“One thousand bucks?” Levi tested the waters.
“Feels like it’s worth way more than just the raw material.”
Lyon shot up from his chair like he’d been electrocuted.
“What the hell!” he shouted.
“You trying to shake me down?”
Levi saw the skill starting to slip and quickly smoothed things over with a couple calm words.
In the end he walked out with five hundred cash for a coin that should’ve only fetched four hundred at most, and he got clear before Lyon came back to his senses.
“Guess this skill can’t push people too far past what they already believe,” Levi thought as he walked.
“Even with the system helping, it still needs some kind of foundation.
Getting a greedy old miser to drop a grand on a mystery coin?
Might be harder than killing him.”
Still, five hundred in his pocket took the edge off his immediate problems.
[Quest Complete: You exploited a greedy man’s weakness]
[Reward: Free Attribute Points +0.1, Gold Coins +1]
Another familiar weight dropped into his pocket.
Levi smiled.
Another five hundred, just like that.
He didn’t bother going back to cash the new coin out.
He wanted to see if the skill could level up first.
If it could… maybe one day he really could talk the dead back to life.
…
Levi timed it right and met Don Quixote near the construction site in Queens around noon.
He found his uncle outside a greasy Chinese takeout spot, squatting on the curb with a heavy, sauce-drenched plate of Fuzhou-style fried noodles.
“Want some?” Don Quixote wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“This is from your side of the world.
Twelve bucks and no tip expected.”
Most of New York’s Chinatowns leaned Cantonese, but the Fujianese crowd stuck around 8th Avenue where Levi was living now.
“I already ate,” Levi said.
“What are we doing next?”
Don Quixote stood, tossed the empty container in the trash, and brushed off his pants.
“Since you sold something today, you’re covering gas.
Get in.
We’ve got real shit to handle.”
Over the next few hours Don Quixote drove that barely-running Toyota all over Brooklyn, dragging Levi through offices to get an ID card, a MetroCard, and even free day-old bread from a couple charity spots.
“Listen up, kid.
I’m only teaching you this once,” Don Quixote said, steering one-handed while picking his teeth with a dirty fingernail.
“In New York, being poor is the original sin.
Being stupid is worse.
See those uniforms?
Cops here ain’t like back home.
Walk wide.
Empty subway car?
Don’t get in.
Could be a trap or some junkie tripping balls.”
Levi nodded along, watching the buildings outside get cleaner, the cop cars more frequent, and the skyline closer to Central Park.
They were leaving Brooklyn behind.
“Where are we going now?” he asked.
“This isn’t the way back.”
“Upper East Side.
Manhattan.
Hard to find extra hands on a weekday,” Don Quixote said, grinning.
“I’m gonna show you how the real rich people in New York live.
And we’re picking up some inventory while we’re at it.”
“Inventory?”
Half an hour later the Toyota rattled to a stop on a quiet, tree-lined street in the Upper East Side.
It felt like another planet compared to Brooklyn.
The sidewalks looked licked clean.
Every house was a standalone mansion with perfectly even lawns.
Levi rolled the window down.
No more eye-stinging piss-and-leaf smell from Sunset Park.
Just something else in the air.
Money.
[You have entered the Noble Courtyard]
[The empire’s powerful and wealthy live here.
Guards patrol day and night.]
[No quests detected at this time.]
“Didn’t know you had business up here,” Levi said, eyeing the row of brand-new Mercedes, Bentleys, and Porsches.
“Or is ‘inventory’ just code for breaking into some rich person’s house?”
“What?
Stealing?
No, no, no.” Don Quixote parked right beside a fire hydrant and slapped the fake disabled placard on the dash again.
“We’re here to take out their trash.”
“In New York, rich people hate dealing with their own junk,” he explained, leading Levi to a curbside bin and giving him a live demo.
“And they’re obsessed with appearances.
You wouldn’t believe it—they have to get the homeowners’ association to approve what plants go in their own goddamn lawn.”
He leaned in, rummaged, and came up grinning with a perfectly good Dyson vacuum.
“Don’t just stand there,” he said, hauling it toward the car.
“This thing still works.
Easy hundred-fifty if we flip it…”
Levi was about to answer when a husky voice with a thick Eastern European accent cut in from behind them.
“Are you a model?
I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”
Levi turned.
A black G-Wagon had pulled up without him noticing.
The driver’s window was down.
A middle-aged woman in sunglasses looked him over like she was appraising art.
“Come closer,” she said, crooking a finger.
“Let me get a better look.”
Levi glanced at Don Quixote, who was still wrestling with the jammed trunk, then stepped forward but kept a safe arm’s length from the car.
“How tall are you?” she asked.
“One-eighty-five?
One-eighty-seven?”
“One-eighty-eight,” Levi said.
“And I’m not a model.
I’m here for school.”
“Nine-head proportions, broad shoulders, narrow waist, that mixed-race pretty-boy face…” She smiled.
“You want to model?”
“Does it pay real money?” Levi asked.
