Chapter 4

I continue my new routine over the next three days. I wake up, let Mia out, workout for about an hour, clean up around the house a bit and take a shower. After my shower, I get something to eat and head to the casino. I’ve been spending a lot more time there, treating it as an actual job. The first day I stayed there for a little over five hours. My Intuition skill continued to work spectacularly, I look over my gambling book to see my winnings these last few days. I’ve won over 100 thousand dollars in these last three days, I won 27k the very first day. Most of the time I took several hundred dollars to a machine I would play one hundred dollars at a time and would cash out whenever I had won more than one thousand dollars and just put in more money to keep playing. Most of the machines I played on had a max bet somewhere between twenty-five and thirty dollars. There were several times I had to call attendants because I had won minor jackpots, I believe they consider anything over 1200 dollars a minor jackpot but each one I had was well over that so I’m not entirely sure.

It has been four days since I woke up with the notification telling me my life had changed. I am still in a bit of shock given the changes I’ve gone through, both physically, emotionally, and in life itself. I have over a hundred thousand dollars to my name, that I’ve made in less than a week. I’ve yet to really spend much of it, I’m still trying to decide what to do next. Money isn’t the only big change I’ve faced though. The changes from that first day are still coming on top of the changes that come with all the exercise I’ve been doing. My stats have only progressed minimally but my physical appearance has changed drastically. I’ve lost about thirty more pounds and replaced a lot of that with muscle. My strength attribute has increased by two full points in just four days. Some of that might be my body ratios changing due to the heavy weight loss, I’m not entirely sure how that works but I feel stronger than I’ve ever been. I’m not lifting cars or anything like that but the workouts that started out being rather strenuous are gradually becoming easy. Now that I’m getting stronger I’m slowing down and focusing on doing the exercises correctly rather than just pumping out as many reps as I can as fast as I can. When I started I could barely pull off a handful of pull-ups now I can casually pump out twenty in a slow controlled motion. I haven’t worked out with actual weights in a long time and still haven’t done so since the change so I don’t have a good benchmark for growth in that respect but the fact that I’m noticing a difference and noticing it so quickly is incredibly motivating. I am, however, worried that if I continue at this pace I will burn myself out. Maybe I should slow down a bit, go to the casino every other day, give myself time to find out what I want to do next. I got all this money now maybe I should spend a little of it. I run my fingers through my hair as I walk out the casino. I haven’t been all that focused tonight but I’m still leaving the place with just over twenty grand. As my hand comes down my hair falls in front of my eyes, “hmm it’s been about a year since I got an actual haircut,” I think out loud. I glance around, blushing slightly, I really need to stop talking to myself out loud. That is something I could do tomorrow though, I need a haircut and I don’t need to cut it myself anymore. It might even be fun, wake up earlier get a quick workout in, get my haircut, maybe stop by the mall and get some new clothes. I bought some cheap stuff from Walmart the other day to hold me over but with all this weight loss my wardrobe is severely limited at the moment. I also need to figure out what to do about dad, I’m not sure he will even fully recognize me anymore. I suppose the best solution would be to move out, either that or tell him the truth although I doubt that would go over well. I’m not sure he’d even believe it, he might just think I’m on drugs or something. That would probably answer both questions, all three even. How I lost the weight, why I think I was chosen to receive some crazy gift, and how I’ve come into so much money. Although the last one is a bit questionable, I’d have to be some sort of drug kingpin to make over a hundred thousand dollars in a week just selling drugs. I don’t fucking know, the best solution for now I think is to move out, give it a couple of weeks before I see him again and act as if I’ve just had a drastic lifestyle change, which I kind of have.

Speaking of weight loss, the number isn’t quite as significant as the actual physical changes, I’ve lost practically all of my obvious body fat. My man boobs have become more pec than boob, I don’t have a visible belly anymore, in fact, I actually have abs now, they aren’t “shredded” or “ripped” and I don’t have a six-pack but they are visible, and I actually have a visible waistline rather than love handles. I open my status to see the numerical changes of these last few days.

Name: Jared Thorne

Species: Human (Game Character)

Occupation: Professional Gambler

Class: None

Level: 6

Experience: 5681/8100

Vitality: 120

Mana: 165

Stamina: 124/130

Chi: LOCKED*

Age: 22

Money: 126314.43 USD (Equivalent*)

Weight: 171 Lbs

Height: 5ft 8in

Attribute points: 40

Constitution: 12

Strength: 11

Endurance: 13

Intellect: 11

Wisdom: 11

Willpower: 8

Charisma: 10

Dexterity: 10

Agility: 11

Luck: 12

Perception: 12

I’m back up to 171 now, I wonder if I can remove the height, and weight from my status. I don’t really need to see it every time I look at my stats, I’d prefer not to obsess over the small day to day changes. If it weren’t for the Game Character status I would be quite concerned about such rapid changes in weight each day. Part of me still kind of is a bit worried but I think it is mostly overshadowed by my progress.

