Okay, so here is a new chapter. I won't be able to write for awhile due to being away because I am on vacation so sorry. I'll only be able to star Writting again next week. Sorry.

Disclaimer: I do not own any franchise reffrenced or used in this fanfic.

Discoveries

After a few more hours of work, this time I made sure to pace myself in order to avoid collapsing, we were all guided back to the housing area. The housing area was basically multiple wooden shacks clustered together and surrounded by a wall of iron. The miners lived quite close to the quarry. After a few minutes of walking, I find myself in a wooden shack with dirt floor. Each shack housed fifteen miners and we all have to sleep on the mattresses which were on the floor. We had no pillow or bed.

At least were supplied food and water though the food is usually stalled bread and water. Even then, I made a horrible discovery about the water. You see, the water we get is actually from the watering trough at inside the shack in the corner. The watering trough is refilled every two to three days. Despite the fact that we had to drink from watering trough like barn animals that wasn't the bad part.

After I drank my fill, I had a notification box pop up in front of me.

Skill: Longevity activated. Negative effects from drinking water polluted by pee is neutralized.

I spent the next few minutes gagging at that. While drinking water help me recover stamina and my skill neutralized the negative effects it did not mean it was any less disgusting. When I warned my shack mates about this, they not only refuse to believe me without any solid evidence but also accused me of trying to keep all the water to myself.

Good news is, my endurance raised a level. I don't think they do not believe me though. I think they suspect the same thing as well but what other choice do they have. There was no alternative supply of water. The reason they beat me was probably because they felt helpless and powerless about their predicament and used this as an excuse to make themselves feel better by beating me up in order to make them feel superior.

I sigh before I groaned at the action. I was laying slumped on the wall at one corner of the shack. I was able to sleep for a few minutes before waking up. While I was there, I studied everyone else who were sleeping. I recalled that only the miners entered the steel wall while the overseers stayed out. They must be waiting outside in order to make sure none of us manage to escape now that he recalled seeing a large number of guards outside the walls.

The fact that none of the guards or overseers are inside the walls show that they don't really care what happens inside as long as we don't try to bust out. I pushed myself to my feet and looked slowly exited the shack. I made sure to not wake anyone up as it was already eleven. What am I doing outside? Isn't it obvious? I am going to train. After all, …

"Stats, quest." I commanded, while I was mining I and taking breaks periodically I tried experimenting on my ability and discovered a Daily quest. They are basically quests that are given on a daily basis however, I can only choose to do one of them. Unfortunately, one of the quests require a certain item, thus I can't actually use do it.

However, there was the other quest.

Beginner quest: Complete these exercises.

100 push ups

100 curl ups

100 squats

10km running

I couldn't suppress my smile. This quest was exactly like the one Sung Jin-Woo does. I walked up to the steel wall, which was about fifteen feet tall. Even though I couldn't escape just yet doesn't mean I couldn't train. I also discovered that ten minutes of sleep helps my fatigue to go down by 1/3 so to heal fatigue I only needed to sleep thirty minutes.

I also heal 5 points of HP every ten minutes so I needed one hundred minutes of sleep to recover it completely if it ever went down to one. Speaking of which, I looked at my health and found it was sitting at ten.

Damn, those guys really had to go that far? I lost twenty HP because of them. I was actually five HP away from death. The only I survive was because the skill Undying will activated which halved all damage taken. I had twenty-five HP before they beat me and assuming I slept for ten minutes… I sigh. "Accept beginner quest one."

Quest accepted.

Complete the exercises before twenty-four hours pass.

I nodded before starting doing my stretches. After a few minutes of stretching I began doing my push-ups, curl ups, and squats. Unfortunately for me, I was getting tired too fast. Slightly breathing a bit heavily, I stood up to my full height and took a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds, before letting it go.

I repeat the action a few times before preparing myself for my run. I was thank full Adam had such high stamina due to how hard he had been working as he often pushed himself to meet the demands of the overseers. If this was my body, I would only be able to do twenty of each at best before I needed to take a break.

I started my run along the steel wall. Since no one was watching I was free to do this as I please. After two hours of running I discovered a new skill.

Skill: Sprinting learnt!

Sprint increases movement speed by 10%

Agility increased by 1

Panting I closed the messages and turned to the message I really wanted to see.

