Eli woke up, eyes wide. He blinked a few times and looked left and right before he got out of bed. He wiped off the sweat from his forehead, even though it was early January, and it was freezing.

He dreamt about a humongous version of his hourglass, talking to him about reincarnation, system, and other nonsense. While it sounded cool and all, he didn’t think it was real. He only thought it was just a realistic dream, nothing more.

He sighed. “Yeah, Eli, grow up. Not like free things will fall from the sky…unless it’s a used glass coke bottle. Speaking of which, I could use a glass of water right now…” ¹reference to The Gods Must Be Crazy

Eli slowly rose, his bed creaking under his weight. The cold air chilled him. He figured it was probably 44f right now.

He opened his phone and checked the hour. It was 12:30 am. When he slept, it was 11 pm, meaning that he’d only slept for one and a half hours.

“Goddammit…I am going to be tired tomorrow.”

Switching the lights on, he slid in his slippers, walked to the sink, and drank some tap water. While Ice-cold, it did energize him. 

Eli then remembered he put the hourglass on the table before he went to sleep, so he went to check on it, only to find out it was missing.

Eli widened his eyes. “What?” He looked about. Then stared at the table. “Where…is it?” He approached the table and touched the surface, for he thought it'd become invisible. But that wasn’t the case. “I could’ve sworn I put it here before I went to sleep!”

It must be here somewhere… Eli searched for a whole fifteen minutes, sweeping through every place it could be, under his bed, behind the furniture—

Nothing.

It disappeared.

He clicked his tongue. “Forget it,” he muttered, “I’ll find it tomorrow. I’ll sleep first.”

He then slept for the remainder of the night.

BEEP—BEEP—BEEP—BEEP—Blip.

7 am.

He yawned. Stretched a bit, swung his legs over, and got up. He flung the window veil open, allowing the sun to enter.

He looked at his small apartment. It had two rooms. 

The first room was the main room. It had a $650 queen-sized bed that he bought for at a discount, a walk-in closet, and a small kitchen. The kitchen had a portable gas cooker, a fridge, drawers, tableware, and cups.

In the main hall, he had a wooden table and chair that he bought for $90. A 32-inch HD television for $100 hung on one of the walls. He had an air conditioner and Hardwood flooring. The other room served as the bathroom. ²Yeah, it’s not that bad.

This whole grand piece of property—he didn’t own. It belonged to a frail and kind widow, Ms. Owen. Eli paid $650 a month, and he’d already lived there for over two months. A week after his father committed suicide, he managed to find this little studio.

Thanks to an arrangement he made with her, his actual rent was $350 a month. Each Sunday, his day off, he’d clean her house for five hours, so his rent would reduce by seventy-five dollars. It was a godsend.

After undressing, revealing his chubby, pimpled body, he showered himself, waking up from his drowsy state. After he wiped himself using a towel, he went to brush his teeth by the sink.

When he arrived in front of the mirror, he suddenly paused and stared at his exposed left chest, just over his heart.

A tattoo of an hourglass covered it, reminiscent of the hourglass that went missing this morning.

Eyes wide, Eli froze with his mind blank.

Only after a few minutes did the chill in the air snapped him back awake. 

He touched his tattooed left chest. “I must be hallucinating or some shit…” He shook his head.

And then, after a bit of hesitation, he thought in his mind...

Menu.

 

Menu:

[Status]
[Evolution]
[Quests]
[Inventory]
[Current points: 0]

 

“... Either this is real, or I need a doctor.”

Scared and amazed, he stared at the menu and the tattoo for a few minutes until he trembled from the cold.

“Fuck—I should get dressed first!”

He ran back to his room then wore winter clothes. The factory he worked in didn’t have a dress code, and they were only required to put on the garbs the factory provided for food hygiene’s sake.

He cooked breakfast. French toast with caramelized sugar and bananas. While he was eating, he took the liberty of checking his system out. It was exactly as he remembered it.

Status.

 

Status:

[Name: Elijah White]
[Race: Human]
[Gender: Male]
[Overall Evolution Rank: LVL 0]

[Strength LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Vitality LVL 0] [(0/20)]
[Toughness LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Agility LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Dexterity LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Cognition LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Senses LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Immunity LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Mana Core LVL 0] [(0/1)]

Attunements:
[Time – Perfect]

Racial Skills:
[None]

Unique Skills:
[Precognition LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Time Stipend: Current regen: 1 sec/day. Current max capacity: 1 min. Current time saved: 1 min. Current Sub-skills: Back.]

 

“Saturn said these stats represent my overall level, not the actual value, so having a level-zero strength stat doesn’t mean my strength is zero. It just means it’s unevolved. But I didn’t check it last night… Let’s check the Vitality stat.”

