“Fuck, I’m tired,” the moment he saw his own apartment, Zane fell to his knees and dropped on the floor. In an instant, sleep knocked him out. The next day he woke up groggy, barely opening his eyes as he didn’t feel like doing anything for today. Despite his body recovering from the gruesome torture, his mental state was far from being healed. The constant pain and recovery wore him down to the point he was getting close to feeling numb from the pain. But at least he did not come out empty-handed from that hellish torture.

[Physical Resistance][Lv.1]

[The body's durability increases, allowing for less damage taken. 1% decrease in damage taken by attacks.]

The effect wasn’t much, but he was grateful to have something than nothing. And at least now he knew there was a way in obtaining a skill through certain actions. The problem was do all the skills have to go through such harsh conditions? Because if it was, then the system was kinda fucked up.

Zane slumped on the couch, staring in a daze. Not gonna lie, but yesterday is pretty shit, Zane thought. And I’m almost fucking die . . . again.

He stayed like that for while, almost an hour or so, before he thought of doing something more productive. Rather than checking his inventory, he sat in front of his computer and logged into one of his usual games, Apex. It had been a while since he last played it. The whole train station incident and all of this system and dimensional travel really bogged him down for a while. So at least now he had a chance to take a breather from all of those complicated stuff. In a way, he just wanted to forget what happened yesterday. Because frankly speaking, that kind of thing was way too much for a normal guy like Zane.

Am I dreaming or this game just turns out to be a lot easier than it used to, Zane thought. As he was killing it. Literally killing all the other players he met on the map. His hand-eye coordination was off the chart, tracking enemy movement like in the pro league, and in the end, he clutched the final battle and won.

“Not gonna lie, but that feels good,” he said with half a smile. The man couldn’t believe how good he was since his usual skill wasn’t up to that standard. Dying in the first five minutes was kinda his thing and not killing almost half of the lobby.

“It’s the stats, and I’m guessing it must be perception,” he mumbled. Although perception was the lowest, ten was good enough to dominate a game like Apex, and coupled with his high agility, his hand was literally flying across the table.

He went on for a couple more games, taking in the feeling of being overpowered. But then it happened. “I’ve been banned?” for some obvious reason, people had reported his ass for using aimbot. And thus his enjoyment was cut short.

“Well, I guess that’s the end of my e-sports career,” Zane said. His grumbling stomach made him leave for the living room. He ordered pizza before he turned to the big bag of goodies from another world.

Checking what he managed to bring in those last seconds, he was grateful that he at least managed to grab almost half of his loot. As the sapphires were the most important of all. And another good news, he managed to grab his tasers before warping out. Having them here in Singapore without going through customs was his biggest goal. Now at least he didn’t have to go back and forth between two countries just for the sake of using a taser.

“And now the wonder drug,” his eyes laid on the interesting-looking potion bottle. Unlike the Small Red Potion which was just a bottle and a cork, this one had a more elegant design on it.

[Darys’ Mixed-Yellow Concoction (6-Star)(20%). A healing liquid made by the renowned alchemist Darys. Her recipe is known to be the most famous out of all yellow concoctions in the market for its low probability of side effects. Restores 2000 health points. Possible side effects; Confusion(5%)]

“Wow . . . No wonder even a sip could heal me back to life in an instant. This kind of thing is pretty much for the rich people. And I wonder…” he shook his head. Stopping himself from thinking about that Mountain-like man. Just imagining him felt like bringing those pains back in the flesh.

“Let’s just stash this for emergencies,” he kept in the top outermost of the kitchen cabinet. Where no one could reach it unless they were six feet three, and in Singapore, that kind of height was a rare sight.

But now came the tedious part. Zane sat on his stool in the bathroom with a bloody leather armor in front of him. He didn’t have to clean it since it probably going to get dirty again on his next trip. But Zane just couldn’t stand seeing something bloody like that. “This is going to be annoying,” and he was right. It took him almost forty-five minutes to clean the front half as the process needed a little more than just a few repetitions.

The doorbell rang.

