"Another good day of work!" Jack said happily as he stretched his back.
He grabbed his last can of sprite and guzzled it down with his legs kicked up. He had ended up working all night and felt exhausted yet his brain was still firing off numerous ideas of how to improve his game.
He made sure to save twice before running the final tests which of course passed without any issues.
"It's finally time for me to rest." Jack thought to himself and got up from his desk.
"These bandages are killing me. Why are they so itchy?" Jack said as he sighed.
He wanted to scratch every single inch of his arm but resisted. He didn't want to reopen the wounds accidentally.
Luckily, it wasn't a problem for him to fall asleep with the help of his Better Sleep skill.
Honestly, this skill was a life saver. His sleep had never been better since acquiring this skill.
He regretted not investing in this skill earlier. How good would his Sleep be if it was Rank B?
Would he be able to sleep in the middle of a volcano? Or would he be able to Lucid Dream on command?
"That would be awesome." Jack said out loud and yawned.
He wrapped himself in his blankets, closed his eyes, before controlling his breathing and thinking of random things. Before he knew it he fell asleep and woke up to the sound of his phone buzzing.
"Uh," Jack groaned as he wanted to sleep more and almost chose to ignore the call.
Still he resisted his urges and picked up his phone.
"Sarah? Why is she calling me so early?" Jack wondered and answered it.
"Hello?"
"Hester! I did it!"
"I reached round twenty. Hahaha, I told you it wasn't hard!" Sarah said excitedly over the phone.
Jack could imagine that she must be jumping all over the walls with how excited she sounded.
"Congrats, I'll send you the updated version with the real time market prices." Jack said slowly.
Sarah immediately fell silent as her depression radiated through the phone. Then Betty's voice came through as she hastily said, "Don't I haven't reached round twenty yet. Wait for me."
"Hehehe, I'm just messing with you. I haven't worked on that feature yet."
"But I do have an updated version that developed the main storyline and has a new feature." Jack said with a smile across his tired face.
Sarah and Betty clearly sighed with relief.
"Does the update get rid of our progress?" Sarah asked with worry.
"No, all the progress will be saved. Though you might be bombarded with in game letters and newspapers that tell the story. You can skip them though."
"That's good. Alright that's all I wanted to say. See ya." Sarah said before hanging up the call.
Jack shook his head and placed his phone down before going back to sleep.
He woke up again at one in the afternoon and felt refreshed. His mind was clear and his body felt light.
Even the itching coming from his arms had faded away significantly which was a pleasing discovery.
"I don't think I can take a shower with these things on. So I guess I have to skip today." Jack muttered to himself and went to wash his face and brush his teeth.
He sat on his soft leather couch and felt safe. Leaning his head back, Jack felt as if he was sinking into the couch. As if it was giving him a big warm hug.
There wasn't a single strange thing going on.
Jack felt a wave of unease hit him as he felt an inch to work. To do something productive.
Ever since he arrived in this alternative universe he had gotten a single day where he could properly rest. When the System was around it worked him to the bone.
Even on his 'rest' days, he was brainstorming updates, strategizing for the System, or analyzing competitors for inspiration..
He felt tired.
Jack shook his head and woke himself from his daze.
"I need a break." Jack muttered.
"Yeah, that…sounds nice."
"I send Sarah and Betty the updated version of Windor's Siege before relaxing for a bit." Jack felt silent before sighing.
He needed a break from game development or he was going to burn out. Once he burned out, trying to come out of the rut would take ten times the effort.
It simply wasn't worth it to push himself to the limit everyday.
"A break day is a must, I'll only work on the character designs today…and send the drafts of the plant designs to Sarah and Betty to get their thoughts." Jack said with a relaxed smile and breathed out a soft sigh of relaxation.
He already felt his mind and body becoming less tense already.
After sitting on the couch in silence for several minutes, Jack grabbed his table and began stretching the typical design style of the plant models and sent them to his investors.
A few back and forth later they eventually settled on a design that was heavily inspired by the plants in Plants vs Zombies.
"Now that I got the general looks down for a few of the plants it's time to hire a professional designer and animator. Hopefully it's the same person to save costs and time." Jack thought to himself as he bit into an apple.
He pulled up Fiver and searched for designers and animators. He was cost sensitive but needed someone who worked fast and was pretty decent.
So he knew that he probably had to pay a bit more than he wanted to.
As Jack scrolled down his face lit up.
"This person is perfect. Her rates are good, she has a short over turn of a week, and she has great reviews. A hundred five-stars is incredible."
