Edward left his room and walked down the stairs.
The wooden steps groaned.
He smelled burnt oats and weak tea.
It was Sunday.
The orphanage operated on a strict schedule.
Sunday meant no school, but it also meant chores, mandatory yard time, and breakfast that resembled wallpaper paste.
He entered the dining hall.
Two dozen boys sat at long tables.
They ate in relative silence.
Edward grabbed a bowl and a spoon.
A kitchen worker dropped a ladle of grey porridge into his bowl.
It hit the plastic with a wet thud.
Edward sat at an empty corner.
He ate the porridge.
His low-level Zoldyck poison resistance prevented him from tasting the despair baked into it.
He finished the bowl, drank a cup of tap water, and stood up.
Matron Cole stood by the exit.
She watched the boys file out toward the back yard.
She held her clipboard.
“Edward,” Matron Cole said.
Her voice cut through the noise.
Edward stopped.
He turned.
“Yes, Matron?” “No climbing today,” she said.
She narrowed her eyes.
“I will not spend my Sunday filling out incident reports.
Do not do anything silly like yesterday.” Edward offered a polite smile.
“I assure you, Matron.
Nothing will happen.” She sniffed and pointed toward the door.
“Out.” Edward stepped into the yard.
The air held a biting chill.
Frost coated the grass.
The yard had a rusted swing set, a cracked basketball court, and the dead oak tree.
He took three steps.
Shadows fell over him.
Three boys blocked his path.
Ben, the oldest boy in the orphanage, stood in the center.
Two cronies flanked him.
They cracked their knuckles.
To Edward, they looked like low-level tutorial mobs.
“You got lucky yesterday, Brooks,” Ben said.
“You escaped.
Today, you can’t.” Edward stopped.
He looked at Ben.
He let out a long sigh.
“Is there a script you guys pass around?” Edward asked.
He stuffed his hands into his pockets.
“I feel like I’ve heard this exact dialogue in a dozen terrible movies.” Ben blinked.
His face flushed red.
“What did you say?” “I asked if you have original material,” Edward said.
“Or do you just rely on physical intimidation because your vocabulary stopped developing in the second grade?” Ben triggered instantly.
He stepped forward and swung a right hook at Edward’s jaw.
Edward didn’t flinch.
His brain registered the punch moving in slow motion.
The five percent Zoldyck synchronization flared in his muscles.
Edward casually leaned his head back.
Ben’s fist hit empty air.
Ben stumbled forward.
He caught his balance.
He spun around and threw a wild left cross.
Edward ducked.
He kept his hands in his pockets.
“Hold still!” Ben yelled.
He threw a flurry of punches.
Edward shifted his weight.
He stepped left.
He leaned right.
He pivoted.
He slipped every single strike with mathematical precision.
Ben’s fists grazed his shirt, but never made contact.
“Get him!” Ben shouted.
The two other boys rushed in.
They tried to grab Edward’s arms.
Edward turned the yard into a training session.
He focused on his footwork.
He tracked their movements, letting his new instincts map their attacks.
One boy dove for his legs.
Edward side-stepped.
The boy face-planted in the freezing mud.
The other boy swung a kick.
Edward hopped over it.
Ben charged like a bull.
Edward sidestepped again, letting Ben crash into the rusted chain-link fence.
Ten minutes passed.
The yard fell silent.
Ben and his cronies stood in a triangle around Edward.
They gasped for air.
Sweat froze on their foreheads.
Their arms hung limp.
They completely gassed themselves out swinging at a target they couldn’t touch.
Edward stood in the center.
He had not broken a sweat.
He took his hands out of his pockets.
“My turn,” Edward said.
Edward stepped into Ben’s guard.
He moved faster than Ben’s tired eyes could track.
Edward raised his right hand.
He delivered an open-palm slap to Ben’s cheek.
It sounded like a gunshot.
Ben spun and collapsed into the dirt.
The second boy turned to run.
Edward swept his leg.
The boy hit the ground hard.
Edward slapped the back of his head, driving his face into the grass.
The third boy froze.
He threw his hands up in surrender.
Edward stepped forward and slapped him anyway.
The boy dropped.
Edward stood over them.
The three bullies groaned.
“On your knees,” Edward commanded.
His voice became flat and cold.
The boys hesitated.
Edward stepped toward Ben and raised his hand.
“Okay!
Okay!” Ben scrambled to his knees.
He held his red cheek.
The other two quickly followed suit.
They knelt in a row in the mud.
Edward paced in front of them.
“Let us establish the new rules,” Edward said.
“I am management.
You are labor.
From this day forward, you work for me.
If a chore needs doing, you do it.
If I need space, you clear the room.
Your primary responsibility is to ensure my life remains comfortable.
Do we have an understanding?” “You can’t do this,” one of the cronies muttered.
“We’re older—” Edward moved.
He slapped the boy again.
The boy fell over, then scrambled back onto his knees.
“I can do this,” Edward corrected.
“Any other protests?” Silence.
Ben shook his head rapidly.
“Excellent,” Edward said.
He waved his hand.
“Go away.
Do not approach me unless I call for you.
Go.” The three boys scrambled to their feet and ran.
Edward smiled.
The orphanage just became a luxury hotel.
He walked to the park area.
He jumped up and grabbed the top bar of the swing frame.
He did pull-ups.
He did fifty.
His muscles burned, but the fatigue felt productive.
He dropped into a pushup position in the dirt.
He did a hundred pushups.
He stood up.
He did two hundred squats.
He started running laps.
He ran until his lungs burned.
He pushed past the pain.
A blue screen materialized in his vision.
SYSTEM ALERT: PHYSICAL EXERTION REGISTERED.
SYNCHRONIZATION INCREASED.
