18 A Frog's Climb 3
When he returned to the orphanage he opened up his status and ranked up. He went from a Gentleman to an Esquire. The rewards that he received from it were 3 Gold Coin Coupons and 500 Experience.
He would spend the 3 Gold Coin Coupons when he was four, so he would hold onto the tokens for now.
He was almost to level 10! Then the rank up task was completed and he then hit level 10.
The task that he received after: Visit the Oldman's Cultivation Store was to Reach Qi Impression Stage, and the completion of the other task gave him a task that was called Purchase new Clothes
Caelum decided on starting on the first one when he received the cultivation manual. That left the second option which he could achieve easily getting new clothes would take little work.
He asked if Miss Vaile could so he could focus on training and she obliged. She purchased training robes that were a brilliant emerald color a white sash. She had them tailor-made so they arrived a few weeks after he inquired about the matter.
Caelum thanked her and put the clothes away. He would wear them to the tournament, he would not ruin them with his training. The robes were decorative. The weighted training gear beat the emerald sash no matter how much he liked the color green.
Once his action synched up with the system he received the notification that he had completed the task. Afterward, he received a notification telling him his next task: Identify Unquantified Stats
This would take some effort.
Caelum would have to wait a year to leave again, he would have to busy himself till then. Caelum took a moment to relax before charging back into the swing of things.
He had one year till he said he would start to lift the weights. Caelum would be able to complete two of the tasks when his third birthday mid training regiment arrived.
He could go to the required locations to get the stats that have yet to be quantified identified and he could stand back a minute and recruit someone here to his cause. Could he recruit Miss Vaile early? No... That would happen almost the instant he won that tournament.
One of the orphans? They were not shallow like the characters in the online stories he read from who tried to get close to the powerful by saying "Hey Brother!" That was not reality, and he did not want anyone to get close to him.
He would not have anyone steal his glory. If anyone did he was unsure of what he would be capable of doing. That is why Caelum would avoid getting into any situations where such things may arise.
He could become acquaintances at least and help him out if the need that their help was required ever arose. It does not hurt to have a second plan if the first fails, you either put all your cards in or didn't give a shit!
He went up to them, apologized to everyone that he insulted (except Matt) In a weird tsundere-esque way and the encounter with the other orphans went better than he expected. They also understood Caelum if only slightly better after he raced all of them, every single orphan into a race to complete the task.
Words were not necessary to form a bond.
It took a few days and a lot of nice words to work himself into the groups it was mostly him just following them around. He understood like any institution different groups formed which aligned with their respective interest
There were those who gossiped, those who too often read, those who did everything they could to impress the girls and then there were the outliers such as he who were not able or did not want to get along with the others.
If he associated with a loner it would make them think that he was sticking the middle finger up to them, as if to say 'this conversation is worth my time! Fuck you anyone that is not apart of it!'
The person that he went up to seemed amiable, he just failed at looking others in the eyes - a complete inability if they were forced into interacting with others in a group setting, barely able to make eye contact every few moments.
Caelum introduced myself, the other kids could say a word here and there but it was by no means coherent he was not a genius.
They seemed really fucking timid his name was Willas. This reminded Caelum of an anime where the character is timid but wants friends yet fails to make them in every situation with other people. He felt bad for them, but timid people were more easily coerced that did sound bad when he thought about it.
He asked if Willas would join his cause, he in return muttered a lot of incoherent gibberish.
What was his cause? Down with the orphanage! That would not sell well, not at all.
Caelum considered his words carefully before answering Willas.
"Its...." Then he remembered, how even if he could put it into words, how would he make them understand? They had to grow up more till they could understand what he was asking of them.
The smartest in the orphanage besides Caelum was Matt and they were not even, years later, on the best of terms. If they were on even shaky terms it would still be relatively easy to resolve the situation, but in the eyes of Matt Caelum likely looked like a bully. He did not do anything that was extremely harsh, but it still likely affected Matt quite deeply.
He had to apologize, his ambition was at stake if he failed. If failed he would fall back down the well.
He would stick to his plan and see if he could mend the situation with Matt. Caelum did not know if he was doing it because the task, or he wanted to actually mend things with Matt it was something that he just had to take care of.
