Time passed quickly and quietly in the mountain valley where Ren was living with his family. With each day passing growing Ren older, his once weak, fragile limbs have now become sturdier and stronger. Of course, he was still just a child, barely four years old, but the way he talked and walked, the way his eyes inspect everything around him, wasn't of a child at all, even his demeanor wasn't of someone his age.
While other kids his age throw tantrums and run around, he observed, learned and adapted. It wasn't obvious to anyone, especially since he's trying his best to hid it, but his parents are observant, they noticed, but they didn't do anything about it, at most exchanging glances without saying anything.
"Ready, Tianyu?" His father asked, while holding one of the ends of a narrow wooden beam laid across a nearby stream.
"Is this today's game?" Ren asked, looking at his father's expectant gaze.
In turn, his father showed an awkward smile while rubbing the back of his head. "That's right. It's called Walk the Dragon's Spine . You have to make it across and back with falling into the stream."
To any outsider, it looked like a normal balancing game, especially since the stream was shallow and was moving fairly slowly. But to Ren, it served another purpose as usual, he was testing his focus and balance.
He didn't know if his parents were doing it on purpose or not, because everything "game" they told him about had a hidden training element, he thought it might be his overthinking and they might just not know normal children's games. Either way it works best for Ren, as he didn't want to play such games, he was an adult after all and playing such games would be boring to him.
Even hide and seek had special elements, like tracking faint sounds and spotting traces around him.
He loved it, these games or training were fun for him.
Ren hopped on the beam with ease and started moving slowly, one small step at a time and his arms spread wide to balance himself better. He stumbled a few times but regained his balance quickly. Every small step felt rewarding, as if each step was a step closer to his goal, especially now since he has a way, or clue, which is that weird sustem.
And for him to find out, he needed to do what it told him, survive and grow strong, that was his goal for now, to grow strong enough to activate the system and truly start his new life.
Every day, his mind and body adapted more and more, and the strange energy be felt before was now clearer, much clearer, to the point that he can sometimes see it and even move it with his hands, sometimes he even felt it moving around inside him.
But that wasn't enough, no, not yet. He needed to figure it out more.
So he continued training, training disguised as playing, eventually he'll reach what he desires. Even his lessons were disguised as stories, which made even him even more suspicious that it was on purpose, but he learnt nevertheless. Bedtime tales became learning history, which became him being taught strange symbols, which he didn't know if it was the language of this world or not because he was also learning to read characters that looked more like letters than those symbols.
One day, his mother noticed that he was eager to learn more than to listen to the story.
She didn't say anything, she smiled and told him "My smart little sweetie pie." But when she tured her face away from him, her eyes looked thoughtful, which went unnoticed by Ren.
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On one regular afternoon, clouds filled the blue sky, casting their shadow over their home. Ren sat on the ground stacking weirdly shaped pebbles, his "game" today was to stack the pebbles using one hand.
Just as he was about to finish, a breeze blew them down, forcing him to start over before he heard a voice.
"Little Tianyu, we have a surprise for you~"
His mother said in her gentle voice.
Ren tilted his head, curiosity filling his eyes.
"Surprise? For what? I didn't do anything special, did I?"
Hearing that his mother chuckled, "You don't have to do anything special for us to surprise you, you know that?"
Now, Ren was even more confused and made a face as if telling her to continue.
Then, his father stepped forward, behind him two unfamiliar figures.