Remove your Height and Weight from your status display

Accept

Decline

Hmm, well that's helpful, I mentally click the accept button and watch the height and weight bars disappear. I finish that just in time to get to my car, or well my dad's car. Maybe I should look into getting a car of my own as well.

The ride home is a bit of a blur, the drive has become a bit routine and with my new enhanced senses, I could probably take the trip blindfolded, excluding traffic and lights at least. I pet and play with Mia for a couple of seconds after getting in, she is always excited to see me. Eventually, I move on to my room and hop on the computer to check out some barbers/hairdressers near me. I quickly run into a slight problem, every place I see is closed around eight pm. I guess I’ll have to tire myself out with a hard workout and pass out a bit early tonight. I decide on the closest one with the best reviews, I’ll make an appointment right after they open in the morning and head to bed after. I bookmark the barber shop website and I start looking into rental places within my price range and what to know about renting a house. Again I run into a slight problem, as far as I can tell most places take at least three days to process your paperwork and contact your references before you can move in. I dig a little deeper, trying to see if there is any way I can move in the same day I find a place. It may already take a couple of days to find a good place I don’t wanna have to wait an additional three days to a week on top of that. I do find one thing stating that if you can pay six months rent in advance then you may be allowed to move in right away. Given all the places I’ve seen so far, I shouldn’t have any issue playing the full six months rent in advance. I’m not sure if I want to get a place in town or if I want to try to get a place further out in the country. I filter the search to only show rentals that are greater than one thousand dollars a month, I’d like a nicer place, it doesn’t necessarily need to be large but I’d like it to be nice. I find several decent looking places in town, I bookmark four different places to look at later and move on to places a bit further out in the country. I’m thinking, given the warning about people who might want to see my life end sooner rather than later, that I might wanna live somewhere at least a bit more secluded. That being said there is also something to be said about hiding in a crowd, so I’ll keep the other places in mind all the same. That is another reason to move out that I hadn’t thought of previously, I’m probably putting my dad in danger the longer I stay here. I zoom out a bit on the rental map listing houses and increase the filter to limit it to places exceeding fifteen hundred dollars, under the assumption that places in the country will probably be larger and therefore more expensive. I almost instantly find a place that I think would be perfect, it is a bit big for my taste but it is on a larger plot of land which makes it relatively secluded and it is surprisingly cheap given the size and amenities. It has a large relatively large kitchen with modern appliances, connected to a large dining area that I don’t really need but that looks really nice. I could probably remove the chandelier and turn that into a large living room. The pictures are a bit hard to interpret but it looks like there is either a large open bedroom or two bedrooms separated by a large open archway. Oh, that's very nice, there is a rather large room at the center of the house with very high ceilings. It seems to function as the living room but it also has a large indoor pool built in, so I could incorporate swimming into my exercise routine. I’ve always loved to swim but I’ve been too insecure about my weight for the last several years to go swimming in public. The ceiling is covered in beautifully finished wood, uh arches? I look up what the wood supports are called. Ah, beautifully finished wood trusses arching overhead in the high ceiling, with the east wall made up of mostly windows to let the sun in for most of the day. The place is beautiful, there are some places that could use a little work though. One of the bedrooms could use repainted and its flooring could use some work compared to the kitchen, living/dining room, and the other bedrooms beautiful hardwood floors. The bathroom in that part of the house could use a little bit of work as well, the tub and wall tiling just doesn’t look very good with the marble-like floors. I’d honestly kind of like to just buy the place. I’m just not sure getting “lucky” at the casino four days in a row will constitute a career, in the bank's mind, if I were to seek a loan. I suppose I could take a six-month lease for now and in a month or so when I have the cash I could buy it outright. I should probably see how much the place would cost to buy while I’m thinking about it. The price estimator I looked the address up on suggests the place would be worth just under five hundred thousand dollars. If things continue as they have been I should have more than enough by the end of the month. I can’t help but wonder if something is wrong with the place though, they are only asking twenty-five hundred dollars a month. Ironically, a few days ago I probably would have thought that a ridiculous amount, but it is a twenty-nine hundred square foot house on over forty acres of land. However, the fact that it has been listed on the website for nearly half a year may lend credence to my thoughts. I look up how people usually determine rental costs, trying to see if the rent is actually cheap or if I’m just overestimating the value of the house. Apparently, one tool they use is the 1% rule, basically charging one percent of the house's value per month in rent. Given that, it does seem that the place is extremely cheap, but I read further down and find something saying .5%-.8% is more common and that certain amenities and locations will raise or lower the price. Eh, there are way too many things that go into determining how much they charge I’ll just have to ask about it when I look at the place. I’ll have to call and arrange a time to check the place out before I go to bed, gah I need to change my sleep schedule, being awake almost exclusively at night is making this excessively difficult. Pretty much all of these places close when I wake up or open just a little while before I go to bed. Maybe I’ll just stay up late instead of going to bed early, I can go shopping, get my hair cut, and make an appointment to visit the house before I go to bed today. It’s only a little after three at night, I should check out some stuff about buying a car as well. I’ve got five-plus hours before anything is open, my stomach growling interrupts my thoughts. Okay, food then more research… Yay!

