Chapter 4
That Night:
"Kez, where did you put the milk?"
I was in my room, searching the internet and writing down information I remembered from the novel on a piece of paper when a voice from downstairs distracted me. It was from Nora Jolkev, Kez's mother.
"I put it inside the fridge." I replied from upstairs.
"I don't see it in the fridge."
"It's on the third rack."
"It's not there. Can you just come down here and show it to me?"
"Sigh."
I climbed down the stairs and opened the fridge. However, the milk wasn't where it was supposed to be.
"..."
"...I put it right here. Someone must have moved it."
"Are you sure you didn't forget to bring it and now you are making excuses? Sigh Kei, have you seen the milk?"
'Forgetting to bring it and making excuses? Damn what kind of person was Kez for this kind of distrust?'
"I moved it to the 4th fridge where it actually belonged. Sorry for forgetting to tell you."
Kei replied from her room. Her room was right next to mine.
'This brat could hear everything but didn't reply all these times. Also, 4th fridge? How rich are you guys?!!!!'
"Ah don't worry at all. It happens." Nora Jolkev replied.
'What a stark contrast of attitude. Does she hate me?'
At the same time, the main door opened which was enormously big for some reason. Damn rich people. A man entered the house and walked towards the kitchen. But as he kept approaching towards the kitchen, I felt fear. Fear? No, it was more like my instinct telling me to run. The man stepped into the kitchen. He had a decent build. Not too overly muscular but I could guess he worked out regularly. With raven hair and brown eyes, he was standing at almost 6'2-6'3. But what truly scared me about him was not his eyes and cold complexion that screamed out the word 'killer' but rather the fact that if this man wants me dead then I would not be able to put up any defense.
"Ah dad, you are back."
A voice came from upstairs, along with sound of footsteps running down the stairs. After a few seconds, Kei entered the kitchen and hugged this 'father' character with a cheerful attitude. Soon, the man's complexion changed from cold and unapproachable to one filled with warmth and love. I was a little taken aback and watched this reunion along with Nora Jolkev. This man was Kez's father, Kaiden Jolkev. After a little while, his gaze landed on me. Immediately, his cold complexion was back. Ya, he definitely doesn't like me. FUCK.
"W-welcome home, d-dad."
He didn't give any reply to my greeting and simply walked towards Nora Jolkev and talked a little about their guild before entering his room. The atmosphere was silent for a while. I didn't have to look to feel the gazes of my mother and sister on me. They were full of...pity and disappointment?
"...okay. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. Why don't you guys take a seat on the table?"
I took a seat and stopped myself from cursing out loud. There is no way in hell they would ever lend me any money. They are acting like I burned down house or I am the black sheep of the family. Damn it, why am I hated by family? Sigh looks like I have to understand our relationship first.
A few days later:
[Time remaining: 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes 17 seconds]
These last few days, I have been gathering information and looking for ways to make money. I had to understand Kez's parents first before requesting for the loan. After some investigation, I found out that Kaiden Jolkev didn't like me at all and was very distant towards me. My mother had a pretty ambiguous attitude towards me, but I could tell she was pretty disappointed in me for some reason. As for Kei, I wasn't too sure of her attitude. She seems to hate me on the surface, but I could tell that she was closer to Kez than his parents. Ultimately, I had to give up the idea of borrowing money at the end. Both of them mainly cared a great deal about managing their guild. They were in guild business so they were pretty rich. Their guild weren't on the same level as the Kolzes but theirs weren't that bad either. It was ranked 15th in the human domain which is pretty decent.
[Card Balance: 72,318 AP]
"FUCK IT WHATEVER."
I randomly yelled out at the middle of the street and naturally people around me got startled. This was the 18th time I did this. I should probably stop. I was returning from the bank after connecting my broker account with my bank account. I already bought around sixty $800 AP puts contracts for TROP. The value of put contracts usually increases when the value of actual stock goes down and since I know of an event which will crash their stock prices in the future, my gamble was reasonable. Of course, I made sure to create an anonymous new bank account before buying the contracts. Also, $48,000 ap is not a lot of money so that someone would be suspicious when the puts actually print. But just to be extra safe, I bought a couple of call contracts as well which goes up when price of the stock goes up.
"I hate losing money like this but screw it...Oh it's the system finished its things. Status"
A window popped up. It was different from the one that popped up previously. It was cyan unlike the deep blue color from last time.
===
Status
Name: Fin ???
Age: 19
Race: Human
Class: None
Rank: Calculating...
Affiliation : ???
