The morning after the moon-touched bean feast felt strangely ordinary at first.
Sunlight slanted through the shutters in familiar golden bars. Chickens clucked outside like they had every dawn since before Aiden was born (in this life, at least). Garrick was already gone to the mill, whistling off-key. Elara hummed while she swept the hearth, the same three-note tune she always used when she was thinking hard about something pleasant.
Aiden sat at the table with a bowl of leftover bean stew reheated gently on the coals. The silver-veined beans still tasted like distilled moonlight even cold. He ate slowly, reviewing yesterday's system logs in the corner of his vision.
Jack of All Trades Lv.14
Farmer Lv.16
Herbalist Lv.9
Apprentice Carpenter Lv.7
Observer Lv.8
Tailor Lv.6
Homesteader's Hand (Rare) Lv.1 ← brand new, still settling
The synergy meter showed four solid bars pulsing in quiet harmony, with the fifth slot flickering like it was waiting for permission to light up.
He knew what it wanted.
One more class pushed to meaningful progress.
One more everyday thread woven into the tapestry.
He finished the stew, rinsed the bowl, kissed his mother's flour-dusted cheek, and slipped out the back door before she could ask where he was going so early.
The communal cellar lay at the far edge of the green, half-buried under a low mound of earth and wildflowers. It had been dug generations ago during a particularly harsh winter when the whole village decided they'd rather share hunger than let any one family starve alone. Thick oak door. Iron-bound. Padlocked only during tax season.
Aiden had never been inside. Children weren't supposed to play near it—too many stories about damp dark and things that liked damp dark.
Today the door stood slightly ajar.
Someone—probably Marta the midwife—had already been down to check winter stores. A faint smell of turnips, apples, and old stone drifted up.
Perfect.
Aiden glanced around. The green was empty except for a few sparrows arguing over crumbs near the well.
He opened his inventory.
[Radish ×187 remaining]
[Moon-Touched Beans ×412 remaining]
[Various herbs & early greens × lots]
He selected stacks carefully. Not everything. Not even most of it. Just enough that it would feel like a miracle instead of an impossibility.
Forty radishes.
Sixty moon-touched beans.
Two dozen jars of minor stamina salve he'd brewed last week (the multiplier had given him two hundred and forty; he'd already quietly distributed the rest to anyone who looked tired).
A small crate of perfect carrots he'd pulled yesterday and "forgotten" about.
One at a time he carried them down the narrow stone steps.
The cellar was cool, dim, surprisingly clean. Shelves lined the walls—some sagging under turnips and potatoes, others nearly bare where last year's harvest had run thin.
He placed each offering neatly.
Radishes in a bright red pyramid on the central table.
Beans in a shallow wooden bowl so their silver veins caught the thin light from the doorway.
Carrots lined up like orange soldiers.
Salve jars arranged in a tidy grid beside the ladder.
When he was done the cellar looked… fuller. Not overflowing. Just noticeably, gratefully fuller.
He stood there a moment, breathing in the earth-and-root smell, feeling the system tick over tiny rewards.
[Anonymous Contribution Detected]
[Social Quest Variant: Village Blessing – Uncredited]
[+3,200 EXP → 320,000 after multiplier]
[Reputation: Willowbrook (Hidden) → +62 → Beloved Sprout → Quiet Benefactor]
He smiled into the dark.
Then climbed back up, pulled the door almost closed (leaving it the way he'd found it), dusted dirt from his knees, and walked home whistling the same off-key tune his father favored.
By noon the whispers had started.
Marta came by first, cheeks pink, eyes shining.
"Elara, you won't believe it. Someone—some blessed soul—filled half the empty shelves in the cellar overnight. Radishes like rubies. Beans that glow. I swear one of them pulsed when I touched it."
Elara paused mid-stir. Looked at Aiden, who was very intently sorting dried chamomile stems at the table.
"Did you see anyone strange about last night, love?"
Aiden shook his head without looking up. "Nope. Slept like a log."
Marta laughed. "Well whoever it was, the whole village owes them a winter without empty bellies."
She left with a jar of Elara's rose-hip jam as thanks.
Next came Baker Tomas, flour still on his forearms.
"Saw the carrots myself. Straight as arrows. No forking. No rot spots. And those beans…" He shook his head. "Tasted one raw. Tasted like drinking starlight. If that's not the Lady Lirael's own hand, I'll eat my peel."
Elara's gaze drifted back to Aiden again. Longer this time.
He met her eyes for half a second—innocent, wide, guileless—then returned to his chamomile.
Tomas left muttering about making extra loaves for the "anonymous angel."
By late afternoon Widow Marla arrived with her knitting basket and a knowing look.
She didn't ask questions.
She simply sat beside Aiden on the porch step, clicked her needles, and said quietly:
"Some gifts don't need names attached, child. They just need to be received with open hands."
Aiden nodded.
She patted his knee and kept knitting.
