Jiwon stared at the list in silence.
There were no shortcuts.
No instant transformation.
No miraculous reward.
Just ninety days.
And an absurd amount of work.
He leaned back in his chair.
Then looked at the clock.
12:02 P.M.
Jiwon stared at it for a few seconds.
“…Right.”
He closed the System window.
Tomorrow.
He stood up.
Picked up his guitar.
Then stopped.
His eyes moved toward the bed.
Then toward the guitar.
Then back to the bed.
In the end, his body made the decision for him.
Sleep.
For once, Jiwon listened.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[DAY 1 / 90]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The first thing Jiwon saw when he opened his eyes was the ceiling.
The second was a blue window floating above his face.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[DAILY QUEST — SLEEP]
Requirement: Sleep for at least 7 hours.
Status: COMPLETE
Reward: Recovery EXP
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon blinked.
“…Already?”
The System didn’t answer.
He turned his head.
7:07 A.M.
He had slept for exactly seven hours and three minutes.
Jiwon stared at the clock.
So the System really is going to track everything.
He sat up.
His body felt surprisingly good.
Not energized.
Not refreshed.
Just…
functional.
He walked into the bathroom.
Another window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[DAILY QUEST — SKINCARE]
Requirement: Complete morning skincare.
Status: INCOMPLETE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at the words.
Then at his reflection.
“…Seriously?”
He had never cared much about skincare before.
In his previous life, there had been mornings when he had barely remembered to wash his face.
And now the System apparently wanted to turn him into the kind of person who had a morning routine.
Jiwon sighed.
“Fine.”
He washed his face.
Applied toner.
Moisturizer.
Sunscreen.
It took less than ten minutes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[DAILY QUEST — SKINCARE]
Status: COMPLETE
Reward: Appearance EXP
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon looked at himself in the mirror.
Nothing had changed.
Obviously.
He stared for another second.
Then shrugged.
One day at a time.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The first real challenge came thirty minutes later.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[DAILY QUEST — PHYSICAL TRAINING]
Requirement: Exercise for 60 minutes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at the words.
Then at his shoes.
Then back at the words.
“Sixty minutes?”
The System remained silent.
Jiwon went outside.
He had already gotten used to running with Minjae after school.
It wasn’t professional training.
It wasn’t anything special.
Just two idiots running until Minjae got bored and started complaining.
But it had given Jiwon a decent foundation.
He changed into his training clothes and headed outside.
The sixty minutes passed without much trouble.
A few laps.
Some bodyweight exercises.
Stretching.
A bit of core work.
Nothing particularly difficult.
By the time the timer reached sixty minutes, Jiwon wasn’t even exhausted.
The blue window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[DAILY QUEST — PHYSICAL TRAINING]
Status: COMPLETE
Reward: Physique EXP
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon looked at it.
“…That’s it?”
He almost felt relieved.
Then another thought crossed his mind.
At least I’m not starting from zero.
He glanced down at his legs.
Running with Minjae all those afternoons had actually left him with something.
Not much.
But enough.
Jiwon smiled.
Good.
I’ll take every advantage I can get.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The next quest was vocal training.
Jiwon stood in front of his desk.
Laptop open.
Water beside him.
Microphone in front of him.
Thirty minutes.
Simple.
At least, that’s what he thought.
The first ten minutes were warm-ups.
Breathing exercises.
Lip trills.
Scales.
Then actual singing.
Jiwon recorded himself.
Played it back.
His expression tightened.
Still unstable.
He tried again.
Better.
Again.
Better.
Again.
His breathing became smoother.
His pitch steadier.
Not by much.
But enough to notice.
He checked the System.
[VOCAL TRAINING]
Progress: 27 / 30 minutes
Jiwon kept going.
At thirty minutes—
[DAILY QUEST — VOCAL TRAINING]
Status: COMPLETE
Reward: Singing EXP
Jiwon sat down.
He took a sip of water.
His throat felt tired.
But there was something else.
Something he hadn’t expected.
He wanted to do another ten minutes.
Jiwon stared at the microphone.
Then smiled faintly.
