I shrug, not thinking much of it.
It kinda makes sense that I'd get treated this way now. There's something new around me—a predator-like presence that seems to pull some people in while pushing others away. Awe, interest, caution... whatever it is, people feel it before they consciously decide what to do about it.
My stomach reminds me why I came over here in the first place.
Food.
I step up to the counter at Tiamat Chinese Dragon Restaurant and look over the menu.
Usually, I'm simple.
Give me an entire plate of orange chicken and I'm happy.
Today, though?
My appetite has apparently evolved along with everything else.
"I'll do orange chicken, beef and broccoli, and sweet-and-sour pork."
I hesitate, looking over the portions.
"And make it a big plate."
The cashier rings it up.
Twenty dollars.
I pull a bill from my wallet and hand it over.
The instant the transaction finishes, I feel the familiar System confirmation.
༺◈✧ Shling ✧◈༻
" CASH PURCHASE VERIFIED "
Purchase: $20.00
Payment Medium: PHYSICAL CASH
Principal Reimbursement: +$20.00
Personal Purchase Return 10.00×: +$200.00
Cash Delivery: WALLET AUTHORIZED
Net Cash Increase: +$200.00
I blink and glance down.
The twenty I just spent is back in my wallet along with another two hundred dollars in clean bills.
I stare at the money for a second.
Two hundred dollars.
That used to matter.
Hell, when I woke up this morning, I had only a little more than that sitting in this wallet.
Now two hundred dollars feels like less than pocket change.
That thought should probably bother me more than it does.
I carry my plate over to an open table and settle into a seat before digging in.
Orange chicken first.
Then the beef and broccoli.
Then a few pieces of sweet-and-sour pork because apparently my stomach has opinions now.
Halfway through the meal, just as I'm reaching for another bite, Taboo chimes in my ears.
༺◈✧ Shling ✧◈༻
Genesis speaks before I can even ask.
"Mikæl, you have been moving quickly enough that several progression notices deserve a consolidated review."
I lower my fork.
"That sounds suspiciously like you're about to tell me I forgot something."
"Several things."
A panel expands in front of me.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ SOVEREIGN PROGRESSION RECONCILIATION ◈
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
" DEFERRED REWARDS & MILESTONES REVIEW "
♦ COMPLETED WEALTH MILESTONE
FIRST MILLION ACHIEVED
Base Experience Reward: 10,000 XP
Experience Gain Multiplier: 2.00×
Final Experience Award: 20,000 XP
Reward State: PREVIOUSLY ACCUMULATED
Notification State: SURFACED
♦ COMPLETED WEALTH MILESTONE
$10,000,000 ACHIEVED
Milestone Reward Record: DEFERRED
Numerical Reward Value: NOT YET SURFACED
◆ CURRENT CONFIRMED XP
Shopping Battle Mission: 5,000 XP
A Better Fit Mission: 2,000 XP
First Million Milestone: 20,000 XP
Known Tracked Experience Total: 27,000 XP
♦ ACCUMULATED / OWNED REWARDS
Achievement — PUT UP OR SHUT UP UNLOCKED
Achievement — A BETTER FIT UNLOCKED
SOVEREIGN APPRAISAL — COMMERCE ACTIVE
Business & Investment Purchase Voucher ×1 UNUSED
Universal Voucher ×1 OWNED
◆ STARTING ACQUISITIONS AWAITING FULL REVIEW
Genesis Beast Egg OWNED
Dormant Celestial Sigil DORMANT
Fragment of the Tactical Archive SEALED
Genesis Territory Heart OWNED
Genesis Tree Seed OWNED
Genesis Tower Imprint OWNED
Territory Imprint / Anchoring Array OWNED
Sovereign Forge Authority ACTIVE
◆ NEXT RECORDED WEALTH MILESTONE
$25,000,000 NOT YET MET
Base Experience Reward: 20,000 XP
Experience Gain Multiplier: 2.00×
Potential Final Experience: 40,000 XP
♦ FIRST TERRITORY-BOND REWARD BUNDLE
Status: LOCKED
Unlock Condition: FIRST FORMAL TERRITORY BOND
Cardinal Sovereign Blade
Guenhwyvar
Choir of the Unheard
Eighty-Six Migrant Citizens
Holo
No duplicate reward has been generated by this review.
