“Leonard! Hurry before the bus leaves!” Mrs Tanner shouted as she stood at the doorway of their small house, staring at the bus that was just some distance away from the house.With how hard their life was, she knew that if her son missed the bus, he was going to spend the next two hours walking to school.“I’m out already, Mom,” Leonard said, pulling her in for a quick hug. After that, he rushed out, meeting with the bus just in time.He looked out the window, watching his mother’s frail figure as she kept on waving at him. As soon as she was out of sight, he sighed, leaning his head back on the seat.Despite having woken up very early and gotten ready for school, Leonard had deliberately stayed till the last moment so that his mother wouldn’t realize that he had left the last meal she had made for him.At the age of seventeen, he has come to see his mom as the most important person to him and with the country’s economy falling, surviving for people like them also got a lot more diff
As soon as the classes for the day ended, Leonard packed his bag. Unlike most of his classmates, he didn’t have a cellphone, thus making it impossible for him to send a message to Susan.But as they needed to meet to study together for an hour, Leonard stalled for time, allowing most of the students to clear out.“Leonard, how about we start studying tomorrow? I have yet to inform my family and our driver would be waiting outside already,” Susan explained as soon as the class emptied out.Looking at how worried she really seemed, Leonard shrugged, not minding if they started today or not.“I would start work on the project tonight and then share whatever progress I have made with you tomorrow,”Susan let out a sigh of relief upon hearing his words and her face lit up with a smile.Still grinning, she added, “I just knew that working with you would be so easy!”“Let’s share our numbers so that we can talk more when we get home,” she added and pulled out her phone from the pocket of the
“Ugh,” Leonard groaned as he struggled to open his eyes. The first thing he did was to try and move, but pain wracked through his body immediately.As he had a job that didn’t even allow them to miss a day, he didn’t give up and tried to stand up again. This time, he had a better result than before and was able to sit up on the floor of the dark alley.“Host bonding completed. Welcome to the world domination system!” A mechanical voice rang out.Leonard looked around, wondering where the voice had come from.Although the area surrounding their school was naturally safe. It was also still an alley. Thinking that someone out there could be watching him, Leonard’s already weak body was fueled up with adrenaline, and he rushed to stand up.Up until he ran out of the alley and into the normal road, he didn’t see anyone or hear anything again.He checked the watch on his left wrist and saw that he was already about ten minutes late for his work.“Think of Mother,” he encouraged himself as h
“Host is expected to get up at the crack of dawn for physical training.” The already familiar voice of the system rang out, waking Leonard up.Leonard peered outside and confirmed that it was still dark outside. However, he stood up and headed outside his room.He opened the door carefully, making sure that he didn’t wake his mother up before heading outside.“Before considering martial arts, the most important thing is to build the physical body to an optimal condition using strength training….”Leonard listened attentively to all the instructions the guardian gave. Very quickly, he ran several laps around their neighbourhood until he was panting and dripping with sweat, and even when he felt like he was going to drop dead from lack of breath, the guardian’s instructions didn’t ring out.After running and lifting objects up the hill for about an hour, the system's guardian finally said he could stop.“Mental strength +2!”“Physical strength +0.5!”Although it wasn’t anything importan
Susan’s eyes dulled while her face flushed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled with her head bowed and her fingers interlocked.Seeing her reaction, Leonard felt a little guilty, but he had not planned to get a phone anytime soon. After all, the most important person to him was his mother.If he needed a phone to communicate with her, it would mean that she would also need a phone also.Their finances couldn’t handle that kind of luxury and, most especially not a brand that was this expensive.He sighed as he looked at Susan’s already dull expression.“Although I don’t have the money now, I’ll work hard to pay you back. So let’s see this as if you are giving me a loan.”As he talked, he tore out a page from his jotting book and started to draft an IOU between them. Since she had used her savings for it, it was only appropriate to pay her back, but as the phone itself was probably more expensive than his entire net worth, this was the best solution.Susan nodded as her eyes r
Leonard and Daniel listened attentively as he briefed them on what was required. As soon as Mr. Reeves was done with the briefing, each person was given the form to fill out so that they could return back to their classes.They filled it out and went back to class.“Aren’t the interested people a lot? Even people that have never attempted to join a competition are there,” Daniel said as soon as they were alone.“You weren’t here, Mr. Reeves said the top fifteen would be given an express admission into the top five universities.”Daniel cursed out in excitement as his eyes bulged widely.Even for students in this school that had influence and money, getting into the top five universities in their country wasn’t a joke at all!“It’s going to be intense. Do you think we should study together?” Daniel asked. To him, he knew for sure that Leonard was a genius.Most of their schoolmates had no idea that Leonard would only read for an hour a day or sometimes skip out on it completely so that
Ignoring the gossip around school, Leonard left as soon as the first bell rang. Unlike before, he now had a mobile phone and he felt that communicating with Susan would be easier.He wanted to find some odd works to do when he got home and then begin studying for the competition.As he crossed the street, the robotic voice of the system rang out in his mind.[First task assigned to host! Completing this task would award a cash bonus of $1000 and +10 domination points which can be used by the host]Leonard stopped, his legs becoming heavy in the middle of the road from pure shock.Even though he had decided that the system was a bonus trainer this morning when he did the training, there was a little bit of fear left from what happened earlier with the system.But now he heard, $1000?For someone like him, a thousand dollars was an amount that he would spend about a month or two to save up to that amount because they still had things that they couldn’t avoid spending now.But one task w
After all, that running around during the day, Leonard had fallen asleep the moment he got back home.When he finally woke up, he took up time to set up the phone he had ‘loaned’ from Susan.The first thing he saw when he placed his SIM card in was the alert that showed the money he had won.Leonard sat, stupefied at the reality in front of him. Even if he had worked for it, it still felt a little unbelievable to be able to get the money.Also, how had the system gotten all the information needed to pay the money to him, the more he thought about it, the more questions he had.[As the host, our fates have become one and the system has everything linked to the host. As for the vast wealth of the World Domination System, only by completing tasks can the host win it….]One more time, the system went into a long-winded explanation. This time, however, Leonard felt like he understood more than the first time. He could also see that the system’s guardian seemed a lot nicer than when he had