 

Vitality: A representation of your inner life force and quality of being. Affects Organ function, Nutrient capacity, Nutrient conversion efficiency, Fatal blow survivability, Natural regeneration, Climate adaptability, Stamina, Size, Lifespan. Warning: Vitality increases cell division rate, and that increases cancer risk. To prevent it, increase immunity.

 

“Let’s see…inner life force.” He snickered. “Sounds like something from some game. Organ function? Pfft! Like better dick function?"

“Nutrient capacity and nutrient efficiency? I think I’m fat enough for that, thank you very much. Ah, right, strength has increased energy consumption, right? That would make this worthwhile.

“Oh? Fatal blow survivability? Natural regeneration? Would I become a wolverine if I raise this? Great, some government lab would strap me to an experiment chair while scientists dissect me."

“Climate adaptability? Would that make me less cold at night? Stamina sounds good, but size? Size of what, my little Johnny? And Lifespan…I would probably get cancer before I reach that point. Oh, and look there, it even warns about the increased chance of cancer occurring… Cancer! For fucking real? Oh, well, at least it says the immunity stat prevents it. Convenient."

“Oh, right, didn’t I have a quest?”

Quests:

Main Quests:

1. N/A

Side Quests:

1. Basic training

 

Basic training: A healthy body and mind lead to a healthy soul. Do not neglect your body. Train it. Each day, train according to the system’s requirements.

Details: Each day for 30 days, train according to the system’s instructions, and receive tonics and supplements.

Rewards: Each first and second successful day of training would give you 1 LVL 0 Tonic and 1 LVL 0 Vitality supplement. Each third successful day would give you 1 LVL 0 Tonic and 1 LVL 0 Immunity supplement.

Penalties: None.

 

Just when he checked it, a system prompt appeared.

[Would you like to begin today’s training?] [Yes/No]

 

Eli was startled. “So I can select when I want to train? Although I’m curious about that tonic and supplement thing, I need to go to work soon.”

It was 8:15 am, and he needed to arrive at work at 8:45 am to prepare for his ten-hour shift. 

He sighed, picked up his stuff, exited his studio, and locked the door.

The studio he lived in was in a small two-story complex consisting of twelve small studios. His studio was in the middle of the second floor, number 9 apartment. A concrete sidewalk, followed by a small field of gravel, fronted the complex. 

About thirty meters to the right stood a white bungalow—Ms. Owen’s house, with an ample parking space, a small, greenery park. A 1.5-meter tall green metal fence surrounded the area.

Not a luxurious place, but it was lovely.

As Eli closed the door, the door next to him opened, apartment number 10. It was a girl, 1.6m tall. She had a smooth face, with curly brown hair cascading over her shoulders. She had a small nose, full round cheeks, and had a skinny build, covered by her casual winter clothing.

He could describe her as a girl-next-door type and rate her as a 6. Without her makeup, he’d rate her at 4.5. She had a severe case of brown spots she hid under makeup.

The girl smiled at him and greeted, “Good morning, Eli.”

“Morning, Chloe.” Eli smiled. “Are you going to school now?”

“Yep. I’m heading out now. Are you going to work now?”

“Yeah, same as usual. Let’s go, or we’ll miss the car.”

Chloe was a 19-year-old half-French girl and a college student. Instead of staying in a dorm, she rented the room beside him. Eli hadn’t started working when she moved in and had seen her struggling with her luggage, so he helped her. Since then, they became acquainted with each other and, since they go to work/school together and have similar age, they have a friendly relationship.

Eli and Chloe walked for five minutes until they arrived at a streetcar station and then waited for three minutes before a streetcar arrived and picked them up.

They chatted for a bit before Chloe disembarked. After another five minutes, he reached his destination. Then he walked for another three minutes until he arrived at his workplace.

It was a medium-sized building with an old, plastic sculpture of a crab holding a sign saying “Happy-Crabby factory.” ³LOL, don’t search it up, purely fictional.

It was a crab processing factory, running for 49 years now.

Eli worked in the boilers, dipping blue crabs inside them using a large cage.

It takes those crabs five minutes to die in the boiling water. While they cooked them, the crabs struggled so hard their claws would break off.

If not cooked, they’d spoil in just ten to fifteen minutes after they died, and there were not many other methods better than this.

It was hell for crabs. The fact that crabs are not even on the same level as chickens or pigs in the eye of the law makes animal cruelty an efficient thing.

That was none of Eli’s business, though, as even some animal rights activists cooked live crabs, let alone a factory that was supposed to provide tens of thousands of people worldwide each day with delicious crab meat.

He was just content that he managed to score the job in his hour of need.