Quest completed!

You can now choose one of the following rewards:

Reward #1: Status recovery

Reward #2: Random box

Reward #3: 3 stats points

I couldn't stop myself from chuckling. Okay, maybe there was an upside to Solo Leveling version of the system. "Accept reward number 3." I then took those skill points and filled put them all in stamina.

The reason being I needed to have the ability to work longer with less breaks. I didn't need to put point in DEX because I can increase it from using skills like mining and, now, sprinting. I can also increase strength through mining as well and endurance can be increased through the accidents I go through.

Intelligence and wisdom are useless for now since they will be useful for when I am planning my escape but that wouldn't happen in another five months at least because of her. According to Adam's memories, he has a younger sister named Ana who, due to an accident wit explosive dust, has her legs severely injured.

She won't be able to walk for six months and she has already been in an Atlas Hospital for three weeks. They actually wanted to just kick her out. In a normal condition, most faunus would take that offer but she would have been alone without the use of her legs.

Thankfully, Adam managed to make a deal. The deal was that if he mine enough dust equivalent to equal the efforts of three average miners then Ana will receive the minimum treatment in order to heal. There was supposed to be a special overseer assigned to him only but the guy couldn't make it today. That overseer was supposed to keep track of how much dust Adam manage to mine every day and at the end of the month, the amount will be totaled and see if it was satisfactory.

This means that if I failed to provide then Ana's treatment will be cancelled and I would have to work harder to pay for the treatment that has already been provided. On top of that, Ana will be alone in the streets of Atlas, of all places, with broken legs meaning any faunus haters, which there are a lot of, in Atlas comes across her she would be unable to run away. I didn't want to hope for those racist to care that she is five years old. I've seen enough of what humans in my world are capable of.

With that thought I closed the status screen and entered a fighting stance. I pulled my left leg back and pulled my left hand back as well while raising my right hand as a fist to the same level as my chest while my left hand is also a fist but raised up to my waist. I then did a simple front kick, followed by a front punch.

Skill learnt: Hand-to-hand combat (lvl1)

Skill learnt: Taekwondo (lvl1)

I smiled. I learned the basics of taekwondo but only up to yellow belt. I decided to practice the moves a for a few minutes before calling it a day.

The next day

"Adam, you seem to be lasting longer than usual." Greg said as he approaches me from behind. I stopped my mining and turn to him with a smile. Now that I have gotten my act together, I have a better ability to pay attention to my surroundings. Greg was a man of average built with somewhat toned muscles due to his day in the mines. Those muscles might have gotten bigger if not for the fact they didn't really have a good source of protein and vitamins. He also wore a simple shirt which were riddled with holes due to an accident with fire dust. He also had black hair and yellow silted eyes.

I smiled at him, "Maybe it's because I've been pacing myself better now." That was partly true. I have been paying attention to my fatigue bar so I made sure to stop and take a break whenever it reaches ninety percent or so.

"That's good to hear." Greg said with a smile, "Brothers know I can't keep covering for you Adam."

I nodded at him, "Thanks for that by the way. I really appreciate it." My response caused Greg to raise his eyebrows.

He then coughed into his fist, "Adam, are you… are you okay?" He asked, seemingly worried about my health. I pondered this. Why is he worried about me? I am not really showing any sign of sickness and his passive skills would warn me about any disease or poisoning before curing them.

"Yes I am. Why do you ask?" I answered back. If I can figure out what is causing him to worry then perhaps, I can solve that problem. After all, if he is worried about me then it might distract him from his own work and our overseers can't have that.

"Well, you seem a lot nicer recently." Greg answered, "I mean, you were nice before but even then, you were a bit distant and cold. Now though? You seem a lot more polite." My eyes widen. Of course, that would cause him to worry. When I took over Adam's body I acted as myself, not Adam. And our personalities can contradict one another in some aspects.

"I am fine." I answered, "Its just that I have a… new perspective about life I suppose." Which is true. Adam and I have very different perspective about life. When I took over his body his and our souls merged, he and I obtain new perspective of live. Though that doesn't mean we accept it. I don't accept his and he doesn't accept mine.

"I see…" Greg responded with a thoughtful look. "Well I suppose that is fine. Just make sure you don't do another 180 with your personality. It's a bit jarring." Greg joked.

