The Great Gamble Begins

Seeker was alone in the apartment for the stream that night. Due to the exhausted appearances of Lynd and Meryl, Seeker agreed to do it alone. The last stream was barely two hours long when Seeker completed the game.

Seeker once again rose to internet fame as he defeated the game in less than 19 hours. It wasn't far from Arthur's predicted time. This was already a record which even Precept Gaming had to acknowledge. No one was able to beat the current game at this time. Even among the pros, the estimate was about 22-33 hours excluding the top brass like Precision.

After the stream, Seeker went home and gave his parents a delightful surprise.

"Five hundred thousand Sydians?!" Grace cried out in excitement.

Chris was just looking at the amount of money that Seeker casually handed over as 'pocket money' for their trip.

"This is too much Zeek. We could afford the trip of ourselves. No need to give me those…" Chris never had this much money in their bank account.

"Mom, Dad. Don't worry. I don't need this much. I really don't. I already earn a lot with my online celebrity status. So take the money. You can go on a shopping spree or travel the world or something. I'll probably be leaving too. After tomorrow I could be on my way to Australia for the Nations of the World E-Sport Meet. Principal Decker was just kind enough to approve about a week-long leave at school." Seeker calmly explained.

Grace and Chris looked at each other and smiled.

"You know what, use the money to go elsewhere. I can probably earn enough to pay for whatever we need by the time you get back. If we win the tournament, which I am confident of, I should be able to take home about two hundred to five hundred thousand Sydians." Seeker laughed.

"No, we just can't. Seeker, you are an adult now. And with this building career of yours, we want you to grow and to learn how to properly manage your funds. And I believe that letting you have a free reign over your money would be a better teacher than having me and your mom manage your funds. Right now, I think a little personal experience with that money can help you grow." Chris instructed.

"Of course, we appreciate this gesture of having us hold on to your money but it's better if we discuss your plans now and just give you advice," Grace spoke dearly to the son who he was extremely proud of.

"Who said anything about giving you all my money? I have more. I even gave Lynd and Meryl the roughly a two hundred thousand so they can send their parents on an all-expense paid vacation." Seeker interrupted.

The two parents stood silently. It was as if they tried to analyze Seeker's statement like it was a profound riddle or math problem.

"You gave your two friends two hundred thousand Sydians?" Grace calmly asked.

"Two hundred each. So four hundred." Seeker nodded.

"Seeker. Have you lost your mind?" Grace tried to control her voice.

"What? No. I did what I felt I should do with my money. Like what you just said." Seeker shrugged.

"I gave away some of my money to my friends and some to you. Think of it as a thank you to them for helping me. But I will be managing my money from here on."

"You gave away FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND?" Grace's tone rose drastically.

"Yeah. They earned it. They've been helping me, you know. Both in advertising and all the technical help. They deserve it."

"How much money do you have left?" Chris interrupted.

"Including this five hundred thousand? About 4.5 million give or take. I earned quite a lot with all the advertising and stuff. Meryl and Lynd really outdid themselves. Not to mention I got a lot of investors now who hold me in high regard." Seeker smiled. It helped that his parents weren't well-versed in gaming jargons.

"Give us One Million- Two million Sydians." Chris demanded. He was about to demand one million when he felt his wife giving him a strong pinch.

"Ok. I'll just withdraw some more tomorrow. Go wild on your trip guys. Love you." Seeker kissed his parent's goodnight.

"Typical of mom." Seeker mumbled happily under his breath as he walked back to his room.

Seeker's parents took the money and quietly walked towards their room. Howls of demented shouts and excited cries were heard as the late hours passed.

Seeker was the first to arrive at the apartment the very next day.

He was already setting up his computer for the big game.

Lynd and Meryl arrived together.

"You guys alright?" Seeker smiled as he looked at the tired eyes of his two assistants.

Lynd gave an obvious look at Seeker.

Meryl had a worried one.

"Are we going to do that training later?" Meryl asked sheepishly.

"A different kind this time. Yesterday I needed to work on my gun skills. Tonight, it's going to be a close combat bonanza." Seeker smiled.

Meryl was in tears.

"So, any signs of improvement?"

The two shook their heads helplessly.

Seeker laughed.

"It's alright. We have a lot of time to prepare. I bet another day or two and you can somehow touch on the basics of pushing your brain to a higher level of Unlocking."

The two sighed as they heard Seeker.

"Is there a trick? How does it feel when you try to push your brain harder?" Meryl asked.

"Yeah, Zeek? What's the trick? I tried to concentrate so hard that my face turned red but nothing happened."

Seeker laughed as he remembered his 'younger' days.

"Are you sure you were concentrating and not contracting all the muscles you can control in your general head area? Were you holding your breath as you tried to contract your muscles?" Seeker laughed.

"I was uh... trying something." Lynd gave n embarrassed response.

"Don't worry. The more you experience it, the more you get the hang of it."

"How sure are you this will work? Was this done on you?" Meryl asked.

