As he stood up and reached for one of the books, he found it thick and surprisingly heavy. He looked at the cover and read the title.
[Python Crash Course: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming (2nd Edition)]
"It's actually a programming book," he muttered as he flipped through the pages, staring at the strange numbers and symbols he couldn't comprehend at all.
Back in his previous life, he had never learned programming or anything related to it. He had been unemployed for years, and the only skills he possessed were cleaning and heavy lifting at construction sites.
He didn't even have a degree, and owning a computer to study on had been a luxury he couldn't afford.
Now staring at the book, he had no choice but to read it and try his luck but before reading it of course he needs to issue it first.
"I want to read this book,"
...
[Quest: First Line of Code
Description: With no background, no degree, and no guidance, the host must rely solely on effort and determination. Reading this book is the first step toward changing a stagnant future.
Objective: Read the programming book from beginning to end.
Reward: Junior Programmer Experience]
...
After reading the quest and its reward, he didn't understand what a Junior Programmer was. However, seeing that he had to read the book from beginning to end didn't make him feel lazy.
He had never been lazy to begin with. Now that he finally had something to rely on, his motivation only grew stronger as he opened the book and began reading the first page.
"When you run the file hello_world.py, the ending .py indicates that the file is a Python program."
"What?" he muttered as he read the first sentence.
"When you run the file… it indicates a file? What file are we talking about now?" he said, scratching his head in confusion.
"In the first place, it's already called a file. So does that mean the '.py' is also a file? Or is it a Python? Or a file pretending to be a Python?"
His brain paused, clearly refusing to cooperate.
"Well, since the system told me to read it and not necessarily understand it, I'll just keep going," he said before continuing.
"Your editor then runs the file through the Python interpreter, which reads through the program and determines what each word in the program means."
"Okay. I don't understand that, but okay," he nodded seriously.
"So for example, when the interpreter sees the word print followed by parentheses, it prints whatever is inside the parentheses onto the screen."
"Oh," he blinked.
"So it literally does what it says that's… surprisingly honest."
After that he continued reading while nodding, trying to convince himself that he understood, but his mind was completely blank.
Programming was never his passion. To him, it was nothing but endless typing, dull and unproductive, especially when compared to physical work like cleaning and lifting.
Even so, he didn't pause to reflect on what the first pages meant. His eyes simply kept moving forward as the words piled up one after another.
Variables, syntax, indentation, and examples passed through his vision like unfamiliar signs on a road he had never walked before.
Yet he kept reading because stopping would only remind him of how little he understood.
Pages turned as explanations stacked on top of explanations, talking about files, interpreters, and commands that seemed to assume the reader already knew something.
Which they not, or maybe it was just him that did not knew something.
When the book mentioned running a file, he did not imagine a screen or a keyboard, only the idea that words could somehow make a machine do something, even if the how escaped him completely.
He read about functions and loops the same way, absorbing sentences without grasping their shape, letting terms like def, for, and while drift past his thoughts.
The examples showed lines of code and outputs, but to him they were symbols paired with promises, not instructions he could yet follow.
Sometimes his eyes slowed on a paragraph, not because he understood it, but because the tone felt important, as if the book was insisting that this part mattered.
Even then he did not reread it, trusting that the system only demanded completion, not comprehension.
Chapters ended and new ones began, shifting from simple explanations to longer blocks of text that felt heavier and more technical.
He noticed the book spoke about errors and mistakes as if they were normal, which oddly reassured him, even though he still could not tell one command from another.
His posture grew stiff as time passed but his hands never closed the book, and his eyes never left the pages for long.
He read about libraries, examples, and practices, none of which settled into meaning, yet all of it pressed forward like a path he had already committed to walking.
As he reached the later sections, the words began to feel denser and the explanations became shorter and more complex, as if the book assumed the reader had grown along with it.
Which is not true again, if the book had already grown into an adult, then he was still a baby. Even so he continued, letting the unfamiliar terms wash over him.
By the time he reached the final pages, his eyes were tired and his head felt strangely empty, as if nothing had truly stayed with him.
That was exactly the case. He had finished the book in just about half an hour, a pace that showed how fast he read, especially considering it had over 698 pages.
...
[Quest: First Line of Code [Completed]
Description: With no background, no degree, and no guidance, the host must rely solely on effort and determination. Reading this book is the first step toward changing a stagnant future.
Objective: Read the programming book from beginning to end.
Reward: Junior Programmer Experience]
...
[You have completed the quest]
[Transferring Junior Programmer Experience begins]
Then his mind felt like a massive information was drowning on him, things like muscle memory advance problem solving capability and more.
At first nothing made sense because the words from the book he had just finished reading resurfaced in his mind, but now they were mixed with unfamiliar terms that were never written on those pages.
Things like logic flow, problem breakdown, debugging mindset, and syntax awareness surfaced without explanation, as if his mind had suddenly learned a language adjacent to Python but not limited to it.
He felt concepts settle in place even though he could not explain them, such as understanding that programs follow steps, that mistakes were expected, and that errors were not failures but signals.
Terms like variables, conditions, loops, and structure no longer felt like random text, but like tools whose purpose he vaguely sensed without fully knowing how to use them yet.
Alongside those came stranger ideas that were never explicitly taught in the book, like thinking in instructions, anticipating outcomes, and spotting inconsistencies in written logic.
He did not suddenly know how to code, but his mind now felt prepared to approach it.
When the transfer finally ended, he realized something had changed, not in knowledge, but in perspective.
The book he had finished reading no longer felt like meaningless text. Although he still couldn't write a program, it wasn't due to a lack of confidence.
Rather, he simply didn't have a laptop to work on any projects. Starting tomorrow, he decided to open the stall in the morning and then head to the city in the afternoon to buy a laptop for his own use.
As his gaze returned to the cabinet, he reached for the other book and read its title.
[Hacking: The Art of Exploitation]
Thanks to the experiences granted by the system, he immediately understood how valuable this skill could be.
Without wasting any time, he initiated the quest and began his learning journey.