It hopped after its master, and they did the same. When they reached the first floor, it turned out there were four rooms available. Because of the sensitivity of the moment and the presence of an adult, Tom retreated to his system room to ensure Little Ta had control. There was no hesitation on the part of his younger self. He skipped over to the doors, scanned himself in, entered the room, and then waved to Bir, who was doing the same in the room directly opposite to him. Both their doors shut mere seconds apart.

Tom made a point of waiting until the ding that signified a full sealing occurred before taking charge once more.

With a massive grin all over his face, he glanced around the isolation room and wondered what he should do.

The bookshelf was the obvious destination, but there was also the exercise equipment, the combat dummies, and the final display which his eyes settled on. There was an alcove that contained a variety of practice spears, and he went straight over to them. Not a single one of them was full size, and the shortest was still too long for him.

He seized it anyway and retreated to the middle of the room.

Once there, he held it in both hands. His right index finger traced over the grain, and he lowered his nose and breathed in deeply. It smelt faintly of the oil used to maintain it.

It was a spear, and it was his to use. Experimentally, he spun it and then thrust forward with a single explosive movement, then pulled back into a resting position. A smile blossomed on his face. There was something about holding a proper weapon, even a practice one, that let him shrug off some of the shroud of impotency that had been dogging him.

At three quarter pace, he performed a simple kata, enjoying the simplicity of the movement and the freedom as the spear whistled through the different positions. The full-length mirrors let him observe just how terrible his form was, but he persisted. His new body had to start somewhere. Besides, as it was, he had no muscle memory to fall back on and very little coordination, not to mention that the nerve connections between his brain and his muscles felt like they were frayed. Movements that had been basic in his past life were beyond his ability now, no matter what speed he attempted them at. Slow, half speed, at full pace - none of them helped. He couldn’t perform them. It was more than just a lack of system skills and attributes. His failures went down to the shape of his body and subtle stuff like having less fast twitch fibres. There were other issues. He was pretty sure his arms were slightly shorter than expected, given his height. That mis-balancing caused him to struggle with motions that should have been routine.

After ten minutes of a light workout that made a single bead of sweat roll down his face, Tom stopped. He didn’t know if physical activity was safe yet, and leaving this room with blisters would be less than ideal.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He put the spear back and quickly rearranged the weapons so they were positioned in an identical arrangement to what they had been before he entered the room. Later, if he had time, he would do something more appropriate, like repurposing all of them into a poorly constructed balance course, an evidence of a four-year-old playing, rather than hiding the idea the weapon had been used at all.

Job done, he faced the bookshelf. It was time to give context to his new life. The reincarnation primer he had spotted in the other isolation room was available in this one, too.

He grabbed it and started to read.

This book is written for people who have reincarnated, but can serve as a source of inspiration for everyone.

Whatever, he thought, he didn’t need to read platitudes. Quickly he scanned the introduction, focusing on ignoring the fluff to extract the hidden gems; to find the truth amongst the dross, so to speak.

You are facing a long grind, and it will be many years before you gain access to the experience shop and the ability to purchase the classes, levels and abilities that you need to have an impact on the ranking ladder. For individuals of your calibre, this will be difficult. Remember, Patience is a Virtue.

Tom grinned as he read that piece of advice. Individuals of your calibre he guessed was probably code for murderhobos, given the target audience. Counselling patience was absolutely required for people who, like him, would have spent decades on the edge between survival and failure. He could feel that itch in himself. He wanted to go and kill things, to destroy them, to get the rush of power like he had achieved when he had first arrived in Existentia. However, logically, he knew that path was not available, because the experience metric and the shop to use it were locked. Instead, he would have to bide his time and develop naturally rather than supercharge everything by killing lots of monsters.

Tom skimmed the rest of the introduction chapter, and, despite there being no more individual sentences that caught his attention, he didn’t put the book down. Then he pondered if there were any hidden messages.

There was a secret message. He was sure of it. The text kept referencing the importance of the independent acquisition of skills and the benefit that such an approach gained. Then, separately, it mentioned that interviews with reincarnators revealed they ended up with more titles than expected by the time they reached maturity. The two lines of thought were never linked in the same sentence and rarely in the same paragraph, but on his third re-read Tom became certain of what it was trying to say. Effort spent on gaining abilities would lead to titles, and both quality and quantity counted.

“This is a chance for me to make a difference,” he whispered to himself in the empty room. He would do whatever it took to independently acquire as many abilities as possible. It was not like he hadn’t already been intending to do so, but it was nice to know that there would be a carrot down the line to reward his efforts. What was important was that while he was sure the orphanage would offer some specialised training to gain abilities, taking advantage of this kind of service was a trap. It was something he would actively avoid, if hard work gave him a chance of obtaining it independently.

Having gleaned everything he could from the introduction, he checked the table of contents and flipped through to the chapter dealing with Abilities that Persist Through Reincarnation.

The collective experience of everyone who had gone before him was neatly laid out for him to view.