By Monday afternoon, I was officially annoyed by how much I liked Quest Master.
Friday had been curiosity.
The first reward had changed that. Ninety minutes of perfect focus had cleared work that should’ve followed me into the weekend.
The sleep reward had been worse.
Four hours.
I’d tested it Friday night and woken up feeling like I’d slept eight. By Saturday morning, I’d gone for a run, cleared my emails and still made brunch before any of my friends.
That was when the problem started.
By Sunday, I wasn’t asking whether the System worked anymore.
I was asking why it wasn’t giving me another Quest.
There was no new Quest and no way to request one. Just my profile waiting exactly where I’d left it.
CAMILA REYES
PLAYER — Lv.2XP: 10 / 150
Close enough to irritate me.
So I’d read everything else again.
Skills. Traits. Locked menus. Attributes.
Three numbers mattered most now.
PER 12 — 15 / 150CHA 15 — 0 / 400PRE 14 — 0 / 250
Perception hadn’t had fifteen Progress before.
One Quest had moved it.
Which meant normal rewards could improve my Attributes without requiring direct points.
Good to know.
Strength could wait for some future gym Quest. I wasn’t wasting something rare making average numbers slightly less average.
Then Level Two had given me this.
UNSPENT ATTRIBUTE POINTS: 1
A Free Attribute Point increases one eligible Attribute by +1, ignoring its current Progress requirement.
Charisma was already fifteen.
Presence was fourteen.
I opened the description again.
PRESENCE
Measures the weight of your social presence.
Influences noticeability, perceived authority, first-impression impact and resistance to being overlooked.
Looks got attention.
Presence decided what happened after.
I didn’t need to make my weaknesses average.
I needed my strengths to win.
FREE ATTRIBUTE POINT USED
PRESENCE: 14 → 15
No-brainer.
Nothing dramatic happened.
Ten minutes later, I called someone’s name across the floor.
They looked up immediately.
Maybe they would’ve anyway.
Then it happened again.
I couldn’t prove the difference, but I could feel it.
Fifteen wasn’t making me prettier.
It was making me harder to ignore.
I liked that far too much.
Then my phone vibrated.
NEW QUEST
PLACE YOUR BET
Choose someone whose success is worth investing in.
Spend meaningful personal capital—time, visibility, reputation, access or opportunity—to materially strengthen their position.
REWARD
+40 Player XP
EXECUTIVE PRESENCE — SINGLE USE
Presence +2 during one high-stakes professional or social interaction.
Seventeen.
For one interaction.
I wanted that.
The question was who.
Someone above me?
Absolutely not.
Someone safely near the bottom?
Pointless.
Then there was Evan.
Fifteenth looked bad on paper, but I knew why he was there. He could find the smartest thing in the room and present it like an apology.
More importantly, he was my partner.
If Evan looked competent, Team Seven looked competent.
If Team Seven looked good, I looked good.
And he was still far enough below me that helping him didn’t create a problem.
Not yet.
Fine.
Evan was the best investment available.
By four-thirty, Reeves had started five-minute direction checks.
Evan stood beside our monitor with three analytics windows open.
"Don’t."
He looked at me. "Don’t what?"
"Show him all of that."
"It’s the evidence."
I closed two windows before he could object.
"I know."
He looked like he wanted to argue.
Then he didn’t.
Interesting.
"Five minutes," I said. "Problem. Insight. Move."
Reeves called us over.
Our first test suggested recognizable people and repeatable formats could improve PULSE’s return rate.
"One test," Reeves said.
"Two by Thursday," Evan answered.
Good.
Then he started ruining it.
"If you isolate returning behavior against the previous thirty-day cohort—"
"Evan."
He stopped.
I gave him a look.
Problem. Insight. Move.
His mouth tightened.
"The numbers aren’t the interesting part," I said.
Reeves looked at me immediately.
This time, his attention stayed.
"What is?"
"Access."
His brows lifted slightly. "To what?"
I’d planned to answer that myself.
Instead, I looked at Evan.
"Go on."
He hesitated.
"I work nights at Vesper."
Reeves recognized the name immediately.
"The club?"
"Yeah."
Evan glanced toward the monitor, already threatening to disappear back into the data.
"PULSE keeps covering things people can already see. Openings. Restaurants. Events."
His hand moved toward the screen.
"If you compare—"
"Evan."
He exhaled.
Then tried again.
"People don’t need another list of expensive places. They want to see the people who get into them."
Better.
Now Reeves was listening.
"Vesper gets creators, artists, athletes, rich kids, local It girls. Half of them want to be seen—the table, the clothes, who they’re with."
True.
People with money loved privacy until there was something worth being seen doing.
Reeves leaned back slightly.
"Free publicity for them."
"And content for us," Evan said. "Promoters want attention. Creators want attention. People trying to become creators want it even more."
Reeves looked between us.
"So what’s the format?"
Evan started drifting again.
"You could segment it by—"
"Access," I said.
He glanced at me, then nodded.
"Behind the rope."
There it was.
"A night at Vesper," I added. "Setup before opening. Promoters. Staff. Someone everyone follows getting ready. The ridiculous things VIP guests ask for."
Reeves nodded slowly.
"Aspirational."
"Exactly."
Evan leaned forward slightly.
"People watch lifestyles they can’t afford all the time. PULSE stops being about places and starts being about the people everyone wants access to."
Reeves smiled.
"That’s the first thing I’ve heard today that could become a format."
Then he looked between us.
"Whose idea?"
Ours.
Easy.
True enough.
And already more credit than Evan would’ve managed on his own.
I could stop there.
Then I looked at him.
If I was going to bet on Evan, I might as well actually bet.
"The core idea is his."
Reeves turned fully toward him.
That was the part I hadn’t expected to dislike.
"Good idea, Cole."
Evan blinked. "Thanks."
Reeves pointed at him.
"Next time, get there faster."
His mouth tightened.
"Working on it."
"Do that. Find out what Vesper will actually let us film. Don’t promise anything you don’t control."
This time, Evan only nodded.
"Got it."
My phone vibrated.
QUEST COMPLETE
PLACE YOUR BET
+40 Player XP
EXECUTIVE PRESENCE — ACQUIRED
Player XP: 50 / 150
I smiled.
Worth it.
Across from me, Evan looked down at his own phone.
Something in his expression changed.
"What?"
He locked the screen.
"Nothing."
I narrowed my eyes.
He’d been saying that a lot lately.