Chapter 52: Chapter 52: Second Gacha.
[Edward POV]
'Hmm…I will eat later…' I thought as I slowly stepped on the stairs to go to my bedroom. Dad had substituted Dwayne's shift for tonight's cruise, therefore I was alone in my home right now.
The afterparty was enjoyable, but it took out a lot of my stamina.
Taylor texted me as I got home to say that she will deliver my birthday present to my house personally tomorrow before she flew to New York for her next concert tour.
Although I was hungry, I wanted to sleep more than I wanted to eat my dinner. I fell into a deep sleep at 9 pm that night without even checking my messages.
When the clock strikes 12, my idle phone suddenly was blown up with notifications.
[Phil: Happy BIRTHDAY E-MONEY!
Abby: Happy Birthday dummy…
+1
+1
+1]
The phone was busily ringing the notifications and trying its hardest to wake me up from my sleep, but I was already transported someplace else.
As I fell asleep on May 4th – that was my birthday, I was brought into the white space once more. However, there was a giant, 10 meters tall lottery machine in front of me connected to a supercomputer instead of the box I used to pull out my gacha prizes before this.
"Hmm? Ahh. The karmic lottery." I said as I finally realized where I was right now. "Why has it changed so much?" I muttered as I walked to the giant computer.
Without me clicking on it, the computer screen started up as I was nearby and a computerized voice suddenly spoke.
[Hello. I am L.I.F.E. I am your karmic guide for this evening.]
"Wait. An AI?" I was baffled by the sudden development of the Afterlife Corporation and couldn't help but ask, "Didn't I get a small box before? Why did you come out now?"
"Lottery method was picked at random when you were transported to the Afterlife station. A few other lottery methods were, picking a card, rolling a dice, ladder game, and anything that used luck in its equation. To get a working and fair lottery method was the first step in using the karmic gacha. In other words…"
"Getting a working lottery method is a gacha in the first place." I finished the AI's sentence.
"That is correct. I am an automated gacha system. Lottery Interactive Fantasy Equalizer. I will be conducting your lottery drawings today." LIFE replied and changed its screen to display my name and karmic points.
-Edward Newgate-
Positive Karma Point: 162, 374
Negative Karma Point: -10, 243.5
1 Gacha Roll: 6 karma points.
1 High Quality Roll (Green and above): 66 karma points.
1 Special Category Roll: 666 Karma points.
1 Negative Roll: – 6 /– 66/– 666 Karma point
"Wait a minute…One hundred fifty three thousand?!" I widened my eyes in shock as I saw my karma point. "Why do I have so much?"
"To get karma points, you need to drastically change the life of those around you and yourself. Your songs have touched a lot of people's hearts and changed a few lives. Therefore, your karma point was increasing exponentially. In the next session, it is estimated that you would have millions of karmic points."
"Holy!" I rubbed my head in disbelief and my jaw was hanging half open as I stared blankly at the screen.
Suddenly, I saw a tiny envelope icon at the edge of the big screen and said, "Is that a mail for me?"
"Yes. Do you want to check the mail now?" Life asked.
"Yes." I nodded.
The screen flashed and changed into the mail content.
[ Good Evening Mr Edward Newgate.
After a thorough review process, we found out that you had been illegally registered to become an Afterlife agent. Considerations about removing you from our agent list had been made.
However, you managed to justify your ability to become an agent by surpassing the 100,000 positive karma points collected in less than a month after settling on a new world.
Your achievement also had allowed the punishment for the Grim Reaper, Mr Theodore Hudson to be reconsidered and he would be spending only 1000 years in Purgatory instead of the original punishment of spending 5000 years to atone for his sins….]
"Wait. He is captured?! That train conductor guy?" I muttered in surprise as I finally understood why the guy was rushing when he sent me away on the red train.
Life answered, "Yes. He had abused his power to send a soul into another world without permission from the superiors."
"...I see…" I muttered as the feeling of guilt started gnawing into my heart.