CURRENT SYNCHRONIZATION: 5.5%.
Edward stopped running.
He took deep breaths.
A bell rang.
Lunch.
Edward walked back into the dining hall.
He sat down at an empty table.
A moment later, Ben appeared.
He carried a tray with a bowl of soup, bread, and an apple.
Ben placed the tray in front of Edward, avoided eye contact, and sprinted away.
Edward picked up his spoon.
Life was improving.
Time passed.
The winter months dragged on, freezing London.
Inside St.
Jude’s, however, things changed.
The orphanage suddenly found itself well-funded.
Every morning on the first of the month, Edward woke up and demanded his ten gacha rolls.
Over the next few months, he turned the system into a personal supply line.
He received bundles of cash.
He received clothing.
Sometimes he received men’s suits, sometimes women’s dresses, sometimes ridiculous prop items.
Edward stored what he needed in his dimensional space.
The rest, he donated.
With his synchronization climbing to twenty percent, Edward’s stealth became supernatural.
At two in the morning, he would slip out of his bed.
He moved silently through the hallways.
He picked the lock to Matron Cole’s office using his tools.
He dropped thick bundles of notes and folded clothes into the charity donation box.
Matron Cole discovered the donations.
She bought better food.
She fixed the boiler.
She assumed an anonymous benefactor had taken pity on them.
She never suspected Edward.
Edward didn’t just fix the funding; he fixed the hierarchy.
In his previous life, he saw what happened to orphans who aged out of the system with no skills.
They ended up on the streets or in jail.
Edward decided his new subordinates would not become like that.
He made sure every other kid in the orphanage didn’t skip school.
Every evening at six o’clock, Edward transformed the dining hall into a mandatory study hall.
He sat at the head table.
The older boys sat before him, terrified.
“Ben,” Edward said one Tuesday, tapping a pencil.
“Explain fractions.” Ben sweated.
He stuttered.
If he got it wrong, Edward didn’t hit him.
Instead, Edward stood up, walked over, and calmly explained the concept.
The fear of another physical beating kept them in their seats, but the actual tutoring started to work.
Grades improved.
Edward checked their homework nightly.
If a kid clearly lacked academic potential, Edward shifted tactics.
He dragged them into the yard.
“If you cannot pass algebra, you will learn to throw a proper left hook,” Edward told a group of gasping teenagers.
“Or you will learn to run fast enough to play professional sports.
You need skills.” He taught them the basics of his Krav Maga skill book.
He made them run laps.
He made them do pushups.
At first, they obeyed out of sheer terror.
By spring, the terror morphed into genuine respect.
The bullies stopped picking on the younger kids.
The younger kids started looking up to Ben and his crew.
Everyone looked up to Edward.
He became their undisputed leader.
On March 10th, the orphanage celebrated Edward’s birthday.
They bought a cake.
Edward ate a slice and let Ben clean his plate.
His real progression came from the monthly pulls.
He kept a mental log of his inventory.
January: SILVER: ONE SKATEBOARD.
SILVER: PARKOUR SNEAKERS.
SILVER: SKILL BOOK – KRAV MAGA.
BRONZE: Cash, Blankets, Canned Soup.
February: SILVER: SKILL BOOK – MASTER CHEF.
SILVER: ONE STEEL BASEBALL BAT.
SILVER: ONE COMBAT KNIFE.
BRONZE: Cash, Toiletries.
March: SILVER: Cash.
SILVER: A tailored grey suit.
BRONZE: AQUA’S TEACUP (KONOSUBA).
Edward stared at it.
He tried making coffee.
It turned into water.
He threw it into his storage space and sighed.
April: GOLD: ROCK LEE’S TRAINING WEIGHTS (NARUTO).
ITEM.
Edward strapped them on.
He set them to fifty pounds.
He crashed through a floorboard.
He adjusted them to twenty pounds and spent weeks learning to walk again.
May: PLATINUM: SKILL MANUAL – MIND ARTS (HARRY POTTER).
Absorbed.
Granted the complete theoretical framework for Occlumency and Legilimency.
Edward spent every night building his mind palace.
He hid his memories and system knowledge behind mental steel vaults.
June: Mostly silver and bronze utility items.
Cash.
A flashlight.
Throwing knives.
July 1st arrived.
A brutal heatwave struck London.
The air inside the orphanage felt like a sauna.
Edward stood in the middle of his bedroom.
He wore shorts and a t-shirt.
He wore the Rock Lee weights, calibrated to forty pounds each.
He dropped into a handstand.
He lowered himself, doing handstand pushups.
Sweat dripped from his nose.
The Killua template demanded physical stress, and the weights provided an infinite ceiling for growth.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Edward froze.
He balanced on his hands.
He turned his head.
A large, brown owl perched on the windowsill.
It tapped its beak against the glass.
It held a thick envelope.
Edward dropped his legs to the floor.
The weights hit the wood with a heavy thud.
He stood up.
He walked to the window and pushed the glass up.
The owl hopped inside.
It held out the letter.
“Punctual,” Edward said.
He opened his dimensional storage.
He materialized a loaf of bread he pulled from the gacha in June.
He tore off a piece and held it out.
The owl dropped the letter.
It snatched the bread, swallowed it, and gave a satisfied hoot.
It flew back out the window.
Edward looked down at the dresser.
Edward looked at the envelope.
It was made of thick, yellowish paper.
Green ink spelled out his exact room and bed number.
He flipped it over and saw a purple wax seal with a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake.
He broke the wax seal.
He pulled out the heavy parchment and unfolded it.
He read the first line: Dear Mr.
Edward Brooks, We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted…
Edward grinned, letting the letter fall to his side.
The real fun was finally about to begin.