Jack felt lightheaded as he stumbled before catching himself. His eyes flashed with determination and insanity as he reviewed his emails and accounts.
One by one, he found that every account created with the help of the system was deleted without any chance of recovery.
The system hadn't just left—it had wiped everything tied to it, leaving him stranded.
"Thank goodness I still have Hester's bank account and Game Developer License as a backup. But this is the worst-case scenario." Jack gritted his teeth.
He could already imagine the chaos this was causing in the banks and that the government would be after him sooner or later.
He could either proactively get ahead of it and contact the police or remain passive and pray that the system removed all traces of him when it deleted everything.
"Either way, I can only try my best to convince the government and banks not to force me to pay this debt. There is a good chance I can do it."
"I just need a good enough story to cover my ass."
"If I had to choose between paying back the debt and keeping the accounts, or losing everything —I'd keep the accounts."
"With those accounts gone, so is my money—and any way to make more." Jack cringed.
He was cornered. Trying to come up with 60,000 dollars in less than a month was nearly impossible.
"Once I survive this, I will find that system and destroy it with its creator!" Jack growled, anger bubbling up his chest.
"Luckily, I converted most of my money into skills and attributes. 120,000… isn't too much of a loss." Jack muttered, not believing himself, but it was enough to move his thoughts onto something else.
The attributes and skills that he had paid for.
Jack's eyes glowed as he locked on a piece of paper and a pen. He paused before writing down the attributes and skills he had gotten from the system to get a sense of what he currently had.
"Intelligence and defense—both grade B." Jack exhaled slowly.
"Dexterity and endurance at C+, and strength at C-grade."
His mind worked through the implications. Intelligence and defense were his lifelines, but even those were not enough against this world's monsters.
"Regarding skills, only two have reached Grade B, Debugging and Multi-Platform Coding, and the rest are C+. My other skills are lower grades due to them not being related to game development, or I just got them recently and had no time to upgrade them."
"Grade B, the entrance to mythical skills and abilities," Jack muttered.
According to the system's standards, grade B was where one's ability would surpass the limits of humanity. For example, if the limit of multitasking without any loss of quality for humans were three to four tasks, then at Grade B, he would be able to do four to five tasks without losing quality.
If the limit for humans was to run at a speed of 35 miles per hour, you could run 45 to 50 miles per hour at grade B.
Jack had two attributes that reached this level: intelligence and defense. They both had surpassed the limits of normal humanity.
But that was only impressive compared to regular humans. This world was different.
Not only was there a zombie pandemic and all sorts of monstrous viruses and diseases, but with the rapid improvement of technology, genetic modification was becoming more and more common. However, it was still rare and still controlled by governments.
With genetic optimization, one could easily cross the boundaries of humanity's limit.
Jack's lips curled into a bitter smile as he reviewed his stats. His intelligence and defense were exceptional by his old world's standards.
But here?
This world wasn't interested in his small gains. Through genetic modification, reaching his strength wasn't very hard.
"Timber Wood City is only a low-grade city. It can only afford to provide genetic modification to its elite soldiers and above without the help of the state and federal government."
"I barely qualify to be in the same ranks as elite soldiers, but compared to the special government programs and monsters, I'm still cannon fodder." Jack closed his eyes to calm himself and looked down at his body.
His brown skin was covered in sweat and dust from when he collapsed. After so many upgrades, he had transformed his initial skinny body into a lean, muscular physique. Unlike his old body, this one had sharp emerald eyes and a sturdier frame.
He had even grown two inches with his latest upgrade. Now standing around 5 feet and 11 inches.
Jack was quite a handsome man.
"Think," Jack muttered, pressing his fingers against his temple. His enhanced mind buzzed with possibilities, each more desperate than the last. The more he thought, the more the back of his head throbbed with pain.
Instinctively, he reached around his curly black hair that he tied into a bun to where it hurt the most and was stunned to see blood. He hastily touched the back of his neck and felt trickling blood flowing down from an open wound the size of a finger. It was already half healed and scarring up.
"Did this happen when I blacked out?" Jack's mouth twitched as he felt the system must have caused this wound.
There was nothing around him that could cause it otherwise.
His fingers brushed the wound, sticky with blood. A chill ran down his spine.
The wound was too clean. Too deliberate. It didn't feel like an accident—more like a procedure.
Was it possible?
The system wasn't just in his mind—it had burrowed into his brain. The thought lingered, unsettling and unresolved.
Not feeling well, Jack decided that his first action was to patch up his head to make sure he didn't die from blood loss.
Jack winced as the blood trickled down the back of his neck. He stumbled into the bathroom, his mind spinning with questions.
But as Jack struggled to devise a plan, the ripples left by the system's disappearance already drew predators to his scent.