I smirked at that, "I'll try but no promises. We should get back to work since one of our overseers is starting to get a bit impatient." I glanced at one of the men in uniform glaring at us. Greg nods and waved goodbye before moving walking away.

I turned back to the dust I was mining. Earth dust was probably one of the easiest since it wouldn't freeze you, burn you, electrocute you or anything like that. At most, it would turn into a large pile of dirt that will wash over and crush you if you are not careful. Okay, maybe wind is the safest with water coming in second.

I looked at his fatigue bar which was now eighty-seven. I could probably mine this first before needing to take a short break again.

After a few hours' we miners were told to take a break so we all went to the cafeteria. Yup, that's right. We had to mine dust for a few hours before breakfast. I'd like to sue this company but I knew I didn't have the rights, power, or authority. Besides, through some legal process or whatever the Schnee Dust Company basically found a way to legalize slavery.

The cafeteria is basically a shack with counter at the end where the food was handed out. There were a few guards there to make sure everyone took an equal amount of food. I went over to grab my food. I didn't have Gamer's body so I still needed to eat after all.

While I ate, I was thankful that the water they provided here was actually clean drinking water. Even so, it was only a bit. There was three slices of bread and one glass of water on my tray. I ate quietly alone. Greg was eating too but he sat with his other friends across the hall.

Our employers don't really provide tables or chairs so we had to eat on the floor. At least they gave us a tray. I sigh, missing my homes comfort. But then again, it didn't matter. After all, my very existence is the definition of-

"Okay everyone, breaks over! Get back to work!" I blinked as I was snapped back into reality by one of the overseers' voice. Shacking my head, I stood up and placed my empty tray with the rest before leaving for the mines.

A few minutes later

Your dexterity has increased by 1!

Your strength increased by 1!

I ignored the text boxes while I continued mining.

Intelligence increased by 1!

"What?" I was surprised by the last one before remembering the description. To learn and understand a technique I need intelligence, to use what I know is dexterity and I need the skill itself unlocked to use it. My eyes widen. That means I am not just using the skill, strength and dexterity but also intelligence when using a skill!

"Okay, now I can see a bit more upside to this." I grin while thanking God for this. While I wasn't that religious I am starting to be since I need all the help I can get. I then continued mining after all, my personal overseer is here now. Apparently, the old one got a promotion and will no longer work here so they assigned a new one instead.

He didn't really tell me his name. He only told me the situation and how he is now my overseer. I could tell he was the type that felt superior to me. He held a cocky smirk the entire time as he looked down on me. The way he studied me was like he was looking over a victim about to be thrown to the shark and he was trying to figure out how long I would last.

When I asked his name his answer was, "You do not need my name. You will only be calling me sir or master. Whichever you prefer." The respond causes my chest to feel hot with rage before I shoved it down.

'Now's not the time Adam!' I thought. The feeling of indignity responded and I guess he was demanding 'When would it be time!?'

I sighed and continued doing my work. As I did so I figured out how my dexterity effected my skills. When it said that I could use my skills more 'skillfully' it actually meant 'efficiently'. That means the higher my dexterity the less stamina an action consumes. Meaning increasing both stamina and dexterity will allow me to last longer.

Maybe there is some good in what I got from having DEX and INT linked to learning and using skills. Once I reached fatigue 90%, I dropped to my knees in an attempt to rest.

CRACK!

I hissed in pain as I felt something strike my back. "Who said you can take break you filthy animal! Get back to work until I say otherwise!" my overseer ordered. I scowled and tried to muster up a reply but it died in my throat as another blow was dealt.

'Where did he even get the whip!? I didn't see it on him earlier!' I thought when I glanced back to see the man holding a black whip. I forced myself up and continued to mine for another fifteen minutes before the alert appeared.

Fatigue has reached 100/100!

My body collapsed, this time, I fell on my face. I couldn't feel any energy in me anymore. I knew that I couldn't keep going. Unfortunately, my overseer thought otherwise.

"Who said you could take a nap, huh!?" He raised his whip and strike my back while I was down. I let out a gasp of pain before trying to muster some energy into my arms and legs to try and get up. But it was useless. My limbs refuse to respond.

My overseer's limbs did not suffer the same problem.

