Chapter 30: My Brother Knows!

"Good evening, may I take your order?" The waiter asked politely as soon as we sat down.

My father asked quickly. "Is the house special still a Blood Mary Jane and Smiling Jack?"

Hearing this request, the waiter was a little surprised and replied. "That was the old house special, it's no longer on the menu, but I can ask the bartender to make it for you."

"Then we'll have a house special, won't we, kids?" my father asked with a big smile.

Looking at the menu, there were a few non-alcoholic drinks, but I think it's best to stick to coke. "I'll have a Coke."

"I'll have a Blood Mary Jane." Olivia asked.

But my mother quickly added. "Hers is non-alcoholic."

Which made Olivia roll her eyes.

"I'll have a Coke too." Ethan decided as well.

Nodding his head, the waiter finished taking our order and left.

Looking around, I found it strange that people were complaining all around us.

Curious, I started to listen to their conversation to find out what they were complaining about.

"Dude, the band was supposed to go on stage over 40 minutes ago... why haven't they started singing yet?" One guy complained to his friend.

"I don't know, bro, I'll see if there's another place on the internet with real music." His friend replied while apparently picking up his cell phone to look elsewhere.2

"Good idea, if they don't come up to sing in 20 minutes we'll leave." The man exclaimed.

Listening to this conversation and others around me, I more or less understood what had happened.

Apparently today was the day that the bar's main band was supposed to play, which was the day that most people came to the bar to hear that band, but the band was 40 minutes late, and since they played for 2 hours, the next band after them hadn't even arrived to fill the empty spot.

At least the bar wasn't silent because the manager had put some music on Spokify.

"So did your mom tell you that you're learning to cook with her?" My father asked, trying to break the silence at the table.3

Olivia was taking pictures, Ethan was looking around curiously, and my mother didn't know what to say.

"Yes, I want to learn how to make food to enhance the results of the training." I replied.

"Really? How does that work?" He asked curiously.

After thinking for a while about how to answer, I managed to come up with an explanation. "Muscle needs protein to grow, while the body takes fat and stores it for times of need, so I'm looking on the Internet for a diet that decreases the amount of fat I eat and increases the protein available to my body to build muscle faster."4

Nodding his head, my dad found this interesting.

"Noah cooks very well, now he's making breakfast for us so we can train." My mom added with a smile.

"Woah, that's nice!" My father said.

When the drinks arrived, I noticed that my mother was a little embarrassed to drink in front of us, unlike my father, who saw me looking at his glass with envy and laughed.

"Too bad the style of the bar has changed Noah, it used to be an open mic, so anyone could get up on stage and sing, but from what I talked to the bartender, it seems that the bar has now adopted a resident singer approach, so only the singers that the bar hires can sing." My father said, a little disappointed because he wanted to see me sing here.

Shaking my head, I didn't mind too much. I wasn't in a hurry to grow up. With System, the quality of my music would only improve, so it was only a matter of time before I grew up.

Unlike normal singers who are extremely dependent on starting to sing in a bar to gain practice and popularity, I could achieve all this by practicing at home.

Of course, if I could perform in a bar, it would speed up my development, but I wasn't in such a hurry.

"Hello everyone, I apologize for the inconvenience, but the band's guitarist has fallen ill and Midnight Echoes may not be able to perform tonight..." The manager came on stage while speaking into the microphone, causing the audience to get frustrated.

Seeing the reaction of the people, he tried to think of something to keep the audience from leaving and added. "If anyone can play guitar and read music, we can start the performance."

When he talked about playing the guitar, a few people were interested, but when I heard that I had to be able to read music, most of them gave up, as few people were familiar with music.

I had been studying it with math for the last few days, but thinking that I would have to learn the music on the spot and play for an audience that was already not in a good mood, I gave up on the idea and decided to just enjoy the evening with my family.

"My brother knows!" I suddenly heard a familiar voice.1

Looking around, I noticed that many people were staring at the kid next to me, the one responsible for yelling it out, Ethan.

When Ethan saw that everyone was looking at him, he immediately regretted it and tried to hide, but the damage had already been done.

Looking over at our table, the manager also raised an eyebrow and asked. "Is that true?"

Seeing that Ethan couldn't answer, I sighed and answered instead. "I know a little bit, so if you want to play along with a score, it won't be a problem."2

When the manager heard this, a big smile appeared on his face and he nodded. "All the songs have sheet music, so you can meet me backstage and we can give it a try."

Knowing I had nowhere else to go, I just got up and went with the manager, to the applause and celebration of the rest of the audience as the band they wanted to hear was finally going to play.

I knew Ethan probably said that because he wanted to see me play in the bar, because he liked my music and didn't think about the consequences, so how could I disappoint my little fan by not playing for him?7

Even if I had to play with other people, it could be a good experience for me too, since it would be my first performance in front of a real audience, since the only other performance was online on the Quacktus stream.

When I arrived backstage, I noticed a woman's voice complaining to someone.

"Are you serious about getting some random kid from the audience to play? Do you even know if he can keep up with us?" Her irritated voice could be heard from far away, fortunately the acoustics of the place were good enough that her voice didn't reach the customers.

"The bar is full of people who came because of you, and your friend decided to eat a bad hot dog before playing, not even giving me time to call the other band, what do you want? 

So that the bar is empty and I have to cover the lost profits on your bill?" The manager shouted back angrily.

Hearing the shouting between the two, I already regretted coming.

On one side was a seemingly proud artist who was probably only known in the neighborhood but thought he was the next Beatles, on the other side was a manager who only cared about the bar's profits and didn't care about the artists.

When I got to where they were yelling, I slowly walked in and asked, "Do you still need me?"

When the singer saw me coming and noticed how young I looked, he complained even more. "Look at his age, do you think he can play with us?"

"If you don't try, the loss will be on you." The manager replied dismissively as he walked away.

"Arrrggg..." Angrily, the group's singer grunted as she turned to the sofa in the restroom and began punching a pillow.

While she was taking out her anger on the sofa cushion, a man of about 26 years came up to me with an apologetic smile.

"Sorry bro, she's a little stressed, don't mind her." He said as he extended his hand to me. He said as he shook my hand. "I'm Mark, the drummer of the band, this is Jannet, the lead singer, this is Frank, the keyboarder, Harry was our guitarist, but as you might have heard he ate something bad and couldn't get out of the bathroom at his house."

I nodded my head and held out my hand as I introduced myself. "I'm Noah."

"Can you show us your level, brother? No offense, but we really need someone with a good enough level so the public doesn't get the wrong impression of us." Mark said.

I nodded my head, I understood his side of things, even more with the way he spoke, Mark seemed like a nice guy.

"No problem bro, you have a guitar right? I didn't bring anything." I explained.

"Sure, here, this guitar is from the bar since our guitarist couldn't make it with his." Mark replied as he picked up a guitar from a corner and handed it to me.

I took it and played a little to adjust the pitch and tuning, Mark handed me the sheet music and it took me a few seconds to read and get used to it, but soon I was playing it naturally.

My guitar skills helped a lot.

[Guitar Lv 28

By playing guitar, you learn 28% faster and have a 28% higher chance of being liked by other people].

Learning 28% faster was already very good, and increasing the chance that the audience would like me was also very good, especially now that I had to "convince" them to like my music.

I looked around and saw Mark nodding, Frank in the corner looking at us with a small smile on his face, and even the lead singer stopped her angry outburst and looked at me in fascination.

When Mark gave me another score, it took me only a few seconds to read it and visualize how it would work, and I started playing, with much less adjustment this time.

The quality came out as good as the first one, which made Mark's face break into a big smile as he looked at the other bank.