I heat up some leftover teriyaki chicken and rice and go back to my room to figure out what I need to do about buying a car. I’m mostly trying to figure out the do’s and don’ts of buying a car. I have easily enough to buy one with cash assuming I don’t try and get something super expensive, I do need to take insurance into account though so I should probably check that out a bit as well although I doubt it is something I really have to worry about, financially speaking. Yeah looks like the average yearly premium is just above thirty-one hundred dollars in my area, for my age at least. As far as I can tell all the other expenses beyond the car should be rather cheap in comparison. There seems to be a bit of contradictory information regarding buying the car outright or financing it. However, the one website I’m seeing that is giving reasons not to buy outright is talking about financing and investing the leftover money because you would make more off the investment than you would save buying outright. I don’t think that really applies to me because I haven’t really built up any credit yet so I likely wouldn’t get a very good interest rate. Sooo yeah kinda pointless that I’m even paying attention to it at this point and that's without taking into account my current earnings. Hmm, but investing my money is a good thought, I wonder if my intuition might work on stocks. An idea for another time, need to stay focused. One of the biggest and, in my opinion, the best things I’ve learned is that it is good to negotiate over the phone or email instead of going down to the dealership, it makes you less likely to make an impulse buy plus I can look stuff up as I’m going back and forth with them. Most of the other stuff is fairly common sense, don’t let them know I’m planning to pay in cash, do research, and shop around for better deals. Otherwise, the salespeople are likely to take advantage of you, especially first-time buyers like me. Oh, there is a website that helps find the true market value for your the car you’re looking to buy. Now all that's left is to start looking at cars. There is one problem, I’m pretty sure that most of the cars I am really interested in are fairly expensive. I guess it might take a couple of days to get a lot of the negotiations figured out I could just set aside all my winnings until all of the negotiating is done, for whatever car I choose, and if I’m a little short I can fall back on the money I’ve already saved. I’m probably being overly cautious but I don’t want to start making really stupid decisions just because I have these new abilities and some money in my pocket. The worst thing that could probably happen is that I will have to wait a bit longer to actually buy the house, assuming, of course, they are even willing to sell in the first place. I start with the manufacturer websites, I look at Corvettes, Camaros, a couple of different Nissan’s, the new Mazda Miata, and the BMW M3. They were all fairly expensive, aside from the Mazda Miata and the Nissan 370z Nismo they all cost well over fifty thousand dollars. I also check out the new Tesla Roadster, but that is mostly for fun, I’m not even sure it is for sale yet, plus its base price is like two hundred thousand dollars. I could probably get a used one but the battery range is kind of low and getting an all-electric car would likely require a lot of stuff to be put in at the house which I’m not sure would be allowed when renting so getting one of those would have to wait till I own a home. The most expensive would be the Nissan GT-R at one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, I mostly looked that one up because I thought it was a really cool car but I don’t really see myself getting it. I really like the Corvette, the one I thought looked the coolest has a suggested price of one hundred thirty-seven thousand dollars, the one I think I would actually get if I go for the Corvette is one hundred and six thousand dollars, it is still incredibly cool and thirty thousand dollars cheaper. Plus with the true market value calculator, most of these cars are at least three thousand dollars less than the MSRP. My favorite is between the Corvette and the BMW though, I think I’ll be choosing between those two. The BMW is considerably cheaper as well, the true market value on it is sixty-nine thousand dollars, almost thirty thousand less than the Corvette’s TMV of ninety-eight thousand. Although, if I were to go for the Miata or the 370z I could get an all-terrain vehicle like a Jeep or something and still spend less than on the Corvette. That would probably be smart too, seeing as the place I wanna buy has some forty-plus acres of land. I suppose I could get the BMW and a used all-terrain vehicle and still be good. I look up some Jeep Sahara’s on Carfax, I find a dozen or so certified pre-owned vehicles within about an hours drive. I pick two of the better deals and e-mail their dealerships. The Edmunds website, that I was getting the true market value from, allows me to get dealer quotes from multiple dealerships so I submit a request on the BMW, the Corvette, the Miata, and the 370z. I guess they will e-mail or call me back with the quotes later. With that in mind, I e-mail the company in charge of the rental house to set up a viewing. I figure if it works for cars maybe it will work for renting a house.

