As it turns out, I had to wait for the next day.
I quickly realized that not only did I not feel the need to sleep when the family came back to their home, but also I actually couldn't sleep.
The family’s home was a wooden two bedroom hut with a thatch roof, which seemed to be about the norm for the village. On the walk over from the village “hospital”, AKA Elder Huga’s house, I did see houses that were bigger and smaller around but most seem to be about the same size.
When we arrived at the house, Caleb’s older brother was there with a heavily pregnant young woman, his wife, and a little girl who couldn’t be older than six. The parents thanked Marcus, the brother, and his wife for looking after their daughter Alice, the young girl.
Alice started making a lot of noise when she saw her big brother in their father’s arms, dead asleep. She refused to leave his side when the parents were tucking him into his bed and ended up crawling in beside him, not budging no matter what Harry and Lucille said. Seeing them now, it’s a rather touching scene, the little sister cuddling up to her big brother.
As the night wore on in the dead quiet of the village, I had nothing but time to think about my plans for the future. Specifically, I wanted to think about what kind of System I was going to be. Digging through the information I had, I found I could use the causal energy that was slowly building up inside of Caleb’s body for basically anything as long as I had his permission. Which meant I wouldn’t have to use any of my own energy to make him stronger and could focus on my own growth for the most part.
Thinking about what I have so far, I have Missions and Quests to guide Caleb to improve and additionally reward him with XP and maybe some other stuff down the line. I hadn’t really put much thought into it, but I guess I also had a level system that I needed to implement somehow.
I decided I should keep it simple for now, figure out what works and what doesn’t and then keep that in mind for my next host. I felt a little bad for Caleb who was going to get version 0.01 of my system but he should at least get something, right?
So, what kind of things do systems usually have? Well, I have levels but I’ll need stats or attributes or something to boost, I think. Skills, obviously. Inventory space? Maybe a shop?
I ran through all the memories I had of the many systems I’d read about in web novels and manga and such, figuring out what I could incorporate into my own version. The night slipped away as I alternated between recalling memories of overplayed “You are courting death!” Xianxia stories and the list of things I could actually do that I got from Gaia.
&&&&&&&&&&
Roosters called out as the sun’s rays crept over the village, accompanied by the sound of villagers waking to greet a new day.
The sudden increase in ambient noise brought me out of my focus on work. The hours had just flown by as I worked on the system layout, even with all the time I’d spent on it I had only a rough outline for the user interface. There were a lot of things that needed work, stats for instance, the human body is way too complex a system to measure things like ‘Strength’ or ‘Dexterity’. Much less ‘Attack’ or ‘Defense’.
I was still working on that front, but I had made some progress in other areas. I had figured out some plans for the whole ‘Level’ and ‘XP’ stuff I’d been working with so far, where I would give Caleb access to more features as he leveled up. There are many abilities I have yet to unlock because of how little causal energy I’ve managed to collect. The leveling system should buy me some time to get those abilities and figure out more features to include in my model.
I felt Caleb stir and slowly wake up, his sister still curled up against him and sound asleep. He looked around the room and seemed to be having some kind of inner monologue. I was really gonna have to work on strengthening our connection so I could know what he’s thinking, and hopefully get a peak at the memories he’d gotten during the transmigration process. It didn’t feel right that the “all powerful system” was the one playing catch-up.
Caleb turned to his sister and checked to see if she was still asleep, which she was. Satisfied, he looked around nervously, his eyes flicking to the closed door from where the shuffling sounds of his parents moving about the house were coming.
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“. . .System? . . . Are you there?” His voice was barely a whisper but it was more than enough for me to hear.
The big blue boxes that I used for Missions and Quests would be a bit much for a conversation like this. Instead I projected a smaller screen about the size of a smartphone with some chat bubbles as if I was texting him.
[Good morning, Host]
[Are you feeling well?]
I figured it would be best to keep our relationship professional and keep some distance between us. I’ll help him and make sure that he doesn’t get himself killed doing something stupid, but I’m his guide, not his friend.
“. . .So it’s real.” He said. “Then, can you show me my status?”
I’d figured he’d ask something like that.
[Status page unlocks at Level 1]
[The Host’s current level is Level 0]
[15/100 XP required for next level]
I hadn’t even figured out what the ‘Status Page’ was going to look like yet, so how was I going to show it to him? This would buy me some time, maybe a month or two, for me to put everything together. I would probably be able to work for almost that entire length of time considering it’s not like I’ll need to be watching over his shoulder 24/7.
