Depending on how far 30k takes us in the story. I may extend it further. Ive basically reached 10k without leaving the prologue...? How?!
Months had passed like a blur. lding into one another. Jas had tried to keep a ntal note of how many days had passed, but after the fifth month, he had given up. There had been no hide or hair of an ancient being to guide him, much less be watching or even involved in his isekai kidnapping. He had been unlucky. That's it.
He laughed at himself.
Thought you were sothing special, huh, Jas.
What would an ancient being that was strong enough to pluck him from earth to this tiny island want with a grocery clerk? Random, untalented, and uninteresting. Needed a super soldier, go to the marines or even the navy. Any elite soldier from the plethora of countries around the world.
Needed soone to lead a kingdom, grab a super historian or an advanced history major. Or even an otaku that had spent their entire lives learning every single piece of renaissance invention and anything predating that by three thousand years. A politician, or even a CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
Demon lord bothering you? Scientist to develop a new demon killing plague or nuke.
An evil empire? Jas was sure modern generals studied military tactics fully including dieval warfare and its different types. Even a history buff would know more than him.
Needed…
Jas let out a deep breath. He allowed himself the mont to stare out into the night sky above. The first few weeks of seeing these mystical visions had been heavenly. Nebulous stars and clusters of odd shaped gas in the distance. Singular twinkling cots striking past. Colors bright and vibrant.
Even variously colored moons.
No night sky was the sa as the one before it.
But after a while, even they lost their luster. He could see the patterns in the stars' positions. The moon's colors and distinct craters and shape. Even the nebulous gases and their forms.
Jas stared at a red moon this night. On his back and studying every crater, scar, and damage on its surface. It was the sa exact moon he had seen a few days ago, except the last one was blue. All the major craters were the sa. Three diagonal scars that looked like a bear marking its territory. Except on a cosmic scale.
It was another attempt to get so sleep. But he knew it would be a while before any form of slumber arrived. Who knew insomnia would chase him out of planet earth entirely.
Jas Anderson chuckled again. Derisively. He couldn’t help but shake his head at this situation. Being alone for so long was starting to get to him. He had read articles on white room experints and what happened to prisoners in solitary confinent for certain periods of ti. No social contact for long periods of ti.
Being driven insane would be the least of their worries.
That last thing that kept him from going mad with insanity were the occasional system notification that popped up to remind him of accomplishing sothing or another. Rewards dropped in bundles now. Things that started to look far more valuable than broken shields and rusty swords. His first steel sword appeared a few days ago, warped and would probably snap at the first sign of resistance.
But it had dropped because of his improvent. His change.
And change he felt.
Jas had worked out every single day since the first reward dropped. Attempting a million different tasks he could think of and then doing his best to push his body. From the most basic of pushups and squats all the way to incredulous forms of yoga. He felt silly every ti he did a new pose, but it was usually rewarded more generously and more often than other things.
It made him stronger. Faster. Visibly different from what he was at his first arrival. Gone was the soft skinny fat and perfect skin. His mind had beco clearer. Much more capable of concise thought and it was silent.
He hadn’t understood the sheer funk modern society turned their minds into.
As though he was walking through a blizzard. Powerful winds had been pushing him back with every step he took forward. Now it was nothing more than a slight breeze.
Fatigue was only for when he remained awake for days or he pushed himself to the edge with his exercises and katas; as he began calling his sword swinging and spear stabbing. No more burnouts. No more coffee induced crashes. Though he missed the taste greatly.
No more burdens that stressed him endlessly.
But it was more than just that imperceptible change. He felt sturdy in ways that felt beyond human. Capable of feats he suspected only a select few could have accomplished back on earth. Jas couldn’t explain it properly, but he suspected it had to do with hidden attributes being allocated after doing the more difficult tasks he accomplished.
A thousand pull-ups and push-ups without a break. Or running until his legs could not carry him any longer.
They never popped up with system notifications, but their effect was obvious to him.
