The Eternal Synergy System
Book 1: Seeds of Synergy
Chapter 1: The Second First Breath
Bright, metallic pain that tasted like copper and burned like spilled battery acid.
Then nothing.
Then—soft.
Everything was soft.
Warmth wrapped around him like the world's gentlest blanket. A heartbeat thumped steadily somewhere very close—louder than his own, yet somehow part of it. Liquid warmth cradled him, rocked him, sang to him in a language older than words.
He tried to open his eyes.
Light poured in, golden and hazy, filtered through something thin and wet. Eyelids—he had eyelids again, tiny and new and trembling.
A sound escaped him: not a scream, not a word, just a small, startled bleat of air through brand-new lungs.
Hands—enormous, gentle, callused in places—lifted him. Cradled him against a chest that smelled of crushed lavender, fresh linen, and the faintest trace of woodsmoke.
"There you are," a voice whispered, trembling with something between exhaustion and wonder. "There's my little miracle."
He blinked.
A woman's face swam into focus. Mid-twenties, maybe. Dark auburn hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. Green eyes the color of new leaves after rain. Freckles scattered across her nose like spilled cinnamon. She was smiling so wide it looked painful. Tears carved clean tracks through the dust on her cheeks.
"Elara," another voice said—deeper, rougher, thick with emotion. "Look at him. Look at our boy."
A bearded face appeared above him. Broad shoulders, sawdust still caught in the dark curls of his hair, hazel eyes shining.
"Aiden," the woman—Elara—breathed. "My Aiden."
Aiden.
The name settled into him like a key turning in a lock that had always been waiting.
Alexander Voss was gone.
Aiden Voss had just arrived.
And then the blue window appeared.
It didn't float in the air the way game HUDs did in his old life. It simply was—perfectly legible, crisp-edged, hovering at the exact distance that felt most natural to his new eyes.
[Welcome, Reincarnated Soul: Alexander Voss / Aiden Voss]
[Soul Transfer Complete. Biological Age: 0 hours]
[You have been granted the Eternal Synergy System – Unique Variant]
[Core Modifiers (Permanent)]
• Experience Gain Multiplier: ×100
• All Reward & Drop Multiplier: ×10
• Universal Class Access: All known classes available (Locked by Synergy Conditions)
• Hidden / Legendary / Mythic Classes: Unlocked exclusively through multi-class synergy chains
• Synergy Slots: 0/5 (expandable)
[Current Milestone Objective: Survive Infancy]
[Reward upon completion: First Class Selection Token + Bonus Synergy Point]
[Good luck, kid. Try not to drool on the interface.]
A tiny, incredulous laugh tried to escape his new throat. It emerged as a gurgle.
Elara laughed too, mistaking the sound for happiness. She pressed her lips to his forehead.
"You're going to be trouble, aren't you?" she murmured.
You have no idea, Aiden thought.
The next hours passed in flashes of sensation rather than coherent time.
Nursing—warm, sweet, strangely comforting.
Being swaddled in wool soft enough to make his old-life memory foam pillow feel like sandpaper.
Garrick's enormous finger tracing the curve of his tiny hand, marveling at how small it was.
Elara singing a lullaby in a language that felt both alien and achingly familiar—something about twin moons and silver rivers and children who came back from the stars.
Through it all, the system pinged softly whenever he achieved anything at all.
[Passive Skill Gained: Basic Breathing (Lv.1)]
[+5 EXP → 500 after multiplier]
[Milestone: First Successful Cry]
[+20 EXP → 2,000 after multiplier]
[Milestone: First Eye Contact with Parent]
[+50 EXP → 5,000 after multiplier]
By the time the midwife (a stout woman named Marta with hands like warm bread dough) finally declared mother and child "fit to receive visitors," Aiden's EXP bank already sat at 12,840.
He was less than six hours old.
The cottage was small, warm, fragrant with pine resin and drying herbs. Rough-hewn beams overhead. A stone hearth big enough to roast a boar. Shelves lined with jars of roots and dried flowers. A single window letting in slanted afternoon light the color of honey.
