The problem with glory is that it doesn't help you lift the bar.
For the next two weeks, my life became a blur of grey concrete and iron.
6:00 AM: Wake up. Eat three hard-boiled eggs that tasted like chalk.
7:30 AM: School. Try to stay awake during Mrs. MacElroy's lectures about the Battle of San Jacinto.
3:30 PM: The Dungeon.
The novelty of being "The King Slayer" wore off fast. The kids in the hallway stopped staring. The eighth graders went back to ignoring me. The world moved on.
But the Dungeon didn't move.
Every afternoon, I walked into that metal oven of a weight room. The smell of rust and stale sweat became my cologne. My hands, once soft and useless, started to develop calluses that snagged on my bedsheets.
George Sr. didn't let up.
If I was one minute late, I ran laps. If my form dipped on a squat, he stripped the weight and made me start over. He wasn't treating me like his son. He was treating me like a project he was trying to salvage before the deadline.
[System Update: Strength]
* Current Level: 30 -> 31
* Progress: Slow.
"One point," I muttered, staring at the blue screen floating above my math textbook. "Two weeks of hell for one point."
I was sitting at the kitchen table. It was 9:30 PM. The house was quiet.
My body felt like it was vibrating. Not the good kind of vibration—the kind where your central nervous system is so fried it doesn't know how to shut down. My legs twitched under the table. My grip on the pencil was weak.
"You're staring at the wall again."
I looked up. Missy was standing in the doorway, holding a bowl of cereal. She was wearing her oversized sleeping t-shirt.
"I'm thinking," I said, rubbing my eyes.
"You look like a zombie," Missy said, sitting down opposite me. "A zombie that smells like gym socks."
"Thanks."
"Are you gonna watch ALF?" she asked. "It's on in ten minutes."
I looked at the clock. Then I looked at the pile of Algebra homework in front of me. Then I looked at the "Hardware Bottleneck" warning that still blinked in the corner of my vision whenever I moved too fast.
"Can't," I said. "Got homework. Then I gotta sleep."
Missy frowned. She stirred her Fruit Loops.
"You used to be fun," she said. "Now you're just... tired."
It stung. She was right. The old Georgie—the one I replaced—was lazy, but he was fun. He watched TV with her. He made jokes.
I was turning into a machine.
"I'm sorry, Miss," I said softly. "I'm just trying to... get better."
"Why?" she asked, genuinely curious. "You already won the game. You're the quarterback. Why do you have to go to Dad's gym every day?"
I looked at her. I couldn't tell her about the System. I couldn't tell her that in another life, her brother grew up to be a tire salesman who got divorced twice because he never learned how to stick with anything difficult.
"Because I don't want to be average," I said.
Missy crunched on a spoonful of cereal. She looked at me with those sharp, observant eyes that saw everything in this house.
"Okay," she said. She slid her bowl to the side. "Give me the math."
"What?"
"Give me the book," she demanded. "I'm in fourth grade, but Sheldon taught me how to solve for X because he was bored during a commercial break. I can do the easy ones."
I stared at her. "You're gonna do my homework?"
"I'm gonna write the answers," she corrected. "You dictate. You're holding the pencil like you're gonna drop it."
I looked at my hand. My fingers were trembling from the deadlifts.
I slid the book over.
"Number 4," I mumbled, my brain feeling like mush. "3x plus 12 equals 24."
"Minus 12 from both sides," Missy muttered, scribbling with her left hand. "3x equals 12. Divide by 3. X equals 4."
She looked up and grinned. A gap-toothed, mischievous grin.
"You owe me a dollar," she said.
"Deal."
We worked for twenty minutes. For the first time all day, the tightness in my chest loosened. I wasn't the quarterback. I wasn't the project. I was just a big brother getting bailed out by his sister.
[Social Bond Improved: Missy]
* Status: Ally.
* Note: She sees the effort.
Finally, the book was closed. Missy yawned.
"Go to bed, Georgie," she said. "You look terrible."
"Love you too, Miss."
I stood up, my knees popping audibly. I shuffled toward my room, but stopped at the hallway.
The door to the master bedroom was cracked open. I could hear voices.
"...pushing him too hard, George," Mary's voice whispered. "He's twelve. He fell asleep in his mashed potatoes."
"He asked for this, Mary," George Sr.'s voice was low, rumble-deep. "He came to me. He said he wanted to stop bouncing off people. If I go easy on him now, he learns nothing."
"And if he gets hurt in that weight room?"
There was a pause. The silence of a man weighing his ambition against his fear.
"He's not gonna get hurt," George said. "I'm watching him. Every rep. The kid... he's got something, Mary. I haven't seen focus like this in a long time. Not even in my varsity boys."
I leaned against the wall, closing my eyes.
*He sees it.*
The pain in my legs throbbed, a dull ache that went all the way to the bone. My "Strength" was only 31. My "Durability" was holding me together with duct tape and prayers.
But George Sr. saw the change.
I walked into my room and collapsed onto the bed without taking off my socks.
[Daily Quest Complete: The Grind]
* Reward: +0.5 Strength XP.
* Recovery: Initiated.
I fell asleep before the blue screen faded.
***
Saturday Morning
"Georgie! Telephone!"
Meemaw's voice cut through my dreams.
I bolted upright, momentarily panicking that I was late for a lift. Then I remembered. It was Saturday. Rest day.
I groaned, rubbed my face, and walked into the kitchen. Meemaw was standing there, holding the receiver, a cigarette dangling from her lip. She looked annoyed.
"Who is it?" I rasped.
"It's not a 'who', it's a 'what'," she said, handing me the phone. "And it sounds profitable."
I took the phone. "Hello?"
"Cooper?"
The voice was rough. Cigarette smoke and whiskey. It was Mr. Givens, the owner of the local salvage yard.
"Yes, sir?"
"Your Meemaw says you're lookin' for work that involves heavy lifting," Givens said. "Says you're trying to get strong."
"Yes, sir."
"I got a shipment of tractor tires that need moving. And I got a pile of scrap metal that needs sorting. My usual guy is in jail. You want the job?"
My ears perked up.
Tractor tires. Scrap metal.
*Functional strength,* the System whispered.
"How much?" I asked.
"Twenty bucks. And you can keep any copper wire you find."
Twenty bucks was a fortune. That was two weeks of protein powder. That was a new pair of cleats.
"I'll be there in an hour," I said.
I hung up. I looked at Meemaw.
"Tractor tires?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"It's a workout," I said.
Meemaw took a drag of her cigarette. "You're turning into a weird kid, Moonpie. But I like the hustle. I take 10% agent fee."
"10%?" I protested. "I'm doing the labor!"
"And I handled the negotiations," she grinned. "Welcome to capitalism."
I shook my head, smiling.
Monday through Friday was for the Coach.
Saturday was for the Business.
I went to my room to find my work gloves. The grind didn't stop on the weekends. It just changed venues.