Chapter 10: Sating my hunger?

Suddenly, yet another screen appeared before Jin's drifting, dilated pupils.

[New Task: Consume sufficient sustenance]

[Reward: 1 Exp]

It was at this moment that Jin realized that it was much more similar to a game than he initially thought. He was even so convinced that he was questioning if his life had always been a game.

"Exp? Like experience from GRIM? This means some kind of leveling up is gonna go down, doesn't it?"

Still, he didn't know whether the leveling up would do anything that would affect him in any way.

But when considering that the System was already this unfathomable, Jin could only wait and see what the future holds for him with such an unpredictable asset in his possession.

He looked at the screen again, and asked himself, "It wants me to eat? Does it know I'm hungry…or is this just a mere coincidence?"

Jin exhaled loudly, stood, and abled up to his wheelchair.

After looking down at it for a good while, he decided not to go outside with it. Confident, he was about to do something he deemed more than stupid.

But he desperately wanted to rid himself of the vile memories that were associated with being crippled. He scowled at the wheelchair, and turned his head.

It was time to make a big change with his life for once. A change he would never revert from. A change he would always, always remember.

He left his room, and stood at his door. In the living room now, smiling softly, he looked down at his grandmother who appeared to be engrossed by the news.

"Grandma, is there anything to eat?"

With her eyes still peering at the TV, she answered, "You're up. Good morning, Jin. There's stuff for you to eat in the kitchen—help yourself, would'ya."

Jin walked in front of the TV, and stood in front of it, blocking her from seeing the screen. Slowly her head raised until her eyes met his head, and as an expected reaction, her eyes expanded in shock.

She looked around for his wheelchair, "Where's your wheelchair, Jin!?"

He smiled again, "It's in my room…"

She stood, "Did-did y-you walk all the way in here?"

"Yeah," he replied, looking down at her.

"H-how!?"

"That's what I'd like to know as well," he looked down at the ground, "It looks like my prayers to God finally paid off…I guess…"

She darted towards him, holding behind his head. Her chest was against his, she squeezed him lovingly.

Drowning in her arms, he could feel her heart thumping. Still squeezing the breath out of her grandson, she clamoured, "It's a miracle! Rejoice!"

She released him from her chest trap, and held his hands, "I heard you ask about food just now," she sniffled, "I made breakfast already. But I'll go make you something much better."

She then hurried off to the kitchen, while Jin stood there smiling at her.

He genuinely didn't think it was going to be that easy. Sure, he knew she believed in miracles, but this time was different. Things could have gone far worse than it just did.

He decided to eat nonetheless, meanwhile his Grandmother prepared a big celebration meal for him. The obvious reason being was that he was eager to complete the system task.

He sat down at the dinner table, with his hands clasped around a spoon and fork. He had two delicious-looking plates in front of him. One plate accommodated scrambled eggs and sausages, and toasted bread with cheese was on the other plate.

Without saying anything, he was about to dig in when suddenly his pet dog, Benjamin, ambled its way up to him, stealing his eyes.

It looked up at him, silently begging for food like it usually would. Its pink tongue was sticking out of its mouth as it breathed, and its white fur remained messy.

Jin dropped some of his food on the floor for Benjamin to eat. Then he finally started eating himself. He ate the two plates of food, neglecting how bad they were to his sense of taste.

However, the task was still not completed. And so, he returned to the kitchen, and got more of the scrambled eggs and sausages to sate his hunger.

After he had taken his last swallow of his second round, a new screen appeared before him.

[Your hunger has been sated]

[Task Completed!]

[+1 Exp]

[Exp: 1 / 5 | Level 0]

Having seen that his Exp went up, he felt some accomplishment. He couldn't begin to assimilate why he felt like completing more of these tasks.

"Grandma, can you please feed Benjamin. He looks kinda hungry," he said, rising up from his seat at the table.

She grimaced at him, "I fed greedy Benjamin less than an hour before you got up. That thing can eat an elephant. Only God knows what species it is!"

Jin giggled as he walked to his room. He closed his door shut, walked over to his bed, and sat on it.

"Okay, so…there must be a way I can navigate through the User Interface of the system…"

"Is there?"

"But how do I open the system screen in the first place?"

Jin simply thought about opening the system, and a hovering screen appeared before his eyes accordingly.

"So I just open it with my mind? Just like that, huh?"

Jin played with it a little, opening and closing the screen by simply thinking about doing these actions. He was like a curious child flipping a light switch on and off again.

He controlled the entire thing with his mind, without having any chip or anything of that nature implanted into his brain. That is to say, he controlled everything without raising a finger or suffering any casualties whatsoever.

He grew quite comfortable with the bringing up and the closing of the screen.

Looking at the screen, he could see different headings on the top part of it. The headings were individual sections. The sections were Home, Me, Stats, Weapons, Skills—in this said sequence.

At the moment, he was in the 'Home' section. Nothing was special here, as it was blank. However, he noticed that the tasks and messages usually appeared on this screen.

He had no idea how he would switch to another tab, but on an impulse, he raised his index finger.