Neighbors came in ones and twos.
Widow Marla brought a knitted blanket in soft heather gray—"for when the winter bites."
Old Joren left a carved wooden rattle shaped like a fish—"so the lad learns the river early."
Baker Tomas arrived with a still-warm honey loaf wrapped in cloth. "First bite's his," he declared, even though everyone knew it would be years before Aiden could manage more than a smear on a finger.
Each visitor triggered a tiny notification.
[Social Interaction: Neighborly Gift Received]
[+15 EXP → 1,500 after multiplier]
[Passive Unlocked: Infant Charm (Lv.1) – +10% to positive social reactions from adults while appearing helpless]
Aiden stared at that last one for a long moment (or what felt long in baby-time).
Helpless? he thought. We'll see about that.
Night fell.
Elara nursed him one last time, then tucked him into a cradle lined with lamb's wool. Garrick sat beside them, whittling something small and secret by candlelight.
Aiden lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling beams.
Moonlight slipped through the shutters—two moons, one silver-pale, one warm gold. The Twin Moons. He remembered Elara mentioning them in her lullaby.
The system window refreshed quietly.
[Daily Reset]
[Sleep Bonus: Restful Infancy – +200 EXP per hour of sleep]
[Current EXP Bank: 47,320]
He closed his eyes.
Not because he was tired—he wasn't, not really—but because he wanted to see what happened when a baby with 100× EXP slept through his first night.
Morning came with birdsong and the smell of oat porridge.
Elara lifted him from the cradle, kissed his forehead, and carried him to the window.
"Look, little one," she whispered. "Your first dawn in Willowbrook."
Fields rolled gently toward a line of silver birch. Smoke rose from a dozen chimneys. Chickens scratched in yards. Somewhere a dog barked once, cheerfully.
Aiden felt something unfamiliar bloom in his tiny chest.
Not ambition. Not greed.
Peace.
The kind of peace he had never known in thirty-two years of deadlines, bug reports, and the constant low-grade panic of never being quite good enough.
He reached up with one chubby fist and patted Elara's cheek.
She laughed softly.
"You approve, do you?"
He gurgled—his best attempt at yes.
The next three years passed in what felt like a single, golden montage.
Every small victory triggered EXP.
Day 47: First successful roll-over.
[Milestone: Basic Mobility Achieved]
[+100 EXP → 10,000 after multiplier]
Day 112: First crawl—straight to the herb shelf, where he managed to knock down a jar of dried chamomile without breaking it.
[Skill Gained: Dexterity Training (Lv.1)]
[+300 EXP → 30,000 after multiplier]
Day 301: First independent steps—three wobbly ones across the rug straight into Garrick's arms.
[Milestone: Bipedal Locomotion]
[+500 EXP → 50,000 after multiplier]
[Passive Unlocked: Sure-Footed (Lv.1) – Minor bonus to balance during daily tasks]
By age four he could read.
Not because the system handed him the skill (though he suspected it would have if he'd asked), but because he bribed little Mara, the scribe's eight-year-old daughter, with strawberries he "found" in the woods behind the house.
The 10× reward multiplier turned six wild strawberries into sixty perfect, jewel-bright ones. Mara's eyes went wide. She taught him the entire village primer in six afternoons.
[Skill Gained: Literacy (Common) Lv.3]
[+1,200 EXP → 120,000 after multiplier]
He kept the reading secret from his parents for almost a year—mostly because he liked sitting in the hayloft with stolen candle stubs, devouring every scrap of text he could smuggle: herbal almanacs, carpenter's notes, a tattered traveler's journal someone had bartered for salt.
The system loved it.
Every page turned gave tiny EXP ticks.
Every new word learned bumped Linguistics or Lore sub-skills.
By his fifth birthday the interface had grown from a simple status window into something elegant and sprawling.
He sat cross-legged on the woven rush mat in the main room while Elara baked and Garrick planed a board outside. Sunlight poured through the open door in warm bars. Dust motes danced like tiny stars.
