Experience Bar

October 4

Supplies Inventory:

Candles: 300, pinewood: 5 large bundles, warming stove: 1, snow boots: 2 pairs, blankets: 5.

Consumed: Candles: 5.

Used for lighting and lit during evening prayers.

Pinewood: 1/4 of a bundle burned for warmth, cooking, and offerings.

Snow boots: No new wear and tear; remained in good condition.

Warming stove: No new wear and tear; remained in good condition.

Blankets: No new wear and tear; remained in good condition.

In the Graveyard Church's lounge, the Old Nun recorded today's supply consumption.

A heavy snow had fallen yesterday, blanketing everything in silver, and it had yet to stop.

When she went out to inspect the grounds, she found that a gap in the graveyard fence needed repairs. The church roof also needed to be watched carefully for accumulating snow.

So, in her notes, she added a new supply requirement: Repair supplies reserve, estimated:

Wooden Planks: 10, Nails: 500

Then came the food.

With this snowstorm, the biting winter had arrived. Food becoming scarce in town was unavoidable.

The Nun began writing: Food remaining: 30 Hard Breads, 2.5 bottles of red wine, 8 cabbages...

The quill writing the words came to a halt.

Judging by past winter consumption, the church's food stores were already sufficient.

Over the past two years, she had walked onward through the corridor of time, eating less and less each day. These supplies would certainly be enough for her alone.

As the Nun pondered, ink from the quill tip began to spread across the paper.

Scratch, scratch, scratch—

The quill began writing again.

The Nun's expression remained calm as she added several entries to the food supplies and added one more blanket and one more pair of boots to the supply reserves above.

At the same time.

In the room next to the lounge, Linsey woke up on an unfamiliar wooden bed.

He groaned and forced himself upright, leaning against the headboard as he looked around.

He was in a simple brick-and-wood room. Beneath him was a wooden bed with only a single sheet spread over it. At the head of the bed, beneath a wooden window, stood a pitch-black wooden table. At the foot of the bed was a row of dust-covered cabinets.

Between the cabinets and the table stretched an open space about two meters wide, leading directly to the door. That was everything in the room.

"..."

Linsey looked down. A thick blanket covered him, perhaps the most valuable thing in the room.

"An unfamiliar room..."

"I think I was brought into the church, and then I fell asleep..."

Linsey blinked groggily.

Recalling what had happened before, he immediately used his ability to check his body, and then—

"Ah-choo!"

Linsey had, as expected, caught a cold.

First, he had been trapped in a fire. Then, in the blink of an eye, he had landed in the snow and gone through a life-or-death race.

After that combination of disasters.

How could a thirteen-year-old child possibly not get sick? Looking at the bright red words Disease - Cold beside his character status screen, Linsey grimaced and continued reading.

Then something surprising happened.

He saw a line of notifications.

Task Completed

RPG Module ability upgraded. Level: 2

RPG Module gained new skill—Experience Bar.

Experience Bar: Integrates the player's experiences, training, and achievements, converting them into experience within the Experience Bar and providing a stable, reliable progression path for upgrading all abilities.

Note: The difference between RPG games and reality is that once players fill their Experience Bars, they can grow stronger.

Linsey looked down.

Sure enough, a tiny Experience Bar had appeared behind each of his attributes. Agility, Constitution, and Will had all filled more than halfway. They did not look far from leveling up!

Linsey was happy for a moment, but his expression soon fell again.

He remembered how the RPG Module had leveled up.

"If I have to nearly die every time my ability levels up..."

"Who could stand that?"

"I'm not some battle-hardened race that can keep hovering on the brink of death and then revive in spectacular fashion!"

Creak—

The wooden door across from Linsey's bed groaned with age.

Looking up, he guessed that the old woman next door had been alarmed by his coughing and come to check on him.

"Ah, thank you for helping me!"

Linsey hurriedly thanked the benefactor who had helped him.

Though he had killed that magical beast through his own courage and wits, when he reached the edge of town, it was still the old woman's aid that had saved him from the deadly cold.

But the old woman did not respond to Linsey's thanks.

She turned and shut the door before slowly walking to his side. Her ink-black eyes watched him calmly. "Child, where did you come from?"

"I..."

Linsey instinctively wanted to muddle through it.

But he looked at his attribute panel. Beside the red Disease - Cold notification was a dim mark reading Law - Sinner's Mark.

This was the mark the Law Knight had left on him.

The mark of a sinner from the City of Law.

If Linsey lied now, perhaps he could make things easier for himself.

But once the truth came out, setting aside whether a child like him could escape, how could this old woman possibly get away? With the Law Knights' absurdly harsh way of doing things, would he really frame the person who had saved his life for his own benefit? What a joke! Linsey's gaze instantly hardened. He swallowed and coughed softly twice.

After suppressing the urge to cough, he earnestly told the old woman everything that had happened to him.

"My name is Linsey. I'm from Anville Village, and I'm a farmer's son."

"On the eve of Harvest Day, a Law Knight brought a criminal to our village. He was an acquaintance of our Village Chief..."

Yesterday's dangerous encounter was slowly recounted.

Linsey did not want to cause trouble for the old woman, so he left out some details, such as the Thorned Law Sword insignia on Alvitte's breastplate.

Before long, Linsey's coughing filled the room again.

His story was over.

Linsey knew this choice would leave him scrambling for survival again immediately afterward, but his honest answer also let him release a breath of relief.

Linsey lowered his head.

He waited for the old woman to order him out, thinking:

Maybe, if I'm lucky, she'll give me something to eat. But after that, I can only rely on myself.

I've activated the Experience Bar now.

If I work hard and find a way, it's not as if I have no chance of surviving...

"A person's life does not endlessly absorb suffering. Yet when it bears fruit, it will never yield only pain and despair."

The old woman spoke, interrupting every plan in Linsey's mind.

Then she said, "Child, you're already exhausted. Keep resting."

Linsey's eyes instantly welled up.

Even if he was an adult inside.

In the span of a single day, he had fallen into life-and-death crises twice in a row.

Both times, he had given everything he had to tear open a gap in hopeless circumstances and struggle his way out.

Once, twice—if it happened three times in a row!

How many living people could truly endure that? Linsey had a belly full of words of gratitude.

He raised his head again, wanting to express his thanks and his fear of dragging the old woman into this.

But at that moment.

He saw that the old woman had already risen and left.

When she left, she shut the door tightly, not allowing even a trace of cold wind from outside to seep into the room where Linsey lay.