3 Birthday Present

On August 27, Lee Long woke up in the night. He was awakened by a strange sensation. He felt very good and unusually comfortable.

[Warning. You have reached your tenth birthday. Happy Birthday! Present for your 10th birthday, you receive level 10! You receive 1 free characteristic point. You receive the Duelist Balance skill. You unlock a set of free characteristics. System inventory unlocked.]

Lee unlocked his status,

[Lee Long

Race, Earthman

Type, Duelist.

Level, 10. 57700/72100

Strength, 3

Dexterity, 5

Intelligence, 10

Endurance, 10

Health, 100/100

Mana, 100/100

Skill, Appraisal 1 level, Duelist Balance 1 level

Available Characteristics point, 13

Available skill point, 0]

Lee Long lay there feeling like a little god. It was the best birthday of his life. He didn't remember his parents well. Holidays with them were so much better. But you have to appreciate what you currently have.

He tried to increase his intelligence by one point. It was a breakthrough! Wisdom increased. Suddenly Lee Long remembered his initial status. All the characteristics had three points. He did a quick calculation and realized a simple theory. One characteristic point may be gained for each year of one's life. And the characteristics are equally distributed!

"I have the intelligence of a forty-year-old man! Like an old man! Stop, dummy. Forty years is not old, but it is a solid age. One must always have harmony with endurance! Suddenly my brain will explode with great wisdom!"

Lee increased endurance by seven points and intelligence by six. He already appreciated the power of wisdom. The amount of mana didn't bother him. Without magic, it was just an unnecessary supply. But Lee appreciated the improvement in memory and the increase in intelligence. He had long since stopped seeing the world through the eyes of a child. He'd been a little intimidated by the change in his worldview in recent days. But he remembered that fantasy books have the term Player's Mind. Increasing intelligence was similar to this skill.

The young Wiseman familiarized himself with the new skill Duelist Balance. It was a great skill that allowed for the creation of two statuses! The system allowed all characteristic points to be reset and create a Peaceful Mode. But the second mode was Combat and was used during duels. Lee realized that this skill would help disguise his new abilities. Disguise is great! A teenager doesn't need to move three times faster than a normal peer in normal life. But during a duel, the increase in speed always comes in useful.

Lee applied the Balance skill. First, he decided to weaken his stats as much as possible. It turned out that having one point in each characteristic was the minimum value for a person. He began to increase his endurance. It was a very pleasant feeling. It was as if he immersed his body in a bath of hot water. There were waves in this bath that caressed and strengthened his body.

When he gained twenty points of endurance, the system stopped him. Thoughts barely appeared in his head. Lee left his endurance at the limit and increased his intelligence to nineteen points. It was something magnificent. He lay there thinking about how his life had changed. He made plans.

Using the Balance skill wasted twenty mana points. Restoring health and mana was simple, one point per hour. Lee set his strength and dexterity to four points in Peace and Combat mode. There was no need to increase physical skills beyond that. He had good training and skills to stand up for himself. Endurance and intelligence need to be pushed to the limit.

"The upgrade automatically added the missing experience points for me. Now I need to rack up fifteen thousand. Normal and easy. The academy is a duelist's paradise! What's up with my inventory? Inventory, space, twenty cubes. One endurance point gives one cubic meter. How interesting! The smallest spaceship is a courier or light fighter. It is eight meters long. Width at the base 4 meters. The height is 1.5 meters. The total cubic capacity is 18 cubic meters. I can hide a small spaceship in my inventory? Cool! But if I fill the ship with stuff, does that increase the capacity? And how can I put such a big thing in the inventory? By the power of thought? It's magic, Harry! Feel the power, Luke! Lee Long, you've got a lot of experiments ahead of you. And you need a lot of money. The cheapest used small spaceship costs 150,000 Alliance credits. I've got a lot of adventure ahead of me!"

In the morning he was congratulated by his guardians. Maria gave him a set of throwing knives. Nick held out a season ticket to the gym,

"Here, it'll help you handle trouble even better."

"It's an admission to the stormtrooper hand-to-hand combat complex! Thank you! This will come in handy for me at the Academy."

Lee looked at the adults and saw a strange mood on their faces. They were not happy, they felt depressed. He guessed the reason for their bad mood.

"Nick, Maria, thank you for your care. You worry for nothing. My magic is sure to wake up at the Academy. Everyone knows that! Waking up magic is standard admission procedure. Hey, let's have some fun. I turned ten years old! I'm about to become a mage. And among my age group, I'm already the best fighter in the colony."

Nick looked into Lee's eyes and suddenly realized that the boy's gaze had changed. It wasn't the look of a child. It was the look of a grown-up, serious man. Maria sensed the new character trait, too, and hugged Lee,

"You've become an adult. And you're right. You are about to become a magician."

After a celebratory dinner, Lee ran off to meet the Black Star. He had wanted to see his girlfriend all day. She managed to surprise him. At the meeting place, he saw a small spaceship. A cat was sitting by the open trapdoor, waving its tail. Their meeting began with the usual insults,

"Hello, Black Mousetrap."

"Happy birthday, naked monkey. This is a gift," the cat held out a knife sheath to the boy.

Lee pulled out the knife and admired the curved blade. The blade resembled the claw of an animal of prey. He had wanted a knife like that for a long time. Lee looked behind her,

"Where did you get the ship?"

"Family gave it to me. I'm on a mission. I'm going to fly to a place and rip the throat out of one of the bastards."

"Rip his tail off. Good luck, Black. Don't be too long. Three months is my mandatory training time. I'll be learning new theories of political science, galactic marketplace features, laws, and traditions. My flying and weaponry are top-notch. I'll see you in three months. We got business to do, Star."

"Shall we go into business together, partner?"

"That's right, my furry sister. What's the model of your flying tin can?"

"It's the Claw, a small courier. The finest high-speed small spaceship from our race's shipyard."

"It's a good model. I piloted that model in virtual training."

Black Star snorted and smacked the boy with her tail. She took two tubes of cream out of her bag and handed one tube to the boy.

Then they sat in silence by the ship. Lee Long again realized an important thing. Black Star was the daughter of the leader of the whole planet! She was the little princess of a tribe of cats. Humans were given the right to establish a colony on this planet. Humans paid with their service. Colony Europe 9 was located over a stockpile of valuable species. Mining was a dangerous business; miners were exposed to dangerous radiation. Humans paid with their health for the right to live on the outskirts of the Galaxy. The cats got almost all of the booty from the mine. The galaxy was not a paradise for newcomers. Humans did not have a high level of knowledge and technology. Pirates and enemies and competitors of the Ferin race often attacked the colonists. Lee Long had already learned that his System was not the Game. He had gained enormous supremacy. And he was scared by the prospect of a new life.

He smiled when her ship flew to the stars. They had a lot of important things ahead of them. The Magic is waiting for him!