The system bloomed.
[System Awakening Phase 2 – Complete]
[Base Classes Now Available for Selection / Auto-Progress]
Current Eligible Classes (No active selection required – progress passively):
1. Villager (Common) – Already active (default)
2. Farmer (Common) – Planted 47 seeds / identified 12 crop varieties
3. Herbalist (Common) – Identified 38 plants / prepared 4 simple poultices
4. Apprentice Carpenter (Common) – Assisted in crafting 9 items
5. Hunter (Uncommon) – Tracked 1 rabbit to burrow
6. Observer (Common) – Read 214 pages of text … [Total Unlocked Base Classes: 7] [Synergy Meter: 3/5 classes actively progressing simultaneously] [Hidden Class Pathway Unlocked: "Jack of All Trades" (Epic)] [Requirement: Reach Level 10 in any 5 different base classes] [Current Progress: Farmer Lv.6 • Herbalist Lv.5 • Carpenter Lv.4 • Observer Lv.3 • Hunter Lv.2]
Aiden stared at the list, heart thumping so hard he was sure Elara would hear it.
Five years old.
Already chasing an Epic class.
He stood up—carefully, so as not to startle his mother—and walked outside.
Garrick looked up from the workbench, sawdust in his beard.
"Morning, sprout. Come to supervise?"
Aiden grinned, showing the gap where a baby tooth had recently fallen out.
"I want to help plant the radishes today."
Elara poked her head out the door. "Only if you promise not to eat half the seeds again."
"I won't eat half," Aiden said solemnly. "I'll only eat three."
Both parents laughed.
He spent the morning on his knees in the garden patch behind the house.
Tiny trowel in hand.
One seed at a time.
Each press of soil triggered a chime.
[Farmer Class Progress +1%]
[+8 EXP → 800 after multiplier]
By noon he had planted three full rows.
The system pinged louder.
[Farmer Class Unlocked & Advanced to Lv.7!]
[Passive Gained: Green Thumb (Lv.1) – All crops under your care grow 10% faster]
[Reward: Basic Iron Hoe ×1 (10× multiplier activated)]
Ten identical, perfectly balanced iron hoes appeared in a neat stack beside him.
Aiden blinked.
Then—very quickly—he dragged nine of them behind the compost heap and covered them with an old burlap sack.
Note to self, he thought. Multipliers apply to physical items. Storage solution required yesterday.
Elara called him in for lunch.
He washed his hands at the pump, hiding a manic grin behind soap bubbles.
Inside, the table held oat porridge with honey, fresh bread, and—because it was his birthday—a small apple pie still steaming from the oven.
Elara set a single candle in the center.
"Make a wish, love."
Aiden looked from his mother's gentle smile to his father's proud one, then up at the ceiling beams where he sometimes climbed when they were asleep.
He thought of carrots the size of his arm.
Of bread that never ran out.
Of a village that would never know hunger or cold again—not because he wanted glory, but because he wanted this: mornings like this one, forever.
He blew out the candle.
The system chimed softly, almost tenderly.
[Wish Registered (Non-binding)]
[Bonus Milestone Achieved: Fifth Birthday]
[+1,000 EXP → 100,000 after multiplier]
[Free Class Selection Token Granted]
[Synergy Point +1 – Current Slots: 1/5]
Aiden Voss closed his eyes for just a second longer than necessary.
Somewhere in the garden, the radish seeds he'd planted that morning were already pushing tiny green spears through the soil—two days ahead of schedule.
Somewhere in the hayloft, nine extra hoes waited patiently to be hidden better.
Somewhere in the wide world beyond Willowbrook's birch-lined lanes, destiny was probably looking for a prophesied child with a sword and a tragic backstory.
It would have to keep looking.
Because right now, a five-year-old boy with flour on his nose and stars in his eyes was about to eat pie with the two people who mattered most in any life.
And nothing—not multipliers, not hidden classes, not even the promise of godhood—was going to pull him away from this table anytime soon.
[End of Chapter 1 – Book 1]