Eli entered through the front gate and went straight to the male staff changing room in the building. He saw his other coworkers already pulling their white garbs, hairnets, and silicon gloves.

He opened his locker, removed his winter clothes, and donned his work clothes. While changing, an African-American man in his mid-sixties approached him. “Hey, Eli.”

“Hi, Mogensha. What’s up?” Eli knew him. Mogensha had average height and weight, and his hair grayed slightly. His face was stubbled and wrinkled, signifying his advanced age.

Mogensha shrugged. “Good enough. Preparing for my retirement and all. You doin’ alright? You look a bit tired.”

Eli also heard Mogensha had been working inside the factory right after he dropped out of school at sixteen. Now, he was retiring and Eli was replacing him. “Yeah, I’m doing fine. I just had a bit of trouble sleeping.”

“What, a girl made you stay up all night?” Mogensha giggled. 

Eli chuckled. “I wish. Alright, it’s getting late. Let’s go to work now.”

They approached the boiler section with water-filled large vats. It took about ten minutes to boil. Then they would torture the crabs.

They caged 900 live blue crabs, 300 pounds worth, inside a giant metal cage. Along with the metal cage, they got immersed inside a boiler for thirty-three minutes.

The cage would then resurface. Eli and Mogensha would then check the temperature. If it was not hot enough, they would immerse them again for a few more minutes. They would then take the boiled crabs to the next phase.

The workers would divide the crabs into chunks, then take them to a cooling unit. Eli and Mogensha would help to insert the crabs there.

After they’d cooled down, the workers would dismember the crabs, dividing them into different portions.

Eli and Mogensha would then take some of the crabs to deep freeze them for later use. The crab pickers took the leftovers to remove their meat.

There were four boilers inside the boiler room, two of which were not used due to low season; Eli and Mogensha manned the remaining boilers.

That was his duty.

Each day, Eli would boil about 4,000 pounds of blue crabs— about 12,000 blue crabs. ⁴Yes, about 4 – 6 million crabs are boiled in a single processing factory each year. The meat yield from a single crab is 14% of its total weight, so about 550,000 – 800,000 of crab meat.

The factory only needed 27 to 30 workers. Including the management, 27 to 32 people ran the factory.

The boiler section only needed 5 to 10 workers, and they had a single ten-hour shift, six days a week.

All other parts of the factory needed to run twenty-four seven and ran on eight-hour shifts instead. ⁵And if you’re wondering, yes, they make a decent profit. Live crabs are sold at about $0.9 – 1.3 per pound to factories. $25 – 35 per pound of meat to stores, depending on the type. Do the rest of the math yourself.

This was because crabs needed to be brought in alive, and the fishermen would bring them from the fisheries during the day.

Unlike the boilers, there was crab meat present, ready for processing inside the freezers, which is why the other sections could keep running during the night.

After ten hours of work, Eli was sweating buckets and was tired. He and Mogensha called it a day and headed to the locker room.

He chatted with Mogensha a bit in the locker room. Mogensha tapped his shoulder. “Nice job. Your hands-on training is going well.”

Eli smiled, tired. “Yeah, thanks. You’re a good teacher.”

Mogensha raised his eyebrows. The corner of his mouth rose. “Heh, thanks. Always wanted to be a teacher.”

“It’s never too late.”

Mogensha shrugged. “Can’t teach an old horse like me new tricks.”

Eli forced a smile. “So do you have anything planned for your retirement?”

“Yeah. The usual—spending time with the old lady, watching over my great-grandkids. Maybe fishing as a hobby.”

“That’s nice.”

Eli had a good impression of him.

Outgoing, friendly, the factory workers liked him. Mogensha was nearing retirement, reaching the age limit of 65.

While chatting a bit more, they left the factory. By the time Eli reached his apartment, it was 7:30 pm.

After showering, removing the sweat and grime from work, Saturn’s words crossed his mind. He’d get points for killing crabs.

Menu. - He inwardly thought.

Menu:

[Status]
[Evolution]
[Quests]
[Inventory]
[Current points: 4.77]

4.77 points? Is this a lot? Is this little? Well, it’s definitely better than zero…wait, that number—If I remember correctly, most of the crabs were technically killed by Mogensha since he was the one who dropped almost two-thirds of the cages… Doesn’t that mean a crab is worth about 0.001 points? Wouldn’t that mean, if I killed all the crabs, I could gain 12 points? Still, I don’t know their value since I have no comparison to refer to…. ⁶Yes, I raised their value a bit. It isn’t game-breaking, though.

He shrugged. “Eh, I’ll think about that later. I still have a quest to do.” He wore his old sportswear that looked comical on his chubby body. 

Opening his quest menu, a mechanical ting sounded.

[Would you like to begin today’s training?]