025

"Wake up..."

There was an echoing voice traveling through his head when Jack opened his eyes again after falling soundly asleep.

Looking in front after taking a sitting position at his bedside he saw a man with framed glasses staring at him with deep blue eyes. His white hair was slicked back neatly and the grayish suit on his body just screamed a no-nonsense attitude.

The fact that someone was in his room suddenly brought Jack out from his last bit of drowsiness and he stood up and put up a very cautious defensive posture.

"Don't get all panicky. We are currently inside your subconsciousness and your body is still sleeping soundly as we proceed."

Looking around Jack found out that the person was correct. The room that they were in looked a lot different and the position of the bed behind him didn't make sense either considering that a table with a guy in a chair was right in front of it.

Taking a bit he soon sat down again and looked at the person. The piercing gaze that was aimed at him was still not changing.

"So...What is going on exactly? I doubt this is just some coincidence. And since you don't sound like me, I doubt you are KISS."

The person glanced over a single piece of paper on his table and then looked back at him. "Right, the little gift the current Cupid had bestowed upon you. It is exactly why I'm here right now."

Jack frowned upon hearing that. "Don't tell me you are here to take it back?"

The man just shook his head. "We aren't that petty. We will not hinder you to use it how you please, but there is only one simple thing that we will have to advise you on. The problem stands more about how strongly you use it. Do not use CIS as a means to manipulate the law of luck."

"Luck? How would I even manipulate something like that?"

"Using it for gaining access towards monetary gains like the Megaball."

"..." Jack raised a brow now. "I haven't won anything though?"

"You did win. You are just not aware of it. In doing so, you used a tremendous amount of energy. CIS still works on the principle of equal exchange. Normally it uses your stamina and various other factors to maintain its own operation. But that heavy calculation of odds is nearly taping into the realm of laws. Just that one use nearly put Cupid into a comatose state." The guy explained now and put up a small photograph that seemed to have a moving picture on it.

Inside that picture, Jack could see the current cupid looking like some haggard skeleton.

"Is that?" Thinking about it Jack could only ask for confirmation if that guy was the same one that sent him to his new life. He looked so different now that he was nearly a different person altogether.

"Yes, that is him. In a way, it is his own fault for connecting CIS to his own energy reserves and it will be a lesson for him. But from now on we have an obligation to give you said warning not to overdo things. Next time your own lifeforce may very well be the exchange it will take."

Jack scoffed now. "I see. So the guy ended up like a raisin after I overused too much computation power of CIS and now he is cranky about it and disconnected himself as the power source. Is that about it?"

The guy smiled a little bit. "Pretty much. But don't worry otherwise, most of the functions it has will still work normally since they are not as demanding in your current world. It will also start giving out a warning if overusing certain functions sap too much energy."

"So I can't heal indefinitely anymore. Makes me wonder how much it is nerfed now?"

"You still can, as long as you have the energy for it in some form. We are only meeting you in goodwill and want to just give you a heads up about you needing to supply that energy yourself now."

"No apology gift?" Jack grinned now and was shameless enough to ask for something in return.

The man stared at him again "The Jackpot as a single winner should be fair enough, right?"

"Huh? I thought fumbling around with luck is a tricky thing?"

"It was not Cupid's jurisdiction so his backlash was much greater. So changing the outcome from multiple winners to just a single winner, isn't even that hard."

Jack squinted his eyes. There was actually a certain advantage he could gain from this. It seemed readjusting things already in motion seems to also have a negative outcome for them. And just getting his consent with money alone seems rather easy for them. Not that he wouldn't gain some anyway.

"This seems fishy. Hmm, why do I feel like I'm scammed here."

The man just sighed. "You can just as well keep going and suck Cupid dry to the last drop. Not much that I would really care about. It would only affect me slightly since I was the one that asked him to do my job for a day. Meaning there would not be anyone to help me out once or twice..."

Now Jack had to wonder if this celestial guy was really just not caring. Why would he otherwise make a visit like this?

"Then how about this. I'm currently writing books. And I want to improve some of them. Having the ability to go to said worlds or visualize it would give me an advantage. Could also work later for other things like games. By the way, I need a better PC. That would also be a cool thing to have. So if you can do that, I'm all okay."

The white-haired person seemed to immediately rummage through his drawers to search for something.

Then taking a piece of paper out, he clipped it to the one page that was lying around and stamped it with a stamp near it. "Done. CIS will explain how that new ability works. Consider the money thing also done. Have a nice remaining mortal life, Mr. Frost."

Before Jack could say something again he woke up again but this time when he looked around he found himself in his own room again.

And by the looks of it, it was not a minute too late for him to wake up. The alarm would go off soon enough as well.

To make sure he was not hallucinating he took a look at his PC and found out that his rather old 2005 model was not replaced, but there was also another block now sitting next to it which looked like one from 2025.

Actually, it kinda looked suspiciously like his own PC that he had in his old life....Damn scammers.

KISS also didn't yet seem to respond to him when he tried to interact with his internal buddy.

Looks like that little wish grant was a little bit too much to be true. Well, kinda. When he looked at his phone he, sure enough, saw an email notification about his win. And it was the jackpot. So worrying about money was a thing of the past now.

Looking at that made him all giddy. He felt his happiness climb higher and higher. It wasn't like he really believed in a win. For that, it was a little bit ridiculous to assume any machine can calculate winning a jackpot to a precise matter of 30%.

So now that he had the money it was time to make some quick math.

Summerville was located in Oregon. So federal taxes and the current tax in Oregon combined with the quick payout, he would probably still get around $100 million in cash.

Actually....Thinking about this, even more, it kinda will be a hassle. He still needs to check thoroughly on that matter. Hopefully, he had the leeway for anonymity.

Still, his euphoria about what he could do with the money was still something of an amazing feeling.

But he had to calm down or he would probably spiral into weird shit. Right, he nearly forgot about his new ability.

He went and took a quick glance over his stats

Jackson Cole Frost - Male - 18 Years Old

Level 4 - Exp 14/80

- Attributes -

Strength: 9 (+5)

Agility: 15 (+2)

Endurance: 10 (+4)

Intelligence: 11 (+5)

Looks: 17 (+5)

Charisma: 14 (+2)

- Traits -

Herculean: +5 Strength, +2 Endurance, 2+ Agility

Beautiful: +5 Looks, +2 Charisma

Genius: +5 Intelligence

Fecund: +50% Fertility, +2 Endurance

- Skills -

Sculpting - 23/50

Drawing - 31/50

Singing - 14/50

Guitar - 27/50

Drums - 9/50

Bass - 11/50

Coding - 36/50

Athletism - 13/50

-Subs-

English - 5/5

Spanish - 2/5

Italian - 1/5

Russian - 1/5

French - 2/5

-Special-

Gate - ?/?

Attribute Points: 3

Skill Points: 15