking past the fence paused to look at him, whispering to each other as they watched a bruised kid in dirty clothes stagger around the dirt track like a drunk man.
Lap three. His legs felt numb.
Lap six. His heart was hammering against his ribcage so hard he could hear it in his teeth.
Lap nine. He stopped thinking about the navy jackets, stopped thinking about the debt, and stopped thinking about the pain. There was only the sound of his scuffed boots hitting the packed dirt. Step, step, breathe. Step, step, breathe.
On the final lap, his legs gave out ten feet before the finish line. He fell forward, his knees hitting the dirt, his palms skidding across the rough gravel.
Rain screamed through his teeth, dug his toes into the ground, and dragged himself forward on his knees until his torso crossed the line.
A bright green flash lit up his vision.
[Quest Complete: Body Before Power]
[Rewards Granted: +1 Strength, +1 Endurance]
Rain lay flat on his back in the dirt, staring up at the clouds, his chest heaving up and down so fast he couldn’t form a thought.
’Show profile,’ he thought, once he had enough air back in his lungs to string a coherent command together.
[Host Profile]
[Name: Rain]
[Level: 1]
[Status: Awakened]
[HP: 61/100]
[Mana: 10/10]
[Physical Attributes]
[Strength: 9]
[Agility: 9]
[Endurance: 8]
[Intelligence: 16]
[Skill Slots: 1/1 (FUSED)]
Rain stared at the numbers, a slow grin spreading across his dirt-streaked face. HP had climbed to sixty-one, still not full, his ribs weren’t letting that happen overnight, but it was moving in the right direction. Mana sat completely full, back to its baseline after a night spent doing nothing but lying in a bed, and the run hadn’t touched it at all, confirmation, if he needed any, that his pool refilled on rest, not effort.
Strength and Endurance both up a full point from where they’d started the morning.
It wasn’t much. He knew that. Compared to a guild kid’s baseline physical abilities, nine and eight probably looked like a joke. But six hours ago those numbers had been eight and seven, and he had made that happen with nothing but dirt, sweat, and stubbornness.
A warm, clean sensation spread slowly from his core down into his hips and arms, taking the sharpest edge off the pain in his ribs. It didn’t cure him, but his muscles felt slightly denser, his lungs a little wider.
He lay there for ten minutes until his heart rate slowed down.
He pushed himself up, wiped the dirt off his clothes, picked up his paper envelope, and started walking toward the student district. He was starving.
He found a small campus café tucked between a bookstore and a potion shop. It had wooden tables set out on a stone patio under a green awning. Rain walked up to the counter, used his new black card to buy a large chicken sandwich and a bottle of fruit juice for six credits, and sat down at an empty corner table outside.
He took a huge bite of the sandwich, chewing slowly while he leaned back in his chair.
The patio was busy. A pair of upper-year students sitting two tables over were arguing over a formula, drawing diagrams in the air with their fingers. A girl with a sword strapped to her hip was laughing with her friends near the doorway. The sun was warm, the food was good, and for the first time since he had stepped out of the orphanage three months ago, Rain felt like he belonged somewhere.
He drank the juice, watching the people walk by on the cobblestone street, taking in the ordinary rhythm of the campus. He was tired, his body ached, but he was here.
’I am a student, just like you all,’ And that thought alone made him glad. He felt like he’d come a long way.
After finishing his lunch, he walked back through the commercial strip on his way to Dorm Block C.
The shops along the street were bright, displaying high-tier gear, metallic armor plates, and glowing weapon hilts behind clean glass windows. Rain didn’t stop for those; he couldn’t afford a single buckle on those displays.
He stopped in front of a modest clothing store near the corner.
In the window hung a plain, thick dark gray hoodie made of heavy cotton, with a deep hood and reinforced stitching along the cuffs. It looked warm, comfortable, and simple.
Rain walked inside. The shop was quiet, smelling of clean fabric and cedar wood. He walked over to the rack, checked the small paper tag hanging from the sleeve, and blinked.
Fifty credits.
Rain let out a quiet laugh, shaking his head. "Fifty credits... half my balance for a sweater. That’s insane."
He lifted his hand to put the hoodie back on the rack. He hesitated. His current shirt was thin, torn at the hem from his fall on the track, and covered in dried dirt. The dorm rooms got cold at night, and he had fifty credits sitting on a card that didn’t cost him a cent of his personal debt.
He pulled the hoodie off the rack and carried it to the counter.
A young woman with dark hair pulled up in a clip looked up from behind the register, smiling kindly as she saw the dirt on his forearms and the tired look in his eyes.
"Just this one?" she asked.
"Yeah," Rain said, sliding his black student card across the wood. "And... do you have a plain bath towel? A cheap one?"
"Five credits for the cotton ones on the shelf behind you," she said.
"Add that too, please."
She tapped the card against the reader, handed it back along with a brown paper bag, and folded the hoodie neatly inside.
"Have a good semester, kid," she said, her voice warm. "Try to get some rest."
"Thanks," Rain said, taking the bag with a genuine smile. "You too."
He stepped out of the shop, pulling the dark gray hoodie over his head right there on the sidewalk. It fit perfectly, thick and warm, hiding the bruises on his arms and keeping the cool wind off his neck. He pulled the paper bag under his arm and walked the rest of the way to Dorm Block C with a light, easy stride.
He swiped his keycard at Room 312, pushing the door open.
Jansen was sitting at his desk, exactly where he had been the night before, an open book resting in front of him. He didn’t look up when the door opened.
Rain walked in, set his paper envelope on his bare desk, and pulled the brand-new white towel out of his shopping bag. He walked over to the bathroom doorway, hung the towel neatly on the second hook by the frame, and turned around with a small, satisfied smile.
"Sweet," Rain said softly, looking over at Jansen’s back.
Jansen’s pen paused over his paper for a fraction of a second. He didn’t turn, he didn’t speak, and he didn’t offer a single word, simply resuming his writing with a faint, barely audible scratch of ink against paper.
Rain smiled anyway, pulled his desk chair out, and sat down to open his course schedule.