The moment I opened my eyes, I did not feel the usual urge to bury my face in the pillow and ignore reality for another ten minutes. My mind felt clear, as if someone had scrubbed away the mental garbage and gray fog of sleep deprivation. I immediately summoned the interface.

  [Control Panel: TRAINER]

  Level: 1

  S-Power: 10/10

  Special Order: 3/3 (Avaible for Use)

  They had recovered. I locked that fact in my mind as a critically important variable. If the counter had been 1/3 after yesterday’s orders and now it was full again, then some regeneration mechanic existed. But what kind? Either a fixed cooldown, say one order every three hours, or, which was more likely in video game logic, recovery happened during the “deep phase” of sleep. I would need to run measurements ter to determine whether I could spam orders throughout the day or had to conserve them like the st round in a magazine.

  Most importantly, the status line for the “Monster” category, meaning myself, no longer dispyed the tag [Chronic Fatigue].

  I got out of bed, listening to my body. No cracking in the lower back, no heaviness in my legs. Years of computer work had drained the life out of me. Endless deadlines, reports that “were needed yesterday,” and constant pressure from management had turned me into a squeezed lemon by the age of thirty two. Yet today I felt as if I were eighteen again with my whole life ahead of me rather than another quarterly audit.

  After taking a shower and putting on my “battle armor,” a standard bck two piece suit with a perfectly ironed shirt, I headed downstairs to the kitchen. The air in the house was filled with the heavy, comforting smell of fried bacon and freshly ground coffee.

  "Good morning," Mom said as she lifted an omelet from the pan. She paused, gncing at the clock and then at me with surprise. "You are early today. Usually I have to knock on your door three times before you show signs of life."

  "I slept well." I pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. "I hope you did not have to rush because of me."

  "Do not worry," she said with a smile, hanging her apron on the back of the chair. "I wake up at dawn anyway. It is not like I have anywhere to hurry."

  I knew that many people my age considered living with their parents a sign of failure. I had always looked at it through pure rationality. Mom was alone, she did not work, and taking care of her was my direct responsibility and priority. Renting her a separate pce simply to match someone else's social expectations? That was foolish. It meant extra expenses that were better directed toward the mortgage. Besides, her help around the house freed the few scraps of time I could spend on rest.

  The moment I raised the first forkful of omelet to my mouth, the interface came alive again, covering my view of the pte.

  [The presence of the Trainer enhances metabolism]

  [Effect: 100% nutrient absorption]

  [Status: Food is being converted into pure energy and structural material for muscle fibers]

  I froze with my mouth full. Normally a heavy breakfast made me sleepy, since the body spent resources on digestion. But now... I could physically feel the warmth of the food spreading through my body not as heaviness but as energy. As if I were fueling a high tech engine with perfect fuel. The mental commands did not provide a detailed breakdown, but the logic was obvious. The System had optimized my digestive tract. No waste, no excess fat, only fuel for growth.

  "What are you thinking about?" Mom's voice pulled me away from staring at the blue lines.

  "What?" I blinked and the window vanished. "Nothing. Just thinking about work. The food is great, thanks."

  So only I could see the notifications. That confirmed the theory that the interface was integrated directly into my mind. Then the System delivered another portion of data:

  [Familiar object analysis complete...]

  [Recommendation: Increase seafood and chitin consumption to strengthen bone structure]

  Where else was I supposed to grow? At thirty two the skeleton was already formed, and from that point on it only declined. But the System clearly thought otherwise. It did not see my body as a “human,” but as a “development unit.”

  "More coffee?" Mom reached for the coffee pot.

  "Not today. Actually, I think I will switch to milk starting tomorrow. And... maybe we should cook fish more often?"

  I had never liked fish, and lobsters were far too expensive for a daily diet. But if the System required phosphorus and calcium in these quantities, then my build clearly needed its foundation adjusted.

  "You are acting strange today," Mom said, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

  I only shrugged. I would tell her everything eventually, just not during the morning rush. That conversation would require time, patience, and possibly a demonstration of abilities, something I was not yet mentally prepared to do.

  Stepping outside, I inhaled the fresh morning air. The office was only a twenty minute walk at an easy pace along a clean sidewalk, one of the few privileges of my current job. No traffic jams, no suffocating crowds in the subway.