The latter part of the letter was just congratulatory words for me as I had truly become an agent of the afterlife. They also mentioned continuing to observe my actions for a period of time, but I didn't care about that.
"Life. Can I return the email to the Afterlife Corp?" I asked with some expectation. As the AI was a semi-intelligent being, I was hoping that I may be able to contact the Afterlife Corp using him.
"You may. Do you want to send a handwritten letter or to type it out?" LIFE asked.
"I will just type it out." I said and hopefully my words would reach the Afterlife Corps customer service team.
The purpose of my letter was to help out the Grim Reaper guy and beg for the Afterlife Corporation forgiveness on his behalf. I even offered to quit being an agent if his sentence would be reduced from it. However, it seemed that once you become an agent, the process would be even harder to reverse than reversing a purgatory sentence.
After exchanging mails for almost 10 times with the corporation, finally they decided to give me an option to help out the Grim Reaper guy.
For every 100,000 positive karma points I offered to them, they would use it to reduce the Grim Reaper's punishment for 10 years.
"Phew. Finally I can do something for him." I muttered while wiping my sweaty forehead from the tension of negotiating before this.
"Okay. First, let's clear out the negative karma before proceeding with anything else." I said to LIFE.
Positive Karma Point: 162, 374 → 152, 130.5
Negative Karma Point: -10, 243.5 → 0
"Would you like to use the roll now?" Life asked.
"Not yet. Offer 150,000 positive karma to the Afterlife Corp to reduce the Grim Reaper's punishment."
Life hesitated and asked, "Are you sure? The offering won't give you any benefits, nor will it help your life as an agent."
"I'm sure." I replied without hesitation.
Positive Karma Point: 152, 130.5 → 2, 130.5
Negative Karma Point: 0
"Okay. That's great. So he can reduce 15 years of the sentence right?" I asked with a smile on my face.
[3rd Person POV]
"He has a clear conscience, and he didn't hesitate, nor did he feel it was a loss when trying to help a strange guy he had never known before." An male afterlife worker with slicked back hair and wearing a formal office worker outfit said.
"Henderson. Why are your observations on him saying he is inadequate as an agent? He is clearly an agent material. Like the Dalai Lama." The male worker asked his co-worker who was standing behind him.
"He is struggling hard to accept the fact that he had transmigrated to another world. He lives in grief everyday as he couldn't process his emotion in dealing with the loss of a loved one. His actions in offering the karmic point is with a clear conscience as he didn't think he deserved to be an agent." Mrs Henderson said without any change in her stoic expression.
The male worker named Gong Shin sighed and said, "Okay. I'll trust your assessment." As he turned his back toward Mrs Henderson, he said, "You remember that you should only observe him right? You shouldn't interfere with his life."
"I know." Mrs Henderson said.
Gong Shin sighed again and walked toward the infinite drawers next to the office before his stoic face turned into a smiling one. "You did good by interfering, Henderson." He turned to look at the teacher from afar and said, "Too bad god didn't want me to tell you about that. Otherwise… you will fail the test to become an afterlife superior…"
He waved politely at the stoic Henderson before the female teacher just turned back and walked away from the afterlife office and returned to the mundane world.
"It will be a long…long test…" Gong Shin muttered in exasperation. After getting the offering from Edward, Gong Shin announced loudly to his group of workers there.
"In the afterlife, there is a saying. When you do a good deed for yourself, then you will only do a good deed for yourself. But, when you do a good deed for others, it may impact more than just the person you helped, and may even help the entire world."
"For Edward's deeds of offering the karmic point to the prisoner, his offerings will be doubled in value as he was sincere in wanting to help another person."
"Therefore…we will cut down 30 years out of Theodore's sentence and give him a minor good luck buff for his next lottery!"
The worker clapped for Edward as Theodore was one of their co-worker before this, and a really nice guy. All of them were hopeful that he would be released soon from his punishment. Therefore, they were rooting for Edward to get a lot of karma points next time he came by so that he could reduce Theodore's sentence once more.