"I wonder why her rates aren't higher? Hmmm, the reviews seem to be from a few years ago. But her profile says she started taking requests just today."
"She probably hasn't taken any work for awhile and is just getting back into it which is why she had reduced her prices." Jack muttered to himself.
"Should I go for it? She must be rusty so might be a little slower than she says or a little bit worse." Jack rubbed his chin while pondering.
Before not hesitating any longer. He wasn't in an environment to be picky. If he could get a professional for cheap he had to take it before her rates spiked.
Jack hastily sent Golden_Pookie_Agent a request with his requirements, references, and hopeful time range of delivery.
What surprised him was that he got a response almost right away.
[Golden_Pookie_Agent]: Can do. Please send a refundable deposit of fifty dollars and I'll send you my drafts tomorrow morning."
"Wow she sure works quick. No wonder everyone has given her five stars. It seems I was worried over nothing." Jack said with a smile.
He didn't think he would find a person with his exact needs so quickly. He was prepared to spend all day searching for the perfect one.
Looks like that wasn't needed.
Jack responded back and sent over the fifty dollars before asking her if she received it.
After he got confirmation, Jack closed Fiver and decided that he would treat himself for working so hard.
"I deserve it. I'll watch a stream. I wonder if Alice is streaming today." Jack wondered as he pulled up Omega.
He saw all his favorite streamers and focused on a young man who was dressed in a thick black robe. He was walking in a desert as he carried a massive anti-tank gun on his back. Below the thumbnail was the title and the category.
Road to One Hundred!!!!
Ranked Survival
"It's nice to see that my former games haven't died off. Although the System thought they weren't good enough, at least my fans do." Jack said with a smile.
He clicked on the stream and read the chat.
Boy_of _thunder: Rise men! Rise ladies! Rise to defeat the tyrants of the Starry Cloud Studio!
ChampoThree: Alice, continue on! Don't let the corrupt game devs slow your pace to the top one hundred!
StickyGecko: Death to Starry Cloud Studio!
"Oh come on. Where are the mods? You can't be wishing death to anyone." Jack said as he shook his head.
Jack's lips twitched as he checked his back to see he wasn't going to get assassinated.
"That's enough Omega for today. I'll guess I'll stick with YouTube." Jack said and closed the tab.
"There should be some good stuff on YouTube waiting for me to explore." Jack said with hope.
The moment he opened YouTube he was greeted with five YouTube videos about the investigation into Starry Cloud Studio. One of them came out yesterday with an update.
"Damn, it's been four days. Can't we move on?" Jack groaned.
His homepage was a lost cause, so Jack directly searched his reliable favorite YouTube to watch their latest videos.
He spent the rest of the day relaxing and texting Sarah about her feedback on the update. It seemed that he had overestimated how much stuff would fill their mailbox.
They weren't very far into the game at all.
"Thinking about it, to even get to the end of the main storyline will require reaching round one hundred. And I plan on adding additional three branching storylines from there."
"Sarah and Betty are still very far away from the end. Still at the learning stage." Jack muttered as he rubbed his chin.
He might really need to adjust how he approached the storyline. He probably needed to place more bits and pieces of the story in every round.
Even the background, characters, music, and buildings will not be safe from his hands once he has enough money. Everything should be helpful to let the players understand the general story.
The more detailed parts will only be faintly touched upon for people to chew on and fill in the gaps.
As for the gambling feature of the game, Sarah and Betty refused to test it out until they felt they were good enough to consistently get to round twenty by themselves.
Meaning he still had no clue on how well the gambling feature was or if there were some hidden quirks. Although their refusal to test it out was disappointing, Jack didn't push them to do it.
They were his investors, not his beta testers. Their enjoyment of the game was more important.
"I wonder how Sarah is doing? Last thing I heard from her was that she was going to a party. The life of an ambitious man is filled with loneliness. Sigh." Jack muttered and looked at the time.
It was ten o'clock.
"It's ten already. If I was still in my previous life I would be asleep by now." Jack muttered.
He remembered coming home exhausted. Carrying piles upon piles of research papers, notes, and pictures of random ancient objects found in ancient cities.
Although he was dead tired he would always force himself to stay up a little bit long to read one more paragraph. Even then he ended up falling asleep in the middle of his work more often than not.
"I guess I was a workaholic back in my previous life too." Jack chuckled and stood up.
Maybe a nightly jog would clear his mind, a chance to outrun the ghost of his old life—and the weight of his new one