Maybe five.
He kept singing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The guitar was worse.
Much worse.
Jiwon sat on the edge of his bed with the instrument resting against his thigh.
He remembered how easy it had once felt.
The chords.
The transitions.
The rhythm.
His fingers remembered pieces of it.
But only pieces.
He played a chord.
Buzz.
Another.
Buzz.
He frowned.
Adjusted his fingers.
Again.
This time it sounded cleaner.
Jiwon continued.
Ten minutes.
Twenty.
Thirty.
His fingertips started hurting.
Forty.
He wanted to stop.
He looked at the clock.
43 minutes.
Seven more.
He kept going.
At forty-five—
[DAILY QUEST — INSTRUMENTAL PRACTICE]
Status: COMPLETE
Reward: Guitar EXP
Jiwon lowered the guitar.
His fingertips were red.
A tiny smile appeared on his face.
The System didn’t say anything about his skill rank.
Guitar: D-.
Still D-.
But somehow—
it didn’t bother him anymore.
He looked at the instrument.
I’m getting it back.
Not today.
Not tomorrow.
But eventually.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dance training was a completely different kind of nightmare.
Jiwon stood in front of the mirror.
A dance tutorial played on his laptop.
A young instructor moved effortlessly across the screen.
Jiwon copied him.
He looked ridiculous.
He stopped.
Replayed the video.
Tried again.
His feet went the wrong direction.
Again.
Wrong.
Again.
Wrong.
Jiwon stared at the mirror.
“…How is that even possible?”
He replayed the movement.
Slowly.
Step.
Turn.
Weight shift.
Arm.
He copied it.
This time—
closer.
Jiwon repeated it.
Again.
Again.
Again.
An hour later, he was soaked in sweat.
But when he performed the sequence one more time—
he didn’t stop.
Not once.
A blue window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[DANCE TRAINING — COMPLETE]
Reward: Dancing EXP
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stood there, breathing heavily.
He looked at his reflection.
It wasn’t good.
Not even close.
But it wasn’t completely terrible anymore.
He smiled.
“Progress.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
That became his routine.
Day One.
Day Two.
Day Three.
Day Four.
Day Five.
The System never gave him anything spectacular.
No sudden awakening.
No ten-point stat increase.
No miraculous transformation.
Just—
work.
And more work.
Wake up.
Skincare.
School.
Exercise.
Sing.
Dance.
Play guitar.
Eat.
Study.
Repeat.
Some days went well.
Others didn’t.
There were mornings when his muscles hurt so badly that getting out of bed felt like punishment.
There were nights when he stared at his guitar and seriously considered skipping the session.
There were vocal exercises that made his throat feel like sandpaper.
There were dance routines that made him question whether humans were actually supposed to move like that.
But he kept going.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DAY 8 / 90
Jiwon finished his vocal training.
[Singing EXP +24]
He opened his Status.
Singing: 16 / 45
Still 16.
He stared at the number.
“…Seriously?”
No change.
He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or get angry.
Then he remembered something.
The System had never promised immediate results.
It only gave him a direction.
Jiwon closed the window.
Fine.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DAY 15 / 90
His fingers no longer hurt after guitar practice.
That surprised him.
He played a chord progression he hadn’t been able to play two weeks ago.
No buzzing.
No hesitation.
The final chord rang cleanly.
Jiwon stopped.
He looked at his fingers.
Then at the guitar.
A small smile appeared.
[Guitar EXP +31]
[Skill Progress: D- → D-]
He laughed.
“You’re really making me work for this.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DAY 21 / 90
Jiwon finished his final weekly quest.
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WEEKLY QUEST COMPLETE]
Requirements fulfilled.
Reward: +1 Free Stat Point
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at the notification.
One point.
He opened his Status.
Free Points: 8
His finger hovered over Singing.
One point.
It would barely change anything.
He considered Confidence.
Focus.
Dancing.
Then—
he stopped.
Not yet.
He closed the window.
Eight points.
He could save them.
For later.
For when he knew exactly where they were needed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DAY 30 / 90
Thirty days.
One month.
