Twenty-seven percent over.
Yan Ye's legs screamed at him to stop. He told them to shut the fuck up and kept running.
Twenty-eight.
The night air of Tianmu City burned cold against his throat. His lungs had given up filing complaints somewhere around twenty percent and were now just sending raw distress signals, the kind his body interpreted as if you don't stop, things inside you will stop working. Three more blocks. That was all he needed. Three more blocks and he'd hit thirty percent over the daily minimum for the second day in a row.
His calves cramped. Not the dull, negotiable kind. The kind that felt like someone had reached inside the muscle and twisted. He bit down on the inside of his cheek, tasted copper, and kept his pace.
Twenty-nine.
The last block was the worst. It was always the worst. The first twenty-five percent over felt like pushing through a wall. The last five felt like the wall was pushing back.
Thirty.
He stopped.
Not gracefully. Not like one of those athletes in the highlight reels who decelerate into a cool-down jog with perfect posture. He just stopped, bent forward, hands on knees, and focused very hard on not throwing up on the sidewalk.
Okay. Thirty percent. Again. If this doesn't confirm it, I'm going to be really pissed at my legs.
The walk back took twice as long as it should have. His legs had decided that since the quest was over, they were officially on strike. Fair enough. He'd been treating them less like body parts and more like equipment all week.
The lobby was quiet. He took the elevator up, leaned against the wall, and watched the floor numbers climb without really seeing them. His reflection stared back from the polished metal doors. Flushed, drenched, breathing like he'd just outrun something. 185 centimeters of bad decisions and sore muscles.
Sexy.
The apartment door opened, and the smell hit him first.
New leather. Fresh wood. Clean fabric. Six days ago this place had smelled like bleach and nothing, a gutted shell he'd scrubbed raw with his own hands. Now it smelled like someone actually lived here.
He kicked off his shoes and stood there for a second, just breathing it in. It was stupid. It was just furniture. A couch, a desk, some shelves. Stuff he'd clicked "buy" on between training sessions without thinking twice. But something about walking into a room that smelled like his caught him off guard every time. He'd never had that. Not in this world. The old apartment had smelled like rot and neglect for as long as he could remember.
This is mine.
The thought still felt new.
He peeled off his shirt and headed for the shower. Hot water had become the best part of his day somewhere around Wednesday. Not because it was fancy. Because after four straight days of pushing every muscle group past what it wanted to do, the heat loosened things in his body that he'd started to suspect were permanent.
He stood under the spray and let it work. His shoulders. His core. His calves, which had moved past soreness into something closer to personal vendetta. The daily quests hit everything. Upper body, core, legs, cardio. Every day. Every muscle. And then thirty percent more on top.
Four days of this. And I'm doing it again tomorrow. And the day after.
...Worth it, though.
He dried off and pulled on clean clothes. Finding stuff that fit his frame had been its own minor quest this week. The "tall and built" demographic was apparently underserved in Tianmu City's online retail scene. He'd solved it the same way he solved everything else lately. Money and persistence.
He dropped onto the bed, and for a few seconds just lay there.
His body was different now. Not visibly, not in four days. But he could feel it. The daily quest skills had all climbed hard this week. Novice Runner was the furthest along, sitting at 73%, ten percent ahead of the other three. He could feel the difference when he ran. The same distance that had nearly killed him on Monday was just painful now instead of impossible. His core was tighter. His lungs recovered faster. Even his hands felt steadier when he cooked, which was probably why Novice Chef had hit Level 3 and Minor Healing was about to follow.
Small changes. Individually, nothing. Stacked together over four days, he felt like a rougher draft of something that might actually be dangerous someday.
Eleven forty-two.
Eighteen minutes.
His stomach fluttered. He'd had the exact same feeling last night, lying in this exact position, watching the clock crawl toward midnight like a kid before Christmas.
Except last night, Christmas had actually delivered.
Thursday. He'd pushed thirty percent over the daily quest minimum for the first time. Hadn't even planned it. Just found a rhythm and thought fuck it and kept going. Midnight hit. The system calculated.
And the numbers came back different.
STR +0.27. Not the usual 0.25. AGI +0.27. PHY +0.27. DEF +0.22 instead of 0.20.
An extra 0.02 across the board.
He'd stared at that panel for a full minute, going through every previous reward he could remember. Always 0.25. Always 0.20. Every day since he'd started. Predictable. Mechanical.
Until he crossed thirty percent.
Could've been a one-time thing.
But the system didn't do random. If the output changed, the input changed. And the only different variable on Thursday was the thirty percent.
So today, he did it again.
Eleven fifty-one.
His eyes drifted to the guest room door at the end of the hall. Still closed. Still full of spatial bags stuffed with every piece of filth he'd ripped out of this apartment. He should deal with those eventually.
Next week's problem.
Eleven fifty-four.
Tomorrow. Saturday. No classes.
His chest tightened.
The Training Grounds. First session free. He'd saved it on purpose, spending the entire week building a library instead of rushing in blind. Forums, video platforms, combat archives, lecture recordings. Anything with high-tier awakeners showing real technique in enough detail for the system to work with.
He'd found more than he expected.
The biggest name: the Dawn Sword Master. Tier 7 Low. A professor at Tsinghua University with dozens of recorded lectures, detailed breakdowns of everything from footwork to energy circulation, and three combat clips that had no business being on a public forum. Real fights. Not demonstrations.
Below him, a T5 Mid specialist, and a handful of T4s covering different styles. A full library of technique waiting to be loaded into the Training Grounds and torn apart.
Tomorrow.
Eleven fifty-eight.
He lay still. The apartment was quiet. The city hummed faintly through the windows. ETT lines. Distant nightlife. Twelve million people with no idea that a seventeen-year-old was lying in bed counting seconds over stat bonuses.
Eleven fifty-nine.
Come on.
Midnight.
The familiar translucent panel materialized.
[Daily Quest Complete]
Rewards Calculated:
STR +0.27 | AGI +0.27 | PHY +0.27 | DEF +0.22
He smiled. Quiet. Satisfied.
Second day in a row. Same numbers. Same bonus.
Thirty percent over the minimum. Plus 0.02 across every attribute. Consistent. Reproducible.
Real.
The panel faded.
For a moment, nothing.
Then a new one took its place.
[Calculating Weekly Conclusion...]
...Huh?