Again and again, he whipped my back until it drew blood. Even then he kept going. "Damn it! Now look at what you made me do. I'll have to clean your filthy blood off!" Even after saying that he still kept going.

END has increased by 1!

To be honest, I wanted to fall asleep here but I couldn't fall unconscious due to the pain keeping me awake. My health was going down to thirty percent. With the condition met, my skill Undying Spirit activated.

Now that my defense has increased the pain wasn't so bad and I was able to lose conscious. It was by no means because I gave up and wanted to die. I recalled my ability Longevity would allow me to recover my health faster if I was unconscious and to be honest, that was probably my best bet in surviving this ordeal.

A few minutes later

I woke up in an unfamiliar place. It looked like a wooden shack at fist but after looking around I found that I was on a bed and surrounding me were other faunus who were in bed as well and they seemed to be in pain due to various injuries.

I sigh, wondering how I got into this mess. All I wanted was to provide for Adams sister, so how did I end up with such a horrible overseer? It must be due to my horrible luck, which is still four. Now that I think about it, that is my lowest star. Maybe I should invest in it the next time I get more stats point.

Wait, wouldn't that be useless now that I already got my overseer. Damn it. Okay, how about I try to calm down. I recall taking lesson on a meditation technique to help me. Okay, first calm my mind and closing my eyes. I tried to control my breathing and pay attention to it. Exhaling longer than inhaling. After doing this three times, I focus on my emotion. I then try to visualizer a flame in the middle of my brain and focus on said flame for a few moment.

After a while I smiled. I sigh, good. I feel a lot calmer now.

Skill learned: Serene meditation! Allows user to enter a serene state that helps user keep calm.

Huh, it seems I got a new skill though it is at level one. I wonder how leveling up would effect it since it did not use mana or stamina. I was snapped back to reality when I saw a woman with shoulder length dark hair and dark skin with blue eyes appear wearing a white coat over a white uniform.

I recognizer her as the doctor who works in the medical shack which was located right in the middle of the housing area but due to Adam's stubborn personality and dislike for humans he never bothered to get to know her name. She also looked familiar not only from Adam's memories but I believe she looked like someone I saw in the RWBY series.

Whatever, probably not important. "May I ask how long I was out?" Looking at my health and fatigue, I could tell it was at least one hour and ten minutes.

"You were unconscious for two hours Adam." The woman responded. "You were fortunate one of your friends saw what was happening and got a senior overseer to intervene. Your friend, Greg, carried you here with the overseers permission but had to get back straight to the mines after he was done."

I nodded. I should really thank Greg for this. Honestly, that man is probably the closest person I can get to a bro. Speaking of which…

"Thank you for taking care of me miss…?"

The doctor raised her right eyebrow. "I have been treating you from the day you were born and you can't recall my name?" she asked. She didn't sound hurt but a bit teasingly.

I flushed. Technically, that was Adam's fault. Secondly, she has only been around for four years, not nine. I decided to ignore those facts since arguing about it is pointless. "Sorry about that." I responded sheepishly.

The woman chuckled, "Don't worry about that Adam. I know you have a lot going through your mind right now. You may call me Doctor Soleil." She introduced herself.

"Thank you, my name is Adam Taurus and I guess I don't have to tell you that you can call me Adam." I responded with a smile.

She smirks at me before her expression turned serious. She took a clipboard from somewhere (honestly, where did she get that?) and looked over it. "You took heavy injuries from your ordeal earlier and I tried to patch you up the best I can but without the proper tools and medicine I could only do so much." Dr. Soleil sigh in frustration, "I'm sorry to say but I don't think you should be mining for at least one week."

What!? No, that cannot happen, I still have work in those mines. If I don't do anything then my sister is screwed. "I don't think that is necessary. I feel much better now." I calmly responded. Huh, serene state must still be on.

Dr. Soleil gave me a dubious look. "Adam, I saw the wounds. I doubt you could of healed that fast even with aura." Ah crap, she's right. Even with aura, healing all those wounds would take two days at least. If I revealed that his wounds are closed then she would then question how it was possible. I want to keep my abilities a secret since if more people knew about this then they might use it for their own gain.

"I'll only take a break for today and tomorrow." I said resolutely, "After that, I will be going back but I'll take it easy." I studied the Dr. Soliel's reaction. She quietly looks me up and down before sighing. "Well, as a doctor I can only advice, not force, my patient and even if I did something tells me you will just sneak out anyway."