Gongshim smiled and turned his face away from the rest of the workers before his face changed to stoic.
"When you received the reward this time, would you still want to offer your karma point for someone else? Or will human greed ruin you like they did all the other humans before?"
[Edward POV]
Before I could get an answer for the sentence reducement, LIFE said, "Edward Newgate. You only have 10 more minutes inside the karmic station. Please proceed with your lottery immediately."
"Oh. Okay. What do you recommend?" I asked the AI.
"Take 3 special category prizes, and 2 high quality prizes. You may keep the 0.5 karma point for the next session."
"Okay. Do that." I said to the AI and watched my 2, 130.5 karma points being drained out, leaving only 0.5 positive karma on my status screen.
"Would you like to draw out the prizes one by one, or all at the same time?" LIFE asked.
"Just do it all at the same time." I said to not waste time any longer.
Suddenly, celebratory fireworks appeared on the screen as 5 prizes of different colors were drawn out. The quality of the prices was as follows;
White – Green – Purple – Red – Gold.
Green being the lowest quality, and Gold being the highest one. However, I managed to draw out 2 golden prizes and 3 red prizes in my roll today.
"JACKPOT!" I exclaimed after seeing the colors of the prizes.
"Which one would you like to open first?" LIFE asked.
"Open the three red ones first." I replied. The red gacha ball disappeared and only left a few texts to show me what I had gotten.
[Yuri Katsuki – Talent – Dance]
[Noah Cutler(Dc Calculator) – Skill – Algorithm making]
[Kim Seo Jun – Skill – Godly Massage Techniques]
"Oh. Dance talent?" I muttered to myself, not expecting an answer, but the AI suddenly interjected.
"The Dance talent is considered a red one as Yuri Katsuki has great hand-eye coordination and flexibility. He managed to win several ice-dancing competitions from this talent."
I was stunned for a while before I asked, "Oh. You can explain about the prizes too?"
"Yes. I am an AI." Life insinuated.
I nodded in acknowledgement and said, "Okay. then, explain the next two skills."
It seemed that I had a lucky day today as I managed to draw out the AI based lottery system and 5 top tier prizes from the gacha.
"Noah Cutler managed to trick even the best detective in the world by creating algorithms to predict his future action. This skill is only focusing on algorithm making for computers as you don't have Noah Cutler's super intelligence to develop it into a superpower."
"Simple enough." I muttered in acknowledgment. "I also don't want to be a villain."
"Good choice." LIFE said, making me smile as he became more life-like the longer I spent time with him.
"The beautifying massage was created by a medicine practitioner in Shanxi. After he was forcefully married to an ugly wife, he vowed to make his wife the prettiest woman in the whole world as he fell in love with her personality a year after they got married."
"As he massages his wife daily using this technique for 10 years, his wife becomes the most pretty woman in Shanxi and he had to fight off multiple monarch's and sect leaders who had fallen for his wife."
"As you didn't have the 'QI' energy necessary to use this full technique, you wouldn't be able to achieve what Kim Seo Jun had achieved. You will only be able to use a part of it. The reward will also increase your dexterity by 20%."
"Damn…" I gulped my saliva before turning my attention to the golden gacha roll.
"Open up the golden prizes."
[Vandaliu – Special Ability – Parallel thoughts (Multitasking ability).]
[Mike ross – Special Ability – Eidetic Memory]
Before I could react to the golden gacha, the AI – Life said, "Your time in the karmic station is over. Prolonged staying time will have an adverse effect on your soul. You will be kicked out from this space at 10…9...8…7…"
"It's okay Life. I hope to see you again in my next session."
"I hope to see you soon…3…2…1…GoodBye Edward Newgate."
"Goodbye…" I waved at the computer before my vision turned dark once more.
