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Having done all the things related to his lottery winnings for the time being and getting some free time not sweating over it all by his lonesome was just what Jack needed for now.

He just had to take some time off doing absolutely nothing.

So with a relaxed attitude and his hands inside the pockets of his jacket, he walked through some parts of the town to map it further.

At some point around his walk, he started to have a general image of the place inside his mind and wouldn't get lost as easily as before.

Jack stopped at a bench that served as a bus stop and thought about this spot before sitting down and stretching himself. After his hands stretched backward they were placed behind his head.

His gaze went up to the clouds. Somehow he felt very calm at the moment and wanted to enjoy it.

But at the very same time, it was not like his mind stopped thinking entirely. There were just many other things flashing through that head and made him wonder about some of them.

'Now that I got money, should I stop writing books entirely? The game at least could still be released since it's about finished. It would be a waste to scrap it now...'

Somehow he felt conflicted about just tossing away possible ways to make even more money. It was weird. While his euphoria at the start when he got the money simmered down, his head still kept thinking about other ways to make more.

And by all means, it was not a bad thing, or else he would have probably done something stupid by now.

He guessed it was still his poor people's mindset to keep doing something to keep himself afloat.

No, he shouldn't call it like that since it was basically just himself wanting to have something to do and simply keep himself grounded.

The only difference would be that he now had the freedom to choose whatever he liked to do without some invisible choker around his neck.

'We live in a society...huh.' Somehow a quote flashed through his mind and made him smile involuntarily.

And without him realizing he already had a pack of cigarettes in his hands and one of them inside his mouth.

But before he came to light it up he stopped and looked at the package still in his hands.

'Old habits die hard. Am I that stressed out?... Hey, KISS. Do I even need to worry about this?', he asked his unseen companion.

[It depends on the healing factor that you set me to use. Currently, you told me to keep your body free from most muscle fatigue and help regenerate itself. So I'm set to a 2.5 times healing factor. To counter the negative influence that nicotine would have on your body, I would at least need the approval to use 5x.]

'Interesting, you can go ahead and do that then. What about addiction? I doubt I would still keep the want to smoke later since you keep my body clean.'

[Well, your question alone just shows that habits have nearly nothing to do with addiction alone. You just want to smoke, otherwise, you wouldn't even come to ask in the first place. Knowing about the side effects of smoking you are trying to find a way to circumvent them. So to answer your question, you wouldn't suffer the symptoms and negative aspects. Though the benefit of having a calming effect on the mind is also a given and that is what is ingrained into your being. You already went ahead and got stoned anyway. It is up to you...]

Thinking about it for a while and still looking at the package while softly gnawing at the filter of the cig in his mouth he soon realized that KISS was right.

Even if youthful tomfoolery was alright sometimes he would still rather enjoy his herbal preference and cold beverages instead of these smokes.

In the end, he was only trying to get himself an excuse to start smoking again. And that for no apparent reason but to get into old habits.

And it was true that he brought these out for the same reason as well while not even having real withdrawals. He just took them to help him get a calmer mind. But there were other methods for that.

His gaze rested for a bit on the pack in his hands and then just for a short moment went over his wristband.

His teeth gritted for a second and he was placing that one cig from his mouth neatly to its original place inside the box and closing the lid. Jack then proceeded to crush the box and threw it into the trash bin beside the bench.

That was enough of that. Just the fact that he would affect others around him was bad enough of a reason to throw that habit away.

And there was that little inkling of a memory that this body had that made him scratch his head now. It was a bitter memory that was now part of him and it made his mood sour.

'Fuck...I nearly forgot that shit as well.'

He stood up and took a quick look at the time on his phone. Then comparing the times when the bus would shuttle to the nearby city he noted it down quickly and started going back to the apartments.

Jack also stopped thinking about throwing anything away from his other hobbies for the time being. Doing all of them to the end felt satisfying and the results would shine later.

But he had to start focusing on his main focus and that was his musician skills. Guess he would start recording soundtracks for the game.

It didn't take long and he was back inside the apartment in his room. His eyes went over to the box at the side that was suspiciously sitting there.

Opening it up he soon came to realize that the box was way too big for just some random PC to be in there and he was actually right.

When he opened the thing he could actually see a rather compact PC inside it that was already prebuilt with various manuals included for its operation.

Throwing away the manuals - inside a shelf - he proceeded tp unpack everything inside.

There were also various other things in it as well. For instance, there was a freaking new laptop included as well. It had a black mat finish and looked rather expensive. This surely could come in handy for his CS classes.

For a short moment, Jack was genuinely surprised the more he looked inside and uncovered the objects packed into that box.

It had everything he really needed inside it. There was even a good studio microphone, a good set of headphones as well as a good-looking high-quality camera as well as a webcam that also looked rather high-end.

The box literally was crammed with everything he needed to make some nasty high-tech setup and more.

There was even a freaking drawing tablet that would make his sculpting and drawing in general a much easier process.

Mentioning the drawing tablet, there was also a compact scanner/printer included for some reason.

Guess it would also come in handy later when looking at all his paper sketches on his table that already were neatly placed into a folder.

Not waiting long he quickly put everything together and placed each tech in the right place.

And he replaced nearly all the old stuff with the new, except his old monitor. Jack kinda smirked thinking about those probably being too large to get included.

