2025-09-30 15:02:29Chapter 7
The morning sun leaked through the curtains, pale and reluctant. Ethan hadn’t slept much. His mind had wrestled with the System’s task all night, swinging between disbelief and fragile resolve. Task: Prove your worth by earning £100 within 24 hours. He sat on the edge of his bed, rubbing his temples. “£100. Sounds small… but not when you’re me.” His phone buzzed…a text from his landlord reminding him about overdue rent. Another from a utility company threatening disconnection. Life wasn’t giving him breathing space. Ethan slipped the restored watch onto his wrist. Its ticking steadied him. Alright. One day. Let’s see if I can pull this off. Out on the Street, he stepped into the brisk morning air. People bustled past, each locked in their own urgent rhythms …men in suits, delivery riders, mothers pulling kids along. Ethan felt like a ghost among them, invisible. “Earn a hundred. Without deceit, without theft. How?” he muttered. “I can’t exactly walk into a job interview and expect results in a day.” The System pulsed faintly. [Hint: Leverage existing skills.] “My… skills?” Ethan frowned. “What skills? I’m not a lawyer, not an engineer. I barely held temp jobs.” Yet as he walked, memories stirred. Nights hunched over old books. Long hours tinkering with cheap second-hand laptops, fixing them for neighbors. He remembered teaching himself coding basics, then quitting when rejection letters piled up. Leverage what you already know. Ethan stopped outside a bustling café. In the corner of the window, a young man banged his laptop, muttering curses. Something inside Ethan nudged him. He stepped in before fear could hold him back “Excuse me,” Ethan said, his voice unsteady. The young man looked up, scowling. “What?” “I couldn’t help noticing… your laptop. I might be able to fix it.” The man narrowed his eyes. “You? Do you even know what you’re doing?” Ethan’s pulse raced. His humiliation from the banquet clawed at him. The memory of sneers, laughter, rejection. But he tightened his grip on the watch. “Yes. Let me try. No charge if I fail.” The man hesitated, then shoved the laptop toward him with a sigh. “Fine. If you break it, you’re buying me a new one.” Ethan sat, palms sweating. He pressed the power button — nothing. The System flickered. [Analysis Mode Activated] Fault detected: Corrupted boot file. Estimated repair: 15 minutes. The words glowed faintly, visible only to him. Ethan blinked. “You’re kidding me.” But his fingers moved, guided by instinct sharpened by the System. Within minutes, he navigated to recovery options, ran commands he hadn’t used in years, and reset the startup process. The laptop hummed. The screen lit up. The young man’s jaw dropped. “No way. How did you…” Ethan forced a shaky smile. “Just… experience.” The man dug into his wallet. “I was about to pay someone fifty pounds to look at it tomorrow. You saved me time. Take it.” A crisp note slid across the table. Ethan froze, staring at the money like it might vanish. His chest tightened. This is real. This is actually happening. [Task Progress: £50/£100 achieved.] His heart pounded. Halfway there. Rising Confidence. By noon, Ethan had approached two more people — a woman struggling with her phone storage, another with a frozen tablet. Guided by System hints, he solved both problems quickly. Each thanked him with small payments: twenty here, thirty there. [Task Progress: £100/£100 achieved.] [Task Complete.] The notification flashed bright and final. Ethan slipped into a quiet alley, pressing his back to the wall, his breathing ragged. “I… I did it.” His voice trembled. “Me. Ethan Cole. I actually did it.” The System pulsed again. [Reward Unlocked: 10 Energy Units.] [Basic Attribute Scan Complete.] Text filled his vision: Strength: 6/100 Endurance: 8/100 Intelligence: 72/100 Charisma: 15/100 Luck: 9/100 Ethan stared, stunned. “Seventy-two? Intelligence?” [Your mind is your greatest asset. You only lacked confidence and opportunity.] His throat tightened. For years, he had thought himself worthless … a failure. But here, laid bare by glowing numbers, was a different truth: he wasn’t weak, only overlooked. A laugh escaped him …broken, disbelieving, but real. “Jonathan was right,” Ethan whispered. “This isn’t a curse. It’s the beginning.” The humiliation still lingered in memory, but now it was fuel. The who had been mocked was learning to rise. And for the first time in his life, Ethan didn’t just dream. He believed.