I looked away for a moment. Yup, I was definitely planning to do that. "Well, at least it is better than nothing." If Dr. Soleil wanted to say anything else she couldn't because one faunus suddenly screamed in pain. This cause her to frown. "Damn it, I'll have to treat him but there are some faunuses that need to be treated too. "

I thought for a moment about that. "Will first aid help with anything?" I asked.

The doctor looked at me. "Well, fist aid can help some of the faunus feel better and keep their wounds from getting worse too fast… "

"Then let me help." I offered. I learned a lot about giving medical attention due to being part of Red Crescent. I can still recall most of what I learned from joining the educational events they held.

Due to recalling previous life skills you have obtain skill First Aid level 5!

Okay, even though I was part of the Red Crescent I kind of dropped out after three years so sue me! Anyway, I hope level five is good enough.

"You sure you know how to do it?" Dr. Soleil asked with doubt in her eyes. Makes sense since a nine year old boy who lived his life in a Schnee Quarry isn't exactly the first person you would expect to have skills in first aid.

I nodded confidently. Apparently that wasn't enough since she watched me perform on one patient first before trusting me to do the others unsupervised as she had to go treat the screaming faunus.

Intelligence increased by 1!

First Aid increased by 1!

I was happy to see those stats go up. After I was done the Doctor thanked me for helping her. She asked if she could repay me in someway so I told her what I wanted.

A few hours later

I was reading one of the medicine books that the doctor had leant me. I had some difficulty understanding but thankfully she had books of her undergraduate years. I took up biology, chemical and physics but after graduating and entering College I decided to pursue a different career path and became an English lecturer.

Despite it being dark with very little lighting I was able to read with little problem due to a faunus ability to see in the dark. I continued reading until everyone was asleep. After that I snuck out and did the same daily quest to get those three stat points. And then place them all in stamina again.

I felt a bit stupid doing this but I felt like this will help me in the long run. Stamina was the hardest one to farm due to its nature of being that the stat can only obtain experience every time I get exhausted while I can literally farm experience for three stats and one skill from mining.

I sigh. I've been sighing a lot nowadays.

A few days later

Thank goodness they changed the overseer. Now my previous overseer was switched with the senior who had helped me and he seemed to be a lot nicer since he let's me take breaks. On top of that, after mining day is over I go and try to help Dr. Soleil.

After everyone sleeps I would then go out and due my daily quests and train my hand-to-hand combat skills and taekwondo. After a few days I also figured out something else about my system. When farming for DEX or INT I had taken notice that they level up at different speed when doing different jobs.

For example, mining helps level up DEX faster than INT but whenever I help Dr. Soleil my INT levels up faster than DEX. If I had to guess it maybe due to how the two jobs are different from each other. Mining requires more on the physical side so mining is more effected by DEX than INT but doing medical work relies mostly on one's knowledge rather than ones physical ability. Sure, there is a lot of standing and hand moving but it is not as strenuous as mining.

However, this means the best way to farm DEX is through mining, sprinting and training my combat ability while the best way to farm INT is through helping out at the medical shack and my nightly reading and my serene meditation, which I do three times a day. At the start of the day, before helping Doctor Soleil and before sleeping.

So basically my DEX is obviously higher than INT.

More good news is that I was able to satisfy the demands for this month, but only barely. But things are bad. They are claiming that the cost for Ana's treatment are more expensive than previously thought so now I have to mine enough dust to equal eight average miners.

I almost exploded but was able to keep calm thanks to Serene mind. I was in no position to argue. The Schnee had all the power here and so arguing will only make things worse on my end. All I can do is endure, survive and grow.

And, after Ana fully recovers, escape.

RockyGolem: I plan to have Adam still able to fight like Adam but he will learn other fighting styles as well. As for the magic, we'll, you have to wait and see.

andohmygodcholestero: Thank you for the compliment but please don't expect to much.

Guest:Yeah, I thought about both of the systems and decided while Solo Leveling is cool the Gamer's version of the system is better.

Merendinoelimiano: I hope I spelt your username right. Anyway, for the Grimm, you'll have to wait and see.

Guest: Wait and see, or read the first response.