I woke up and felt like sighing. After enduring more than one thousand challenges in that weird room, it felt like my week in this world had been just a faint dream… Just as I had expected; the challenges got incrementally harder, but just as I had expected as well, I had gotten used to that kind of nonsense and I had plenty of time as well to think about things and have some ideas.

The system screen doesn’t show up in that room. Probably this system screen belongs to this body. Still, the knowledge that I obtain here can still be studied and analyzed there. I could still speak the few words that I learned…

Languages Understanding - Lv 02 - (100/200)

An ability that helps you use and learn new words with more efficiency with higher levels. It can also be used to understand unknown languages and animal speak.

The proficiency doubled, so the experience that I had in that room was transferred to this body, probably because my memories didn’t stay there. Still, there were many other things that I needed to confirm regarding this. That wasn’t the only change. My willpower increased by ten points… It seemed that enduring the challenges of the white room also helped in that way.

‘This explains why Willpower wasn’t just at one when I was reborn. I can use the white room like this, I guess… it would increase my mana a lot, but it is quite troublesome.’

For now, I have to do my best to learn the language in this world… it would be useful to have the chance to turn a new action into a skill soon. So, I had to increase my proficiency in Mind of Steel. It took one month for that to happen, though.

The Treasure Mind of Steel’s proficiency reached level two.

Just that… nothing else happened aside from the changes in my parameters… I checked the Mind of Steel window, but nothing different was there. Well, I knew that it wouldn’t be so easy, so I wasn’t surprised. The only real changes in my life started when I was six months old.

The skill Languages Understanding reached level twelve.

The Treasure Mind of Steel’s proficiency reached level five.

You reached level two.

You obtained 10 free status points.

It felt a bit convoluted, but the skill granted proficiency to the treasure and the treasure granted proficiency to me. The rate still needed to be studied, but I was satisfied to know that I didn’t have to fight monsters to get stronger and I could level while I was getting used to crawling with this new body. Also, I finally had the chance to turn a new action into a skill.

Mind of Steel Lv 05 - Wisdom, Willpower, and Endurance + 02

Lv 01 - (Languages Understanding.)

Lv 05 - (Turn an action into a skill.)

List of Compatible Actions:

Iron Will

Focus Mastery

Fast Calculus

Crawling

Sleep Resistance

The list was a bit weird… I did many things in that room thinking that they could turn into skill. That made me think that only the knowledge and experience that I obtained there could be used… the actions that could be turned into skills needed to be executed with this new body.

‘Turning Crawling into a skill would be a waste of time. I am not sure if I can replace it later. I assume that the skills that are available are the most simple ones because of the level of the artifact. Sleep Resistance can be helpful, but not in a growing body and not right now. I suppose the best option is Fast Calculus to gain proficiency consistently, but how will that help me in the future?’

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I didn’t know a single thing about this world yet… My new mother kept me in this room, and she didn’t take her eyes off of me, so I couldn’t go anywhere. The weird thing was that her sole job was to look after me and we still had plenty of food and water, despite living in what appeared to be a pretty old house.

Another weird thing was that I didn’t see my new father even now. I was starting to think that he wouldn’t be missed, and I felt a bit guilty over that, but soon my other concerns made me forget about all that.

‘Well, it appears that I can pick these actions later for higher slots in the artifact, so there is always another change in the future. To improve the artifact, I guess that Fast Calculus and then keep thinking about the times table would grant me a lot of proficiency in a short window of time. Iron Will probably will increase my willpower and further my mana, but what about Focus, Mastery?’

After all this time living in that room without answers for the situation around me, it was obvious that I would feel obsessed with knowing what could be learned about anything around me. It could be a dangerous bet, but I couldn’t keep living without knowing how Focus Mastery worked. I had an idea, but I had to confirm it.

Focus Mastery - Lv 01 - (00/100)

In moments of intense focus, you can perceive time as slowing down. This allows you to think and act faster than you normally would, giving you an edge in fast-paced situations like battles, or when solving complex problems. Makes you perceive the flow of time one percent faster than most people when you are focused.

‘This is better than I had expected and it seems to be another passive skill too. That makes it even better.’

This was definitely the razor sharp focus that I obtained when the thousandth challenge ended. It seemed that taking risks at moments like this was a better option than I had expected.

“What is wrong, Ai? You are looking more intensely to the outside than usual. Are you that curious about leaving home?”