Caleb looked a little dejected but resigned to be patient and work towards the presented goal.
That was, until his nose started twitching and his stomach grumbled loudly. He carefully peeled himself away from his sister and, making sure not to wake her, climbed out of bed and made his way over to the door.
He walked into the main room of the house, which seemed to be where everything short of sleeping was done. This included the cooking of breakfast, which Lucille was in the middle of doing right now.
Lucille was tending to a small fireplace that had, what looked to be, several cast iron skillets and pots sitting on top of it. I could hear the pop and sizzle of food in oil. Gaia above, it’s been a day and I already miss being able to eat.
Probably hearing the door opening, Lucille turned around and spotted Caleb sneaking out of his room. Immediately, she walked over and wrapped him in a slightly-too-tight, motherly hug. She held the embrace for a few breaths, just appreciating her son being whole and hale. It didn’t take long, though, for Caleb to start trying to escape, looking like he was struggling to breathe. Lucille realized what was happening and released him, Caleb making small gasps for air when she did so.
“Oh, I’m sorry honey, I didn’t realize I was holding you that tight.” She seemed only mildly embarrassed by her actions as Caleb caught his breath again.
“It’s fine mom,” he said, “is breakfast ready?”
“Almost, Elder Huga said you’d need plenty of rest and food to fully recover, so I’m making a big breakfast for everyone.”
Although she had healed Caleb’s injuries, Elder Huga had advised for a few days of rest just to be safe. But, I’m pretty sure she never said anything about food. . . eh, I guess it couldn't hurt.
&&&&&&&&&&
Breakfast had been a mostly quiet affair, Lucille had dragged Alice out of bed and Harry had come back in from whatever he had been doing outside. Father and son had then set off to look over the fields and check on the livestock.
They walked through the village, which had a very different vibe now that people were actually out and about. Villagers were calling out to each other, some elders were playing board names, and children were chasing after each other in between houses. There seemed to be a few hundred people in the village and every single one of them was out doing something. Compared to looking around and seeing everyone on their phone, it was pretty nice.
They moved through the village streets and over to the west gate, which led out into the village’s farmlands. I’ll be honest, I was expecting rolling hills of wheat or corn or something like that, instead there was a football field or two’s worth of mixed crops. Some vegetables over here, a patch of what looked like barley over there, and of course some grazing fields for a small herd of cattle.
Looking back, I had been going off ideas from a fully industrialized society with a largely mechanized agricultural industry. Not to mention, being a city dweller, I had little to no idea how farming actually worked, so at least this would be a learning experience.
As they were walking out to the fields, a man merrily called out to Harry and they stopped to chat with the man. While the two men talked, Caleb looked out over the hills, his eyes following the road out of the village and out past the fields before it curved to the south and vanished over the horizon.
Meanwhile, I was listening to the conversation between Harry and the other man, gleaning some insights into village life. From what I could determine, the village used some kind of mixed ownership of the fields, with each family being responsible for a particular lot of the fields but still being the village’s fields.
The men then began to ramble on for a little while before bidding their goodbyes and each promising to get the other a drink sometime. But before Harry and Caleb carried on their way, I realized I had an opportunity to help Caleb on his way to the next level.
========================================================================
A new Quest has been generated!
Quest: Farmhand (Repeatable)
Description: There’s always something to do on the farm. Do it.
Reward: 1 XP
========================================================================
I didn’t need to know how to farm, I just needed to tell Caleb to do it and then give him some XP at the end of the day.
Caleb didn’t seem very happy with the XP reward I listed, but this would give me the couple months I wanted in order to sort out my plans. I set it up as a repeatable task, meaning he could go through it whenever he wanted and get a guaranteed reward. It would give him a steady income of XP and maybe make him a bit more motivated while working the fields, all good things. Caleb just sighed after rereading the Quest a few times and dismissed the notification, moving to keep pace with his dad.
&&&&&&&&&&
Apparently, there’s not much for farmers to do during the summer, which it was. Caleb had just made sure the animals were fed while Harry checked the fields for weeds and such. I felt a little bit cheated when I begrudgingly gave Caleb his XP, but I guess that was the plan anyways, so it doesn’t really matter.
Caleb spent the rest of the day with his family at home, talking and playing games with his little sister. I couldn’t help but feel my mood get better when I saw that.
“Now,” I thought, “about that status page.”