  I walked past familiar storefronts while the sun pleasantly warmed my shoulders. There it was, my building. A typical concrete cube, an office anthill where everyone knew their pce. The turnstiles obediently beeped as they accepted my pass. Security gave a zy nod.

  As a kid I dreamed about fighting monsters, yet reality had locked me in an office where the main battle was calcuting someone else's profit. Even so, I valued this pce. It offered stability. It offered vacations and those corporate parties everyone compined about yet secretly enjoyed. Half of my former cssmates were still surviving on freence work while envying my position.

  Maybe I did not own a yacht, but I had stability. I had it until yesterday evening.

  In the corridors, coworkers exchanged the usual news about their weekends. I avoided conversations and headed straight to my office, a small but private space. That was another bonus of my position: a closed door and a monitor angled so no one could see what I was doing during the rare quiet moments.

  Today, however, quiet moments were unlikely.

  The computer had not even finished loading the desktop when the door burst open without a knock. Mr. Miller stood in the doorway. My boss. A man whose suit seemed fused to his body over the past ten years, while his face had taken on the shade of office paper.

  "Tom," he said without even greeting me. "I need the full sales report for st month by tomorrow morning. Regional breakdown included."

  "Yes, sir," I replied automatically.

  The words about quitting stuck in my throat. Leaving now without finishing my responsibilities and without receiving my sary for the current month would be irresponsible. I needed the money. Dying inside a portal would not cancel a mortgage. That meant I would have to stay here another day or two until I figured out how to convert my superpowers into real income.

  Miller nodded and left, leaving behind the scent of cologne my grandfather used to wear. I looked at the blinking cursor on the screen. I had ninety days before the army. And I was about to spend the first day writing a report that did nothing to increase my chances of survival.

  I needed the paycheck. I had to finish this job before building a new life.

  I leaned back in the chair and it creaked in its usual way, as if sympathizing with my fate. Work like this normally squeezed every drop of energy out of me. Numbers started to blur by the fifth hour, and by midnight my back turned into a single burning knot of pain. I would probably end up staying te again, drinking cold coffee and staring at endless columns of sales data.

  I checked my email. Empty. The sales team, as usual, was in no hurry to send the receipts. After sending them a short but pointed reminder, I realized I had at least an hour of free time. In office life, that was a tiny window of freedom I normally wasted scrolling through endless meme feeds.

  But today memes did not even cross my mind. My status screen kept appearing in front of my eyes.

  [Status of Trainee: MONSTER]

  Race: Human (Homo Sapiens)

  Level: 1

  If I was now officially an object meant for leveling, I needed a foundation. I did not want to be that type of awakened who gasped for breath after climbing three flights of stairs. I needed a gym. In theory I could train at home using only bodyweight exercises, but a proper build required real weights and full muscle group training.

  Hire a trainer? The thought appeared and was immediately discarded. First, that would mean unnecessary witnesses. My metabolism now operated at two hundred percent efficiency, and if I started gaining ten pounds of pure muscle per week, any ordinary fitness instructor would either assume I was heavily using performance drugs or begin asking questions that had no legal answers. I did not need the Pentagon deciding that I talked too much.

  I was my own [Trainer]. My css itself was my personal mentor.

  I put on headphones, opened YouTube on the monitor, and began methodically absorbing information. Guides on deadlift technique, breakdowns of hypertrophy programs, expnations of recovery cycles. I absorbed it like a Skill Book in an RPG. If I intended to survive inside a portal, my body had to become a fwless instrument.

  Two hours ter, when the sales department finally bothered to send the data, a heavy archive of st month's receipts nded in my inbox. I opened the familiar Excel file, but the work would not flow. My mind, accelerated by morning coffee and thoughts of training, kept drifting away. Instead of profit charts I saw barbells and weight ptes.

  "Focus, Tom," I muttered to myself. "If you do not finish today, tomorrow you will receive a scandal instead of a paycheck."

  Then the idea struck me. Yesterday I had ordered myself to fall asleep, and I had done so instantly. Why would the same not work for work? I knew how to do this job. It was within my capability. I focused on the pulsing spreadsheet icon.

  [Special Order: Finish the report]

  At the same second the interface fshed with cold neon light.

