Chapter 65: 65 | Cashing Out Before the Clock Runs Out

I stared at the ceiling like it owed me money.

Ten PM. Twelve hours left on the countdown. Diane was in Chicago doing CEO things at some convention about brand management or crisis PR or whatever kept her agency running. Sloane and I had the house to ourselves.

Tomorrow morning at eleven, the Halloran entrance exam started. One hour after the System’s timer hit zero.

Perfect fucking timing.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand. Sloane, probably. She’d been texting me every twenty minutes since dinner, nervous energy bleeding through in memes about Hero failures and videos of training accidents. Her way of processing stress.

I didn’t check it. Not yet.

The Sexercise gains had been dropping off for the past week. At first, I thought I was imagining it. Seven rounds with Diane used to net me two points per stat easy. Now I was lucky to get one point across the board even when we went all night.

The System had explained it when I asked. Something about diminishing returns from repetitive stimulus. Like working the same muscle group every day. The body adapted, stopped responding as strongly. Variety increased efficiency. Multiple partners generated better results than one partner repeatedly.

Translation: the more I fucked Diane exclusively, the less I gained from it.

Made sense from a cold, logical standpoint. From a human standpoint, it was annoying as hell.

Not that I regretted a single second of it. Sexercise boosts aside, getting to rail an S-tier MILF whenever I wanted was absolutely worth it. Diane looked like she belonged on magazine covers, moved like she owned every room she entered, and lost control completely when I got her alone. The way she looked at me when I pinned her down and made her scream my name never got old.

We’d gotten sloppy a few times. Sloane had almost walked in on us twice. Once when Diane left her bedroom door cracked and Sloane came looking for her phone charger. Another time when I stayed too long after and had to hide in Diane’s closet while Sloane knocked asking about breakfast plans.

Both times, my heart had tried to punch through my ribcage. Both times, we got lucky.

But luck ran out eventually. Statistics guaranteed it. The longer we kept this up, the higher the probability that Sloane caught us mid-thrust and everything collapsed.

The smart play was to stop. Take the stats I’d gained, back off from Diane, focus entirely on Sloane until the exam passed.

I wasn’t going to do that.

Smart plays were for people who didn’t have a Scumbag System actively pushing them toward chaos. I was already neck-deep in terrible decisions. Stopping now felt like admitting defeat.

Plus, Diane would be back from Chicago in three days. The way she’d kissed me before leaving, the promise in her eyes when she told me she’d miss me, the hand that lingered on my chest just a little too long while Sloane was in the other room grabbing Diane’s suitcase.

Yeah. We weren’t stopping.

I sat up and pulled my status screen open with a thought.

〘 STATUS 〙

〘 NAME: Lukas Belmont 〙

〘 (DP) 0 〙

〘 (SP) 1980 〙

〘 ATTRIBUTES 〙

〘 STR: 49 | AGI: 48 | DEX: 46 〙

〘 INT: 29 | END: 51 〙

〘 ACTIVE SKILLS (2/2): 〙

〘 - Spectral Reach (Rare) 〙

〘 - Blitz (Rare) 〙

〘 PASSIVE TRAITS (3/3): 〙

〘 - Boundless Stamina (Epic) 〙

〘 - False Data (Uncommon) 〙

〘 - Sexercise (Common) 〙

Nineteen hundred eighty Scumbag Points. Sitting there. Waiting.

I’d been saving them. No real reason except paranoia. The System always pulled something when I least expected it, and having a reserve felt safer than spending everything immediately.

But the training wheels were coming off tomorrow. The tutorial phase ended. Whatever came next probably included higher costs, harder challenges, new rules I hadn’t seen yet.

Spending now made sense. The prices could jump after tutorial completion. Plus, I had a feeling the exam itself would generate plenty of SP opportunities. Quests during high-stress situations were the System’s favorite move.

"System."

〘 ... 〙

"How much to bring all my stats up to fifty?"

The notification appeared instantly.

〘 COST TO RAISE ALL ATTRIBUTES TO 50: 640 SP 〙

Six hundred forty. Less than I expected.

"Do it."

Pain slammed into me like a freight train made of broken glass and fire ants.

Every muscle locked. My bones felt like they were expanding and contracting simultaneously. Tendons stretched, joints popped, my entire nervous system lit up with signals that my brain couldn’t process fast enough.

I bit down on my pillow to keep from screaming. Sloane was down the hall. If she heard me, she’d come running. I couldn’t explain this. Not without revealing everything.

The pain peaked, held for five seconds that felt like five hours, then dropped away completely.

I collapsed back onto the bed, gasping. Sweat soaked through my shirt.

But when I moved my arm, it felt different. Lighter. Faster. Like the lag between thinking and doing had dropped to nothing.

I stood up. The world looked sharper. My balance was perfect without trying. I threw a test punch at the air and it came out crisp and clean, faster than I’d ever moved before.

〘 STATUS UPDATE 〙

〘 STR: 50 | AGI: 50 | DEX: 50 〙

〘 INT: 50 | END: 51 〙

〘 REMAINING SP: 1390 〙

Not bad.

I pulled up the upgrade menu to check costs for the next tier.

〘 COST PER ATTRIBUTE POINT (51-60): 50 SP 〙

My stomach dropped.

"The fuck?"

It had doubled. One point used to cost ten, then fifteen, then twenty. Now it jumped straight to fifty per point.

"You bullshit scumbag System."

〘 ATTRIBUTE SCALING FOLLOWS EXPONENTIAL PROGRESSION 〙

〘 EVERY 50-POINT THRESHOLD INCREASES BASE COST 〙

〘 CURRENT TIER (51-100): 50 SP BASE, +10 PER THRESHOLD 〙

〘 NEXT TIER (101-200): 150 SP BASE, +20 PER THRESHOLD 〙

〘 DIFFICULTY SCALES WITH POWER LEVEL 〙

"Of course it does."

The System didn’t respond. It never did when I complained about its design philosophy.

I did the math. Thirteen hundred ninety points. If I pushed everything to sixty, that would cost five hundred points per stat. Twenty-five hundred total. I was short by over a thousand.

I could specialize instead. Dump everything into two or three stats. Max out Strength and Agility, become a close-range monster. Or focus Dexterity and Intelligence, lean into precision and tactical play.

Jack of all trades or specialist. The classic RPG dilemma.

"System. Explain what each stat actually does."

〘 ATTRIBUTE DEFINITIONS 〙

〘 STRENGTH (STR): Raw physical power output. Affects lifting capacity, striking force, grappling effectiveness, and resistance to physical displacement. 〙

〘 AGILITY (AGI): Movement speed, reflexes, and combat mobility. Affects sprint velocity, reaction time, and evasion capability. 〙

〘 DEXTERITY (DEX): Fine motor control and coordination. Affects precision strikes, hand-eye coordination, balance, and ability execution accuracy. 〙

〘 INTELLIGENCE (INT): Cognitive processing speed, memory retention, learning efficiency, and Aspect optimization. Higher INT reduces stamina cost of abilities through improved mental control and execution efficiency. Does not increase raw stamina pool. 〙

〘 ENDURANCE (END): Stamina pool, damage resistance, and recovery speed. Affects how long user can maintain peak performance and how much punishment user can absorb before failure. 〙