Ajay was sitting with his instructor in the institute at the moment. His instructor had taken him to the inner building. He had access to it for the first time. It wasn't as good as they made it sound. He felt that this should be a celebrity effect in action. He turned his attention to the matter at hand. They were discussing the matter of cooperation between him and the institute. The talk went quite well because his parents were very influential in the business circle.
He won by lying down. They never had any interest in this part of the power group but now Ajay changed this. His parents worked with entertainment and business groups so they weren't focused on the military. But Ajay was already a part of it so they didn't mind joining now. They firmly believed that parents should help their children.
Meanwhile, Dhvani nibbled virtual melon seeds which had no real taste thinking that Ajay was one lucky guy. His show became a hit. And when he was stuck at a dead end, his parents came as a gold finger. She envied him. But then she caught herself. Because you can't get something this good without losing something. And looking at the way things were progressing, they were waiting for a huge retrograde. Also, her life wasn't that bad to envy him. Humph. She got a chance for a new life after she died. How many people had this? If something, maybe Ajay should envy her.
What would happen when his luck stopped favoring him? She had to complete all the tasks and change this world's status before that happened. She felt a kind of urgency. So she waited impatiently for Ajay to finish the talk.
As soon as he walked out, she asked him.
["Are you always this lucky?"]
"I don't know. Sometimes luck is strength and strength is luck. I just believe that when you want something, you have to get it by trying. And if luck helps, it is good too."
That made no sense to her. So she changed the topic. Was he trying to prevaricate?
["When will you transfer the funds?"]
She didn't realize that she was getting less and less robotic. Her curiosity was giving her away. But considering how dense Ajay was, he would not find this till a long time passed.
So when they reached home, the system task was considered completed.
[Main System Task Progress]
[REWARD: 100 SKILL POINTS]
"What are skill points?"
["I'll show you the system panel. You can access it by thinking SYSTEM PANEL."]
Ajay opened the system panel which looked like a laptop screen. There were few icons.
SYSTEM MANUAL
SYSTEM HELP
SYSTEM MALL
He clicked the third one.
He had no interest in manuals. That kind of official language went over his head. That's why he never read the license agreements before playing games or installing apps.
And System Help wasn't something he was interested in at the moment. Maybe he could read it sometime later when he had nothing to do or actually needed help.
The mall then turned into a holographic version of a real-life size shopping mall. It was a very sci-fi version with metallic luster and the walls were made of some unknown material. It was just, in a single word, shiny. It looked like the creator wanted to blind everyone with this light reflecting off the surfaces. The mall was at least twenty floors high, and there was a play area as soon as he entered. He thought it was, some kind of children's thing so he turned towards the elevator. The elevator was a kind of hybrid between the one in Harry Potter movies and the real-life escalator. So there were direction changes along with altitude and depth changes. It moved in three coordinates. That was a good thing. If it went in the fourth coordinate too, they would be in a time travel show.
It would have been fine if there was a teleporting option. The first-floor option only was lit up. And the other floors weren't even showing up. He thought maybe this was where the skill points played a role. Then the options on the elevator changed and others appeared.
MAGIC
EDUCATION
FARMING
BUSINESS
TECHNOLOGY
Without changing the page, he pressed the 'Magic' option. Soon the elevator moved left and then straight and then stopped before a room. He stepped out of the elevator and entered the room without any hesitation because the elevator made him vomit. The room was like a world of its own. All kinds of colors were continuously bursting with magic. He never saw these many colors as if one with air even in the festival of colors. The colors swirled in the air like they had minds of their own. They were playful, some nudged him, some touched him softly and some hid acting like a child, and some just stayed with him. He reckoned that they were the manifestation of elemental magic. As he moved, many things zoomed in and out of his view. There were bookshelves floating independently, some tools, crystals, and scrolls.
Ajay first moved towards the colors and touched the cool blue color. It had no substance but still, it gave him a friendly feeling. Then he touched the green color which came bounding towards him. It had a warm feeling. Red, the elusive one, played hide and seek with him, for a long time, before becoming calm. It gave him an exciting feeling. Yellow stayed with him after the red color bounded away. It gave him a calm feeling. And the white color which surrounded all colors like it was protecting him, gave him peace.
He stayed for a long time with the white color. He always felt that he was at peace with his life. He had everything he wanted but now he found that he wasn't at peace with it. This aura made him acknowledge everything in his life and he finally accepted that his strength or luck wasn't meant to be taken for granted. He could lose everything at any moment so he has to strive hard to make himself better. He should be able to live without his magic. He would miss it but nothing was impermanent or permanent in this world.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself sitting in the same position. It was as if no time had passed. He now understood what kind of heaven-defying existence this system was.
Because if he hadn't chosen to go to the magic room, maybe he would have been arrogant enough and his way of magic would be stagnant in the future like all people here. He never saw any person who specialized in every type of elemental magic. Everyone here seemed to acknowledge and believe the fact that only one element could be used as if it was written in stone. He felt the real challenge in life now.
Most people don't analyze themselves and that leads to some changes in behavior over the years. Some tend to become inferior, some are jealous and some become arrogant. But all these traits are present and absent at some point in life. These traits define you at a particular moment and these definitions change with moments. Learning about exterior sense is as important as learning about interior too. Because a decision is enough to change one's life but it could also influence others' life as well.
Dhvani felt when he was out of the mall. She lost the connection after he entered the mall.
["You spent 80 points in the Magic section. Host, what skill did you learn?"]
Because of the privacy option, Dhvani couldn't see his side of the system mall. But her side was heavenly. She got a communicator for 50 points and joined the server of all the current working systems. Her friend request was still pending though. But still, her mall had many props she wanted.
Like system skins, she wanted new clothes. And also she needed to level up to eat. Her mall rewards were a lottery option, two scratch cards, and one emergency buff.
She left the lottery option because she wanted Ajay, the lucky guy to help her. She scratched one scratch card and then she got a restriction removed from the communication server. She left the other two gifts aside. They could be handy in some difficult situations or she could use them after she left her system job. Her manual said all her rewards would follow her even after she resigned. At least, she wouldn't be poor after she became a human again.
So both of them didn't realize that their rewards were miles apart in every way. They were happy with the gifts and didn't feel the need to discuss them so they were in dark for a long long time. These things when discussed later were enough for Dhvani to lament for a long time. They missed many wonderful gifts from the mall and she complained about her past self which made Ajay and her boss have calluses on their ears.
Dhvani swiped her screen for her application status as she talked with Ajay. And that's when she noticed that their skill points became zero like before they knew this update feature.