After dinner, a delivery package arrived at the front door. Five middle-aged men in Pangu Universe Incorporate uniforms pressed the doorbell.
Miao Damao opened the door for them, and the crew brought in capsule parts from a truck inside.
Damao guided the crew to Xiaomao’s room, which had already been cleared of furniture other than his bed. The crews assembled a game capsule, which occupied half of the 30 square meter room.
Xiaomao stared at the gigantic game capsule and glanced at his father. Damao also gave him a meaningful look.
“Never mention what we talked about on the phone anywhere.”
“I know.” Xiaomao’s expression was solemn.
“The integration will take a while. Be sure to maintain your fitness. Also, if possible, get at least an SR character. Don’t bother with the lower rarity if you want to become immortal. Also, don’t use a female character. You can’t get a superpower with an opposite-gender avatar.”
“I know.”
“When the sync rate goes beyond 10% or so, contact me,” Damao patted his son’s back. He walked down the stairs.
“Okay.”
Xiaomao smiled. He was grateful for his father’s understanding and honesty. However, the more he talked to his father, the more he doubted how Miao Damao died before the regression.
.
Hours later, Xiaomao looked at his new custom sci-fi-like game capsule. It came with a massage bed, a hatch, life supplement modules, an air-conditioner, and a tight suit for gaming.
Xiaomao let out a sigh of relief and burden, thinking of his father.
‘So, he knows everything. But if he knows how to gain a superpower, how did dad and mom die? The report said their corpses disappeared alone with many passengers after the plane accident, but a regular superhuman’s body was sturdier than tanks! They couldn’t possibly die because of a simple plane crash!’
Xiaomao scratched his head. He had the urge to warn his parents about their demise, but he didn’t know how to explain it to them.
While Xiaomao was lost in the train of thought, a nail-scratching sound came from the door of his room. He opened the door right away.
Meo!
The family of four cats gazed at Xiaomao’s face. The mama cat was now friendly with Xiaomao and his parents. The black cat grinned as she led her children into the room.
"Oh, hey, girlies. Are you going to play with your family here, or are you hungry already?"
Nya!
Mew!
Munya!
These kittens had grown up into naughty cats. Nyanko, the gentle white feline, was clingy to Xiaomao, but she sometimes messed with his bed. The second kitty was a calico cat, Mir, who was always expressive and meows like a small kitten. As for the last one, the bicolor cat was once Xiaomao’s lifelong friend before the regression, Mu-Nyang. It was a miracle that he could live over 20 years. Even Xiaomao was impressed by Mu-Nyang’s longevity.
Every cat had a unique meowing voice. Xiaomao sometimes recorded their noise and compiled it into a looping clip. When he was studying, he always listened to them to increase his concentration.
Munya?
Meo?
Nya?
Mew?
They looked at the new game capsule and froze for a moment. Nyanko retreated and hid behind Xiaomao. Choco, the mama cat, walked two steps closer to sniff at it, but she took a step back. On the other hand, Mu-Nyang and Mir explored the room.
The bicolor cat jumped and sat on top of the capsule’s glass hatch. He turned around and stared at Xiaomao’s face.
As for Mir, she tried to follow her brother to the glass hatch, but her jump was too short. The calico cat fell to the floor and looked around with round eyes. Then, she sprinted around the room and leaped onto the bed. Her tail pointed at the ceiling while her fluffy fur stood straight.
Looking at the cats, Xiaomao snickered and his worries were washed away.
“Alright. Time to invest in some PACTs!”
Xiaomao brought out a laptop and sat on the bed. He opened the computer and browsed the crypto exchange site of Pangu Universe Corporation.
His account had 79,500 PACTs. From Xiaomao’s point of view, it was not enough.
He deposited 16,000$ to his trade account, leaving only 1,000$ as his pocket money. Then, he bought the game tokens with all his money.
Amitabha All In!
