[Reward Calculation Complete.]
[Legendary Returns Granted.]
[$30,000.]
Reinhard’s eyes went wide.
Thirty thousand dollars. He had spent two thousand so his wife could sleep, and the System had just paid him back fifteen times over.
I’m not broke! If Reinhard wasn’t around the others, he would be shedding some tears. The poor life is really not suited for me. I refuse to believe a handsome man like myself was meant to spend his second life counting coins.
He looked down at himself. His clothes were cheap. His phone was old. His bank account had been practically dead when he woke up.
This was getting embarrassing.
His gaze drifted to Emily, who was still holding the medicine bottle, then to Lily and Maki watching him from across the room. He suddenly had a lot of questions he couldn’t ask in front of them.
More importantly, he had money.
Thirty thousand dollars.
Reinhard had to physically restrain himself from smiling too widely. I can breathe again.
He stood up stiffly. "I have to check something."
Lily blinked. "Check what?"
"Something in my room."
"Right now?"
"It’s very important," he said, walking away at a pace that was trying very hard to look normal.
Emily watched him go. "Is he okay?"
"He’s never been okay," Lily said.
"Probably nothing good," Maki added.
Reinhard shut his bedroom door and leaned against it, and the moment he was alone, another notification appeared.
[Additional Reward Granted.]
[Peak Body Filter.]
He had barely finished reading it when something surged through his body, and his back snapped straight.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
His spine and joints shifted one after another, each pop louder than the last.
A knock came from the other side of the door. "Reinhard?" Lily called. "Are you breaking something in there?"
"Just myself!" he called back through gritted teeth.
There was a long pause. "...Okay?"
The sluggishness that had weighed down his body since he woke up in it disappeared. Heat spread from his chest into every limb, and then something dark began seeping out of his skin.
Reinhard looked down. His shirt was soaked in thick black liquid, and he made the mistake of sniffing it. "Ugh. That’s disgusting." He held his arms away from himself. "Well, I shouldn’t expect much from a man who drank eleven bottles of beer. It’s all leaving at once."
The process went on for several more seconds before it finally stopped, and Reinhard straightened. He felt stronger, lighter, and cleaner.
"Peak Body Filter, huh?" A grin spread across his face. "I can work with this."
Before he could deal with his ruined shirt, another notification appeared.
[Legendary Additional Reward Granted.]
[S-Grade Gnosis Awakening.]
The grin vanished. A burning heat stirred deep in his stomach, and his vision went black.
In the darkness, a small blue light appeared, with energy rolling off it like wind from a giant fan.
"...Is that my Gnosis?"
The blue light pulsed, and a tremendous surge of mana burst outward, flowing through his stomach and chest before branching down his arms and legs. Blue lines traced his mana pathways like glowing veins.
"I can actually see inside my body?"
Strength flooded through him, and when he opened his eyes, they were shining blue. A slow grin returned. "So this is what it means to be an Awakener."
His gaze landed on a dumbbell in the corner, a relic from some week when the old Reinhard had tried to get his life together and given up by Wednesday. He picked it up and squeezed, and the metal folded in his hand like bread.
Reinhard stared at the flattened dumbbell. "Oops."
Another notification appeared.
[Gnosis Ability Acquired.]
[Fooling.]
[Grade: S.]
[Effect: Distorts the perception of a target, allowing the user to impose an illusion upon their senses. The user may cause a target to perceive the user’s appearance as their greatest fear, or create an illusion that distorts the target’s perception of reality.]
[Effectiveness depends on the user’s Gnosis and the target’s resistance.]
Reinhard read it slowly. This wasn’t just an illusion. He could change how someone perceived him or even make them see their greatest fear.
His gaze shifted to the mirror beside his closet. "Fooling."
His reflection changed instantly. His handsome face vanished, and a monstrous face stared back at him, surrounded by countless twisting arms and crimson eyes. A shiver ran down Reinhard’s spine.
"It even works on me? Amazing..." His expression darkened. "Absolutely not. Put it back."
The illusion disappeared, and his real face returned. Reinhard leaned closer, checking his reflection from both sides before brushing his hair back into place. "Never do that to me again."
He looked at the mirror thoughtfully. An ability that could twist someone’s perception of reality, and he could already think of a dozen ways to abuse it. "I pity whoever I use this on first."
[Additional Reward Granted.]
[One Year Mana Infusion.]
[Effect: One year of mana will fill the Gnosis Container.]
His eyes widened as mana poured into him. The small blue light inside his body grew until it was roughly the size of a baseball, and yet it still wasn’t close to filling the enormous container around it.