Characteristics: Insane, Narcissistic and attention-seeker
Tendency: Evil
Vigor: 70/110
Mana: 1/1
[Strength: 3]
[Agility: 4]
[Stamina: 3]
[Intelligence: 1]
[Defense: 3]
Active Skills: None
Passive Skills:
Evil Tendency (Proficiency 0.00%) {Your mana takes on an evil form. All mana related attacks will be amplified. Attack power will continue to increase as your karma leans towards evil even more.}
Basic Mana Control (Proficiency 0%) {Allows you to manifest mana to a certain part of your body. Manifested mana will be infused with Evil Tendency.}
Traits: Insanity (Proficiency 0.00%) {If your actions are driven by insanity, all mana related attacks will be amplified.
Type: Seed Inheritance. Inheritors remaining: 524}
Ability: Basic Mana User {You can utilize mana and convert it into elemental forms such as fire, water and wind. Your control over your mana is extremely low.}
Condition: Under effect of unknown sickness debuff. (All status -= 1)
(Soul adjusting still in progress)
[Welcome Beginner Player, Fin, to system Practen. This system was gifted to you by an unknown constellation. All connections to Outer Celestia have been severed. Running Tests]
System AI: Formed. Further personalization is required.
Assimilation: 100%
[ Memory address <_ptpkn *Node 0x000002563C690BE0>: Verified ]
===
'What is this shit and fuck this seems too troublesome.'
'Constellations? Why would they gift me this? I refuse to trust their goodwill.'
All this part about the system, constellation and stats were brand new information to me. In the novel, the system only showed name, age, strength, agility, dexterity and mana capacity. Also, they would show them using ranks such as [strength: C+] instead of using numbers like they are doing to mine. Also there has to be a connection between the constellation gifting me this system and my arrival in this world. Perhaps they are the ones who brought me here.
'Constellations...Outer Celestia...Sounds like some bullshit a 12 year old would come up with.'
As I was contemplating, another notification popped up from the system.
[Calculations complete! Based on information of the world system and host's brain, host is ranked: [F-]. Host is advised to acquire further knowledge to improve the system's calculation. Input a name for the System AI. ]
'Makes sense I guess...I'm supposed to be an extra anyway. Come to think of it, the MC is around E+ rank and Stricoss is around E- right about now. But even then...F-...that's the lowest rank you can be. The difference between an ordinary human and F- is almost non-existent. Ah whatever. As for the name hmm...'
"I am not really good at naming. Maybe John? Nah why would I name it John? Maybe I'll just call it AI"
[Beep! The name "I am not really good at naming. Maybe John? Nah why would I name it John? Maybe I'll just call it AI" has been selected. Implementing name... ]
"HUH WAIT. That's not what I mean. AI. AI!!! Please respond. Shit. I am not really good at naming. Maybe John? Nah why would I name it John? Maybe I'll just call it AI, change name to AI."
[Beep. Changing name. "AI" has been set as the name]
[ Warning. Host's last name could not be retrived ]
I decided to ignore all the brand new information about my system and constellations since I can't do much about that. Last name huh? I wonder if I even have one at this point. For now, I should just focus on ranking up and as I had previous knowledge of this world, I knew how to rank up quickly but..
'I need millions of AP'
The idea of wasting money depressed me. But it's a necessary investment. In this world, you can buy various potions that accelerate your training growth crazy fast. It's similar to...a pre workout drink but much more effective. Obviously, such a cheat item is extremely expensive. Oh and there's also a cult who hunts people who uses this preworkout for some reason. I don't even and not going to try to understand why the author came up with this cult.
Aside from that, I was quite surprised to receive this system. I knew that this system was better than the one that was accessible to everyone in this world. I would've been more surprised but there weren't other crazy stuffs that were going on for example, me getting transported into this world.
'By the way, is the system defective? The characteristic part seems to be wrong. Why did it mention characteristics that I don't possess and didn't mention my good characteristics like...like...anyway you get the point.'
I walked around the streets of Yezold city, getting familiar with the roads and unfamiliar environment. I entered a park and sat down on a bench and realized something. Ever since coming to this world, I've been always wary of my surroundings. It was partly because I didn't fully come to believe that this world is real and I feared that this world might be fake and I would wake up back in the hell I was in. But the trees and bench I was sitting on didn't seem fake at all to me.
"All my debts are gone now..AHAHAHAHAHAHA" I started laughing insanely.
[Insanity has been activated]
"Oh ya, forgot that was a thing now...I don't really feel anything. Is it because the proficiency is 0.00%? Whatever" I sighed loudly.
[Insanity has been deactivated]
"Mommy, is that uncle a supervillain? He laughs like Mr. Evil"
"Shhh lets leave quickly"
I spotted a mother and her child walking by me. Although I couldn't hear what they were saying, I felt like they were saying something rude about me. I furrowed and walked up to them. To my surprise, the mom picked up her child and started running. Her child must be super late to her school. 'What an irresponsible mother' I grumbled as I walked back to my house. I was going to go through an intense workout to test the system and how the stats rise. I also had to go to TROP in 2 weeks. I should also prepare myself for that.
***