“Coming,” Zane rushed to the door and got his brunch. He ditched the cleaning and ate to his fill while watching his favorite TV show about a guy telling his kid how he met their mother. And it didn’t take long for him to finish those two large size pizzas as boredom started to kick in.

His phone rang and he saw who it was.

“Hello?”

“Where the hell are you, Zane?” Tiz asked. “I’ve been calling you since yesterday, and you didn’t pick up. And I’ve been waiting for you in your room and you still didn’t get back since last night. So where the heck are you right now?”

“Yea, about that. I kinda met this girl last night and we sort of had a sleepover,” Zane said. As his little spin wasn’t that far from the truth.

“Sleepover? You’re telling me to believe that you have a sleepover?”

“Well . . . It’s not your typical type of sleepover, and it’s kinda bad to be honest,” Zane said.

“Spare me the details. I’m not going to listen to your story of bad sex. What I want to know is, when are you coming back? You do know you have a promise with me, right?”

“Is it tonight?” he questioned.

“Why?” she sounded annoyed.

“Cause I’ve plans, and I’m probably getting back at eleven or so,” Zane said.

“Eleven in the evening?”

“Yup . . . So, I’ll call you when I get back?”

“Fine . . . Just make sure you’re not late, and I’ll get things ready,” Tiz said. “But if you bail me on this, Zane, I’m not going to let it slide.”

“Affirmative, ma’am, I won’t disappoint you.” The call ended with a little grunt from Tiz. Zane just shrugged it off as it was typical of his cousin.

What was next on his agenda was practicing with his sole spell, Force Beat. It was the only spell in his repertoire to have level up and the highest at level three. He assumed it must be due to it being a lower rank type of skill which was easier to level up compared to the rest. And rather than smashing a hole through his apartment wall, Zane took a quick jog to the nearest park.

Finding a nice secluded spot, he whipped up his aiming hand and slammed his spell at the innocent trees. He tried a bunch of stuff with it. Like playing with his imagination, following the unproven theories from mangas and animes where the stronger the conceptualization the more powerful the spell would become. But unlike the fictional world, Force Beat didn’t work like that. Before he knew it, his MP ran dry before he could experiment with anything else, and fortunately, he gained another level in Force Beat. Enough to put a smile on Zane.

Along the way back, he made a side quest of visiting a pawnshop he was familiar with. It wasn’t like he pawned something before, but for him looking around in this shop was quite interesting with the mix of strange things and trinkets that kept burying down, hidden by the new stuff that stacked above them. At one time, he once saw the first original PlayStation in grey color, and it brought back some memories after seeing it. Surprisingly, the price was quite high even for sentimental value, and it wasn’t like he was going to do anything with it, considering his PC had enough specs to run an emulator.

“May I help you?” a voice came behind a counter with a bulletproof glass separating the customer and the owner.

“Hi,” Zane greeted. Smiling like your friendly neighborhood teenage boy kind of vibe. “You think I can get a price for this?”

He took out a piece of sapphire and placed it on the counter.

“What do we have here,” a wrinkly hand grabbed the sapphire as Mr. Phua had a look over the thumbnail-sized gemstone. The old man with white hair inspected it very carefully, and then his barely opened eyes turned wide.

“This is real,” Mr. Phua said. Staring at Zane in shock. “Wait a moment.”

The elderly man placed the sapphire back on the counter gently as he raced his old bones to the back, fetching something. A minute later, he came back with a loupe, a small magnification device for inspecting jewelry.

“May I, sir?” Mr. Phua turned rather polite which was quite surprising.

Zane nodded. And the old man proceeded with his work. He observed thoroughly, checking the little details and imperfections on it. By the time, he placed both the gem and the loupe on the counter, he stared at Zane in silence for a while as if his aging brain was doing some mental calculation.

“With this kind of quality, and its size, I can only buy it from you for a quarter of its price,” Mr. Phua said.

“And that is?”

“Two thousand and five hundred dollars,” Mr. Phua answered.

Zane fell speechless for a while there. But he snapped back immediately, and said, “Deal.”