And then, things got progressively worse

"Haa-ah…" 

My sigh was filled with so much of my exhaustion, that it turned all the air in the room stale. 

I sat down on the edge of my bed, leaning down with my elbows resting heavily on my knees. I even covered my face with my hands… 

But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't figure it out. 

"I know your life was all about what this, what that, what not, but ultimately, you need to decide!" 

Hyping myself up, I took in a big breath before shifting my weight and heaving my upper body back, to lift the burden of everything that was going on and stall tall despite its weight. 

"First, what even are my options?" 

Thinking out loud, I stood up, only to hurriedly sit down right next to my bed, at my table. 

This change, while small and seemingly insignificant, allowed me to properly shift my gears. Rather than in a mood to whine, I was now ready to tackle whatever issue lay ahead just like I've always done - by taking it one step at a time. 

"First, I can get the fat stack off that guy's hands. This will allow me to easily pawn off anything I crate, ultimately giving me a nice connection to someone clearly of importance."

I didn't need anyone to tell me that Claire's father was… well, rich beyond any measure. Just the degree of his cultivation was, in a way, proof of that. Which, when thinking about it, was another great reason to cooperate with the man. 

"Isn't this kind of backing exactly the thing that would set you on the path you always wanted?" 

Looking up to the ceiling, I talked to myself. 

It was no exagerattion. 

Just the proceeds from selling the device would be enough to secure my living expenses for a few years. What's more, I would likely be able to ask for help with my cultivation issues. 

But… 

"Then again, even if he pays a lot now, what's going to stop him from brutally lowballing me down the line? And…" I hesitated for a bit, even when merely conversing with myself, "And what was with Claire's expression…?" 

I hung to my words a bit, lingering on the brief memory of the face she made whenever her father pushed for the deal. 

"On the other hand, if I refuse, I will be back to slow but steady growth, with likely inferior but… more accessible knowledge." 

Even if I refused her father… There was a likely chance Claire would try to stick with me. 

Why else would she dislike the idea of me making a deal with her father? 

Why else would she bring out all the reasons why he couldn't do the things that I could and did?

And why would she warn me about the consequence of joining the usual path of cultivators that I would be otherwise unlikely to notice in time?

There were many reasons why Claire was likely to cooperate even if… Or rather, especially in the case of me denying her father's deal. And that cooperation, while inferior in every regard to what her father proposed, also came with much looser strings attached. 

Rather than banning me from breaking the taboo, she would instruct me how to toe the line of what's allowed and what breaks the taboo too hard for people to let me off for it. Rather than highballing me now to lowball me in the future, she did the opposite, with how she had limited resources to offer right now but would end up taking a much lesser cut once things developed in the future… 

'In other words, this choice is all about…'

I gritted my teeth, nearly bursting out laughing at the insidiousness of the fate. 

'It's a choice between instant gratification and greater benefits over time,' I thought before heaving a long sigh. 

"In other words, it's all about my potential, huh?"

After wasting five years doing nothing but slamming my fists against the literal wall for, as I now confirmed, absolutely nothing, I wasn't all that ready to dedicate my entire self to something else. 

My failure to reach the meditative state was the greatest proof that even with nigh endless efforts, if I didn't have the talent, then my potential… Then, the reach of my potential would be severely limited. 

And right now, this was the very question for me to ask myself. Is the novelty of now more than what I can bring forth in the future? 

"Yeah, I just can't decide."

I brought my head down and rather than the ceiling, I looked at my bed nearby. 

"I guess I could check what the hell is this thing with the stream?"

Since I've found myself at a crossroads I couldn't easily pass, I've decided to just… do something else. Who knew, maybe by finding out more about my situation, I could make a better-educated choice?

Thankfully, Claire's initial smash failed to fully kill my phone. In fact, save for my display shattering, with the bottom third of it just showing a black screen while only the middle part of the touchpad actually reacted to my fingers… But still, as annoying as it would be, I could use it. 

Looking through the records on my phone proved to be… absolutely unnecessary, given the sea of notifications that appeared to give my phone Parkinson's disease. What's more, I still had my phone on the phone mode, making it actually impossible to contact me at all!

"Well…" I gulped my saliva down, legitimately terrified of what I could find, "let's fish for a bit."

The investigation was short and provided me with decisive evidence in the form of screenshots, clips, and entire reaction videos swarming the morning feed of the app. 

It wasn't at the point of absolute viral masterpiece… But I could spot only one more topic that got greater love from the algorithm than stuff directly related to my fuck-up!

The situation, however, wasn't all that complicated. 

While the reason behind all of it still remained a mystery, my phone somehow switched from recording to streaming mode, right as I sat down to indulge my crafting fetish a bit.

At first, nothing really changed, save for my VOD being now shared globally. 

Then, some random web surfers stumbled upon the stream… 

And nothing happened again. 

It wasn't until three hours into my stream, when I unknowingly crossed some sort of mental barrier in the algorithm's brain, that it decided I deserved some more attention. 

In a manner of ten minutes, my audience grew to quite unstable, two-digit number fluctuating between twenty and as high as eighty. 

Then, as one of the clips proved, one of my channel's guests just happened to be watching some popular meditation streamer. And that very fan proved to be a whale when he made the streamer check my own feed out by slapping his face with a fat donation. 

And from then on, things got progressively worse.