♜ THE SOVEREIGN COMMANDS • TABOO EXECUTES ♜
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I stop chewing.
"Hold on. Twenty-seven thousand XP?"
"Correct. That is the currently surfaced total."
"Twenty thousand of that is just from hitting my first million?"
"The First Million milestone carries a base reward of ten thousand experience. Your Experience Gain Multiplier doubles the realized award."
I stare at the milestone line.
"I crossed a million forever ago."
"You crossed it earlier today."
"Same thing."
"It is not."
I point my fork at the rest of the panel.
"And all of this has just been sitting there?"
"Owned, accumulated, dormant, sealed, or awaiting the condition listed beside it," Genesis corrects. "Not forgotten."
"Gen, I have a beast egg, a Territory Heart, a tree seed, a tower imprint, a sealed tactical archive, a dormant celestial sigil, two vouchers, and a whole territory reward bundle waiting on me."
"Yes."
"And somehow I've spent most of my morning buying jewelry, clothes, company stock, and flirting."
A tiny pause.
"You also purchased cookies."
I look down at my plate.
"And Chinese food."
"Also correct."
I shake my head and pick up another piece of orange chicken.
"Bro. My priorities are incredible."
I shake my head.
"Truthfully, I just want to make sure this side of my life is well taken care of before I start on the territory."
Genesis is quiet for a moment.
"That is a reasonable priority. Your Earth-side obligations will not stop existing simply because your territory becomes available."
I nod, then my eyes drift back to one line on the panel.
Genesis Beast Egg.
I pause.
"The beast egg, though? I can't wait to see what it is. With Clare from Claymore and Mitsuru from Persona already in the mix, this might be a Pokémon. Or a Digi-Egg!"
"That is an extremely broad interpretation of the available evidence."
"Bro, let me dream."
"I did not say it was impossible."
That gets a grin out of me.
With the entire conversation happening in my head, I finish the rest of my meal.
With the last bite finished, I wipe my mouth, toss my tray away, then pause to read my fortune cookie.
I crack it open and pull out the little strip of paper.
YOUR LIFE WILL CHANGE WHEN YOU STOP WAITING FOR THE RIGHT PATH AND START CREATING YOUR OWN.
I stare at it for a second.
Then I snort.
"Little late on that advice."
"Perhaps unusually well timed," Genesis says.
I turn the fortune over like there might be a second message hiding on the back.
Nothing.
Still, I slip it into my pocket instead of throwing it away with the broken cookie.
Corny or not, it hits a little different today.
Yesterday, a fortune like that would've just been a sentence printed by the thousands and stuffed inside stale cookies.
Now?
I have a living territory waiting on me, millions of dollars sitting in my account, a System that can connect me to things I used to think only existed in fiction, and a body that feels like somebody quietly turned every setting past what human was supposed to be.
I start toward the mall exit.
The closer I get to the doors, the more obvious that last part becomes.
I hear conversations without trying to. Not every word in the building or anything ridiculous, but voices separate themselves from the background instead of blending into noise. Shoes tap against tile in different rhythms. A kid laughs somewhere behind me. Ice rattles inside a drink cup across the food court.
The smells are even crazier.
Fried food. Sugar. Coffee. Perfume. Cleaning solution. New clothes from the stores I pass. Somebody's cinnamon pretzel from what feels like half a hallway away.
None of it overwhelms me.
That might be the strangest part.
My brain just sorts it.
Important.
Not important.
Close.
Far.
Moving toward me.
Moving away.
By the time the automatic doors slide open, I can feel the shift in air before I step outside.
Cool conditioned air gives way to dry California heat against my skin.
Sunlight hits harder too, not painfully, just... clearer. Brighter without washing everything out. I can make out tiny scratches in parked cars, movement reflected in windows, heat shimmering over the pavement.
I stop outside the entrance for a moment and look back through the glass.
People are still moving around me the same way they were before, giving me space without really thinking about it. Some glance over. A few look twice.
And for the first time, I really think about how much has changed before I've even done anything with most of what Taboo gave me.
My money changed.
My body changed.
My senses changed.
Apparently even the way strangers react to me changed.
I touch the fortune in my pocket.
Create my own path, huh?
I smile and head toward the parking lot.
"Yeah," I murmur. "I think I can do that."