“If it does, I’m in.”
“Modeling itself doesn’t pay much,” she laughed, clearly amused.
“But it looks good, doesn’t it?”
“Then I’m not interested,” Levi said, nodding toward Don Quixote walking over.
“I’ve got work to do with my uncle.”
She looked surprised, then a little disappointed.
After a pause she pulled a bill from her Hermès bag and held it out across the door.
“It’s hot out.
Get yourself and your uncle a coffee.
Consider it a thank-you for taking my old furniture.” She thought for a second.
“If you ever want part-time work, try Dolores Resale Boutique up here.
They could use a good-looking guy like you on the floor.”
Levi took the hundred without arguing.
“Thanks.”
She gave him one last appraising look, then drove off.
Don Quixote had been hiding until the G-Wagon left.
The second it was gone he rushed over.
“What’d she say to you?”
“Nothing much,” Levi said, looking at the bill in his hand.
“Gave me a hundred for coffee and pointed me at a job.”
“A hundred?!”
Don Quixote squawked like someone stepped on his tail.
He snatched the Franklin, held it up to the light, rubbed it between his rough fingers, then started cursing the rich, the world, and every pretty face in it.
“Fuck!
Fuck!
Fuck!
I bust my ass hauling bricks and washing dishes all day for this kind of money,” he ranted, shoving the bill back into Levi’s hand but still staring at it like it might vanish.
“Just because you’re good-looking?
This goddamn world.
I’ve got charm too, you know.
Where’s my rich lady handing me hundreds?”
Levi looked at his uncle’s dirty clothes and mud-splattered pants, then pocketed the cash and shrugged.
“I’m not just good-looking.
I’m tall too.”
“Fuck!”
Don Quixote flipped him off, still grumbling, and waved him toward the car.
“We got the vacuum, that’s enough for today… Get in.
I’ve still got dishes to wash tonight.
You sell that thing later—actually, never mind, I’ll do it.
You’ll just get ripped off.”
On the drive back to Brooklyn, Levi watched the scenery shift from the clean elegance of Madison Avenue to the graffiti, trash, and construction barriers of Sunset Park.
Back when his parents were alive, money hadn’t been a problem.
Then the business collapsed, the crash happened, and everything went to shit overnight.
Easy to get used to nice things.
Hard as hell to go back to nothing.
Especially after seeing both worlds in the same day.
“How do you actually make real money in America?” he asked, turning to Don Quixote.
“How do you buy a house like the ones we just saw?”
“Here?
Don’t be stupid,” Don Quixote waved a hand.
“You’d need to get into Harvard or Yale, become some hotshot doctor or lawyer, then you can charge five grand an hour for bullshit consultations and maybe afford a place like that.”
“Then I’ll go to Yale,” Levi said, dead serious.
“I’m not living in Brooklyn with you forever.”
Don Quixote snorted.
“Ha!
You think just anyone gets into Yale?
You got recommendation letters?
You got money?
Can you even get into AP classes?
And even then you might not make it.”
“I’ll figure the money out,” Levi said, not mentioning the system.
“What are recommendation letters and AP classes?”
“AP classes are like the top track back home—college-level stuff in high school.
If you want any shot at a good school, you need them,” Don Quixote said.
“Top Ivies are private.
You really think someone with your background just walks in?”
“So how do I get in?” Levi pressed.
“Yale, for example.
What’s the actual play?”
“Win a national championship in some sport, crush AP classes with straight As, and get a big-name recommendation,” Don Quixote said offhand.
“That might open a door.”
Levi thought it over, then asked, “What about basketball?
Could winning a national title make real money?”
He still had 0.1 attribute points left to spend.
His parents’ deaths had taught him one hard lesson: nothing lasts forever.
He didn’t know how long the system would stick around, but the way it triggered and how fast his body was changing, he could get strong quick.
Basketball was something he already knew from back home, so it felt like the natural move.
“Basketball?” Don Quixote laughed as he parked.
“Football’s where the real money and respect is.
You—an Asian kid—win a national high school football championship?
You’d be a goddamn legend.
You’d slap every Black and white player in the face.
Get into AP classes on top of that and Yale would basically beg you to show up.”
“Full-ride scholarship, cheerleaders begging you to sign their asses, fraternities fighting to recruit you… but don’t kid yourself.
American football’s been around forever and you can count the Asian guys who made it to NCAA on one hand.” He killed the engine.
“I’m washing dishes tonight.
Feed yourself.”
…
Back in the basement later, Levi kept turning Don Quixote’s words over while he chewed on the free charity bread.
He wasn’t some business genius.
He couldn’t see the future or play the stock market.
If he wanted to flip his life around and make real money in America, football might actually be the clearest path forward.
Win a scholarship, get into a good school, and maybe the debt and the fear would finally stop hanging over him.
A new quest popped up.
This one felt different.
It was a multi-stage class quest.
“Knight’s Path?” Levi muttered around a mouthful of bread.
“Doesn’t sound half bad.”