Jiwon stood in front of the mirror.
His appearance hadn’t transformed.
He still looked like himself.
But there were subtle differences.
His posture was better.
His shoulders sat differently.
His skin looked healthier.
His body felt lighter.
His movements were more controlled.
He picked up the microphone.
Pressed record.
And sang.
The song ended.
Jiwon listened to the recording.
Then listened to an old recording from Day One.
He went silent.
The difference wasn’t huge.
But it was there.
His breathing was cleaner.
His pitch was steadier.
His voice had more control.
Jiwon leaned back.
I’m actually improving.
A notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STAR DUST AUDITION ANALYSIS]
Recalculating probability…
Current Probability of Passing: 12.4%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at the number.
12.4%.
Still low.
Terribly low.
But more than double his starting probability.
A grin slowly spread across his face.
“Not bad.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DAY 45 / 90
Halfway.
Jiwon was no longer the same person who had walked into the karaoke room.
He could sing for thirty minutes without his throat becoming exhausted.
He could play guitar for nearly an hour.
He could complete basic dance routines without looking completely lost.
His stamina had improved.
His posture had changed.
Even his confidence had begun to shift.
Not because he thought he was good.
But because he had proof that he could improve.
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[MILESTONE REACHED]
Training Duration: 45 Days
Consistency Rate: 93%
Host has maintained training for 45 consecutive days.
Bonus Reward: +1 Free Stat Point
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at the window.
Then at his Free Points.
11.
He smiled.
Still saving.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DAY 60 / 90
Two months.
Jiwon walked into the dance studio.
The instructor on the screen began a new routine.
He watched it once.
Twice.
Then stood.
The music started.
Jiwon moved.
Step.
Turn.
Slide.
Arm.
He missed one transition.
Stopped.
Rewound.
Tried again.
This time—
he finished.
Jiwon stood still.
Breathing hard.
Then laughed.
Two months ago, he wouldn’t have believed it.
One month ago, he wouldn’t have even tried.
A blue window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[DANCING EXP +47]
[FOCUS EXP +18]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at the second line.
Focus?
He smiled.
Maybe the System wasn’t only measuring what he practiced.
Maybe it was measuring how seriously he practiced it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DAY 75 / 90
The guitar no longer felt foreign.
Jiwon could pick it up without thinking.
His fingers moved naturally.
The first chord.
Second.
Third.
A clean progression.
He stopped halfway through.
Then started again.
This time faster.
The final chord rang through the room.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SKILL MASTERY PROGRESS]
Guitar: D-
Progress toward next rank: 82%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s eyes widened.
“So close.”
For the first time—
he wanted to know what came after D-.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DAY 80 / 90
The Star Dust audition was ten days away.
Jiwon looked at the calendar.
Ten days.
His heart beat faster.
Not from fear.
Anticipation.
He opened his Status.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STATUS]
Host: Han Jiwon
Age: 18
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
PERFORMANCE
Singing: 19 / 45
Dancing: 11 / 40
Acting: 10 / 30
Guitar: D-
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The numbers still looked low.
But they no longer felt like a verdict.
They felt like a starting point.
Jiwon closed the window.
He picked up the microphone.
And started singing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DAY 89 / 90
The day before the audition.
Jiwon woke up earlier than usual.
For a few seconds, he stared at the ceiling.
Then remembered the date.
Day 89.
One more day.
Tomorrow was the Star Dust audition.
He got ready for school as usual.
Nothing special.
White shirt.
Dark pants.
Jacket.
He stood in front of the mirror while fixing his collar.
For a moment, his gaze lingered on his reflection.
He looked…
different.
Not dramatically.
There was no unbelievable transformation.
But compared to ninety days ago, the difference was obvious to him.
His posture was straighter.
His shoulders looked more defined.
His face appeared cleaner.
His eyes seemed sharper.
More confident.
Jiwon adjusted his hair.
Then grabbed his bag.
Let’s go.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The school hallway was noisier than usual.
Students moved between classrooms.
Friends talked.
Someone laughed loudly near the stairs.
Jiwon walked through the crowd without paying much attention.
