⚠️ QUEST UPDATE ⚠️

Path to Becoming Adonis (DAILY)

Objectives Complete: 5/5

Physical Activity: ✓ (147 minutes)

Hygiene Level 1: ✓

Hygiene Level 2: ✓

Grooming: ✓

Social: 3/3 beauties contacted ✓

More notifications.

🎫 TICKET SUMMARY 🎫

Total Earned: 49 Quest Tickets

Previous Balance: 1 Ticket

New Balance: 50 Quest Tickets

Bronze Gacha: 10 tickets

Silver Gacha: 50 tickets

Gold Gacha: 100 tickets

Fifty tickets.

Jordan’s thumb hovered over the gacha button. What would a silver gacha give him? Something better than Tune Up and Ceaseless Discharge? 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Actually, Tune Up had been incredible. His body had transformed overnight into something that belonged on a magazine cover. Women looked at him now. Actually looked instead of looking through him like he was invisible.

Chloe had definitely looked. Multiple times. Especially when he’d taken his shirt off.

Ceaseless Discharge was still useless outside of very specific situations. But those situations had happened tonight and Chloe hadn’t run screaming so maybe the trait wasn’t completely terrible.

Another notification.

💝 SLOT STATUS 💝

SLOT 1: CHLOE KIM (LOCKED)

Chemistry: 46%

Status: Active

Relationship Status: Complicated

SLOT 2: EMPTY

Unlock: Available

The word "complicated" felt like an understatement.

Relationship Status: Guy Just Informed His Girlfriend She Needs To Accept Two Future Co-Girlfriends Because Of A Twenty Million Dollar Inheritance That Is Completely Fictional And Also Insane.

That would be closer to reality.

Jordan set his phone down on the coffee table and scrubbed both hands through his hair hard enough that it probably looked stupid now. Not that anyone was around to see it.

Why had he said that? What possible chain of logic could his brain have followed to arrive at "fake inheritance requiring three girlfriends" as the optimal solution to Chloe’s question?

Because you panicked, his brain supplied helpfully. Because Chloe called herself your girlfriend in front of your sister and the System only gives you two slots total and those slots lock permanently once you fill them and you thought telling the actual truth would sound even more insane than the lie you made up on the spot.

"The truth would have been worse," Jordan muttered to his empty apartment.

The truth was: I have a magical phone application that quantifies how much women are attracted to me and generates cash rebates when I spend money on them and I can only register two women total to this system before the slots lock forever and I’m genuinely terrified of wasting Slot Two on someone who caps out at sixty percent chemistry when there might be someone better out there.

Yeah. That would have gone over great.

Chloe would have called him insane. She would have asked to see this magical app. Jordan would have shown her the golden interface and the attraction percentages and she would have realized he’d been tracking her feelings like she was a character in a dating sim.

She would have left. Obviously. Anyone would leave.

So instead he’d made up a rich family inheritance scheme that sounded like it came from a bad ecchi manhwa and now Chloe thought he was a trust fund baby with a harem contract.

Which was somehow better? Or worse? Jordan had stopped being able to tell.

His phone buzzed against the coffee table.

New message from Chloe: Are you okay?

Jordan stared at those three words for longer than he probably should have. Something uncomfortable and jagged lodged itself sideways somewhere in the general vicinity of his ribs.

She was checking on him.

After everything he’d just unloaded in her apartment. The convoluted inheritance story, the harem clause that sounded like it came straight from a bad anime plot, all the other half-truths and careful omissions he’d strung together in real-time while standing in her kitchen wearing her borrowed joggers. After all of that, Chloe was making sure he was doing alright.

His thumbs moved across the screen before the rational part of his brain could stage an intervention.

Jordan: Yeah. Are you?

The typing indicator popped up immediately. Then it disappeared. Reappeared again a few seconds later.

Chloe: I don’t know yet.

Jordan: I’m sorry. For springing that on you.

Chloe: Don’t apologize. I asked you to be honest.

Jordan’s molars ground together. Honest. Sure. That particular word was pulling double duty right now considering the elaborate fiction he’d just constructed for her benefit. The System wasn’t mentioned anywhere in his explanation. Neither was the attraction percentage tracking or the cashback mechanics or the permanent slot registration that meant he literally could not pursue anyone else without severe financial penalties.

Jordan: I was. About wanting you to be my girlfriend. That part was real.

The typing indicator stayed active. Jordan counted the seconds. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. She was either composing an essay or deleting and rewriting the same response multiple times. His pulse climbed with each passing moment. The three dots pulsed on his screen like a heartbeat monitor.

One minute turned into ninety seconds.

Finally, a single line appeared: I know.

There was a pause. Long enough that Jordan thought the conversation had ended.

Then another message came through: Good night Jordan.

Jordan: Good night Chloe.

He set his phone face-down on the coffee table and stared at his ceiling.

His body still smelled like her. Vanilla and something floral from her bodywash mixed with the generic soap from her shower. The borrowed joggers sat low on his hips. The fabric was soft and worn from being washed too many times. The waistband kept trying to slip lower.

Jordan had lost his virginity two hours ago.

He’d kissed a girl who tasted like white cheddar popcorn and vanilla chapstick and made small satisfied sounds when his hands found the right places.

He’d made her come twice. Once with his mouth and once with other parts of his anatomy that were still slightly sore from enthusiastic use.

Then he’d lied to her face about his family and his inheritance and why she’d have to share him with other women.

"New record," Jordan announced to his empty apartment. "Speedrun from virgin to asshole in under three hours."

His phone lit up with one final notification.

🎊 HIDDEN ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED 🎊

Terrible Life Choices (Common)

Reward: +$25

"Fuck you too," Jordan told the System.