Nest egg

"Guess I should make a start on transferring stuff though, no way am I going back over there without a piggy bank"

"God said it was the combined value of something, its technological value, its resource value and its perceived value are what I remember. I'm going to take a punt that the perceived value is the Earth price tag so I guess I'll start with this?"

He picked a book up off the shelf and checked his Transfer energy.

[309]

Concentrating for a moment the book stubbornly stayed where it was as he received a system notification in the periphery of his vision.

[Transfer complete, select to choose exchange]

He concentrated and the system gave him multiple options

[Transfer as energy: +1 Silver, - 1 transfer energy]

[Transfer as is: - 2 transfer energy]

[Reverse transfer: +50p (Earth), - 1 transfer energy]

"1 silver per 1 transfer energy? That's great! I could build everything I need in a day. Exchange rate to earth is not great but it should be different depending on the item"

He decide to transfer the book as energy and it immediately disappeared, next he tried with a chair

[Transfer as energy: +10 Silver, - 6 transfer energy]

[Transfer as is: - 10 transfer energy]

[Reverse transfer: +£8 (Earth), -6 transfer energy]

"Ok less clear on the rates. Still looks like the best deal will remain the energy switch, I'll only use the as is option for specific tools like books and torches and what not"

Transferring the dining chair as energy he had wanted to try one more thing before he stopped, his back garden opened out on to a wooded area with a public footpath, beyond the little band of trees were fields.

He left the house and looked around, it was early summer and even though it was around 9pm it was still light enough to see by.

Checking there was no one who could notice him, he stretched over his back fence and just managed to reach a medium sized oak tree.

He checked the options before transferring and was immediately confused by the options he had.

[Transfer as energy: + 285 Silver, background contribution "%$^£*", - 283 transfer energy]

[Transfer as is: - 412 transfer energy]

[Reverse transfer: + £389 (Earth), - 283 transfer energy]

"Ok, so it greys it out if I can't afford it, fine, but what about those figures? Why is some of the energy turned in to "background contribution?" does that add to God's transfer fuel or something? These exchange rates are weird. It's still a lot more valuable that transferring random books though"

He released the tree and decided to save his energy, that was over a day's savings, he couldn't justify the cost or the risk of it being noticed, next he tried some other items and found little reason to it, the books which were newer or more expensive did reflect it in exchange but the difference between items were all over the place.

He found technology to be the best exchange rate for silver, bulky cheap things the best for background contribution and reverse charge but that was all he could really ascertain.

After transferring a couple of consoles and old bits of tech he decided to stop and take stock.

"Ok, I should have an additional 98 silver when I get over now but I've spent 38 transfer energy, I think that's a fair trade but the longer I take to level up the worse value for energy I'm getting. I need to be strategic and get back as soon as I can"

"System, how long for transfer?"

[2.68 days]

"Right, I'll explain to Melissa tomorrow night and Tom the next night, hopefully they can be around to watch the transfer too, if they don't believe me that would make it much easier to convince them."

"Having said that…"

Daniel considered what their reactions would be upon first seeing his flame skill let alone his transfer skill and smiled.

"If I learn any new spells next time I won't have any problem convincing people to join the colony, but to get the right ones might be a little more difficult"

After grabbing some fresh food from the local corner shop he decided to just eat a plate full of carbs and go to sleep.

"I wonder how much silver a bread oven costs…."

Waking naturally the next morning and sorely feeling the loss of his old phone he got ready and headed out to pick up his new one. He'd never particularly cared about large crowds but as he walked through town everything seemed so loud, he found it off putting.

"It was only 3 days, maybe it's had more of an effect on me than I thought"

As he looked from item to item he couldn't help but wonder about their transfer value, he had already experimented with cars and found the exchange rate on them to be extremely high. Heading into the phone store he also checked a couple of the smart phones and laptops and soon realised if he wanted to be efficient with his Transfer energy it was going to cost a lot of money.

"Is it because they're expensive or because they're advanced?"

With this in mind he entered a jewellery store and asked to look at their wedding rings, selecting the most expensive in the store he was blown away by the potential silver he could receive.

"How can they be worth more than the computers? Eden must have its own rare metals, I suppose it takes a lot less energy to transfer it but still"

Heading back home he considered his bank balance, he was a construction contractor, it was general work and he was confident in his skills but he wasn't likely to be able to use those skills to build a house from raw materials back on Eden. Before that he'd been in software but couldn't stand the company he'd spent too long with. When he'd left Digitech solutions three years ago he had had a good nest egg behind him and aimed to live an easy life, he'd started in construction last year so he could have control over what jobs he took and keep himself topped up.

"I can't not work for 3 years until the convergence, my savings will last a year at most, but I can't reliably be around to work though."

He considered using his ability to exchange some of his possessions for cash but was pretty sure he'd be better off selling them normally.

"I don't think I have to feel guilty if I do use this ability on other people's property, I am literally saving our civilisation by doing so. It would be more efficient than picking up jobs through construction industry"

"I won't look at this right now, there's enough in the bank to keep the mortgage payments going for about a year, by next month I should be a much higher level"

His mind kept jumping back to the jewellery store and the security there, the balance of profit and risk already being considered as he headed home.

"Whatever, right now I need a plan"

After setting up his new phone and arranging to meet Tom the next day he got online and started researching everything he could think of that may help him, mathematical theory to help with deciding what to send when, survival guides and stats, gaming guides and grinding techniques.

It all seemed like common sense or jargon to him, the gaming info was useless. He couldn't even find anything about how much zombies loved cooking, this most basic of information was missing so how could these guides be trusted with anything else.

