Book Keeping Time!

Through sheer luck, happenstance, financial assistance, and being related to a landowner in San Francisco, SK managed to secure a single-bedroom apartment that was quite affordable given his erratic income.

Meaning, he more or less had the freedom to openly question the weird daily quest that the Superhero System had just manifested in front of his eyes without having to worry about a nosey landlord or a roommate suddenly barging in on him.

Well, he also technically had an on again, off again "girlfriend," but she wasn't in the country at the moment, but that wasn't important right now.

[Daily Quest: Proper Hygiene.]

Description: A proper hero must be a good influence, and that requires walking the talk. Prepare for bed properly and wash away your troubles for the day.

Objectives:

Brush your teeth: 0/2 min.

Shower: 0/1

[Reward: Free bed upgrade ticket and an ability point.]

[Penalty for failure: You're going to have to visit the dentist in six months... also, nausea for twelve hours.]

[Note: Subsequent assignments of this quest will have a different award.]

...

"I...don't know how to feel about this quest...or the mention of subsequent assignments," SK thought aloud as he stared at the status window in front of him. "But... you know what? I'm curious about this bed upgrade, so sure. Might as well see this through."

It took a grand total of ten minutes for SK to brush, wash up, and put on a comfortable set of pajamas. Evidently, following the System's Daily Quest turned out to be a good idea, as SK felt significantly more refreshed than he did moments ago.

"Well, that was nice."

Once he had finished washing up and entered his bedroom, SK heard a notification bell in his ears moments before a new System window appeared in his field of vision.

[Ding! Daily Quest: Proper Hygiene has been completed.]

[One ability point has been added to the user's unused points pool.]

[Bed upgrade ticket has been added to the user's inventory.]. Please use it by ripping the ticket over the desired bed to upgrade its quality.]

"Inventory?"

As soon as he posed this question, an inventory screen replaced the quest completion screen.

"Ah, neat."

The inventory screen in question wasn't like the item slots of RPGs, where each slot could multiple stacks of a particular item, but was more like the inventory slots that were seen in action RPGs and a certain series of famous survival horror games.

"Huh..."

At this time, the inventory screen contained three gift boxes that each filled a two-by-two slot and a single ticket taking up a slot.

"I'm just going to take a massive guess here and..."

Zwip

"Yup."

SK guessed that the windows appearing before his eyes were either thought controlled, touch enabled, or both.

With this in mind, SK figured that he could just physically reach into the inventory screen and pull out the item.

This turned out to be the case, but came with the trade-off of feeling like his arm was getting tickled by a thousand tiny feathers.

Thankfully, it didn't take him too long to pull out a little golden ticket with the picture of a bed printed on it.

"Okay, now I just rip it over my bed..." SK repeated to himself as he began to hold the ticket over the bed.

SK's bed was an old spring mattress that he had taken with him through both high school and college. While it wasn't exactly the most comfortable thing in existence, it was still usable.

"I wonder how this is going to work?" SK asked himself as he ripped the ticket.

As soon as it had been torn in two, the ticket in SK's hand began to turn into particles of light that gently fell down onto the bed and merged with it.

The bed then began to glow with a gentle golden light...right before physically twisting and changing itself in a manner that was not too pleasing to the ears.

"Ow, my hearing..."

This entire process only took about thirty seconds before the bed settled back down and stopped glowing to reveal what changes had taken place.

"Huh."

Evidently, SK has severely underestimated how extensive the bed upgrade was exactly.

One moment, he was staring at a beaten-up mattress resting in a simple wooden bed frame.

The next moment, he found himself staring at a high-tech smart bed with a foam mattress that automatically adjusted itself for maximum comfort. The bed even came with a down comforter, silk bed sheets, and a cooling pillow.

Needless to say, this was possibly the most comfortable bed in all of existence.

"It's like sleeping on a cloud made of money and dreams," SK commented as he got cozy in bed, after plugging in to charge his phone for the evening, of course. "System...how did you pull this off?]

SK had posed this question with the expectation that the System wouldn't answer, which was why he was surprised when it did.

[The Superhero System is able to manipulate small facets of reality so that you, the user, can always be in their peak condition. Whether that involves incentives or mildly questionable surgery, I exist to help you break through the chains of normalcy and reach a level that can touch even the domain of the gods... hypothetically, of course.]

"Huh...well, if giant robots, demons, and I guess superheroes now can be real, gods can be too," SK commented as he began to drift off to sleep. "Well...whatever the case...good night."

[Good night.]

Sleep came surprisingly easy to SK, especially since he burned off a lot of energy, almost dying no less than an hour or so ago.

But as he slept, the System was still wide awake.

After all, it needed to know who exactly it was going to be working with for the foreseeable future. And nothing was more informative than snooping around someone's smartphone.

As if manipulated by invisible hands, SK's smartphone suddenly flared to life and began to flash through a series of apps and screens.

[Alright, user, what kind of situation are we dealing with here...oh my.]

Evidently, whatever this System had found, it began to understand exactly what SK needed to do first.

More or less.

...Eight hours of sleep later...

'Huh...I guess I wasn't hallucinating or dreaming last night...neat.'

When SK rose from his slumber, a feeling of uncertainty woke up inside him.

Stumbling upon what was essentially a monster movie gone wrong, followed up by him gaining a System with the ability to summon superheroes, sounded absolutely ludicrous.

But, once he realized he was still laying in that ultra-high-tech bed that came from a System reward, he realized that everything that happened last night was absolutely real.

Ding-dong!

[Good morning!]

"Oh. Hey."

And if that wasn't proof enough, the System reaffirmed their existence by summoning several windows for SK to read.

"Okay, so I see one, two, three quest windows, with one marked as a daily. A reminder notification to claim my inventory prizes, and...wait, is that a status window? Why does it say one of two?"

[Aside from Familiar: Platiknight, User: SK also has a status window to help determine overall health and abilities.]

"Huh...well, now I'm plain curious."

Focusing on the status window, the other windows were minimized so that SK could get a clear view of how the System viewed him.

Needless to say, it wasn't great.

...

[Name: Stanford "SK" Kirby]

[Job: None]

[Description: A young man who's trying to figure out his way in the world. Desires to become a comic book artist who will change the world.]

[Stats:

Note: Scale is from 0 to 100, based on baseline mortals

Strength: 35

Endurance: 30

Intellect: 55

Agility: 25

Charisma: 40

Connection: 20

Ability Pool: 11

Skills: Heroic Heart, Drawing III, Writing II, Cooking I, Driving II

Evaluation: User can at least work a customer service job, but definitely needs to lift bro.]

...

"Okay, I'm not going to argue that I definitely need to work out more," SK commented while poking at his doughy body. "But what the hell are these skills? Also, what does the Connection score represent?"

[Skills are based on the user's experience and reflect what kind of information and action is easily accessible at any given time,] a dialogue help window explained.

[Connection refers to the user's ability to coordinate with their familiars. The higher the score, the more familiar the user can control at any given time.]

"Huh...that makes a lot of sense..."

Staring at his current ability scores, SK remembered that some of the rewards he earned last night included ability points. Which meant he could use those to make his abilities less...crappy.

"Wait, didn't the System say that Platiknight also has..."

Tap, tap

"Yup."

Navigating the windows, SK pulled up Platiknight's stat screen and was presented a sheet very similar to his own.

The only difference was that instead of "Connection", he had "Connection Cost".

And that he had an elemental attribute.

"Huh..."