CHA-CHING
363,500 tokens were added to his account. Now, he had 443,000 tokens in total with an average price of 0.04514 dollars per token.
Xiaomao gulped. His hands trembled in excitement as these tokens would be worth 886,000$ next year.
‘No, no. I’m not investing in tokens to get rich. I’m here for the superpower!’
After reminding himself, Xiaomao closed the laptop and changed his clothes to the body suit, which was required for playing the game. While he was changing, Mir scratched the door and wanted out.
Xiaomao laughed. He opened the door again and let her out, but she stared at the carpet outside and walked back into the room. She jumped back on his bed and sat on his pillow. Nyanko and Choco also rubbed their heads and bodies against Xiaomao’s leg and looked at his face.
“Guys, I’m busy.”
Meo
Nya
Being a cat owner had its pros and cons. They might be cute, but they could be handy sometimes.
Xiaomao finished changing his clothes. He went down to the kitchen and opened a package of wet cat food. As soon as Xiaomao caused a noise, all four cats scrambled to the kitchen and meowed at him. Mu-Nyang jumped on his back and left hundreds of white fur on his tight suit. He also rubbed his head against Xiaomao’s face.
“Give me a moment, Mu-Nyang. You’re on the way.”
Munya
Xiaomao put down bowls of cat food for the rowdy family. He put the bowls of Choco, Mir, and Nyanko first. However, when it was Mu-Nyang’s turn, the bicolor cat licked his face several times instead of going after his food.
“Mu-Nyang, I just washed my face. Isn’t my skin salty?”
Munya!
The cat jumped down from his shoulder. After coming down, Mu-Nyang bit Xiaomao’s index finger and sunk his fang into Xiaomao’s flesh!
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Ow! Mu-Nyang, what’s that for?!” Xiaomao pulled his hand away from Mu-Nyang. He looked at his bleeding finger.
Munya!
The cat grinned before he turned his attention to his food.
“Dammit, you ingrate! I saved your life twice and this is what you repay me? I’ll neuter you one of these days.”
Xiaomao grumbled and walked to the kitchen sink. He washed his finger and wrapped it with a bandage.
Because of the long sleeve bodysuit that covered his palms, Xiaomao didn’t notice that the blood veins in his hand and arm blackened.
While Xiaomao walked up the stairs, sharp pain in his chest made him cough. He entered the toilet on the second floor and spat light yellowish phlegm into the face wash basin. After cleaning the basin with a bit of water, he returned to his room and closed the door.
‘No more kitties. It’s time for me to start gaming!’
Xiaomao opened the hatch and entered the capsule. He put on the neuro VR helmet and turned the capsule on. The hydraulic system closed the hatch, and the lights inside the capsule were turned on. Cool air flowed in while the bed wrapped around Xiaomao.
He fell asleep while his consciousness entered the game world.
.
CREAK
30 minutes later, the door was opened. Mu-Nyang jumped down from the doorknob and entered Xiaomao’s room. The other cats also followed him here.
Mu-Nyang climbed the capsule and sat on top of the glass hatch. He looked down and stared at Xiaomao’s bandaged finger, smiling.
Munya!
.
Ding
Xiaomao found himself floating in the void, and the character creation menu appeared.
NFT, aka Non-fungible-token, was one of the digital assets in the 21st century. It could be anything, such as digital portraits, ape images, game items, or game characters.
Before Xiaomao could start playing the game, he needed to invest in a game character NFT. As the game had instructed, he could either purchase it from the game market or mint a new one by using the company’s gacha machine.
Xiaomao browsed the game’s NFT marketplace via the semi-transparent screen in front of him. The panel displayed 20 portraits of the most recent NFT that other players had put on sale. At the upper right corner of the page, the last page’s number “500,231” indicated the amount of purchasable NFTs here.
If Xiaomao wanted to, he could purchase any character here by using another type of stable coin – USDT. This coin was the standard Tether dollar, which had the same value as the US dollar.