  [Warning! Mode activated: Hyperfocus]

  [Description: Complete suppression of external and internal sensory distractions]

  [Effect: Cognitive structure efficiency increased by 2%]

  [Warning: Metabolic energy consumption increased by 400%]

  The world around me simply stopped existing. The office walls, the hum of the air conditioner, even the feeling of my own weight in the chair, all of it was washed away by a wave of absolute concentration. Only the Excel cells remained, the cursor fshing wildly, and the dry ctter of keys merging into a single relentless rhythm.

  I felt neither boredom nor fatigue. Every number found its pce in the formu with ser precision. My mind turned into a pure algorithm, converting chaotic data into an ordered structure. It did not feel like the svery of endless push ups. Rather, I had become a function inside the program itself.

  When the st cell changed to the correct color and the final total matched down to the cent, the darkness retreated just as suddenly.

  The surrounding world crashed back onto me with full force. The first thing I felt was a sharp wave of nausea rising to my throat. My bdder responded with unbearable pressure, and it felt as if someone had hammered two burning nails into my temples. My spine throbbed as though I had been holding a concrete sb on my shoulders for three hours without moving.

  "Ugh..." I grabbed my head. The sensation was exactly like the worst hangover of my life.

  With trembling hands I pulled open the bottom drawer of my desk, found my hidden stash of cookies and a bottle of cold tea. I gulped down sugar and liquid greedily, trying to calm the shaking. Gradually, as glucose entered my bloodstream, the pain began to fade, turning into a dull pulse.

  While thinking about what had just happened, I remembered college. Students used to whisper rumors about certain banned substances that could push a person into a trance like state. In that state the mind locked completely onto work and the rest of the world vanished. People said you could prepare for an exam from zero or write a hundred page paper in just a few hours. They also said that once the trance ended, the body suffered something very simir to a hangover.

  Had I forced myself into that same trance purely through full control of my body, without any chemicals?

  I gnced at the clock in the corner of the monitor. 13:09.

  "That cannot be..." I stared bnkly at the numbers.

  Three hours. I had worked for three hours without a single second of rest, skipping lunch and not even noticing it. For me the whole period had passed like a ten minute nap. Work that normally consumed an entire day and half the night was now completed perfectly.

  Somehow managing to stand on unsteady legs, I went to the restroom. After spshing my face with ice cold water and putting myself together, I felt my head clear up. When I returned, I ignored questions from coworkers in the neighboring department.

  "Tom, why did you skip lunch? Are you sick?"

  Instead I headed straight to my boss.

  A short knock.

  "Come in," Mr. Miller's voice replied.

  He looked up from his paperwork, clearly not expecting to see me so soon.

  "Tom? Did you need something? Were there problems with the data export?"

  "No, sir. I finished the report and just sent it to your email. Please check."

  Miller clicked the mouse with visible doubt. His eyebrows slowly climbed upward as he opened the file and scrolled through several pages.

  "Already? Incredible..." He looked at me with open respect. "Tom, I always knew you were a reliable employee, but this... excellent work. Truly excellent."

  "Thank you, sir." I sat down in the chair across from him without waiting for permission. "I am resigning."

  A ringing silence filled the office. Miller froze and his face stretched with surprise.

  "This is... unexpected. Very unexpected. I was pnning to mention your efficiency at the next meeting. May I ask the reason? Problems with sary? With coworkers?"

  "Family circumstances," I replied in the most neutral tone possible.

  The truth that in three months I might become a corpse inside an anomalous zone was far too surreal for this office. I did not want drama or questions. I simply needed to close this chapter of my life.

  "Are you certain about this decision, Tom? We could discuss a promotion..."

  "Absolutely certain, sir."

  Looking at his confused expression, I realized there was no turning back. Hyperfocus had proven that with these abilities I could earn more in a single day than I earned here in a month. Sitting in an office for a fixed sary now felt not merely boring but almost criminal toward myself.

  I signed all the necessary paperwork to terminate the contract and receive the final settlement. When I walked out of the office building, I felt a strange lightness. The suit no longer felt like armor. It felt more like old skin I had just shed.

  The freedom did not st long. The moment I stepped onto the sidewalk, my phone vibrated in my pocket. A short, sharp notification.

  [SMS: Government Communication Channel]

  Mr. Ross, curator Daniel Kim has been assigned to you. Within twenty four hours he will contact you to conduct the initial briefing. Requirement: remain at your pce of residence. Any attempt to leave the city will be treated as a viotion of the Awakened security protocol.

  In truth, I was gd about it. At st someone would answer all my questions.