Swan had returned a while back with some staff to help her carry the luggage and found Talbot in the middle of vigorous torture. Choosing not to interfere, she left him in the hands of Raven...though she too wanted to help him in working out, as it was her forte.
Sighing, she decided to revise the deeds and organize the documents. As Talbot's backups, Swan and Raven had to be involved in his every business so that at a later time, would be his representatives. She nodded in satisfaction after discovering that Talbot's phone and laptop could not be unlocked. Not at all an issue with the password either, as the devices displayed a black screen throughout all her attempts at unlocking them.
'Good, only the master can have access, security is guaranteed,' she smiled while turning over the sleek phone.
The devices even had uncommon ports, further amplifying their defences against typical hacking. As the fox masked woman got into her study, the two men walked into the office. Talbot had freshened up and at some point adapted a funny walking style, he was feeling the strain on his bones rather than the muscles...as they currently were nonexistent.
'Hey UTS, got anything to handle this?' He called out into his mind, over time, he had chosen to refer to his system with a name of sorts to at least introduce an originality in his interactions with it from now on, 'I wanna turn heads, but not for this reason.'
Talbot slumped on a sofa across from Swan and began to massage his collar bone.
{Request acknowledged, running analysis...}
[Host cannot make purchases as required tier has not been reached.]
A green panel popped up to relay the message. Talbot groaned, he did not mind the soreness after a good workout, but he was going to have to adjust to his busy schedule in the near future and would not want his brittle bones giving up on him.
'Can't you find a loophole or something?' His next tier was a far away dream to Talbot, the amount of U.Ps required is just going to kill his motivation if he thought much on it.
{Request registered...solution found!}
'Heh! Sweet~' Talbot celebrated...a little too soon.
[The Speck of Vim can be attained.]
The report came back positive and Talbot summoned up the interface that usually explained things.
[Speck of Vim: is a minuscule form of vitality the Host shall receive. Energy will be regained much faster and Host's body shall absorb nutrients better.]
{To gain this perk, 100U.Ps shall be deducted. Does Host still desire to proceed?}
[Yes] [No]
"Ugh, for fuck's sake!" Raven and Swan momentarily glanced at Talbot, who now realized he had thought out loud.
"Can I get a coffee, Raven?" He added after the sudden outburst and began to massage his temples for emphasis.
For reasons such as these, Talbot opted to use his inner voice while addressing his system. If someone started mumbling to themself as if holding conversation with another being, even he would distance himself from such an individual. Stupid was contagious these days!
Raven rose to make him the drink and Talbot sighed then glared at the outrageous interface wanting to drag him back to the pit of poverty with his points. To accumulate 10,000U.Ps is not as simple a task as one might think, especially if the daily income was only 50U.Ps, that would take several months to hit the mark for a level up! However, this would be one amongst the many investments he would be taking along his journey. Thus, he accepted the conditions and felt his heart skip a beat when his current U.Ps dropped to 503.
Nevertheless, this type of loss was incomparable to the reinvigorating sensation that was spreading all over him. It started as a cool ball of energy within his belly that melted to the surrounding organs. He could feel it in his veins, the rush that soothed his torn muscles and aching bones. The uncomfortable pain that was plaguing him prior the transaction had regressed to a comfortable ache.
Talbot sighed in ecstasy as he moved his joints to feel the grip of the fatigue release him. In spite of the dull ache that remained, he felt as though he could tackle another daily quest right now! The coffee arrived, but the stimulant paled in comparison to his new perk. And all this being just a drop in the bucket of what true vitality could offer.
Before he could get drunk any further on his new found energy, Talbot took notice of his devices. Their sleek material gleaming under the illumination of the rays coming in from the glass-to-ceiling window behind them. Swan and Raven were committing his title deeds to memory, unlike him who had a system archiving the documents, although he would need the Library for easier access.
Talbot sat up straight and reached out for his phone. No sooner had he picked it up than the device's screen came to life. He found a message from the manufacturers and clicked on it. Apparently, they had sent a link for him to download the applications custom-made for his devices. Which he did, it required 200 gigabytes but whatever network he was connected to had that covered. The loading did not even last a minute.
The space it had supposedly consumed was peanuts compared to the total storage of the device. And this was just his phone, the laptop promised better specs. He had a new number, he did not have anything important in his previous phone, the only contacts of value were Clara's and Anne's, these he knew offhand. As well as his bank details, which he wasted no time adding to his new device.
Talbot could still not believe his eyes as he counted the zeros on his bank balance. Even though it currently was only 3.5 Billion, as the estimated 30 would be unfrozen once the marriage gets underway...3.5 Bill is still an unimaginable amount to casually have, just sitting in your bank.
Talbot took his time to then count the commas. He indulged in this exercise for five minutes to get his mind used to seeing such amounts. Were it not for Wit of Zephyr allowing him his unnatural calm, he would be squealing and probably have fainted by now at such a sum.
Then he remembered about his jobs. He had missed days without any appropriate leave. Talbot Voss had been shuffling multiple jobs throughout the day, he had signed up for part time classes so as to allow him to tend to his outside duties. Before Oliver had given him a call that fateful evening, Talbot was yet to report to two more workplaces after his delivery of pizzas.
He had 4 jobs to work through so as to complete the day's quota: for early morning, he worked at Kennedy's butcher shop, tending to a variety of meat products; his next job would be in the afternoon, right after his class, at Jonestone's pizza place, where he had to do deliveries; his third job was later in the evening after yet another class, now this was rather peaceful as he only had to tutor a private student(s) for a couple of hours before he got to his last job.
His final stop for the day was at Joseph's food booth, where he serviced the exhausted men and women clocking out from their day jobs late in the night. Now that he has a better occupation, it was high time that Talbot resigned from such duties- or gotten fired by now- at least he gained experience from all the years of his work, and hopefully, the skills would come in handy somehow.
With that thought in mind, he proceeded to power on the laptop and download its applications too. Once again, he was amazed at how fast the device operated. He logged into the pizza website and filed an early resignation to precede him before he headed over for formalities' sake. He then helped go through certain aspects with the masked duo concerning his deeds.
After little thought, Talbot sent over a message to the manufacturers of his electronics and made a request for a pair of packages similar to his. The reply was instantaneous!
'Are these guys just literally waiting for my texts or something?' Talbot mused, the happenings of technology always did pass over his head.
The team of the Tech company he owned promised to deliver the requested order. They then sent him explanations on the difference in materials the new devices will be made out of...something about carbon fiber being rare, blahblahblah- it's expensive blahblahblah. Talbot understood none of these, hence, he told them to do as they saw fit since it is their field of profession.
Then another issue came up, Talbot had been absent from school too. He still had a lot of emails to send, sighing, Talbot resumed his typing on the laptop. The chefs- bless their souls- came over to serve some refreshments to the trio as they worked into the evening.
Now then, with his schedule compact, Talbot decided to call it a day, the little guy at his field of vision applauded him for getting to bed earlier than yesternight.