"Now, what should I do with it?"

Staring at the open crate displayed directly on my studio's floor, I leaned my head over my shoulder while indecisiveness reigned supreme in my thoughts.

What should I even begin with?

Just carrying this huge, heavy crate all the way back to the cheap and claustrophobically small place I was staying at was a challenge. In about two hours I had to rush to my part-time; bills wouldn't pay for themselves, after all!

And in all honesty, encroaching on the latter half of my twenties, I really disliked the idea of picking up my phone and turning to my parents to, once again, ask for their support.

Powerless, I sighed out and fell down on my bed.

All the motivation be damned, now that it came to actually moving on… I just couldn't do it.

It was one thing for stuff to happen that forced change on my life, but an entirely different matter altogether to personally move on to something else.

One wouldn't heal their heart devastated by a broken relationship in a day, so how could I heal my motivation when my attempt at cultivating lasted much longer than the modern average for a relationship?

'I've only have two hours, though.'

As much as I didn't want to instantly start doing something new, even if only for the sake of looking for something that would catch my interest…

What would be the better time than now?

With the training session cut short, I've had a rare moment of respite. And now that I was out of the institution… I could no longer rely on its stipend either, meaning, the time that I saved by not going to train anymore… would directly translate into the hours I would work at my job to cover for the missing component of my pathetic but somewhat stable financial situation.

Twenty and five years into this life, I could see the charms of just settling in my current situation. It wasn't great… But as long as I worked somewhat hard, I could make it.

'If I throw myself into something completely new, I'm pretty much risking it all.'

The perspective of returning, as a grown-ass man, to my parents place simply because I could no longer afford to live on my own…

I gritted my teeth and sat up on the bed's edge, while taking care not to press my weight too hard on it.

After the recent disaster in which half of its inner supporting structure broke, it took some real damn skill to sleep on it without inviting a secondary disaster.

"I better do what I can while time is still mine to manage."

I reached down and picked the nearest trade manual.

"Advanced Computing in the era of Spiritual AI. Comprehensive guide to training your first SummonGPT!"

A loud, prolonged sigh oozed out of my mouth.

"Yeah, as if."

I threw the book aside, separating it from everything else in the box and turning it into yet another piece of garbage littering my already small domicile.

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Despite living in this closet-turned-studio apartment, I made it harder for myself by stubbornly refusing to keep it clean.

It was just too much effort for too little end. And while I was fully aware this way of thinking was wrong and immature… I couldn't bring myself to waste so much time and effort for results that would improve my situation by such insignificant little!

After discarding the first book, I reached for the next.

And this time, I actually gave it a few pages.

"Qi is actually mana!: How to infuse your Qi into everything around you, start with the very basics!"

This time, I gave the manual a few pages, merely out of raw interest in the topic… Before repeating the sigh and then discarding the book on the floor just like before.

What was the point of me studying the manipulation or nature of Qi if I lacked the means to gather it in my body to begin with?

I looked up to one of the few luxuries in my possession, a simple clock on the wall. A product of a bygone era that I, strangely enough, found weirdly endearing to use.

Then, reminded of the fleeting nature of the little time I had, I reached out and grabbed yet another book.

Title after title, my former master's gifts turned into trash discarded somewhere over my floor.

There were some that I've studied for even ten minutes, genuinely falling into the hole of just how interesting they were…

But in the end, over and over again, I would chance upon a wall. The same wall that led me to my current point in life. Only in some cases was it something else like a lack of interest or actual means to participate.

I had no connections to become a diplomat, nor certificates and or classifications to apply for certain trades like policeman or security. And the few things that I actually had means and interest for… Pretty much always came with the requirement of wielding Qi.

Still, at the bottom of my heart, just like when I trained against all the odds in the institution… I had this hope that something will work out. Even when I scrolled through the pages of the last manual, I harbored this deep hope that maybe, just maybe, I will find out something at the next page that will change the situation.

But as it turned out, life was merely an amplification, expansion of the dojo. And when the last of the books fell on the floor, leaving just the tools of the different trades in the crate… I found nothing.

Sure, there were several topics that got me curious… But none of them was the right fit for me.

And so, in a moment of defeat… I whipped out my phone before turning on one of the countless types of mindless scrolls.

By now, I only had an hour left before I would have to get going to get to my part-time… well, on time. And after thirty minutes or so of mindless scrolling through the endless feed of content others produced…

I found something.

"Shit, this old man…"

I closed my eyes as my phone dropped heavily on my chest.

I felt like laughing.

"Who the hell looks for a tutorial in books, nowadays?!"

The dojo's uncle… was a master of his craft but also a man of his age. And what I failed to find in the manuals he provided, I received on a silver platter from the brain-rot grade of short videos.

It was just another one of those weird shorts of someone taking a concept and then approaching it from a comedic if not outright ridiculous angle. A man constructing various contraptions, electrical, mechanical and spiritual, just for the sake of the fun of doing so.

"This design is very human indeed," I smirked as I rolled off the bed and rushed to the crate.

I ignored the crafting manual discarded somewhere on the floor and dove into the crate again, taking my pick of the variety of tools, all intended for different purpose.

And as it turned out, quite a few of them were just what I needed for a fun, little project that appeared in my head the moment I marveled at this "very human design."

One had absolutely nothing to do with the other… beside the thirst for the visceral joy of creating something.

And so, I scoured the room for potential materials, grabbing everything and anything that could be remotely useful.

Ten minutes later, I've amassed quite the pile on my bed, along with all the tools I needed for the job.

It was a tiny project, that I nigh instantly found a short tutorial for on the web. It was… a shelf.

A single piece of solid surface that one could, quite easily, mount on one's wall without permanently damaging it.

I looked up to the clock, only to realize I've now only had fifteen minutes left.

But then again, this job couldn't be any damn easier, as it only involved several pieces of cardboard, scissors, hot glue and, two-sided tape, a pencil and a bit of handiwork.

And if there was anything I've learned after five years of mindlessly slamming my fists against the hardwood target at the dojo, it was the perfect coordination between my hands and my perception of the world!