He was thinking about the audition.
About his singing.
About the seventeen free stat points he had saved.
About the probability the System had shown him.
31.8%.
Not enough.
But not impossible.
“Jiwon!”
He turned.
Minjae was jogging toward him.
“You actually came early?”
Jiwon glanced at the clock.
“You’re the one who’s late.”
“What?”
Minjae immediately looked at the clock.
Then frowned.
“…That’s not the point.”
Jiwon laughed.
The two of them walked toward their classroom together.
Minjae suddenly stopped.
Jiwon took another step before noticing.
“What?”
Minjae stared at him.
“…You look different.”
Jiwon raised an eyebrow.
“Different how?”
Minjae walked around him as if inspecting a suspicious object.
“Your shoulders.”
“My shoulders?”
“Yeah.”
He poked Jiwon’s arm.
“And your arms.”
Jiwon pulled away.
“Stop touching me.”
“I’m serious.”
Minjae looked him up and down.
“You’ve been working out a lot, haven’t you?”
Jiwon shrugged.
“A little.”
“A little?”
Minjae scoffed.
“You’ve been training like a maniac for months.”
Jiwon didn’t answer.
Minjae stared at him for another moment.
Then smiled.
“Still…
it suits you.”
Jiwon blinked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You look better.”
There was no teasing in Minjae’s voice.
It was a genuine compliment.
Jiwon didn’t know how to respond.
“…Thanks.”
Minjae grinned.
“Wow.
You actually said thank you.”
“Do you want me to take it back?”
“No, no.”
They continued walking.
Then Minjae suddenly narrowed his eyes.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Don’t look now.”
Jiwon immediately became suspicious.
“What?”
“I said don’t look.”
Jiwon looked anyway.
Minjae sighed.
“You’re terrible at following instructions.”
Across the hallway, two girls were standing near the classroom door.
One of them was looking directly at Jiwon.
When their eyes met, she immediately looked away.
The other whispered something into her friend’s ear.
Then glanced toward him.
And quickly turned away as well.
Jiwon stared for a second.
Then looked back at Minjae.
“…What?”
Minjae gave him a strange look.
“You seriously haven’t noticed?”
“Noticed what?”
“The girls.”
Jiwon frowned.
“What about them?”
Minjae stared at him in disbelief.
“They’re looking at you.”
Jiwon glanced back.
Sure enough.
Another girl had just looked in his direction.
This time, she didn’t immediately look away.
Her eyes stayed on him for a moment.
Then she whispered something to her friend.
The friend looked at Jiwon too.
Minjae slowly smiled.
“Oh.”
Jiwon already knew that tone.
“What?”
“I get it now.”
“Get what?”
“You’ve actually become good-looking.”
Jiwon’s expression went blank.
“What kind of stupid conclusion is that?”
“It’s not a conclusion.”
Minjae pointed subtly toward the girls.
“It’s evidence.”
“You’re annoying.”
“I’m being serious.”
Minjae laughed.
“Before, nobody looked at you twice.”
“Thanks.”
“That wasn’t an insult.”
“It sounded like one.”
Minjae ignored him.
“Your face hasn’t changed that much.
It’s more like…”
He paused.
“…your whole impression changed.”
Jiwon went quiet.
His whole impression?
Minjae continued.
“You stand differently now.
You look healthier.
And you don’t have that exhausted look you used to have.”
Jiwon stared ahead.
He hadn’t realized it.
The System had been showing him numbers.
EXP.
Stats.
Percentages.
But perhaps the changes were beginning to show in ways that couldn’t be measured by a window.
Minjae nudged him.
“And you’re smiling more.”
Jiwon looked at him.
“I am?”
“Yeah.”
Minjae grinned.
“You’re less gloomy.”
Jiwon thought about it.
Maybe he was right.
Three months ago, his days had felt like they were already over before they even began.
Now—
even when things were difficult, there was always something waiting for him tomorrow.
Something to improve.
Something to chase.
Something to prove.
Jiwon smiled faintly.
“Maybe.”
Minjae looked at him.
Then shook his head.
