Alan stared at the notification for a moment. He wasn't new to numbers like that, he had been a millionaire in his past life.
However, to be just granted it by the system was very surprising. A million dollars? Was it even real? Surely there had to be some kind of regulation.
He tapped the reward.
[Congratulations on the System Reward]
[Ally Acquired: Destiny James - High Grade Talent]
[Contribution: Network Design + Consensus Layer Optimization]
[Reward Granted: $1,000,000]
Did I really just get a million dollars? This is 2008, that money is worth so much more now. He noticed there was more to read and so followed the words below.
[USAGE RESTRICTIONS ACTIVE]
"Oh."
[This reward is governed by Business Pioneer Regulation Protocols.]
[It cannot be withdrawn, converted to fiat currency, or used for personal expenditure.]
[Permitted Usage:]
[Crypto infrastructure (e.g. miner networks, node hardware, server acquisition)]
[Ecosystem architecture (wallet systems, distributed storage, validator networks)]
[Legal framework construction (open-ledger licensing, digital compliance shells)]
[Prohibited Usage:]
[Personal luxury or comfort purchases]
[Traditional investments (stocks, real estate, external banking)]
[Cash conversion or third-party vendor payments]
[However! The money can be exchanged to fiat cash and allowed for ANY expenditure using a special feature!]
"Okay," Alan cheered up a bit. "What feature?"
[Money Conversion: Trigger Card Required]
[Fiat spending rights are currently LOCKED]
[To unlock spending flexibility:]
[Obtain a Trigger Card by reaching a Breakthrough!]
'A Breakthrough?' Alan thought, now walking side by side with Destiny. He assumed that meant reaching a major success or progress after hard work or obstacles.
The first Breakthrough was:
[Cryptotonic Creation: Successfully create the first ever digital currency.]
'Ah.' Alan thought. 'So that's when I get a Trigger Card and can now use the money.'
[Play smart!] The system added. [Get more allies and complete more objectives to gain as much money as possible before you use your Trigger Card! Trigger Cards can only be used for one cash exchange!]
Alan nodded with understanding. 'Very well then. Let's get to work.'
×××××××××
Days bled into nights, the library and Destiny's dorm their war room. They worked in near silence, the only sounds the clack of keyboards, the scratch of pens, and the occasional muttered curse when a line of code refused to bend.
Destiny tore apart Alan's hashing sequence, her fingers flying as she rewrote it with a more precise calculation.
Alan countered, rebuilding the block confirmation logic from the ground up, his mind racing to keep pace with hers. Together, they shattered the chain's weak points and forged it anew, each iteration stronger, leaner, closer to perfection.
[Congratulations on strengthening your crypto's block sequence! Your second reward is ready!]
[Chi-ching! You've been rewarded $3,000,000!]
[Balance: $4,000,000]
Alan was shocked at how much money he already had, and yet, all he could eat were cardboard burgers and tasteless pizzas.
They had to finish the currency soon so he could get that Trigger Card!
Thankfully, Destiny was just as determined as him, if not more. He watched her sometimes, when she was too focused to notice.
She worked like a sculptor, chiseling away at the code with a meticulousness that bordered on obsession. But there was something else in her eyes— a fire, banked but fierce, like it had been waiting years for someone to see it.
Alan knew better than to interrupt it. It was best to match it, let the fire fuel him too as their rhythms synced in a way that felt almost dangerous.
At night, when Destiny left the library for her own dorm, Alan wrote down on his notebook:
'BLOCK ZERO: 198 DAYS LEFT'
The countdown was his anchor, his defiance against the ticking clock of doubt.
××××××××××
The prototype was still weeks from functional, a fragile skeleton of code and ambition. But it was alive, humming with potential.
Between Alan and Destiny, something else was taking root, the more they worked, they started to share a vision, and started to trust each other, building a spark that could set the world ablaze.
They ate together, laughed together and even spent leisurely time together.
Slowly, Destiny started to open up more and more to him, making jokes about his ridiculous naming skill, while he joked about how she had an allergy to fruits.
Fruits?! Who the hell had allergies to fruits?
Either way, this camaraderie and togetherness created a bond between the two very quickly.
When they weren't talking about the cryptocurrency, they were talking about lessons and how their day went, or the movie they watched. Or they were making fun of each other.
Alan had just dropped another one-liner about her fruit allergy that they ended up laughing all the way out of the campus gates.
"I hate you," Destiny said, drying her tears.
Alan chuckled. "Feels pretty good to be hated."
They stared at each other for a while, smiling, before Alan finally spoke, scratching the back of his head. "I better get going. Got some... homework to finish."
"Oh yeah, me too," Destiny said. "Homework."
They started increasing the distance between them, but still looking at each other.
"Library? Tonight? Let's finish the next sequence."
"Yeah, of course," Destiny replied, then turned around, her pigtails swaying as she walked away.
Alan took a deep breath and turned around too, heading for his dorm.
There were two kinds of silence Alan had learned to appreciate: the kind that came when code compiled without errors… and the kind that came before someone tried to screw you over.
Today was the latter.
When he opened the door, he saw Evan Reyes standing by his bed, going through his second, smaller laptop.
Alan frowned. "What are you doing?"
Alan walked up with the ease of an old friend.
Evan snapped his head to the side, panicking. "Alan? Holy shit, man, you scared me."
Alan was impassive. "You're on my computer."
Evan clasped his hands and got up from the bed. "Yeah, I was just curious. Don't mind me. You've been so busy, barely in the dorm when we showed up and I was wondering, either you've gotten a girlfriend or you had won the lottery and told none of us about it."
He chewed his teeth. "Really sorry, man."
Alan looked at him blankly, and then at the system. "What did you see?"
"Bro, you look like you've been pulling all-nighters." Evan chuckled. "Oh... it was just something about a decentralized digital currency based on a cryptographic system. Boy, you've been busy, huh."
Alan cussed in his mind. 'I locked that computer but I forgot that Evan probably knew my password in this timeline.
"Actually… I'm just dabbling in ideas, thinking of one that'll stick."
Evan's eyebrows shot up. "I mean that looks solid enough but are you sure people would even want it? Will be difficult to be trusted, no?"
Alan remained indifferent. 'System warned me to keep this a secret from competitors in the same field. Evan isn't one, but who's to say he doesn't go yapping and causes the word to spread? I have to think of something to get him to believe that this is worthless.'
"That's exactly why it's meaningless," Alan replied. "No one would give a shit about air money. Besides, I would need tens of thousands of independent computers agreeing on the same record every second, without trusting each other. That's assuming no one hacks the algorithm or finds a way to double-spend. And then there's regulation— once banks see something like this, it gets buried. Fast."
He leaned back, taking a more casual tone. "It's basically a thought experiment. Like a sandbox thing for tech nerds, not something you can actually scale or make money off. It's technically interesting but commercially dead."
Evan nodded slowly, trying to keep up. He didn't get it. Not really. But he understood that Alan had given up on yet again another of his ideas, so this wasn't new to him.
"That's too bad, bro," he said, placing a palm on Alan's shoulder. "Keep pushing. I'm sure you will get that billion dollar idea soon. This mind of yours can do anything."
Alan just nodded.
Evan walked past him and headed to the door. But he stopped and turned, "Louis, Jared and I are planning on heading to a house party later tonight. You coming?"
Alan was silent for a while, then turned and gave Evan the most pretentious smile ever. "Nah, I'm good."
"Alright, suit yourself, tech boy." He closed the door and left.
Alan stood there for a moment, anger rooting him to the spot. Then a ding rang in his mind.
[System has noticed an enemy of the host]
[Initiating Revenge Play…]