"No of course not. The scenarios of my unlocking involved Charles. Due to the war, we were forced to evacuate this country. I met Charles during the escape and at that time Charles already had developed a serum that was untested. One thing led to another and eventually got exposed to these drugs which pushed my brain straight to the Unbecoming stage."

"If that's how you got unlocked, then how sure are you that this will work?"

"Because there were records of people getting Unlocked during the war. Some even Unlocked themselves without getting into life-threatening situations."

"How? We even went through hell and couldn't do that, then how can others do that?" Meryl had a curious look.

"I don't know. Even I can't even comprehend how some managed to do so." Seeker shrugged.

The group continued on to prepare for the stream. It was time for Seeker to rule the gaming world.

Seeker wasn't lying about the sponsorship. Three international studios purchased the rights to air Seeker's stream on their channels for a pay-per-view set-up. Aside from that several local cable channels also did the same. It was pure hype. On the Internet, it was known as the Gamble of the Ages.

It was an arrogant claim. Even Precept Gaming has announced that it was virtually impossible to complete the game in less than eight hours. The theoretical minimum would be the previous record that Seeker did. Although Precisions claim was even shorter, it still fell within the scope of possibilities that Precept Gaming announced.

The moment the room opened a gushing number of viewers immediately joined in. The room had over a thousand viewers almost instantly. But despite this number, the room remained quiet. In this room, the list of names of online viewers contained names that any gamer in the world would know.

The Covenant of the Strongest had their complete line up logged in for the stream. Competing Piercing e-sport celebrities were also present.

Git Godlike of the Australian Oceana was also present. This caused the unusual silence in the room. Two of the most competitive Piercing teams who were also basically mortal enemies were here.

"Begin." A commanding message displayed when the room was deathly silent.

He was also another reason why the room was silent.

Arthur coldly commanded. It was clear he was here to see the demise of Seeker. Various fans of Seeker didn't have the heart to even congratulate Seeker. They knew that doing so would display irreverence to Precision.

"Haha. Chill Arts! Just sit back and enjoy what you paid for!"

If that message just came from anyone, he would have felt the wrath of fans who was disrespectful from their fans. But the game handle of this person had a simple, yet very domineering name. Cronus, the commander of Git Godlike.

Arthur didn't even bother to respond and just watched the screen.

"Hahaha." Seeker laughed as he finally broke the silence.

"My oh my. So much tension in the room. Well, here we are. Is it my 'judgement' day? Or my day of triumph? Many may have well-remembered that I just completed Piercing: Bullet last night. But today, I will do it again in a little over seven hours. I see many people here to watch my awesome skills. And also another group who came to see me bury my gaming career. Quite a gamble I've placed here and Arthur really made me tie my hands." Seeker smiled.

"If I fail, I end my career which means I have no way of joining Git Godlike even if they did offer me something. I signed the papers and the lawyers have made the necessary preparations to set up this amazing gamble." Seeker took out a piece of paper. It was a legal document which formalized everything.

"I just hope that Arthur won't be mad at me for wrecking his prophecies. Now. Let us begin." Seeker immediately started a new game in Piercing: Bullet.

The same cut scène appeared where Bullet was happily whistling and later started massacring his enemies.

Seeker didn't bother to stay too long and immediately went ahead on to the next room to face the boss.

As Seeker continued to attack and evade, a peculiar trend was seen.

"He's still using the melee build but abandoned the skill training?" Arthur frowned. In all his calculations of trying to pass the game at record speed, this was the way to go. Skill and proficiency training was the best way.

People then noticed it when Seeker was fighting the boss.

An avalanche of comments started to pour out on the room.

Seeker smiled as he saw this.

"I understand your surprise friends. But if I want to beat this game at that time, I have no time for skill training. You'll understand how I will compensate for this." Seeker smiled mysteriously and continued to attack the boss.

The boss fight took longer than his first playthrough. Without the skills and added damage from the proficiency of the attacks, Seeker spent more than 2 minutes facing the boss. As was already a standard, Seeker had yet to receive one hit.

Seeker looked like he was casually playing. But his viewers were excited. Almost every attack that Seeker used was skill based. It was killing two birds with one stone. Seeker was slowly building the proficiency levels of his current skill as he progressed in the game.

Various comments about Seeker's antics continued. However, most of the pros or well-known figures of the gaming world kept silent. There was nothing new in Seeker's progression. If anything, he sacrificed quite a bit of time by doing this. This was vastly noticed as Seeker progressed. Every boss fights were longer than usual.

Arthur didn't look worried. He gazed straight at the screen and even looked like he expected Seeker to follow this route.

The game continued to progress and soon, over an hour passed.

Arthur was now smirking as time passed. The speed of Seeker wasn't anything special.

"Now. Some may have noticed that my speed, although it is pretty fast, this won't be enough for me to pass the entire game to win the bet. But after this boss, I should be able to skip over ten hours of gameplay." Seeker smiled.

Arthur had a shocked expression.