He could understand why they did appear too. If the system worked properly. He should have been able to see his attributes rise with nothing but ntally prodding his status to appear. It would get tedious if every single change was noted with a new system notification.
Jas still had a thousand questions about the system though. Questions that would never get answered. From his experience so far, he could guess that the stats broke up into multiple categories: Mind, body, soul, magic, perception, and the weirdest one, Qi.
Each one had been prompted in so way or another through a task he finished. ditation provided him multiple advances including a boost to Qi, magic, and soul.
But it still left him confused.
Magic and Qi? At the sa ti? That had to be a genre blend. He wasn’t so sure he liked the sound of that. Jas knew little about cultivation stories. He hadn’t read much and most reviews broke the satires into the sa molds.
Good Mc turned into harem chasing and cold blooded shells of their previous self. But that was it.
He had no background knowledge of the levels or how they were broken down. What quantified as an advancent. How does Qi equate to mana and their interchangeability? There were a thousand and one different questions he knew were never going to be answered for him with an absent system.
And an absent ancient being to guide him during the tutorial.
Other oddities he experienced included his hair and nails never growing during his stay here. Not even an inch. He never had to worry about shaving after he finished the first by the river. No stubble and nothing that would bother him.
Cuts healed back miraculously too. An accidental gash by his new, warped longsword had caused him much worry for a few days. He had been bleeding profusely, stemming it with clothes he had gotten as rewards. Jas thought he had killed himself, swearing it was only a matter of ti before it got infected and he died from sickness.
Unbearable pain clouded his mind. He struggled to keep his head clear in any form. The only thing that kept him from losing consciousness were him dunking his head in the cold river water.
But three days later, he woke up to a scrolling feed of notifications and new rewards raining down on him. Dodging left and right as weapons and other items threatened to crack his skull or break a limb. He hadn’t noticed his thigh at first, but it eventually struck him like lightning.
He had been fully healed. No scar. Nothing to indicate that he was only a few steps away from death. Only the blood soaked clothes he had been using as makeshift bandages.
Jas was unsure if it was his stats that saved him or the island's effect on him.
That had been a limit breaker. He never needed to worry about hurting himself again. No more stopping himself from doing risky maneuvers and pushing the reward system to its edge. Swinging swords and other weapons like a kungfu master, or a maniac.
Another item he found incredulous was the rice bag. A generic woven bag that did not seem impressive at all was far more than what it seed. He wasn’t sure how long he had been here, but there hadn’t even been a dent in its rice quantity. No indication that it had changed at all, matter of fact.
It was a real spatial bag. An inventory!
Every single reward he got was imdiately stuffed into it next to the rice capable of feeding a bazillion people without worry. For decades if not a century!
He was also sure the rice had magical properties. No protein, fats, or any other nutrient. Just rice to fill his belly. He craved nothing and actually gained serious muscle mass compared to what he was before. Toned.
Still not anywhere close to steroid use, willowy and thin fra, but impressive nonetheless.
It drove him into becoming a reward-aholic! Not considering he had very little to do otherwise.
Everything he could think of. Back flips. Jumping and spinning. Swan diving and trying to stab three tis before he belly flopped on the ground. Things he would have been mortified if other people saw. Luckily, that social anxiety didn’t apply here.
Not a single person to see him, judge, laugh, giggle at his ridiculous actions…
Jas cleared his throat. Rubbed his eyes. He tried to laugh, but it sounded hollow.
It's a good thing, Jas! Imagine what they would be saying. Laughing at you…
He had freedom to do whatever he wanted. No one to wake him up early. No one to tell him what to do or what cultural cues he had to follow.
No old granny to push marrying her granddaughters on him.
He cleared his throat again. Vision blurring.
Shit. What a crybaby.
Again, he tried to laugh it off. But there was no social pressure to keep his emotions in. No one to ask about him, to laugh with him, to check if he remained single and wanted to marry one of their grand-daughters. No embarrassed grand-daughters to stare daggers at him only to turn into cute kittens the second their elder turned to point them out.
One by one.
Alisha.
Tracee.
Oliver.
Victoria.
…
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