“Whatever happened to you, keep doing it.”
Jiwon laughed.
“I’ll try.”
They entered the classroom.
Behind them, one of the girls glanced at Jiwon again.
She whispered to her friend.
“Who is that?”
Jiwon didn’t hear her.
He didn’t notice.
For now.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Classes passed slowly.
Jiwon tried to focus.
But every now and then, he caught himself thinking about tomorrow.
The audition.
Star Dust.
His second chance.
At lunch, Minjae sat across from him.
“So.”
Jiwon looked up.
“So what?”
“Tomorrow.”
Jiwon knew immediately what he meant.
“Yeah.”
“Are you nervous?”
Jiwon thought about it.
“A little.”
Minjae smiled.
“Good.”
Jiwon frowned.
“Why is that good?”
“Because if you weren’t nervous, I’d think you were an idiot.”
Jiwon laughed.
Minjae leaned back.
“But you’ll be fine.”
Jiwon looked at him.
Minjae shrugged.
“You’ve worked harder than anyone I know.”
For some reason, those words stayed with him.
Worked harder than anyone I know.
Jiwon lowered his gaze.
“Thanks.”
Minjae smiled.
“No problem.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
After school, Jiwon walked home alone.
The sky was beginning to darken.
He passed the same streets.
The same convenience store.
The same intersection.
Everything looked exactly as it had before.
But Jiwon knew better.
The person walking through them wasn’t the same.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
That night, Jiwon sat alone in his room.
His guitar rested beside him.
The microphone was on the desk.
His audition information was open on the computer.
STAR DUST
FIRST SEASON
AUDITION: TOMORROW
Jiwon stared at the screen.
Three months ago—
he had laughed at the idea.
Five point seven percent.
That was what the System had given him.
A number so low it had almost felt like an insult.
Now—
another window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STAR DUST AUDITION ANALYSIS]
Current Probability of Passing: 31.8%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at it.
31.8%.
Still not good.
Still far from guaranteed.
But it was no longer impossible.
He smiled.
Then looked at the guitar.
He picked it up.
His fingers settled naturally over the strings.
No hesitation.
No fear.
The first chord rang cleanly.
Jiwon closed his eyes.
Tomorrow.
He wasn’t ready.
Not completely.
Maybe not even close.
But he had spent ninety days becoming someone who could stand there and try.
That was enough.
For now.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[DAY 90 / 90]
[TRAINING PROGRAM COMPLETE]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s eyes opened.
A blue window appeared in front of him.
Bigger than usual.
Brighter.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[TRAINING PROGRAM COMPLETE]
Duration: 90 Days
Consistency Rate: 95%
Training Objectives: Completed
Physical Development: Improved
Vocal Development: Improved
Dance Development: Improved
Instrumental Development: Improved
Mental Development: Improved
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[FINAL EVALUATION]
Initial Probability of Passing: 5.7%
Current Probability of Passing: 34.6%
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Jiwon stared at the number.
34.6%.
He let out a slow breath.
Thirty-four percent.
It wasn’t victory.
It wasn’t even safety.
But it was real.
He had built that number himself.
One morning.
One song.
One chord.
One painful workout.
One failed dance move.
One more attempt.
Every single day.
Jiwon closed the window.
Then another one appeared.
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[WEEKLY QUEST BONUS]
Free Stat Points Available: +1
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Jiwon opened his Status.
Free Points: 17
He looked at the number.
Seventeen points.
He had been saving them for ninety days.
Tomorrow, he would finally have to decide where they belonged.
Jiwon stood.
He walked toward the mirror.
For a moment, he simply looked at himself.
He didn’t look like a star.
Not yet.
Jiwon smiled.
Tomorrow—
He would walk into the Star Dust audition.
And for the first time since his regression—
he wasn’t going there because he wanted another chance.
He was going there because he had worked for one.
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[MAIN QUEST]
Enter the cast of Star Dust
Difficulty: S
Current Progress: 0%
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Jiwon stared at the final window.
Then clenched his fist.
“Let’s see what happens.”
The next morning—
his second life would finally step onto a stage.