[Additional Reward Granted.]
[Personal Inventory.]
[Capacity: 100 Slots.]
Reinhard’s eyes lit up. "Now this is the best thing I’ve gotten."
He tapped the crushed dumbbell, and it vanished in a blue shimmer, reappearing in one of the slots floating in his vision.
He thought about it, and the dumbbell dropped back into his palm, and then he sent it away again. "If anyone asks why there’s a flattened dumbbell in my bedroom, ’I just awakened an S-Grade Gnosis’ probably wouldn’t help."
Before he could explore the Inventory any further, his vision blurred.
[Additional Reward Granted.]
[Vision.]
The walls of his bedroom melted away, and he was standing in a medical room lit by a single lamp. Someone lay reclined in a chair.
Their face was impossible to make out, but Reinhard could clearly see a cracked blue light inside their stomach.
"A shattered Gnosis?"
He stepped closer as the broken pieces began drifting toward each other. One fragment connected to another, then another, until the final piece slid into place.
The blue light swelled and spread through the person’s body, and the broken Gnosis was whole again.
Then the scene vanished, and Reinhard stood motionless in his bedroom. Akasha had just shown him that it was possible.
A shattered Gnosis could be repaired, and Emily didn’t have to stay in that chair forever.
"That," he said quietly, "was a fine reward."
One last notification appeared.
[Legendary Additional Reward Granted.]
[Merchant King’s Lens.]
[Legendary Grade.]
[Description: Allows the wearer to see an item’s true market value and the best place to sell it.]
A pair of thin glasses appeared in his hand, and Reinhard turned them over. After everything the System had given him tonight, this might end up being the most useful of all.
He slipped them on and looked at the old wooden chair beside his desk.
[Chair.]
[Market Value: $18.]
[True Market Value: $98.]
"Wait." Reinhard looked at the ugly chair with newfound respect, then turned to the vase on the shelf.
[Market Value: $35.]
[True Market Value: $200.]
His eyes moved to a dusty figurine on the highest shelf.
[Market Value: $20.]
[True Market Value: $1,000.]
[Recommended Selling Location: Antique Exchange.]
"These are amazing. They even tell me where to sell it?" His eyes went wide. "I knew this second life couldn’t be this trash. It’s time for me to enter into the tax bracket I deserve."
Reinhard looked around his bedroom. The furniture suddenly looked different. The dusty decorations looked different. Even the ugly vase he’d never paid attention to suddenly looked like a potential business partner.
His breathing became slightly faster. "How much money is hiding in this apartment?" He turned toward the door. "How much money is hiding in this city?"
A smile slowly spread across his face. "Finally."
He had found something he understood.
Money.
He walked to the window. "Does it work on anything, or only things I own?"
Across the street, a small shop had several items sitting beneath a buzzing light, and he focused on one of them.
The Lens flickered.
[Current Market Price: ???]
[True Market Value: Unable to Determine.]
[Reason: Insufficient Proximity.]
"Too far?" Reinhard smiled. It hadn’t said no. It had said too far. The Lens worked on things he didn’t own, and that was what made it dangerous.
The shop was closed tonight, but it would open in the morning, and Reinhard intended to be standing at the door when it did.
He looked down at his black, disgusting shirt. "But first, a shower." He sniffed himself. "And possibly burning these clothes."
He opened his bedroom door to find three people standing outside. Lily had her ear pressed to the door and nearly fell into him, Maki stood behind her with her arms folded, and Emily sat in her wheelchair a few steps back, her hands tight around the wheels.
All three stared at him, then at his shirt, and then the smell reached them.
Lily staggered backward, covering her face. "WHAT IS THAT?!"
"Detox," Reinhard said.
"You smell like a sewer exploded!"
"It’s called a glow-up. You’ll understand when you’re older."
Maki pulled her collar up over her nose. "We heard cracking. It sounded like you were snapping your own bones."
"I was," he said with a smile. "I feel great."
Emily stared at him with wide eyes and a wrinkled nose, but there was worry beneath the disgust. "Are you... sick?"
"Never better." His smile softened. "Really. Better than I’ve been in a very long time."
Emily studied his face, and then she slowly loosened her grip on the wheels.
"Then go wash," Maki said through her collar. "Now. Before it gets into the walls."
"That’s fair."
Reinhard headed for the bathroom with his arms held away from his sides, while behind him, Lily threw open the hallway window and gasped at the fresh air.
He was still grinning when he turned on the water. Tomorrow morning, he was going to find out what else was hiding behind the shop windows.
"All right," he said, smiling. "Let’s have some fun."