There Is A Huge Problem With My Achievement System

When Ji Ruo was six, he’d watched a martial arts film and couldn’t shake the urge to try it himself. He buried his hands deep into the rice storage bin, imagining he was mastering the Iron Sand Palm technique. The smoothness of the grains between his fingers felt just like he thought it would if he were a true martial artist.

At seven, Ji Ruo believed he was the diplomat of his class, all because he was the first to greet a new student at the start of the semester. He walked up with a confident smile, feeling like he’d bridged the gap between strangers and classmates. In his young mind, he’d made a grand diplomatic gesture.

By the time he was eight, he was sure he had clairaudience. He could hear the footsteps approaching from a distance and immediately knew it was his parents coming home. His heart swelled with the certainty that this ability was unique to him, a special skill that only he possessed.

What if all those childhood fantasies became real? Ji Ruo put his hands back into the rice storage bin, as he’d done years ago, and suddenly—

Congratulations!

A message popped up in his mind, notifying him of a martial art-related achievement. Just by putting his palms into the rice, he’d somehow unlocked the skill: Iron Sand Palm (Entry Level).

An additional prompt appeared, instructing him on how to upgrade his new ability. He simply needed to repeat this activation step, training diligently to increase his familiarity with it. Fortune favored the diligent, after all. “Hang in there! Work hard!” it cheerfully encouraged.

Ji Ruo’s mouth twitched. This system didn’t seem quite… normal. After a moment of pondering, he shrugged, picked up a stick, and headed toward the nearby paddy field to test out his newly acquired “skill.”