The NFTs on the screen showed the detail of items and characters. Each came with a different combination of class, race, class specialties, race, growth rate, and rarity. Most of the merchandise on display were characters or items, which ranged from a few cents to 100,000 USDT, depending on their rarity and usefulness.
‘Of course, I’ll go for gacha. Why should I buy someone else’s luck when I can earn those pity coins for the add-on store?’
Xiaomao swiped the panel to the gacha shop.
In this shop, players could purchase a gacha by using PACT, which was the cryptocurrency of the game.
Xiaomao gazed at the gacha machine and paced his breathing. He checked the rating and jackpot chance, and his expression turned dark. All gacha systems were the source of evil as he had expected.
Probability Rate Common 60% Uncommon 25% Rare 14% Super Rare 0.95% Ultra Rare 0.049% Legendary 0.0009% Myth 0.0001%
‘What was a 0.0001% chance? One in a million?!’
After seeing the rating, Xiaomao calculated how many PACTs he needed to get one myth-grade character NFT.
‘Each gacha roll costs 100 PACTs. If I have to roll a million times to get one, I will need to spend 100 million PACTs or about 4.5 million dollars. Then, two months ago, the price would have been 200 million dollars! That’s insane!’
As Myth NFTs were out of Xiaomao’s reach, he decided to aim for legendary grade. After all, before the regression, top superhumans used a legend NFT character in-game. As for the myth-grade, they were as the name implied, a myth.
Xiaomao had 443,000 tokens to use. However, he didn’t need to use all of them.
To satisfy his childish ego, Xiaomao summoned the game options menu. He navigated to the streaming and recording section. Upon seeing the right screen, Xiaomao pressed “Record”.
‘This will be a good tik-toxic clip! Amitabha all-in! Surprise 1,000 rolls!’
At the bottom of the gacha machine image on the screen, four buttons were glittering. The leftmost was a single roll button. The second one from the left was 10 rolls with one free roll while the third was 100 with 12 free NFTs.
The button that Xiaomao had pressed was the rightmost one. It consumed 100,000 tokens, but it would give Xiaomao 1,000 random NFTs and bless him with 150 extra characters or items! Moreover, it guaranteed at least one legendary NFT!
RUMBLE
The gacha machine jumped out from the menu and danced in the void. It opened the lid and shot out 1,150 gacha balls at once. Gray, white, blue, yellow, purple, and red balls came out!
‘One, three, four, five, six? Bah, just a pity rate. Wait a second, two red balls?!'
Xiaomao was so excited that he could not wait. He looked at the gacha menu and pressed the “Skip” button to end the ceremony.
CLINK!
1,150 icons appeared in the void, showing the highest rarity NFTs first.
Xiaomao leaned closer to the portraits in the void. He inspected his new characters and items in excitement.
NFT Type:
Character Rarity: Legendary Gender: Female Race:
Chaos Oni Class: Oni Samurai Racial Talent: Blood Mana Root Chaos Mana Root Blood Conversion Mana Conversion Night Vision Class Specialties: Oni Swordsmanship
High Physical and Magic Defense Blood Magic Immune to Fear Add-On Socket: 1 Growth Rate: Fast Retainer Cost: 50
Xiaomao was disappointed.
‘Why a female character?! I can’t integrate my real body with a female avatar! I don't want to become Astolfo!’
Xiaomao screamed in his throat and held his head with both hands. While gritting his teeth and pulling his hair, he turned his attention to the other legendary NFT.
NFT Type:
Character Rarity: Legendary (Upgradable) Gender: Male Race:
Catopus (Upgradable) Class: Slavemaster Racial Talent: Cathulhu Foreknowledge Underwater Breathing Night Vision Fish Gourmet Class Specialties: Mind Control Magic
Dark Magic Slave Training Slave Management Add-On Sockets: 3 Growth Rate: Extremely Fast Retainer Cost: 50