System Architect

I woke up the next morning with a plan fully formed. I shot off an email to Grandpa Joe about using some of the cryptocurrency for book marketing before having breakfast downstairs with Dad.

After breakfast, I set the rest of my plan into action.

Feature Unlocked: Hidden Milestones I

Current Exp: 52611

Feature Unlocked: Economic Experience

Current Exp: 51611

Feature Unlocked: Misc. Experience

Current Exp: 46611

Feature Unlocked: Quests III

Current Exp: 44111

Feature Unlocked: Combined Purchases

Current Exp: 19111

Milestone: Control Assets Worth $1

Exp Gained: 1

Milestone: Control Assets Worth $10

Exp Gained: 2

Milestone: Control Assets Worth $100

Exp Gained: 4

Milestone: Control Assets Worth $1,000

Exp Gained: 8

Milestone: Control Assets Worth $10,000

Exp Gained: 16

I tried to do the same with Hidden Milestones II, but was rebuffed. I needed to have Milestones II unlocked for universal use before I would be able to do that.

Now that I had a whole summer ahead of me, I didn’t want to waste any time slowly grinding away at the problem when I could, instead, jump straight to my goal. Sure, I’d have to make up that experience, but that would be easier now that I would be getting full experience from every action going forward—that was the hope, at least.

I borrowed a knife from Dad and went back into the knotweed patch. In the last month or so, I’d really done a number on it and I would need to find other ways to gather crafting materials that were also renewable and abundant. That was a future problem that I stuck in the back of my head to ruminate over unconsciously. As usually happened, I knew a solution would come to me eventually.

I spent half of the day carefully repeating the crafting experiments I’d originally tried. This time, I was able to get experience for making the various items. I didn’t get much experience for them—between 1 and 5 depending on the complexity and quality, which I suspected came down more to the materials I was using than anything else. Seeing as I didn’t have any others to compare with, I added that to the running list of things to try.

After lunch, I went up to my room and checked my email. Grandpa Joe had replied giving me the go-ahead. Helpfully, he included a few recommended exchanges. I picked one of them and created a new wallet to hold the exchanged money. I had to pay fees for the exchange, which netted me another experience point for spending money.

Although I had shut down Milestones I, I was still getting experience from Milestones II. In this particular case, it seemed like the confluence of Milestones II and Economic Experience. I still regretted purchasing Milestones II, but at least I was getting some of the experience refunded… even if that meant the monsters were slightly stronger for it. That brought me to another discovery.

Average Monster Level: 8

Monster Strength Tier: 1

Exp To Next Tier: 12,410

Next Tier: Average Monster Level +1, Average Monster Tier +1

Although it was somewhat far away, the next level to the monsters would up their tier as well. I didn’t know what that meant exactly, but I didn’t think it was anything good. There was a good chance that I would find out eventually. I wondered if I could find a way to mitigate the jump in monster strength. I had a few ideas, but nothing concrete. I stuffed it into the back of my mind to tumble around with the other long-term issues.

I signed up for the two websites I had decided on for releasing the book and set the first chapter up on each before I went back outside to complete the rest of my daily quests. The quests I could accomplish, at any rate. There was—as usual—at least one I couldn’t do due to all of the milestones I’d unlocked.

After dinner, I went back upstairs and checked how the story was doing. It hadn’t really had any traction in the previous few hours. That was about what I’d expected. I released another chapter and scheduled everything I had to come out over the span of a month. Then I looked into the advertising portion of my plan.

Turns out that paying for advertising with crypto was rather difficult, but I was able to finagle it to advertise to those two websites and a few more specific search strings that didn’t cost too much. That gave me another couple milestones for spending money and 6 more experience.

When I woke up the next day, I checked over both websites and the advertising as well. I hadn’t spent much money so far, but I had gotten some more traffic. The increased traffic had led to my first few follows and even a rating! I smiled at the results, but mostly put them out of mind. The point wasn’t to make money or write something awesome—although that was a nice potential side-effect—but rather to influence readers and alert them to the coming dangers as well as to trial a few system ideas and get feedback.

Milestone: Have 1 Follower

Exp Gained: 1

Milestone: Have 10 Followers

Exp Gained: 2

Given the story I was writing, the first—and possibly only—book of it was nearly done. I didn’t know if I’d continue working on it afterwards. I wanted to use the time I had to try as many ideas as I could to see which ones worked so that in the future I could write similar stories to get the best effect I could on the population as a whole. If that meant completing a large number of one-offs, that was fine with me.

At the same time, I wanted to get all the experience I could out of my efforts. That meant setting up a way to get paid. It took time to set up—and Dad’s help given my age—but I had something functional and ready to go by lunch time. I linked everything together before putting the whole effort out of my mind. I would write more and check it daily, but it wasn’t my focus. No, my focus was on completing quests.

