Chapter 50 - The World Got Much Bigger
One month earlier, Eli Carter’s biggest problems had been rent, grades, and Trevor Cross’s personality.
Now he stood on a college rooftop at Foundation Realm while an ancient cultivation intelligence lived in his phone and Heaven had placed him on some kind of spiritual watchlist.
Progress.
Technically.
The message from Candidate 04 contained coordinates.
An interstate rest stop two hundred miles away.
Arrival time: six hours.
Maya crossed her arms.
“We should tell the authorities.”
Lucas shook his head.
“Which authorities? My family funded half of them.”
Trevor raised a hand.
“I vote road trip.”
“No one asked you,” Maya said.
Jace grinned. “I also vote road trip.”
Eli looked at Mr. Zhou.
The old man leaned on his broom.
“You wanted a larger life.”
“I wanted enough money to stop eating ramen four nights a week.”
“Life lacks precision.”
His system opened a new main quest.
[BOOK TWO MAIN QUEST]
Reach Candidate 04 before the hunters.
Discover the identity of the five remaining fragment holders.
Prevent Victor Vane from completing the Administrator Core.
Then one final condition appeared.
[HEAVENLY ATTENTION: 1%]
Eli frowned.
“What happens at one hundred?”
Elias was quiet for too long.
“Something descends.”
“What?”
“I do not know.”
For once, the system had no joke.
Eli looked over Riverside City.
He had started as the broke idiot everyone expected to fail.
He still had cheap shoes.
He still had student debt.
He still needed to pass accounting next semester.
But now he had a path.
And no one—not Trevor, not Lucas, not Victor Vane, not even Heaven—got to decide how high it went.
His phone buzzed.
[QUICKDROP: SURGE PRICING ACTIVE.]
Eli stared at it.
Maya laughed.
“You’re not seriously taking deliveries before the road trip.”
Eli grabbed his jacket.
May you like
“Cultivation is expensive.”
BOOK ONE END.
