Ding! My System Turns Your Arrogance Into Cash

Chapter 15: The Golden Receipt

Nicholas completely ignored the panicked shouting, calmly reaching into his front suit pocket. He pulled out his sleek, matte-black premium system card, the diamond logo catching the fluorescent lab lights. The three broke students watched him, their breath catching in their throats at his unshakeable confidence.

"You said they can't afford the lab fees, right?" Nicholas asked, his tone flat and empty of mercy.

Nicholas walked over to the central lab payment terminal resting on Vivian's main workstation desk. He slid the black card into the reader, his hand perfectly steady as he entered the system portal.

Ding!

[System Notification: Initiating Tier 3 Capital Investment Protocol.]

[Target: Kings Engineering Laboratory Project. Processing transaction now.]

The payment terminal suddenly erupted with a massive, high-frequency golden chime that echoed through the room. A bright digital receipt began printing out rapidly, flashing a successful wire transfer message.

Dean Henderson dropped the phone receiver, his jaw dropping so low it looked like it would detach.

"Five... five hundred thousand dollars?!" the dean gasped, his knees buckling as he read the screen. The corrupt manager completely shattered, his mind spinning into total chaos at the massive sum.

Vivian and her two partners froze like statues, their eyes bulging out of their heads in sheer disbelief.

Nicholas turned his icy gaze toward the stunned room, his voice radiating an aura of absolute power.

"I am investing the full five hundred thousand dollars into your project right now," Nicholas announced calmly.

Dean Henderson stared at Nicholas for a second, his face completely blank.

Then, his chest began to heave.

A loud, booming laugh erupted from his throat, echoing off the concrete walls of the messy laboratory.

"Five hundred thousand dollars?" the dean mocked, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye.

"You? A scruffy undergraduate student?"

He laughed because the sheer absurdity of the claim was comforting. He refused to believe a student could possess that kind of wealth.

If Nicholas actually had that kind of money, it meant Henderson’s secret corporate deal—and his lucrative bribe—was dead.

He had to believe this was a joke to keep his own sanity.

For his sanity, Nicholas was about to make a fake transaction.

"This is the most pathetic, desperate prank I have ever seen on this campus," Dean Henderson sneered, his voice dripping with venom.

He turned toward the two uniform security guards standing near the entrance of the lab.

"What are you two waiting for?" Henderson barked, pointing a shaking finger at Nicholas.

"He is trespassing and disrupting academic business. Drag him out of this building right now!"

The guards took a step forward, their heavy boots clicking against the linoleum floor.

Vivian Kings took a sharp breath, her heart dropping into her stomach.

She looked at Nicholas, her eyes filled with a mixture of hope and rising terror.

She wanted so badly for Nicholas to be real, but her logical mind told her it was impossible.

"Nicholas, please, just go," Vivian whispered, her voice cracking with emotion.

"Don't get yourself expelled for trying to help us. It's over."

She was wallowing in the deep, familiar pain of defeat, ready to give up her life's work.

Nicholas didn't move an inch. He remained completely calm, his expression as still as stone.

He didn't care about the guards, and he certainly didn't care about the dean's threats.

He only cared about the countdown timer ticking away in his mind.

Without a single word, Nicholas reached past the gaping guards and grabbed the lab's mobile payment terminal.

"No more talking," Nicholas murmured.

With a fluid motion, he slid his matte-black system card into the terminal's slot.

"You really think a fake plastic card is going to save you?" Dean Henderson mocked, taking a step closer.

He wanted to watch Nicholas fail. He wanted to see the look of utter humiliation on the boy's face when the machine buzzed with an error.

Nicholas ignored the mocking. He stared directly at the screen of the terminal.

The system interface on his phone flashed a final confirmation request.

He tapped the screen, hitting the transfer button without a single second of hesitation.

For a moment, the room fell into a dead, suffocating silence.

Even the security guards stopped, their eyes glued to the small mobile terminal in Nicholas's hand.

Processing... the screen read.

Then, a sudden, piercing sound shattered the quiet.

Ding!

It was a loud, crystal-clear, successful chime. It was the distinct sound of a massive transaction clearing.

The terminal's internal thermal printer instantly roared to life, buzzing loudly.

A long, white strip of paper began to slide out of the machine, printing line after line of official bank data.

[Transaction Approved: $500,000.00]

[Source: Peterson Holdings Private Trust]

[Destination: Kings Engineering Research Fund]

The paper kept printing, falling in a neat coil onto the table.

Dean Henderson’s eyes locked onto the numbers printed on the receipt.

His face instantly turned a sickly, ghostly shade of white, all the color draining from his skin.

The clipboard in his hand slipped from his fingers, clattering loudly against the hard floor.

"No... no, this is impossible," Henderson stammered, his voice losing all its power.

He was shaking now, his mind spinning into a dark vortex of pure horror and panic.

He realized his bribe was gone, his deal with the foreign corporation was ruined, and his career was over.

He had insulted a literal billionaire to his face, treating him like a beggar.

"How... how do you have this much capital?" the dean gasped, clutching his chest.

Vivian stared at the printing receipt, her hands flying to her mouth as she let out a loud gasp.

The two male students behind her looked at the screen, then at each other, their eyes bulging out of their heads.

"It... it cleared!" Vivian cried out, a sob escaping her throat.

"The research fund... it's fully paid! The lab fees are gone!"

She began to weep openly, but these were tears of intense, overwhelming joy and salvation.

The heavy, crushing weight of their bankruptcy had been lifted in a single second.

Her two partners let out loud, victorious cheers, hugging each other and jumping up and down.

They had been saved from the brink of academic ruin by a man they didn't even know.

Nicholas smiled.

He pulled his black card out of the terminal, slipping it back into his tailored pocket.

Suddenly, Vivian's tablet on the main desk flashed with a new, official notification.

The university's automatic legal system had processed the massive funding injection.

A standard majority ownership contract, automatically generated for any external sponsor donating over eighty percent of a lab's budget, appeared on the screen.

Nicholas picked up the stylus pen, his hand steady as he signed his name across the glass.

Nicholas Peterson.

With that single signature, seventy percent of the advanced engineering laboratory belonged to him.

The system interface in his mind chimed softly, confirming the successful investment.

Nicholas turned his icy, unyielding gaze toward the trembling dean.