THE INFINITE CASHBACK SYSTEM
Ethan Carter has spent years being treated like a nobody because he has no money. His girlfriend finally leaves him for a wealthy man, while his boss humiliates him at work and fires him when he can no longer tolerate being treated as disposable. With his savings nearly gone and no idea how he will survive, Ethan believes he has reached the lowest point of his life. Then the Infinite Cashback System activates.
The rule is simple: the more Ethan legitimately spends, the greater the value he receives in return. A purchase he can barely afford becomes a reward worth ten times more. An investment in a failing company turns into a fortune, and every time Ethan thinks he has reached the limit of what the System can offer, another level opens before him.
But the System has strict conditions. Ethan cannot abuse it through meaningless purchases, and its most valuable rewards require him to complete timed missions, make strategic investments and sometimes risk enormous sums of money. As his wealth increases, so does the resistance against him. Powerful businessmen begin investigating his rise, established families attempt to destroy his companies and a hidden financial network starts treating Ethan as a threat.
The man who once begged for respect gradually becomes a calculating economic powerbroker who no longer needs anyone’s approval. Yet Ethan eventually discovers that the System has chosen hosts before him, and every previous host disappeared after reaching a certain level of wealth. His own father’s mysterious disappearance may be connected to the same secret.
Ethan thought the System had given him a chance to become rich. He eventually realises that becoming a billionaire was only the beginning.
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Chapter: Chapter 9: The ChoiceEthan CarterThe next mission arrived four days later, on a Tuesday morning so ordinary that Ethan almost missed the chime under the sound of his own kettle.Mission 4.$15,000 available for allocation. The Host may direct it toward one of two paths within 24 hours.Path A: Personal advancement. Path B: External impact.Cashback will be evaluated according to demonstrated value.Ethan set the kettle down before it finished whistling.He stood there a moment with the kettle steam curling past his face, reading the words twice more, the way he'd learned to read every mission now, hunting for the trap folded inside the offer."You're giving me a choice this time," he said. "Not just a rule to follow."Correct."Why?"The System is learning what kind of Host it has."And what kind is that?"Undetermined. This mission is part of the assessment.He sat with that a moment, turning it over. It didn't feel like flattery. It felt like an experiment, and he was the subject of it, same as always,
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: The Timed MissionEthan CarterHe woke at 5:58 the next morning to a sound he hadn't heard since the first night. The soft chime. The blue light spread gently across the ceiling.Mission 3.Ethan sat up fast, heart already racing before his eyes had finished adjusting.Spend $8,000 on a single legitimate, high-purpose action within 18 hours.Reward: cashback proportional to demonstrated value. Failure penalty: forfeiture of 25% of current balance.He read it twice. Then a third time, on the word forfeiture, which sat in his stomach like a stone."You've never mentioned a penalty before," he said.Previous missions carried no penalty. The Host has demonstrated capability. Expectations rise accordingly."That's not fair. I didn't agree to that."The Host agreed the first night the System was accepted.He remembered, with an unpleasant lurch, the very first thing it had told him, days ago, sitting frozen in his bed. Failure to complete future missions may result in revocation of accumulated rewards. Prepa
Last Updated: 2026-09-29
Chapter: Clearing His DebtsEthan CarterThe locksmith set the toolbox down on the front step with a metallic clunk, and the sound of it went through Ethan like a struck bell.For one long second, nobody moved. Nikos stood with his arms folded, watching Ethan with the patient boredom of a man who had done this a hundred times and expected to do it a hundred more. The locksmith crouched by the door, running a thumb along the frame, already halfway to forgetting there was a person attached to the lock he was about to change.Ethan thought of every version of this moment that had ever happened to his father. The landlord in the hallway who wouldn't look up from his paper. The eviction notice folded into quarters and carried in a coat pocket for a week because nobody dared to open it. He had grown up believing that men like Nikos held all the cards because men like his father had none to hold back."Four-fifteen," Nikos said again, as if Ethan hadn't heard the first time.Ethan looked at the blue letters hovering at
Last Updated: 2026-09-29
Chapter: The First RuleEthan CarterHe slept badly that night, and not because of the money.Every time he closed his eyes he saw the curtain moving in that window. Not all observers are on the Host's side. He got up twice to check the lock on the door. He felt stupid both times, standing barefoot in the dark with his palm flat against the wood, listening to the building breathe.At six he gave up and made coffee, black, because milk was a luxury he'd forgotten about until this moment.The System didn't offer anything more about the observers. He asked three times. The answer was always the same. Information was restricted at the current level. It irritated him like a splinter, something small and sharp he couldn't dig out.But by seven, as the light thinned to grey and the pigeons started arguing on the fire escape, he had made a decision. He could not do anything about a threat he couldn't see. He could only do what was in front of him."Rule One," he said to the empty kitchen. "You said I'd know when I w
Last Updated: 2026-09-29
Chapter: It’s RealEthan CarterEthan spent the next morning acting like a scientist, because the alternative was acting like a man who had lost his mind.He set a notebook on the kitchen table, the same one with his debts in it, and drew a new set of columns on a fresh page. Item. Cost. Cashback. Bank confirms? He labelled the top in neat block letters, like a lab report. Then he sat back and looked at it, and felt ridiculous.You're a dispatcher. You are testing a ghost with a spreadsheet.But a spreadsheet was the only thing he trusted. Numbers didn't lie. People lied, and landlords lied, and bosses with nice watches lied. Numbers just sat there, honest and cold.He opened the banking app. $626.89. Still there. It had survived the night. He had half expected to wake up and find it gone, a dream dissolving.Good morning, Host.The words appeared beside the coffee maker, right on time. Ethan had no idea how he had already started to expect them."Morning," he said, feeling foolish. "You said a mission
Last Updated: 2026-09-29
Chapter: Infinite Cashback SystemEthan CarterHost detected.Financial distress threshold: reached.Initialising Infinite Cashback System...Ethan didn't breathe.The words floated a few feet from his face, pale and steady, sharp-edged like text on a phone screen, though no phone was there. When he turned his head, they turned with him.I'm dreaming.He pinched the skin on the back of his hand, hard enough to hurt. The words didn't move.I haven't eaten enough. I'm not sleeping. I'm having some kind of breakdown, that's all. Stress does this to people.He squeezed his eyes shut. Counted to ten. I opened them.Binding complete.Welcome, Host."No," Ethan whispered. His voice cracked. "No, no. Stop it."Command not recognised.He flinched so hard he nearly fell off the bed. The thing had been answered.He stayed frozen, staring at the glowing words with his hands wrapped tight around the blanket. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a calm voice pointed out that people who talked to hallucinations usually ended up in cli
Last Updated: 2026-09-29
