Testing

A light that exploded out from the gift box consumed Clay's hands, dissipating moments later to reveal items that gave off an ethereal and profound aura, an aura that Clay would not have sensed if it weren't for his keener and sharper senses.

'It worked!'

In Clay's hands were three items that Clay suspected were what he needed to complete the quest. And sure enough, the system prompt sounded in his head confirming his hypothesis.

*Ding!*

<Detected completion of quest |Advanced|!>

<Claim reward now?>

[Yes/No]

Clay ignored the system prompt for now as he inspected the items he was holding.

|Enchanted Paper|

\Normal paper inscribed with magical runes to enhance its properties/

|Enchanted Quill|

\Normal quill inscribed with magical runes to enhance its properties/

|Enchanted Jar of Ink|

\Normal jar of ink inscribed with magical runes to enhance its properties/

Clay nodded as he read, relieved that the items were really what he needed, which in turn confirmed another hypothesis brewing inside his head.

'So that means the gift box gives me the items I need to make my maps and since it gives me the items I needed for the tier 2 and tier 3 maps, then, that means it should also be the same for the other tiers, otherwise, it wouldn't make sense if it gives me different items other than what I need for the higher tiers if it gave me the items to make the lower tiers, right?'

Clay then turned his attention to the quest completion message and tapped on the 'No' option.

<Are you sure?>

[Yes/No]

Clay was about to click and yes before a thought appeared in his mind.

'Wait, if I do not claim the reward, surely the quest won't disappear, right?'

Nevertheless, since that thought came up, Clay would not take the risk, after all, who would want to waste such a huge reward just for the sake of getting used to what you have now? Certainly not Clay. So instead, Clay just ignored the quest completion message after clicking on the 'No'.

'If it weren't for the confirmation message then I might have done something I might've regretted. Looks like I have to change my thoughts about the confirmation message as it really helped me big time, even if I don't really know what would've happened if I refused the reward. I mean, the obvious interpretation of refusing a reward would basically mean I don't want it right? And given that the system acts like a machine, it may take 'refusing the reward' way too literally'

Now that that was dealt with, the next problem Clay had to deal with was his departure. He couldn't really go without telling his family goodbye. So Clay waited till his mother got home as she was still doing groceries at this time of day.

So Clay did the next best thing, he went to his little sister to give her the news first.

'On second thought, maybe it isn't a good idea to break the news to her without Mom, I don't really want to explain twice, I'll just tell them both about it at lunch'

'But for now, I guess I could finally give her what she was asking for' Clay thought while grabbing his tier 1 map of the village and heading towards Belle's room with careful and delicately controlled steps.

Clay attempted to knock on the slightly open door but decided against it as he might accidentally break it from overusing his strength. Instead, Clay called her from outside the room.

"Belle? You there?" Clay said as he heard some shuffling in the room.

"Yeah" Belle responded as Clay also heard footsteps coming towards the door.

"I got something to show you"

"What is it?" Belle asked as she opened the door.

Clay took out the map behind him and showed it to Belle.

"I remember you saying you needed this for something, right?"

"Uh, yeah?" Belle hesitantly confirmed.

"Well, you can have it, consider this as a parting gift from your brother" Said Clay smugly.

"Parting gift? For what? Are you going somewhere?" As soon as Belle heard 'parting gift' she immediately questioned Clay.

"I'll explain more at lunch, until then, have fun with the map" Predicting that his sister would question him when he said 'parting gift', Clay had already prepared an answer in advance to respond to it.

Realizing that she could not pry any more answers out of Clay, she reluctantly took the map before glancing at Clay and closing the door.

'Welp, now that that's done, next on the list is to get used to my powers, at least until I can do normal things 'normally''

Clay carefully walked outside his home and then started doing some basic exercises to get used to his body.

But Clay couldn't help but feel that he was forgetting something, and he soon found out what he was forgetting.

*Smack!*

Clay facepalmed himself causing a slight vibration to the air as the impact spreaded out, and because he was quite strong now, a seemingly casual slap to the face for the previous Clay which contained no power, now had the power of a horse kicking the face of a person with its hind legs with full strength. Of course, there was no actual damage to Clay since it was just a casual slap of a powered-up Clay, but to normal people, that is a whole different story.

'Ugh. How could I forget about my map? Anyway, now I don't need to walk all the way to the forest' Clay, who didn't notice that the sound of his slap made people look towards him, went back to his home with slow and steady steps to pick up his map.

...

..

.

Balls of light that were pouring down from the heavens bundled up together once they reached the ground near a forest. The lower body of a human was being formed from the light which would be a sight to behold to onlookers if there were any.

Soon, Clay found himself near the forest that he and Josh went to previously.

'This seems to be the right place' Clay thought to himself.

'Here goes nothing'

*Boom!*