But that was only a misjudgment since it soon was resolved after he stumbled over another smaller box near the first one.

Said box actually had two identical monitors inside and a few other gadgets for manipulating his sound as well as recording/streaming options. So a lot of utility gadgets.

With that said he replaced everything. Interestingly enough all products lacked any brandings on them and it made Jack think about plagiarizing them.

But on the other hand, it was way too much of a bother starting his own tech company now. Well, maybe later when he is bored or something.

He still had to transfer his old data to an external drive - which was also luckily included as well. By now it was probably nothing about luck and those guys just included a lot of stuff.

Having done all that Jack sat at his desk and started upthe new PC. He soon was shocked again at what he was looking at. Since he knew a thing about coding and hardware by now he was genuinely shocked by the capabilities this thing had.

[Hmm, looks like they screwed up something again, or maybe it's actually intentional? Nah, I somehow doubt it. This computer model is roughly a 2078 standard model. But even that is rather overkill for this era. Wonder if they included some failsafe so no other people could use it?]

KISS chimed in with what seemed to be a small chuckle. He very likely was referring to the ones that sent Jack here.

And he was right. The specs of this thing were monstrous all things considered. It looked like some very new upcoming compact model from his old timeline, but no. This thing was heaps ahead even in his old time.

What was even more surprising was the fact that it had biometric scanners that swept over his hand before it started up. And that was only the hardware. The software later wanted him to connect the webcam and initialize face recognition.

With all that being greenlit, he finally landed at his desktop.

There were preinstalled programs that would be useful for many things like recording, streaming, and so on.

And there was even a program that would simulate various other older windows versions where he could run his programs in simulation to troubleshoot his own coded programs.

So he literally could simulate specs and run programs if they would be able to run stable on them. That was literally like cheating when trying to find out bugs.

It was just insane. He was now even more tempted to steal the code in this thing and crack its hardware open to use and sell them under his own name.

But somehow he felt his pride kicking in at that moment as well.

He already decided not to throw away anything so he would only use the calculating power of this monster and try figuring everything out thoroughly on his own first and then create his own version that would not rely on the preinstalled stuff.

About the hardware though. For now, it would just be better to keep his hands away from that until he got the necessary skills for them. But he would get there one day.

All things considered, it was amazing.

So putting all his data on the new machine and rechecking if everything was transferred correctly he then proceeded to place the old machine and stuff as a memory in the storeroom.

Luckily it just barely fit in there since there was various other old stuff stored there. If Leah asked him why the PC was there he would just say he got himself a new model.

Going back to his room he started to code again. The responsiveness of the machine was just unreal. Now his agility and mind could go haywire without much problem.

And soon enough he managed to finish coding his own recording software.

Making a few comparisons with the preinstalled software he nodded at himself.

He still lacked a lot but it was good enough for his goal. So he went ahead and started recording various soundtracks and background music for the game as well as most sound effects.

He even went ahead and recorded his own voice which was a little bit distorted through a little bit of voice modulating on his own part.

Well, it was just him trying to sound different. And because he knew how to use his voice, it wasn't that hard. At least it felt like that. Mimics obviously would beg to differ. Interestingly enough it also created a different skill he wouldn't have put this skill into.

[Skill "Voice Acting" gained.]

His aunt that came into the apartment was perplexed seeing him sit in the living room and talking on the phone. She was not perplexed about why, but more about what he was talking about. And especially with that different voice.

Jack just gave a hint to her with his hand to keep quiet for a moment while he did this and only after he was done was he paying her some attention.

"Hey there." Jack smiled at his aunt and talked in his original voice now. He even lightly massaged his neck.

"What was that about? It sounded rather ambiguous." Leah asked while a brow was raised.

"Oh, nothing shady. I only used a certain technique to record a voice that was talking over the phone. It's for a game I'm making. I'm at the stage where I record all the sounds and stuff."

Leah thought about it for a moment and nodded. "Not a bad idea. But you should do it again. I think some of the sounds of the door opening and closing got captured as well?"

"I will see about it. But I think it's alright. It may be useful somehow." He could also cut those unneeded sounds out. "But thanks for keeping quiet until now. Wait a sec, I'm bringing the phone back."

He then went ahead and brought the home phone back while also stopping the recording on his PC that was still aiming the mic toward the phone where the sound just came out from. He didn't record his smartphone because the home phone had a more rustical sound to itself, unlike the more modern smartphone.

"So, are you going to be doing a lot of music today? Just a heads up, you should think about making the room a little bit soundproof. The neighbors apparently were annoyed." Leah chuckled since she herself was all right with it.

"Right..." Jack grimaced a little bit about that. That had to happen at some point. "I'll do that in more reasonable time windows now and not late at night. At some point, I will also put some foam into my room. Anyway, gotta keep the speed up so see you tomorrow."

With that said and Leah looking at his back he went back inside his room.

Not long after there was a sound coming from his room with another 2 cover songs. Leah even muted the TV to listen to him doing those. On her face, a content smile appeared.

"He is really getting better every time." She was definitely noticing his improvements and soon he would reach a very pleasing skill level.

Though she was ignoring his weird soundtracks later. They were good but not as interesting as the singing he did before.