“Eddy,” Dad said at dinner that night.

“Yeah?” I responded.

“Your cousins are flying in for two weeks to my parents’ place by the shore,” he revealed. “I’ve talked with your mother and we’ve both agreed that you need a break.”

“A break? But there’s so much I nee—“

“Exactly. A break. You’ve been doing so much lately and I don’t want you to burn out.”

“But Dad, I—“

“No buts! I know it can be hard when it feels like the fate of the world’s on your shoulders—especially since it actually is—but you need to recuperate and recharge so you can keep going.”

“I feel like if I stop now, I won’t be able to start again,” I complained.

“And that’s how you know it’s time to clear your head before you crack,” Dad pointed out. “I’m here for you and I’m concerned about how much you’ve taken on. Take the break. Who knows, you might end up learning something while you’re relaxing.”

“But what about the daily quests?”

“As long as they don’t interfere with hanging with everyone, then I don’t see why not,” Dad conceded.

“Ok,” I agreed,

Maybe Dad was right. I had been doing a lot lately and a change of scenery would do me some good.

“When are they coming?” I asked.

“Two weeks from now,” he answered. “Your mother said something about needing to sign up for classes for the fall semester as well. She wasn’t sure on the timing and asked me to remind you to look it over.”

“Can I bring my laptop with me,” I inquired.

“Same restriction as the daily quests.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll be there a couple of days at the beginning but I need to work so I won’t stay more than the first weekend. Your mother will pick you up at the end.”

“Alright,” I nodded.

Dad and I talked more before I went upstairs for the night.

My focus over the next two weeks—split between Dad’s and Mom’s—was on completing quests and getting as much of a backlog of writing as I could scheduled and ready to go in case I couldn’t meet my stated obligations. The story was doing well enough but not amazingly well. I picked up a handful of subscribers, which gained me some more milestones for the money they paid. Though it wasn’t much, it buoyed my mood and kept me writing furiously.

The day before I was due to leave for the shore, Dad came in with a suitcase.

“It’s time to pack,” he said. “Figure a week’s worth of everything should do it. Your mother and I have pooled some money together and got you fifty dollars to spend on whatever you like while you’re there.”

“Thanks, Dad!” I said, a smile blooming on my face.

“You’re welcome, kiddo. We’re leaving early in the morning. I’ll wake you up when it’s time to go. I imagine you’ll sleep in the car for some of the ride.”

I nodded. I remembered how these vacations were. Dad’s ‘early’ was around 4 in the morning—something about avoiding traffic on the five hour drive. I doubted it saved more than a half-hour in total, but it made him feel better so I’d deal with it.

I spent the next hour packing everything I thought I might need over the next two weeks. Clothes, toothbrush, hairbrush, swim trunks, beach towel, and many more all found their way into my suitcase. I carefully packed away the laptop and charger into a backpack to carry separately. The money from Mom and Dad was stuffed into the front pouch of the backpack as I did not have a wallet.

“It’s time,” Dad whispered while rousing me from my dreamless sleep.

It was early in the morning, without even a hint of color on the horizon. I got dressed quickly and took a blanket from my room as I went downstairs. I was shivering! I got in Dad’s truck while he loaded the back with my suitcase and backpack—strapped down to ‘that should do it’ strength. I buckled up and covered myself with the blanket. No sooner had the engine roared to life when I returned to my slumber.

I awoke three hours later to the truck slowing down at a gas station. The sun was barely up, but it was now—officially—day time.

“Good morning,” Dad said. “Sleep ok?”

“Mhm,” I nodded.

“Hungry?” Dad asked once the gas pump was filling the truck’s tank.

“A little.”

Dad nodded and returned to watching the gas pump do its work, clinking and clanking while it took cent after cent of hard-earned cash. When it finally popped, he drove the truck up to the front, locked the doors, and went inside. He returned about ten minutes later with some suspect sustenance and drinks that were typical of a road trip gas station breakfast.

Dad escorted me to the bathroom. Then it was time to hit the road—not too hard, of course. I ate and watched the scenery whip past at speed. It only took another hour before I started seeing sandy soil on the side of the road. It was around that time that we were stopped by the bane of all road trips: traffic. Mile after mile, we crawled ever forward. Red lights painting a trail to the horizon.

Eventually, we crossed over a bridge and the road opened up some. There was less traffic on that side so we traveled faster for a time. About twenty minutes from Grandpa Milton’s beach house, the four-lane road narrowed to two, adding another ten minutes of traffic to the trip. Finally, the exit came and we drove the back roads the rest of the way.

The beach house was really two white-painted houses—one bigger, one smaller—joined by an screened-in breezeway between them. There was a semi-circular driveway in front of the larger house and a straight driveway that was attached to one end of the semi-circular one that serviced the smaller house. Dad parked at the end of the straight driveway by the disconnected garage.