The Ring Of The Billionaire System

Ten Dollars

"Are you really selling this item, Sir? Ten dollars, and I won't even try to haggle."

The elderly vendor at the flea market stall gave me a puzzled look. His hands held an engraved copper pendant, dull, encrusted with rust, and sitting amid a pile of other junk.

"This thing won't sell, son. It's been gathering dust at my stall for years. Even at ten dollars, I'm making a profit."

"Great, I'll take it."

I handed him a ten-dollar bill, the very last bit of cash remaining in my pocket. Ever since dawn, the black ring on my finger had been pulsing steadily, guiding me like an invisible compass past dozens of other stalls that triggered no reaction whatsoever, until it finally stopped right in front of this pendant.

The moment my fingers fully touched the surface of the pendant, a faint golden light appeared, visible only to my eyes, and a set of floating numbers appeared in midair.

[TRUE VALUE: $150,000]

I nearly dropped the pendant out of sheer shock. I held my breath, making sure no one else could see what I had just witnessed.

"One hundred and fifty thousand dollars? From a ten-dollar item?" I whispered. My hands trembled slightly as I handed over the money, terrified that the old vendor might change his mind.

I walked away from the market at a brisk pace, clutching the pendant tightly inside my jacket pocket as if it might vanish if I let my guard down for even a second.

"System, is this actually real? Please tell me this isn't an illusion," I muttered along the way, no longer caring if I looked strange to the pedestrians passing me on the sidewalk.

"The Appraiser's Eye never errs in displaying true value. However, the selling price depends on the buyer's offer," the voice replied inside my head.

My steps came to a halt in front of a small antique shop by the roadside, its sign faded from years of rain. A small bell above the door chimed loudly as I stepped inside.

"Looking for something, young man?" A middle-aged man wearing thick glasses greeted me from behind a glass display counter.

"I'd like to sell an item, Sir."

The man pushed his glasses up his nose as I laid the pendant on the counter. He picked up a magnifying glass and examined the engravings in detail. His brow furrowed, and his movements slowed, showing none of the enthusiasm I had hoped for.

"Where did you get this?"

"Bought it at a flea market, Sir."

"Hmm." The man set the pendant down and cast a suspicious look at me. "An item like this doesn't usually just sit around at a flea market stall. You're not trying to sell stolen property, are you? Do you have ID?"

My heart sank. I hurriedly handed over my ID card, my hands trembling slightly.

"I really did buy it, Sir. You can check with the vendor if you don't believe me."

The man snapped a photo of my ID card, then made a phone call, speaking softly while sliding the pendant beneath the desk lamp to inspect the carvings once more. I stood frozen, a cold sweat breaking out across my back as time seemed to drag on indefinitely. If this man actually called the police, I would be completely finished. Who would ever believe that I bought an item worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for a mere ten dollars?

I glanced at the shop door several times, calculating the chances of simply making a run for it. But the pendant was still in the man's hands. All I could do was stand quietly, praying that the call brought good news.

"Ancient dynasty carvings, confirmed by my associate," the man said at last, hanging up the phone. "If put up at a collector's auction, it could easily fetch well over one hundred thousand dollars."

"So how much are you willing to offer, Sir?"

"Sixty thousand dollars. That's a safe margin for me, since I still have to pay for certification fees before I can resell it."

I held my breath. Sixty thousand dollars was far below the true value shown by the Appraiser's Eye, but I remembered what the system had said about negotiations.

"Go up a bit more, Sir. You've already confirmed its authenticity yourself."

The man went silent for a moment, tapping his fingers against the glass counter.

"Eighty thousand dollars. That's my absolute limit. Wire transfer today."

"Deal, Sir."

The process went quickly. The man asked for my bank account details and processed the payment through a mobile banking app. "Transfer complete."

I opened the banking app on my phone with trembling fingers. The screen loaded for a brief second before displaying my updated balance.

BALANCE: $80,010.00

I swallowed hard. That eighty-thousand-dollar figure looked so foreign, as if it belonged to someone else's account. For years, I had been used to counting loose change just to buy a meal. Now, in a matter of hours, my life had taken a completely different turn. For the first time since being given a terminal diagnosis, I saw a glimmer of hope.

"Congratulations, young man. May your good fortune continue," the man smiled, patting my shoulder.

I walked out of the shop with unsteady steps, my legs feeling far too light to anchor the reality I had just accepted. In less than two hours, my ten dollars had turned into eighty thousand.

"System, this is insane," I whispered along the sidewalk. "Yesterday I was being detained at a hospital because I couldn't pay a small bill. Now my balance is tens of thousands of dollars."

"This is merely the beginning," the voice replied. "The ring's level will increase alongside your achievements as the Heir. However, the challenges you face will scale accordingly."

I brushed off that last sentence, far too caught up in the euphoria. I stopped in front of an ATM and printed out a balance receipt, as if that small piece of paper were official proof that my life had changed forever.

"Alsean?"

I turned around. Laura stood a few paces behind me, her eyes wide as she stared at the receipt still clutched in my hand.

"Is that... your balance?"

Reflexively, I hid the receipt behind my back, but it was too late. The look on Laura's face had completely changed.

"Alsean, is that really tens of thousands of dollars?! How on earth do you have that much money? You haven't gotten involved in anything illegal, have you?"

"That's none of your business anymore, Laura," I replied flatly, taking a step away.

"Alsean, wait! Yesterday I just had a lot on my mind, I didn't actually mean those things I said. We've been together for so long, are you really going to end everything just because I lost my temper?"

I looked at her for a long moment, feeling only a hollow numbness, as if yesterday's wounds were still too fresh to be forgotten so easily.

"Laura, I'm tired. You can look at my balance all you want, but it doesn't change what you said yesterday."

I turned around and started walking away. But after only a few steps, Laura's voice rang out again, this time much faster, bordering on panic.

"Alsean, wait!" Laura hurriedly pulled out her phone. Her fingers moved nervously across the screen as she pulled up her contacts list.

"I need to call..." she muttered softly.

I frowned. "Call who?"

Laura blurted out, "Robert." Her face instantly turned pale as paper. She clapped a hand over her mouth, as if realizing she had just blurted out something that was supposed to stay secret. "I mean... no. No one."

"Robert? Who is that? Why do you need to tell him?"

"It's nothing, no one, Alsean. Just forget what I said."

"Laura, if you're hiding something from me, I'm going to find out."

"It's really nothing! I was just... I was just shocked to see you with that much money."

Yet the expression on her face spoke clearly enough, a sheer terror she could not hide. Her hands squeezed the edge of her shopping bag as if holding herself back from bolting on the spot. Inside my head, the system's voice suddenly echoed, its tone far sharper than usual.

"Warning. The name 'Robert' has been identified in the Heir's archives. Threat Level: S."

My brow furrowed sharply. "The Heir's archives?"

The system did not answer. The silence felt infinitely more terrifying than any explanation could ever be.