The sound of Hana-senpai's chair scraping back across the linoleum floor was the only warning I got. I blinked rapidly, shoving the massive, glowing blue Status Screen—which only I could see—into the periphery of my vision.
"Kaito, what in the world… a Level 1 what now?" she demanded, her voice cutting through the office din.
I scrambled for a coherent, non-psychic explanation.
"The… the fan!" I gasped, pointing a shaking finger at the still-spinning, albeit slightly steadier, fixture. "It just shot a piece of plastic at my monitor. I looked up the model number—it's on a company recall list! Level 1 refers to the severity of the damage risk! We need the ladder now before it decapitates someone!"
Hana-senpai froze, following my gaze. She saw the new scrape on my monitor and the slightly too-vigorous wobble. The explanation was weak, bordering on hysterical, but the panic in my voice was genuine. She looked at me, then at the fan, then back at me.
"Okay, Minami," she said slowly, reaching for the office phone. "I'm calling Facilities first. You stay right there. And don't touch that keyboard, you look ready to pass out."
As she turned away, my eyes instantly dropped back to my stats.
[Stamina]: $3/10$
[Willpower]: 2
[Telekinetic Field (F)]: 0.1% Progress
Three points. Painfully slow. I couldn't risk another stabilization attempt. The fan was currently a $50$ XP quest with a $10$ Stamina cost, and I was holding barely enough to lift a paperclip.
I need to find the training dummy equivalent for Telekinesis.
Facilities arrived five minutes later, a bored-looking technician in a greasy jumpsuit and Hana-senpai hovering protectively nearby. As the technician fumbled with the ladder, I retreated to the absolute safest place in the entire office: the break room.
It was empty.
The silence was a palpable relief. I locked the door and pressed my back against the cool surface of the refrigerator, running through my variables.
Hypothesis: The System activated when I channeled intense mental effort (Willpower) toward a physical goal (stabilizing the fan).
Test Variable 1: Object Weight/Durability.
I spotted a discarded paper coffee cup on the counter. Lightweight, low durability. Perfect.
I focused. I visualized the cup—a flimsy, white cardboard cylinder—and tried to wrap the same silver thread of force around it. I didn't want to push or pull, I wanted to hold.
Target Acquired: [Paper Coffee Cup (Empty), Durability: 1/1, Mass: $0.01\text{ kg}$]
Action: [Apply Telekinetic Hold (Rank F)]
Cost: 1 [Stamina Point] per 0.5 seconds.
Success Chance: 75%
Seventy-five percent! That's practically a critical hit!
I mentally activated the skill. The familiar hot spike of pain behind my eyes returned, but this time, it was weaker, more manageable.
I watched, holding my breath. The cup didn't move.
My eyes darted to the Status Screen.
[Stamina]: $2/10$
Telekinetic Hold... Failure. Error: Insufficient fine motor control.
Fine motor control? This wasn't about strength, it was about dexterity. I was trying to clutch a fragile cup with a giant, invisible, psychic gorilla hand.
I focused again, channeling the pain into pure, meticulous thought. Be gentle. Feather touch. Just enough force to negate gravity.
The Stamina drain was excruciatingly slow, but relentless. $1/10$. I was about to fail again.
Then, just as the last point of stamina was about to empty, the paper cup—a beacon of mundane victory—twitched.
It rose an impossible millimeter off the counter, suspended in the air. It rotated exactly one degree to the left, wobbled, and then, with a silent thud, dropped back down.
I almost cried from the relief and the residual blinding agony
[Stamina]: $0/10$ (Initiating Regeneration)
[Telekinetic Hold (F)]]: 5% Progress to Level 2.
[STAT] Gained! [Dexterity] +1
I collapsed onto a chair, gasping for air. $0.01\text{ kg}$ had almost killed me. But I had proof. The System was real, and it reacted to effort and success.
I just need to find low-cost, repeatable actions to train my [Dexterity] and [Stamina] up to Level 5.
The regeneration felt agonizingly slow. I needed a better source of Stamina than sitting around.
Suddenly, the breakroom door rattled.
"Kaito! Are you in there?" It was Hana-senpai. "The technician says the fan is too old to fix, and they are replacing it tomorrow. They also said that your 'recall list' theory is garbage, and you probably imagined the plastic hitting your monitor. Are you alright?"
I wiped the sweat from my forehead. This was my moment.
"I'm fine, Senpai! Just… the office air is stale. I need a quick run down the fire escape stairs," I called back. Physical exertion grants Stamina recovery.
"A run? It's three flights of stairs, Kaito. You hate exercise."
"I know! But... I feel like I need to push my physical limits!" I yelled, reaching for the door handle.
I need a new hypothesis: Does physical stress grant Stamina XP?
"Alright, weirdo," she muttered. "Just be back for the afternoon stand-up. And don't break anything else, you hear me?"
I opened the door and sped down the hallway. My brain was already calculating the optimum pace: fast enough to cause significant exertion, slow enough not to cause [Injury: Twisted Ankle].
I had just started down the first flight when my vision was assaulted by another screen.
System Alert: Quest Received!
Quest Title: The Lunch Hour Gauntlet
Description: Acquire a mid-grade [Stamina Potion (Rank C)] from a third-party vendor without alerting the [Lunch Rush Crowd] (Difficulty: Medium).
Objective: Purchase the $500$ yen premium blended coffee from the cafe on the first floor.
Reward: [Stamina] +3, [Stamina Potion (Rank C)] Acquired.
Failure Condition: Missing the stand-up meeting.
Time Limit: 45 minutes.
My eyes widened. A quantifiable goal! A direct path to increasing my Stamina!
"A coffee shop quest," I murmured, clutching the banister. "This is a full-blown RPG tutorial."
I was already halfway down the second flight of stairs before the sheer absurdity of battling an office ceiling fan and a coffee line hit me.
This is it, Kaito. Time to level up.