The survival info was mainly useful for how to prepare food and water and how much was needed, everything else was about crafting which thankfully the Beachhead would be dealing with for him.

As for the maths, the take home message was use as little energy on resources as possible and spend as much time in Eden levelling as possible, he couldn't figure out how to calculate the benefit of getting his colony up and running sooner as he wasn't sure how necessary a strong colony would be when the whole world was transferred over. Maybe it would be better to just stay solo and build the resources for god as much as possible rather than give his friends a head start to level. There was no way he could know so he was just going to have to balance it.

"Even if I went back and levelled to over 100 what use would it be if everyone else was too weak to defend themselves when they came over. And If I manage to gather the energy for God to use what use would it be if there was no stable human settlement to work out from, they'd die one by one whether level 5 or level 0"

"I'll get to level 10, build a small village and then go back and forth levelling and bringing in new residents and money. God said to balance"

After ordering a couple of survival books he wanted to send over along with a life straw, wind up torch and some other basics he decided to head off to the airport early, he wanted to be out of the house and around people for a while, besides, he wanted to at least feel like it would get Melissa back earlier and give him someone to tell this to. He was worried he'd just start preaching about the end of the world to random strangers if he couldn't let it out soon. The survival theory forums had already tempted him heavily after all.

Walking to the car he found himself looking around at the other cars parked along his street and the houses to get a sense of who might have a camera or be looking. He hadn't realised he was doing it and when he did he couldn't help but laugh at himself.

"As soon as I've mentally justified it I'm already looking for likely targets? I don't even have the energy built up for this kind of thing yet. Just focus"

Nothing of note happened as he waited in the Airport café, out of curiosity he had a look at the perfumes and designer clothes in the airport duty free areas but found nothing as ideal as the jewellery had been. The idea of trying to subtly use magic in the airport seemed like a less than perfect idea to him anyway but he just considered it research and entertained himself.

When Melissa's plane finally landed he met her at the gate and forced light conversation while they picked up the bags.

She talked about the trip and gave sidelong glances at his clearly forced reservation.

They were used to talking most days and were together socially just as much as they had been when they were a couple, she could easily tell something was different with his conversation but was just as confused with his appearance.

"Did he stop drinking or something? How didn't I notice?"

When they finally got out of the airport and into the car she couldn't take it anymore and just asked him while he was rambling about jewellery.

"Hey, what's going on? You seem kind of on edge, are you in some kind of trouble"

"No! no, it's nothing like that, I mean, it kind of is but really we're all in trouble, my trouble is kind of exciting"

"Ok….another quick thing, did you start a new crack habit or something?"

"What! No, I'm just being normal, really discreet and whatnot"

"Yeah, I mean, you just described yourself as actively being discreet and your smile is weird and you've lost a lot of weight in a week so I'm pretty sure something is going on, call me crazy here"

"Ok, you're right, looks, it's not drugs or anything, the truth is…. I was chosen by God and now I'm magic"

"…. By God you say"

"Yeah, well kind of, like real God, not Christian God"

"….And now you're magic"

"Well yeah, I mean, I have magic, like magic powers and things"

"Ah, I see. So shall we pull over and I'll drive us back and you can have a little rest, maybe drink some of this nice water, look, there's sheep on the bottle"

"Ok, maybe I could have done this a little better, I probably shouldn't have tried to give the cliff notes. Just look at this before anything"

Lifting his free hand from the wheel he made a gently dancing flame above his palm as Melissa watched confused. Then, extinguishing it he transferred a couple of pens from the dashboard and explained what he was doing.

While she sat there incredulous he replaced his hand on the wheel and started to explain as they headed back, by the time they got back to his house a couple hours had passed and he had explained everything that happened. A couple more demonstrations while they were in the house and she was convinced and horrified.

"So the whole world is going to get eaten by something God is currently fighting?"

"Seems that way, he said 3 years but I don't know the exact date. But look, what do you think? Do you want a head start, I should be able to send you over in a month at the latest. It's not bad there and the more I send the more comfortable I can make it. You tell me what you'd need and I'll send it over first."

"And never come back? What about my work? And what would I tell people, and what about the zombies!"

"I know, really I do but this is going to happen sometime, don't you want to get ahead while we've got the chance?"

"No! I want the career I've spent half my life working towards to mean something! I want to have access to Netflix and ice cream. I don't want to eat rat meat and sleep in rat skins in a shack!"

"Neither do I but that's only temporary, I've already sent enough dimensional energy over to get the necessities and I can send proper bedding over if that's what you need"

"What about doctors? Dentists, wine!"

As Daniel held her and tried to stop her hyperventilating he considered what she was saying, he had felt like he was giving her an opportunity to build something for the future but there was no way she could not feel the loss of everything she had already been building becoming worthless.

He had already accepted that his current profession was not a career or something he cared about, he'd also long felt that there was nothing he particularly wanted to achieve in life, she was different, her life had purpose. It was one of the reasons they'd broken up. He had never seen the point of building for the future and she couldn't see the point of life without doing.

As painful as this information was for her however it had brought them to the same side, if she wanted to do something worth doing now, this was it, and given the responsibility God had placed on him, Daniel was fully committed to the same goal.

"Daniel, I need a drink."

"Yeah"

They talked some more about Eden and their lives on Earth while they drank until she fell asleep, she was already exhausted from the flight and it was beyond late. He tucked her up, left some water and painkillers by the sofa and went to bed. If it was hard tonight he didn't want to think about how hard it would be in the morning when she was hung over.