2 Changes

When Mel tried to close his eyes, a small slit from his drawn curtains hit a beam of bright sunlight towards his face. Irritated, Mel opened his eyes, only to still see the task hovering within his vision. Mel lay on a bed for a long time, in a daze, simultaneously looking at that task while also in deep thought.

His face blank, but his eyes deep with rippling emotion. After some time he woke up and went to the bathroom. An hour later, a new Mel had come out. Hair cut, clean shaven and smelling fresh. He surprisingly found it refreshing.

[Task complete.]

[Reward - Will Power + 1]

Willpower... wondered Mel. It did seem like he had some kind of stat distribution, but he couldn't see it.

[Task - Clean your House.]

Mel saw the next task and sighed with hesitation. His house was a mess. It had been a mess for years. Mel went to the kitchen to fetch the cleaning solution and sponge etc and began cleaning.

With intermittent breaks for food he ordered through takeaway, Mel spent the whole day cleaning the room. Surprisingly he found this to be a very therapeutic exercise.

Day had turned into late evening, when Mel sat down on his cleaned couch for the first time in a long time amd admired his house. The clean house brought back memories... memories that he didn't feel like revisiting.

[Task complete.]

[Reward - Willpower + 1]

Mel sighed. He went to the small shrine which had photographs of his entire family. His parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts as well as his sister. The shrine's candle hadn't been lit for a long time. Mel quietly lit the candle, staring at the photos for a while, before walking out of the house.

[Task - Cook a meal.]

Mel went to the convenience store a few streets down his house. On the way he could not help but be shocked at how much the world had changed. He could see random folks on the street roaming with weapons, vehicles looked very different and buildings seemed to have changed.

He walked into the convenience store and saw all kinds of food items he had never seen before. He surmised these were some dishes made from meat from monsters hunted within the dungeons. They were not cheap either. Mel quietly purchased a few eggs, some condiments and other groceries.

The convenience store owner who was swiping the items looked at the customer and a slight bit of surprise crossed her face. She was an old woman who had been running this store for many years and had seen this little boy grow up and then plunge into despair and isolation. Today, Mel looked like he had changed. She gave Mel a 20% discount.

Five years of isolation had made Mel reticent and a man of a few words. He nodded to the old lady as a gesture of thanks and went back home. He began cooking a basic dinner. He had never cooked before, so he used a video to follow the instructions and cook a very basic meal.

[Task Complete.]

[Reward - x1 Training Card - Chef]

A card suddenly appeared in Mel's hand. His eyes had a little surprise, but he decided to eat his cooked food first. Not surprisingly, he didn't like it at all, however, he forced himself to eat it.

After cleaning up, he picked up the Training Card, he wasn't sure what it was, but he willed it to activate and suddenly the card burst into a smorgasbord of light particles.

The next moment, Mel found himself in a crowded street food stall. He was assisting the stall owner, who was quickly preparing crepes at lightning speed. This went on for hours, until the stall owner's routine got ingrained within his brain.

"Kid, you've watched enough, now you take the shift." The stall owner suddenly said.

Mel was confused, but immediately switched places with the stall owner and began copying what he hd observed. However, he was consistently making mistakes and the stall owner would scream at him.

This routine went on for a few hours, before Mel began to get the hang of it, improving and converting the action into muscle memory. Soon the day ended and the stall closed down. Mel suddenly found himself in his room.

Raising an eye, he looked at the time and date. Only a minute had passed in real time and Mel had spent the entire day making crepes.

Then he saw a new task section appear, within which was only a single task as of now.

[Task - Cook a meal](Repeatable daily, Reward depending on quality of the meal.)

When Mel saw that, he understood the path the system was laying onto him.

"It seems like I have to earn some money anyway." Mel thought.

As the night turned darker, Mel closed his eyes and went to sleep. The next morning he woke up because of the sunlight, but he was going to go back to sleep, when he remembered what happened yesterday.

With sudden determination, he woke up. He cleaned up and cleaned his room, even if there were no more tasks related to that. His current emergency was that he was running out of money.

Half an hour later, Mel appeared at a popular street food lane and found a man who was making crepes.

"You want a crepe kid?" The stall owner asked. It was surprisingly early for someone to come for a crepe.

Mel replied. "Sir, I am looking for a job at your stall. I can cook crepes."

The stall owner was dumbfounded. He ran this joint as a one man show and never even considered getting an assistant.

"Lad, nowadays all the kids are rushing to the dungeons and you want to cook crepes? Try making a crepe first." He said.

Mel nodded, and based on the way he had learned the previous night set up repeating the process from memory.

The stall owner saw the crepe being made and nodded with a hint of surprise. "You are a little rusty, but you have the movements down. Let's try you out for a day, i'll give you 100 units."

In such a way, a peculiar scene occurred where the crepe stall hired an assistant who was not too bad. The whole day he quietly practiced making crepes.