Thursday, Ben woke up at 4 am. Ben did only need 4 hours of sleep every night. Sleeping 6 hours had the same effect as sleeping for 10 hours.
Normally, he would study silently in his room, but not today.
He planned to try out his new knowledge skill before school.
The best way to prove if his skill is effective is by trying to dodge the tennis balls from his storehouse.
Ben took his school bag with sportswear and silently exited his house. He made a timer for 6 am to write a message to his parents that he jogged directly to school. It wasn't a good excuse, but it was realistic and his parents wouldn't worry about him missing.
´The train is not devoid of passengers like one would think. These people can just make me pity them. How happy would these people be with the same need of sleep as me?
It is quite sad that even when the genome editing of adults became public, it was very expensive.
I don't know how much it would exactly cost. But roughly 2,5 thousand euros. Coupled with the risks and side effects, it wasn't mainstream to edit the genome of adults.
I shouldn't care about their existence. I am not a Samaritan!
All I need to care about are my family, my friends, and myself.
It should be time to admire my status and my skill list.
Status open.´
<0/10>
´How depressing! Only two points increase in my status. At least, Strength and Agility are increasing at the same time. It means my balance of training strength and agility is great. Now...
Open Skill list.´
Knowledge Skills:
-Science
-Parkour
-Survival
-Perfect Evasion
Special Skills:
-HSAM (highly superior autobiographical memory)
-Vision of slow motion
��It was definitely the right decision to name it Perfect Evasion. Ultimate Evasion would be too childish.´
Seeing his skill list after that long time made him realize something.
´F*ck! I completely forgot about AND-189. I planned to buy more of them if It was effective. I am definitely too stressed. How could I forget it?
But what should I even do? AND-189 is hopefully still on the empire market.
I can buy a lot of this awakening drug. Or can I contact the creator? Maybe, I could buy the receipt from him. He shouldn't realize that his drug can awake a special skill.
No. If he achieved such an effective drug, he had to accurately dose the ingredients.
He probably took the drug himself and already awakened. Attempting to increase the slow-motion effect he probably perfected AND-189. I still have 77 flacons of AND-189. If he doesn't want to cooperate, I could try to chemical reverse-engineering the drug.
This little investment would help me create a generic version of AND-189, the reverse engineer requires various chemical processes to discover the exact contents of AND-189's formula.
I should contact him after school.´
Arriving at the storehouse, Ben changed his clothes and began a warm-up.
He began tennis ball training with 5 ball throwers, which was the limit he could do.
Ben noticed in the first seconds, how relaxed and fluid his evasion became.
The last time, Ben would often be surprised by incoming balls and move hectically but not anymore.
After the first round, Ben increased the throwing rate each round.
Only at 6 ball thrower with maximal throwing rate did Ben feel his body limits even though he still wasn't hit even once.
´It works better than I fought. I was worried that my mind wouldn't be able to accept the evasive move or that my brain would be overwhelmed to coordinate my muscles according to the move. I should try a level higher. Maybe I can have a glimpse of my body sacrificing non-vital parts.´
Ben adjusted the ball thrower and activated the 7th thrower.
After 20 s, Ben wasn't hit even once. As he adjusted the throwing rate, the evasion wasn't that much exhausting on the body.
At that moment, Ben began having headaches, resulting in him being shot from every direction. Ben dropped on the floor, waiting till the round ended.
The more direction the tennis balls were thrown from, the more taxing it was for the mind.
Ben's concentration was after dodging for over half an hour depleted, resulting in headaches.
Even after the round, Ben was still holding his head, but the thirst made him move five minutes later.
Having finished the testing of his skill, Ben changed back to his clothes and went to the train station.
On the way, Ben saw a group of middle-aged men inject themself with a substance in their artery. Ben directly understood what it was.
´I am already lucky to meet Nuke-consumers only now. There is nothing I can do for them.
Police? What a joke! They are much more serious crimes than just taking illegal drugs.
Why would one take a drug, which isn't been researched? No, I understand why. The regulation and criminalization of popular drugs were too high.
Then suddenly the streets are flooded with Nuke, who is one of the most addictive and cheap drugs in the history of drugs. One injection and you are already on the path of mental destruction.
I don't despise drug-consumers. Most of them underpredicted the addiction and just wanted to experiment with a drug.
Others exactly new the risk but didn't see any hope in their life.
I can't even say if they should have just waited till after the calamity. Would you either die due to Nuke or with a high chance being cruelly killed by a monster.
If I had the choice, I would clearly choose the second option.
I prefer to fight till I die. Instead of giving up and consume Nuke.
Still, everyone makes his own decision. ´
Ben wasn't stopped by the group. The group was affected by the happiness hormones released by the body after injecting themselves with Nuke. They didn't even look at Ben, nothing seemed important in their eyes. The happiness they felt was so huge that they sought even more of it till the end of their days.
....
After school, Ben was looking for AND-189 on Empire Market.
Having found the User-profile of the vendor, Ben tried to write him a message, but it somehow didn't work.
´I don't understand. What is 2-FA and how do I enable it? There should be some information about 2-FA on a guide of Empire Market. ´
Ben searched a bit and found the explanation he needed:
´If you plan on receiving communication from vendors or buyers, or wish to enable 2-FA, you will need to paste your PGP public key into your User Profile. To do this, click on your user name in the upper-right corner of the screen, and scroll down to where it says "PGP Information." Copy your PGP public key into the text box next to the words "PGP Public Key:", solve the captcha at the bottom of the screen, and click the "Save Changes" box. Don't forget to copy the entire public key.
You will then be asked to verify your public PGP key. To do this, copy the entire PGP message displayed, decrypt/verify the message using your PGP client, and paste the "Security Code" portion of the decrypted message into the "Security Code:" text box. Then press the "Proceed" button to continue.
If everything is correct, you will see a message that says "Your profile is updated successfully." Your PGP public key is now updated for other users to see, and you can use it decrypt incoming communication from them, as well as to perform tasks that require 2-FA once enabled. ´
Having succeeded, Ben wrote a message to the User: GameAddict189.
"Hey GameAddict189,
I have tested your drug and I was positively surprised.
You probably have it very hard to sell your flacons in the large drug market. Your profit is greatly limited, but the risk of the police storming at every moment your house is not low.
I would be ready to buy your formula of AND-189 for a good sum.
If you are interested please send me your offer."
Ben still locking at his send message, was thinking about an irrelevant question:
´Was it right to end without a Closing phrase? I mean just because he creates and sells drugs on the darknet, doesn't mean that he isn't polite himself. I should have written, "Yours sincerely, ???".
It was my prejudices that led to this. If my offer is rejected because of this, I will have to reverse engineer AND-189. Even if I can't sell it publicly, I can still give it to my friends and sell it in my future guild. He wouldn't charge me at the court for stealing? He will be rich enough in the future to hire one of the best lawyers.
Ben! Don't panic. First, wait for an answer. I hope he will at least answer.
I mean selling drugs is only to make money, so he shouldn't be against making a killing in a short time.'
Shortly after Ben was studying computer science. The progress was slow, but he didn't stop till he went to bed.