NOVEL NEXT Chapter 3: MCU
My 3 year old body was light. It was something that I had been fascinated with the moment I had been reborn, actually. I had moved from a fully grown, adult body weighing 170lbs to the body of a 3 year old weighing not more than 35lbs. I felt so weightless and energetic, an experience most adults would have already forgotten being.
However, this 3 year old body was also lacking in the musculature of a grown adult man. 8 push ups in and I collapsed on the ground, my immature arms no longer able to withstand my own bodyweight.
After resting for a minute or two, I repeated the exercise. This cycle continued for a few more iterations before a new notification suddenly appeared.
Your strength have increased with external stimulation! +0.1 STR
While I received 3 INT points after spending just a minute to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, this tenth of a STR stat gain took a lot longer than that, owing to my [Toddler] trait that gave me a -90% stat growth in physical attributes.
The second notification was the fruit of my experiment.
Daily Quest Alert!
[Baby Bodybuilder]
Do 10 push ups (0/10)
Do 10 sit ups (0/10)
Do 10 squats (0/10)
Rewards:
+10 STR
+100 EXP
Note: Daily quests can be completed only once a day
Accept? (Y/N)
I was pleasantly surprised at the result. The first was the appearance of a [Daily Quest]. The math was easily calculated with my big, genius brain – If I completed this quest every day, within a year, I would be able to accumulate 3650 STR stat points! And after 10 years, I would have 36500 STR stat points!
I almost laughed maniacally at the thought if I wasn't conscious of being stared at with a horrified look by my parents who were already suspecting the mental stability of their child that regularly behaved in unnatural manners like bench pressing a gallon of milk for one.
I quickly rushed through the exercises stated in the quest conditions. It took a little longer for the push ups since my arms were already aching from the dozens I had completed thus far. But I persevered with a fanatic look in my eye.
Daily Quest [Baby Bodybuilder] Completed!
Do 10 push ups (10/10)
Do 10 sit ups (10/10)
Do 10 squats (10/10)
Rewards:
+10 STR (-9 from [Toddler] trait)
+100 EXP
WHAT A SCAM! If I had the strength to, I would have flipped a table.
It appeared that the -90% stat growth to physical attributes applied even to quest rewards.
The anger from my attempt at exploiting the system being foiled faded away just as quickly as it appeared, almost unnaturally so. The next notification also helped to temper my frustrations.
You have levelled up!
I opened up my status screen to take a look at my new stats.
Name: Lee Jae Sung
Level: 2
Next Level: 0/150
HP: 20/20
MP: 230/230
STR: 2.2
VIT: 1
DEX: 1.1
INT: 23
CHA: 5
Points: 5
$: 0.00
It appeared that every time I levelled up I would gain 5 free stat points for me to distribute as I wished. I decided to save those free stat points until I figured out how easy or difficult it would be to grind other stat points.
My INT stat grew exponentially, while my STR stat growth was akin to a slow crawl by a very hungry caterpillar.
With my arms aching from fatigue and the completion of the daily quest, I turned my attention back towards the INT stat that was literally over 10 times easier to grind.
But then, I had faced a new problem. There simply wasn't enough 'Preschool' level books in my house. My parents had only purchased a few that were intended for night time story time (their words, not mine).
Reading the same books gave me no further INT stat growth, and I still needed 10 more picture books to complete the quest.
So I roamed around my house and managed to find a copy of the New York Times. It was on the coffee table, a little out of my reach but I managed to grab it after jumping.
This was the moment when I realized that the world I had been reborn in was not the world I was familiar with.
Being a 3 year old child limited my exposure to the outside world. And so, information about the world I was living in was also quite scarce. This copy of the New York Times was my first contact with the world beyond these four walls.
Firstly, right below the words 'The New York Times' printed in a large font size, there was the date of the newspaper that read "New York, Saturday, August 22, 1999".
Time travel was my first thought. But before I could delve deeper into this detail, the headline of the morning paper completely blew me away.
Stark Industries' Multi-Billion Deal With The Pentagon
Wait. Huh? What the fuck? Why was there a Robert Downey Jr. look-alike gracing the front page of the New York Times? Why was the subtitle under his picture calling him Tony Stark? Was this some kind of a gag newspaper? Why is the date 1999, Iron Man came out in 2008!
I was confused and utterly shocked beyond comprehension.
And then, [Gamer's Mind] kicked in. I began processing the information in front of me calmly and rationally. I continued flipping through the New York Times. If it was some kind of gag newspaper, it wouldn't have put in the effort to make up stuff in the entire newspaper right? It would probably have other placeholder articles with lorem ipsum placeholder text.
Nope. Headline after headline of real news. There was even one about Pym Technologies in a smaller article in the Science section of the paper.
I ignored the notification that I had gained INT stat points from reading the newspaper while digesting what I had just learnt.
If all of this was true… I gulped. I didn't just somehow reincarnate in to a baby on Earth with my memories intact along with a Gamer System. I had a whole ass 'isekai' in to the Marvel Universe!