My mother woke up when I decided to use Focus Mastery… it would be hard to focus now. She looked at me as if waiting for an answer. She clearly looked worried. In any case, giving any answer would be weird now. Even if I could…

“Just wait a bit longer and then you can finally let go of your mommy. Your daddy will definitely take you, after all.”

That didn’t sound like a nice thing, given her tone and the expression that she showed. My new mother, whose name I haven’t even heard of, had soft features, but she also had calluses on her hands and her skin was tanned in many parts, so it was clear that she didn’t have a very easy life. Maybe it was because of my new father that we didn’t have to worry about food, but it was still weird.

I didn’t have time for family drama. I had to take over the world in the next nineteen years and six months. I felt a bit bad for dismissing my new family situation, but my own problems couldn’t be ignored either. In any case, I decided to just rest and then wait for the chance to use Focus Mastery.

The chances of using it were hard to come by, but at least while I couldn’t notice any immediate effects, I could see the proficiency of the skill increasing every minute I used it. The downside was that my literal baby brain couldn’t remain focused for that long too many times a day. Therefore, I couldn’t make the skill reach level one hundred before I was able to get up on my own.

‘I wonder… can I use this skill in that white room and bring the proficiency here to make it stronger?’

Probably not, since the system and my parameters didn’t work in that room. The things that I can bring from that place can’t be that tangible. Otherwise, this torment would be a broken way to become insanely powerful as a toddler. That also made me wonder… maybe having that kind of torment was the price of staying in a place not bound by time, space or other physical laws.

While I wasn’t completely against the idea of returning to that room to confirm this, it felt really troublesome… suffering that much was annoying, while bearable. This made me realize that I was still a bit sane if I wanted to run away from suffering. That was the basics of human nature, after all. Avoid pain and seek pleasure.

In the end, I avoided that room for the next six months and soon I noticed the difference when Focus Mastery was active. The movements of my mother were a bit sluggish as I walked toward her. By this point in time, it reached level ten, so the difference was obvious.

“Wow, Ai. You sure can walk steadily at your age!”

My mother patted me on the head when I reached her. She had the proudest smile on her face… I actually could walk better than this, but I had to show this much progress to her now and then in order to make her feel like she was raising someone properly.

“Mama. Food.”

“Oh, is it already that time? Better start cooking lunch, then.”

Although I had gotten the mental pain to endure dying in that white room countless times, I still felt a bit of pain in my chest when I thought that she wasn’t raising her real child… it made me wonder if I had taken over the life of someone else. If I hadn’t, then her real son probably was a newborn child… both possibilities were rather sad, but both of them were out of my control.

While my mother was cooking, I sat down on the floor and confirmed that I was nearby. She would check where I was every minute, so there was no point in trying to move from this spot. If I tried, she would either put me on the same spot, on the bed. At least from this location I could see outside the home a bit.

There wasn’t much to see aside from the front of another house that looked even more run down than ours. That was essentially a new world for me. It made me wonder when my new mother would take me out to see the village… Sometimes, that old lady would come to check my health, but that was it. The saying: it takes a village to raise a child wasn’t applicable or known here for some reason.

“Hiiiiinnnn!”

While I was thinking about that, I heard the sound of a horse… It was the first time that I heard this after being reborn. Mother looked toward the door and then soon some people began to show heading to the right side of the village.

‘It looks like someone has arrived…’

All of a sudden, my mother picked me up and dashed to the entrance… I hoped that she wouldn’t let the food burn. I have a small body, but it consumes a lot of energy. For the first time, I was outside and could see that the village was pretty organized. While run down, the houses were the same distance away from each other and forming perfect lines. There were at least two hundred of them that I could see…

In the distance, I was able to see a bunch of guys riding horses and crossing the village. They were wearing different sets of armor and some of them were stopping and jumping from the horses and heading to some people. I frowned a bit when I saw one of those guys suddenly grabbing a kid that was a bit older than me and then looking at him in the face after turning him upside down.

“Look, Ai. It is daddy!”

I didn’t mind that she called me Ai all this time, but the idea of being called Ai in front of others suddenly felt a bit bothersome. Not enough to take more than three seconds before it vanished from my head, though.

The man that my mother was talking about was a bulky man who had a large and long spear on his back. It was hard to tell his features thanks to a helmet, but thanks to his sour expression, he looked like someone who was licking lemons for an entire day.