…
I woke up a few minutes after finishing my gacha drawings as my phone notifications had finally won a hard battle to get me to notice them.
Suddenly, I felt a burning and piercing sensation in my brain as if someone had stuck a hot needle inside of it.
"AH FUCK!" I cursed as the pain became stronger with each passing by. I tried to hold my head, but then the very same sensation struck my hands as my dexterity was being forcefully increased.
Then, the dance talent kicked in. My bones started creaking, and I felt like an army of ants were crawling underneath my skin, pulling my muscles and biting me all over my body.
That was when I knew how lucky I was in my first gacha to not draw something with physical improvement prizes.
*CRACK* *CRACK* *CRACK*
As if a chiropractor was cracking my body, a lot of bone cracking sounds were produced from my bones. From an initial height of 170 cm, I jumped into a height of 175 cm from the physical improvement session.
"ARGHHH!" I let out a blood curdling scream and blood dripped from my nose, staining my blue bed sheet. Finally, I couldn't stand the pain any longer and passed out on my bed with my eyes rolled back into my skull.
…
Daybreak arrives and it's almost 7 am. It was time for me to get to school today. I walked out of the shower wearing a white towel wrapped on my waist and was trying to clean the dried out blood in my nose.
"Luckily Dad didn't enter my room when he got back home." I muttered in relief as I threw my bed sheet into the washing machine before changing into semi-casual clothes.
"My mind feels clearer than ever…Maybe too clear…" I muttered as I could even recall the memory of me breastfeeding at an early age after getting the eidetic memory special ability.
I walked out of the house to grab my bike when Abby suddenly stopped her new car in front of my house.
"Hey Handsome. Want a ride?" Abby asked me teasingly.
My eyes instantly turned to the blue Ford Shelby GT 500 convertible and I couldn't help but whistled involuntarily as I looked at the new car.
"Damn, today is my birthday, so why are you the one who got a gift?" I said as I casually hopped over the car door and sat next to Abby. Then, a memory suddenly popped out inside my mind, and I couldn't help but look weirdly at Abby after that.
"Hmm? Did you get taller?" Abby asked in confusion as she looked at me up and down.
"Answer my question first." I said.
Abby smiled gleefully and said, "Isn't it pretty? Mom got it at a police auction for under 1000 bucks."
Her mom actually bought it to bribe her as she was continuously feeling depressed after the breakup. When they returned to New York, she would just sell the car to someone else instead of bringing it with them.
"Nice.." I muttered. "Let's go."
"Wait. before that." I said suddenly, causing Abby to break the slowly moving car in surprise.
"What? Did you leave something at home?" Abby asked.
"No. Today is my birthday." I looked at her playfully.
She was confused and said, "I know. That's why I'm picking you up.?"
"No…what I meant was…" I tapped my right cheek with my finger and said, "Where is my birthday kiss?"
"Hey…we had already broken up!" Abby replied.
"Yeah. I know. This is just a friendly birthday kiss. Not a lover's kiss." I said teasingly to the shy Abby. "Shut up, or I will make you walk to school." Abby warned me and stepped on the gas pedal angrily.
"Wait. I will pick up Haley first." Abby said as she calmed down and drove by the Dunphys. Haley sneaked out of her house and jumped on the back of the car.
"Happy birthday Ed!" Haley said and gave me a peck on the cheek, causing Abby to widen her eyes.
"I told you it's a friend's kiss." I teased me, causing Abby to become angry once more while Haley was confused as to what we were talking about.
Abby sent me to middle school first before getting to her high school with Haley. As I got out of the car, Haley asked, "Hey, did you get taller?"
"I guess." I smirked and said to Abby, "Last chance."
"NO!" She huffed angrily and hurriedly drove the car to her school, causing me to laugh. The memory that popped out was a memory during our first meeting. At that time, I was admiring a blue ford convertible when I first saw her.
'It can't be…right?' I thought as I knew the goth girl didn't have an interest in that type of car before this.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone