POV: Max
The next morning, I woke up feeling... whole. Weird. I had food in the fridge, money on the way, and no shift to drag myself into. I wasn't panicking, wasn't starving, wasn't drowning in dread.
This was new.
Breakfast was an actual breakfast — bread rolls, scrambled eggs, a tomato that wasn't halfway to becoming a science experiment.
Before I even got to the food, I checked my banking app out of habit. And there it was — thirty thousand euros, already credited. A courtesy liquidity boost, just like the bankers had promised yesterday. My jaw slackened. It was real. Immediate. The first time in forever I had money ready to use without begging, borrowing.
I stared at the number for several seconds, blinking just to make sure it didn't disappear. Then I laughed — like, really laughed — and it startled me. I didn't even remember the last time I did that. I took my time chewing breakfast, letting the novelty of financial breathing room sink in. I had options now. Real ones.
But that also meant I had decisions to make.
The SecurityFix sales had given me breathing room, but manually selling exploit reports to banks one by one wasn't sustainable. Too slow, too narrow. And most of the money was already spoken for — the university debt, the student loan, taxes. I was technically still in the red until everything processed.
And worse: I had just 11 KP left.
KP. My golden ticket. My brain currency.
The system made it clear: I only earned more when my inventions saw widespread use. That meant scale. Mass adoption. Not niche B2B software that never left a vault.
I opened the Shop again, scrolling past arcane nonsense and magical cooking techniques. I needed something cheap, effective, and marketable. Something that could hit the mass market quickly and naturally spread.
That's when I found it.
"LensPerfect Pro (v3.4) – 5 KP"
Developed in 2213 on the moon colony of Selene Prime, LensPerfect Pro was an all-in-one AI-powered camera app. It handled lighting adjustments, dynamic range, composition framing, scene prediction, aesthetic filtering, even auto-retouching — all in real-time. The kind of app that turned amateurs into influencers.
The Shop description added a cheeky note: "Rated #1 by 7.4 billion users in 2218 for turning average photographers into digital artists. Includes auto-optimization for alien bioluminescence and underwater scenes."
I grinned.
Yeah, that would do.
But first, I needed better hardware. My laptop couldn't even handle the debug build of SecurityFix. There was no way it'd survive whatever post-quantum imaging algorithm LensPerfect required.
I got dressed — or tried to. My wardrobe was 95% stress-stretched fabric and 5% tears in inappropriate places.
So, first stop: clothes.
At Z&W Basics, I picked up two pairs of decent jeans, a few soft tees, and a button-up I could pass off as "adulting" in emergencies. Then at ShoeLander, I grabbed a pair of comfy sneakers that didn't squeak when I walked. I avoided flashy brands and stuck to practical.
Nothing fancy. Just clean, new, and mine.
On the way to ByteForge Electronics, I bought myself a warm brezel from a street vendor. The first bite made my eyes water.
Not because of flavor.
Because for the first time in what felt like forever, I wasn't eating out of desperation. I wasn't hungry. I was eating because I wanted to.
It hit harder than I expected.
ByteForge was nerd heaven.
I drifted through glowing display islands, ogling machines with specs that made my soul ache. I already knew what I wanted: a mid-tier productivity laptop with a killer battery and a compact desktop workstation I could upgrade later.
But before I could grab a floor model, some sales guy in a too-tight polo descended on me.
"Looking for top performance?" he said, gesturing toward a ridiculous triple-screen, liquid-cooled monster that probably doubled as a rocket engine. "This one's perfect for creatives. Just €12,000—"
I cut him off politely. "I've already picked what I need. Thanks."
He insisted. I let him talk for three more minutes just to amuse myself, then explained—slowly and with actual tech terms—why his €12k rig was a thermally inefficient, price-inflated status brick.
His eyes went wide.
I bought what I came for: my €7,000 setup, including accessories. The laptop came home with me. The rest would be delivered tomorrow.
At home, I tore into the new gear like a kid on interdimensional Christmas.
Clean boot. New OS. No bloatware. No mystery startup sounds. I ported my data over, set up my dev environment, and optimized the BIOS settings while chewing on a mediocre cheese sandwich.
Then I lay on my bed, clutching the notebook like a spellbook, and whispered: "Okay. Let's do this."
I opened the Shop.
Purchase: LensPerfect Pro – 5 KP?
Confirm?
Yes.
I woke up two hours later, pillow soaked with drool, head pounding.
But holy hell — the knowledge.
Not just the code. Not just the features. I understood it. Deep structure. Neural layer optimization. Image enhancement theory. Even UX decisions that accounted for instinctual human behavior.
It was like someone had downloaded an entire master's degree into my frontal lobe.
I staggered back to my desk, booted up the new laptop, and started coding.
By 1:00 AM, I had a working prototype. It ran smooth. Efficient. Lightweight.
I named it NovaFrame.
Uploaded to both the PeachWorks and GaxxelCore app stores.
Published.
Then I took a shower, wrapped myself in clean pajamas, and crawled into bed.
My last thought before sleep:
This could actually work.