That evening Garrick came home carrying a small sack of mill-end sawdust—good for the garden paths. He found Elara at the table with her little leather-bound notebook open. The one she usually used for herb recipes and household accounts.
Today the top page held a new heading in her neat hand:
Things My Son Shouldn't Be Able To Do (Yet)
Below it, three bullet points so far:
• Read entire primer at four and a half
• Make radishes ready three weeks early
• Produce glowing beans that taste like hope
Garrick read over her shoulder, chuckled low, then kissed the top of her head.
"Add 'quietly feeds the village without taking credit'?"
Elara sighed, smiled, closed the book.
"I think I'll wait until tomorrow. See what else appears."
Aiden, sitting cross-legged on the rug pretending to whittle a spoon (Apprentice Carpenter +6 EXP), heard every word.
He didn't panic.
He just filed it away: They're noticing. They're not afraid. They're… proud?
Good enough.
The next morning he went to see the chickens.
The Voss family kept seven hens and one rooster in a modest coop behind the woodshed. Nothing fancy—woven willow sides, thatched roof, dirt floor scattered with straw.
The birds were healthy but ordinary. Average layers. Maybe six or seven eggs a day if the weather was kind.
Aiden had been meaning to help for months.
Today felt right.
He opened the coop door.
The hens clucked suspiciously. The rooster puffed his chest and gave a half-hearted crow.
Aiden crouched, held out a palm full of crushed corn mixed with some of the leftover moon-touched bean scraps.
The birds swarmed him.
He spent an hour: cleaning the coop, spreading fresh straw he'd gathered from the field, checking for mites, talking softly the whole time.
When he was done he collected the morning eggs—nine of them, already laid before he arrived.
He focused.
[Poultry Keeper Class Unlocked (Common)]
[Passive Gained: Content Flock – Chickens under your care are 20% less likely to sicken & lay 15% more eggs]
[Reward: Fresh Egg ×9 → Fresh Egg ×90]
Ninety eggs appeared in a neat pyramid just inside the coop door.
The hens stared.
Aiden stared back.
"…Right. Inventory time."
He stored eighty-one eggs, left nine in the nesting boxes for his mother to find later, and slipped away before the rooster could regain his dignity.
That afternoon Elara came in from the coop with a basket of nine improbably large, golden-yolked eggs.
She set them on the table without a word.
Aiden was outside "weeding" (mostly watching radish sprouts grow at triple speed).
Through the open window he heard her whisper to herself:
"Notebook. New entry."
He grinned into the dirt.
Evening brought the tipping point.
After supper—egg-and-herb scramble so rich it tasted decadent—Aiden slipped up to the hayloft with a candle stub.
He sat among the sweet-smelling bales, opened his status, and watched the synergy meter finally fill.
[Fifth Class Threshold Reached]
[Poultry Keeper Lv.3 + Farmer Lv.16 + Herbalist Lv.9 + Apprentice Carpenter Lv.7 + Observer Lv.8]
[All five base classes Lv.3 or higher & actively progressed]
[Synergy Overflow Complete]
[Hidden Class Fully Unlocked: Jack of All Trades (Epic)]
[Level Reset & Consolidation: Jack of All Trades absorbs overflow progress]
Jack of All Trades Lv.14 → Lv.21
A rush like warm honey poured through every muscle, every bone, every thought.
The system voice—usually dry and mechanical—sounded almost pleased.
[Jack of All Trades – Epic]
[Core Perks (All Active)]
• Omni-Tool – Any handheld tool gains +50% efficiency & durability
• Quick Study – Acquire new mundane skills 300% faster
• Synergy Reservoir – Store excess class energy for future unlocks
• A Place for Everything – Inventory capacity now 120 slots
• Passive: "No Task Beneath You" – +15% to all stats during humble daily labor
Aiden exhaled slowly.
He felt… bigger. Not taller—though he suspected that would come—but wider. Like the boundaries of what he could do had quietly expanded to include every small thing a person might ever need to do well.
Outside, an owl called once.
The pear tree in the yard rustled, even though there was no wind.
A single new blossom opened beside yesterday's.
Aiden lay back on the hay, arms behind his head, and stared up at the rafters.
Downstairs his parents were talking in low voices—about the cellar, about the eggs, about the notebook.
Not in fear.
Not in suspicion.
In quiet, wondering gratitude.
Elara's voice drifted up the ladder:
"…he's still our boy, Garrick. Whatever else he is."
Garrick's rumble:
"Aye. And whatever he becomes, he's still going to have to take out the compost."
Aiden laughed silently into the dark.
Tomorrow he would help his father at the mill.
Tomorrow he would teach little Mara how to knit properly (Tailor passive itching to be used).
Tomorrow he would plant another row of beans and see if they learned to glow brighter.
Tomorrow the village would wake up to another small, nameless kindness.
And somewhere in the back of his six-year-old mind, a very old software engineer smiled at the perfect, ridiculous beauty of debugging reality one egg, one radish, one blossom at a time.
[End of Chapter 3 – Book 1]