Clay tried to keep a straight face as he tried to stop himself from imagining various scenarios in his head where Josh overreacts.
Josh held the mirror out in front of him, its reflective surface facing him.
"Oh, so that's what I look like, here you can have it back" Josh said to Clay as he gave the mirror back with no emotion whatsoever.
"Bu-" Clay who had gotten an anticlimactic response from Josh was dumbfounded at seeing his friend's ability to not react even seeing his own face disfigured to an unholy extent.
He was speechless at his friend so in the end, he just took back the mirror in silence and teleported back to his sister's room, without even saying goodbye to Josh.
...
..
.
Clay dropped off the mirror at his sister's bed while she was looking the other way and left for his room without Belle even noticing he was there, how could she notice him with her meager single-digit stats? If Clay wanted, he could basically run laps around Belle without her even being able to catch him.
Once Clay got into his room he searched his desk for the Tier 1 map of his village.
*Ding!*
Clay raised a brow.
'I'm not doing anything right now so why would it give a quest?'
'Alright, open quest'
Quest name: Advanced|
\Gather materials for creating a Tier 3 map/
{Gather 1 sheet of Enchanted Paper, 1 Enchanted Quill, and 1 Enchanted Jar of Ink}
Quest rewards: 3000 SC, 7500 EXP, and 750 Stat Points|
Quest Failure Penalty: -1 Level|
Quest Time Limit: 1 Month|
[Yes/No]
Clay briefly glanced at the rewards section and just stood there in silence.
Clay closed his eyes, appearing very calm on the surface.
.
.
.
'WADAKWAWDOJAIHQINSCKASMKSANKSDMAWJIOWJFDAKSW' But he was far from calm, his inner thoughts were in turmoil after seeing the rewards he could get from completing the quest. It hadn't even been that long since his 'encounter' with the mysterious being so Clay still couldn't get used to getting a lot of rewards compared to before when he was struggling to achieve just a meager double digits of experience.
Good thing Clay was a human, after all, humans are the most adaptable creatures that have ever existed, or at least that's what Clay's dad told him when he came home from his adventures.
So naturally, the human genetics would kick in and sooner or later, Clay would be thinking that receiving a lot of rewards from his quest would be normal. Just not now as Clay's thoughts were still running amok.
'OAMDPSIMDVWPAIMQPOSIFAM WPIRVM' Struggling to form a cohesive thought as he kept thinking about the future quests and if they would keep on increasing in rewards every time he completes the previous quest. Wouldn't that mean that Clay could become significantly more powerful after completing every quest always? And the increase in power wouldn't be small as Clay had already felt a massive increase in power just from the previous quests alone.
If things keep going at this rate, the world would sooner or later, be unable to contain Clay as he would have grown far too powerful. But that is a story for another time because for now, we only have Clay who was drooling from his mouth from daydreaming about himself being so powerful that he could eat anything, do whatever he wanted, and most of all, make his family not worry about anything anymore, he could give them rest and luxury, and that was Clay's goal to get stronger in the first place.
And now that that goal is in reach, Clay of course had to daydream about it, thinking that nothing could go wrong in doing so, of course, it couldn't go wrong, why would it? Even right now, Clay is fully capable of giving his family a better life, surely nothing could ever interfere with his goals, well, nothing that he knew of that could directly interfere, except that mysterious being... Or that mysterious man he met a while back that gave him the items to make a map.
'Wait.
What if they were the same person?
It would make sense, since both of them helped me, even if I do not know the reasons for them helping me they both knew that I needed something.
But why would the mysterious man show himself and deliver the items personally but the other mysterious being just sent items directly to me via the system? It also doesn't make sense.
Ugh, whatever, I'm not going to deal with this when I have a quest to do, and I only have 1 month to finish the quest! I don't even know what all the items are and where to find them! I might actually fail the quest. Wait, no, I can't fail the quest, I have the system shop! Yeah! I almost forgot about that. Oh! I also almost forgot about the gift boxes as well! I guess I can try opening them first to see if I could get the items.
But if I do complete the quest and get the items, won't that mean I have to get used to my strength again? All I could do while controlling my strength moderately right now is walking, and even then, I sometimes put too much force on my foot that the ground cracks. Maybe failing the quest is for my own good? No that can't be right. Hmm. Oh yeah! I almost forgot again, I could choose to claim the reward after completing the quest, how forgetful of me.
So it's decided then, I'll first complete the quest, then get used to my powers, and then finally receive the reward of the quest! Perfect, alright, system, accept the quest'
Clay had finally finished his inner monologue.
*Ding!*
'Alright, now, system, recall special gift Tier three? I hope that's how it works, I kinda forgot how to use my invento-'
A tear in the fabric of reality had appeared in the room of Clay, widening to force out a cube-like object covered in wrapping paper to come out and land on Clay's hands.
Special Gift Tier 3|
\Giftbox that contain unknown items from $^)%#$%./
'Here goes nothing, open giftbox'
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P@treon, check it out p@treon(com)/StoryVersePremium, replace @ with "a" and the parenthesis with "." there is currently 1 advanced chapter there still working on the chapters.