With that done with, for now, I look at the time, huh, that took over three and a half hours. I get up to see if dad’s home yet, he usually gets home between five and six. As I go into the hallway leading to the living room I don’t hear the TV, I peak around the corner and he isn’t sitting in his recliner. Hmm, I walk over to the little desk he usually leaves his stuff on and I see his wallet, keys, and money sitting there so he is obviously home, he must have gone to bed a bit early today, or maybe he is outside working in the garage or something. I look outside, and of course don’t see him, if he is in the garage I wouldn’t. I call for Mia to see if she is outside, normally she would be outside with him or at the door begging to go if he were out there. I hear her collar twinkle, and I look back into the living room to see her little head poking out from under the blanket we keep on the couch. “Well, hey their, cutie, what's dad doing,” I ask her as if she can answer me. I go over to her and give her a cuddle before getting up and looking around. “I guess I’ll go work out on the punching bag for a bit before the barber opens,” I mutter to myself as I walk back toward the back door. With that in mind, I spend the next hour working on the punching bag, taking a break every ten minutes or so. As with my other exercises, I am trying to work on my technique more so than just wailing at the bag and I have received a few levels in the Athleticism skill over the last couple days. I haven’t received a skill in pugilism or boxing so I’m not sure if this all ties into Athleticism or if maybe I have to actually box someone to gain a skill in it. I still don’t wear the gloves, just the cloth wraps, so as I finish unwrapping my hands I look them over. They are getting stronger it seems, my skin barely even pinks up with the slightest abrasions any more. I go grab another bottle of water out of the fridge and take a drink while I fill my other one up. So there I am taking a drink of water wearing nothing but a pair of basketball shorts when I hear footsteps coming up the stairs. In my panic, I suck in a breath and get a lung full of water. I’m so busy coughing up water that I forget what caused the panic in the first place and by the time I start to calm down my dad is standing in the doorway to the basement looking at me.

He just stands there for several seconds staring at me his mouth slightly agape. After a good fifteen seconds or so he closes his mouth and asks, “you alright?”

“Huh? Uh, yeah *cough* yeah I just uh, water went down the wrong pipe.”

Still standing there he looks me up and down and says, “you uh, look different.”

I laugh, a bit uncomfortably, trying to think on my feet I ramble out, “yeah I’ve been kinda trying to hide it, wanted it to be a bit of a surprise. I’ve been exercising a lot over the last month, three workouts a day at least an hour a workout. I’m down about twenty-seven pounds of fat now. I was actually planning on going shopping a bit today since most of my clothes don’t really fit anymore. Already got some cheap stuff from Walmart last week but thought I might get some nicer stuff today.” So I kind of ramble and overshare when I’m nervous. It’s something I need to work on.

“Well, good work you uh, look good. Where were you planning on going, do you need money for clothes or something?”

“Oh, uh, no I’ve actually been working as well, I’ve saved up quite a bit,” I say, continuing to overshare. Although I suppose it will be rather obvious when I move out soon in the next couple days, I guess there is no longer such a rush now.

“Alright,” he looks me up and down again, “I was just coming up to get a drink,” he says. Grabbing a Powerade out of the fridge, he looks at me one last time before heading back downstairs.

Well, that went several times better than I expected. I mean things are obviously awkward between us, but that’s normal, they have been since my mom died. She died when I was eight and he didn’t exactly take well. He started drinking too much, he wasn’t abusive or anything but some might say he was neglectful. It came to a head when I was sixteen and he got his second DUI nearly losing his job. He still drinks a little too much for my liking but he restricts himself to the weekends and usually gets a ride to the bar and back. I drove him for a while but he mostly uses a local driving service now. Now I don’t understand what I was so worried about. I guess I just didn’t believe that he would think that I was telling the truth. I mean we don’t see each other that incredibly often but it was only a little more than a week ago that we had a similar interaction to just now. Whatever, if he isn’t overthinking it why should I. I go to the bathroom, take a piss, and start the shower.