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Chapter 17
The night after the Westbridge dinner, the city carried a quieter hum … but the ripples from the event were only beginning to spread.The skyline shimmered beneath a cold moon, its light washing over glass towers and lonely streets. Somewhere above that restless glow, in a high-rise apartment overlooking the river, Lily sat motionless at the edge of Daniel’s leather sofa. Her golden gown still clung to her like a ghost of the evening before. Mascara trailed faintly down her cheeks, the remnants of pride dissolving into exhaustion.Her glass of wine remained untouched on the table. It reflected the pale city lights, trembling slightly with the faint vibration of the air conditioning. The silence in the room was heavy …the kind that pressed on the lungs and demanded someone to speak first.Then the door to Daniel’s study opened.He stepped out, the knot of his tie loosened, the top button of his shirt undone. But the confident, unflappable composure that usually defined him seemed thinn
Chapter 16
Chapter 16The city glittered beneath the afternoon sun, glass towers cutting the sky like polished knives. Lisa Roman’s driver opened the door of her black Bentley, and the cool scent of leather wrapped around her as she slid inside.For a long moment, she didn’t speak. The engine hummed softly, a steady rhythm against the silence. Her manicured fingers drummed lightly on her knee…once, twice, then stilled. The confrontation replayed in her mind, each word sharper than when it was spoken.Cowardice. You used him. Ethan isn’t the boy you humiliated.Lisa closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. She had meant every word she’d said to Lily. But what unsettled her wasn’t the argument…it was how easily old emotions had risen to the surface. Emotions she had spent years suffocating under ambition, under Roman Luxe, under everything success demanded she become.She pressed her fingers to her temples. “Ma’am?” her driver, Colin, asked gently.“Just drive,” she murmured. “Anywhere quiet.”The car me
Chapter 15
Chapter 15The mahogany-paneled study of Wilson Flake was silent, save for the faint hum of the city bleeding through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The room was a reflection of its master…severe, precise, ruthless. The desk, imported from Florence, gleamed under the muted glow of an antique lamp. Every book on the towering shelves had its place, spines aligned like soldiers.Wilson sat at the desk, a crystal glass of bourbon untouched before him, his broad shoulders angled forward. His face, weathered but sharp, was lit from the side, emphasizing the hard lines of his jaw and the cold calculation in his gray eyes.Across from him, two men shifted uncomfortably. One was dressed in a dark suit, his tie a fraction off-center…a mistake Wilson had already noted with contempt. The other clutched a folder so tightly that his knuckles whitened. They had come bearing news. And it was bad.Wilson’s voice broke the silence, smooth yet heavy with restrained menace.“Well? Tell me why Orbitway jus
Chapter 14
Chapter 14 The salon smelled of roses and expensive oils, a soft blend that clung to the air like memory. Its mirrors caught every angle of beauty and vanity, reflecting laughter, perfume, and the practiced smiles of women who wore luxury as armor. The rhythmic hum of dryers filled the room, occasionally drowned by bursts of chatter and the snapping click of manicured nails against phone screens. Lily sat poised in one of the reclining chairs, her reflection glowing beneath warm light. Her stylist, a young woman with steady hands and nervous eyes, teased her hair into perfect waves that shimmered like bronze silk. Lily’s fingers scrolled lazily across her phone screen, occasionally pausing when a message flashed or when she caught sight of herself from a better angle. She loved this world—the polished floors, the soft gossip, the illusion that everyone inside mattered. Here, she wasn’t the girl who once begged Ethan Cole for his lecture notes, sitting in the back of a crowded univ
Chapter 13
Chapter 13The penthouse was quiet that morning. The kind of quiet that carried weight, not peace. The kind of quiet where every sound was sharper, every thought heavier. Ethan stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring at the city that sprawled below like a living beast.From this height, the streets looked insignificant…ants moving about in patterns they thought they controlled. Cars glided like beetles, neon signs blinked like restless eyes, and somewhere down there were the voices that had mocked him, laughed at him, dismissed him as nothing.But up here, in silence, he could almost believe he was above it all. Almost.The System chimed softly in his head, its voice smooth, neutral, but unrelenting:Task Completed: Physical Foundation Achieved.Confidence Level: Stabilizing.New Task Unlocked: Attend Cole Consortium Board Meeting.Ethan’s breath caught. “A… board meeting? Already?” His voice cracked in disbelief.The very thought made his palms damp. He had survived Grayso
Chapter 12
Chapter 12 The penthouse gym didn’t look anything like Grayson’s Boxing Club. There were no sagging ropes, no duct tape holding bags together, no peeling paint clinging to damp walls, no mildew thickening the air. Instead, everything gleamed here—chrome weights aligned in neat rows, polished floors shining under recessed lights, and state-of-the-art equipment that looked less like instruments of sweat and struggle and more like prototypes stolen from a science-fiction laboratory. Even the air smelled different—filtered, crisp, faintly laced with citrus, as though money itself had disinfected the space.But Grayson looked the same. Arms folded across a barrel chest, nose crooked from too many breaks, the same blunt, unimpressed expression carved into his face like granite. The gym might have changed, but the man was immovable.“You still remember how you walked into my gym the first time?” he asked, voice gravelly with disuse, or maybe just life. “Couldn’t hold your guard for thirty s
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