With this said index finger, he touched the 'Me' text, and was in turn promptly taken to another section.

[Name: Jin Pierce]

[Race: ???]

[Successor: 619]

[Level: 0]

He became bewildered after seeing a few question marks next to his race.

"It's surprising that it knows my name and stuff. But, come on, isn't it obvious that I'm a human?"

With a weak vessel like his, he had no doubt that he was a human. Simply put, he knew he was a mere human, just as he knew he was a mere virgin.

And clearly, he would always be these things, or more so he believed.

He then pressed on the other tab, tapping on it with his finger. Although the screen was intangible and his finger could go right through it and feel nothing, it was still quite responsive to his finger.

He was on the 'Stats' tab now. Only at the first glance of the screen, Jin already commented, "Just like a freaking video game…"

[Stats]

[Strength: 1]

[Health: 10]

[Speed: 2]

[Skill: 0]

[Available UP points: 0]

He scoffed, "I'm surely a weakling, alright. No surprise there!"

He then tapped on the other tab, and was taken to another section once again.

[Weapons]

[Reach Level 1 to unlock]

Having seen that it was locked, Jin then tapped on the 'Skill' tab.

[Obtain any skill to unlock]

He cursed, "What the fuck?"

"I guess I gotta deal with what's unlocked by default," he shrugged his shoulders, "No problem at all…"

He then drawled, "Please, I want more tasks to do…eating's too easy."

As if to respond to his inquiry, a new screen took form.

[Daily Task: 200 push-ups]

[Reward: 5 Exp]

Upon seeing how many push-ups he had to do for only the five experience points, his eyes widened.

His body was clearly not in shape to carry out such a strenuous task like this one; at least not to him.

Jin was essentially deemed a 'lucky guy' at school—believe it or not. Because although being crippled had its many, horrible flaws, this didn't mean there were no ups to the disability.

One great example of this; befitting Jin's current problem, was the fact that he didn't do any PE at school—no physical activities by any means.

He only wrote the written exams.

What's more, his PE teachers had no choice but to give him full marks every single term, when he had not done anything to deserve them.

No physical activities whatsoever acted as a foundation that built Jin's body into what it was at the moment. A rather vulnerable, inexperienced body.

As jarring as the task was to our slim, weak Jin Pierce, he decided to give it a shot regardless. He stood, stretching from left to right; touching his toes while straightening his knees.

After a quick warmup, he dropped to a plank position, where both his hands and feet touched the ground and held up his body concurrently.

Then he let his chest touch the ground, and pushed his body up again, with not too much difficulty.

The number on the screen that was in his face, went up by one point after he had completed a push-up.

[Progression: 1/200 push-ups]

He smiled at the fact that he was able to do a push-up. The second time around, however, he collapsed, and hit his chin on the ground. Subsequently, he bit his tongue, and winced in pain.

Nevertheless, he, brows crimped, got in position again, and continued doing the push-ups. He persevered despite being at one of the pinnacles of weakness.

Constantly, he would fall to the ground and hurt himself. His arms were cramping up, screaming in pain, and begging him to stop.

His body started prodding him to stop as well. His chest was rising and dropping faster than the stock market. Veins were appearing in places he never had them before.

Yet he persisted, and started raking up what he sowed. What he reaped was succession after planting great effort into what he wanted to accomplish.

Lifelessly, he sprawled out on the floor, looking up at the ceiling while panting loudly.

He had only one more push-up to go, but his body seemed to deceive him. It didn't listen to his commands—it could take no more.

Yet, Jin slowly rolled over to his chest, crawled, and made his way up to plank position again.

Clenching his draw, and using all his mustered strength, he; veins appearing on his face, pushed his body off up from the floor; groaning loudly.

[Progression: 200/200]

Like an inanimate object, he collapsed again.

[Task Completed!]

[+5 Exp]

[Congratulations, you have leveled up!]

[+1 UP (Upgrade Points)]

[Exp: 0/10 | Level 1]

He sat on the floor, leaning on his bed. Having realized that he unlocked the 'Weapon' section, he decided to go check it out for a bit. He pressed on the text, and was promptly taken to a new screen.

[Weapons: 1]

[Would you like to beckon your Lævateinn?]

Jin had no idea what it was referring to with this strange word. Perplexed, he grimaced at the screen; raising a brow, and slightly furrowing the other.

"What the fuck is that? Laevateinn? What's that?"

Given that it was in the 'Weapon' criteria, he didn't see where he could go wrong by summoning it to him.

He sat on the floor, leaning against his bed, with his legs outstretched widely, "What was the activation word again?"

"Ohh, I remember now," he said, "It was 'Yes'."

[Lævateinn, Mistress of Deception has been summoned]

Suddenly, Jin heard what sounded to him like a sonic boom and saw green lightning at the same time.

Unexpectedly, something bolted through the roof of the house; with a green contrail, bursting through the ceiling, and got stuck in the flooring between Jin's trembling legs.

Furthermore, its handle was pointing upright.

His hair blew from the impact, and there was a blinding light that caused him to put his hands in front of his face.

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