James looked out upon the island while planning a few necessary additions within his mind. By this point, he had long grown tired of laying either on the grass or up against the lone pile of stones. He needed a proper place to rest after exiting the VR and with the [Shop], he would customize it exactly how he pleased.

The first thing he did was pull up the Earth store and look up houses. Nothing overly extravagant mind you, his island wasn’t that big in the first place, just something relatively simple that suited his rather minimalist tastes.

An unknown amount of hours later, he finally found one that was both modern and stylish.

_______________________________

[Shop] – [Item] – [Earth]

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Villa - ‘Black House in the Woods’

•Furnished ——— 4.2% FP

•Unfurnished —— 4% FP

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James bought the Furnished option of course, he wasn’t much of a home designer and would rather adjust the property afterwards than stock it from scratch.

After purchasing the house from the [Shop], it showed up on his island as a flickering blue hologram and subsequently unlocked another new feature for his system, [Island]. It was a fairly simple and intuitive addition which ended up pretty much like an AR version of the Sims. He just had to drag-and-drop his purchases where he liked and the system would take care of the rest.

He could even pick objects back up after being placed, causing them to become holograms once more until he set them down again.

James’ lips twitched once he realized what this probably was, an FP sink set up by the Gods. After all, who hadn’t wasted countless hours and Simoleon making their homes as perfect as possible? It was the most blatant trap he’d ever seen and worst of all, he knew he’d fall right in with a smile across his face!

The man sighed in resignation as he placed his new home down near the back edge of the island, with the front facing the stone pile.

It was a beautiful, 366.6m², two story house, consisting of mainly black walls, dark wooden paneling, and large, floor-to-ceiling windows that took up most the exterior. On the ground floor, the living room opened up to a wooden-floored patio, surrounded by granite and leading out to a large pool that sank 3m deep into the ground.

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There was a garage on the left side of the building, more than big enough to fit one vehicle with plenty of room to spare. To fill that up James purchased his dream car, an Aston Martin One-77 Q series, which set him back another 1.7% of his FP. He paid some extra to customize it and change the color to a nice forest green, while making the seats a dark brown leather.

Despite not possessing a body and thus having nowhere to go at the moment, he still extended the driveway to the portal that floated past the stacked stones. It turned out he could move the portal as well after attempting it once, so he slightly adjusted its location and purchased the StarGate they used while filming SGU to outline its form. Though unnecessary, he had to admit it looked pretty sweet… and there was the FP sink hitting him.

James sighed while shaking his head with a wry smile. Since he couldn’t help it, he might as well stop holding back.

He expanded the pool, extending it out to near the driveway while doubling the width as well and added a hot tub off to the right-most side. He was going to be living here for a very long time, might as well make it comfortable.

Finishing up outside, he bought and planted a few fully-grown Evergreens around the perimeter of the house, before nodding in satisfaction and finally moving to check out the interior.

A few things didn’t quite live up to his tastes and after putting them back into his [Inventory], James was happy to find out that he could sell the stuff he bought back to the [Shop]. Sure the prices were terrible, but it was better than nothing.

Coming into the living room, the first thing James did was sell back the orange and olive-green furniture items as they just didn’t suit him. He quickly replaced them with similar items, except in light browns and darker greens that matched his new car.

Soon after, he removed and sold all the cacti beneath the open stairs, that was just a terrible design decision in his opinion. This time he decided to splurge a bit on points and spent a whopping 6% of his remaining FP on three small Oran Berry saplings from the Pokémon world. They filled out the area nicely and gave off the most pleasant scent, on top of occasionally providing him with some amazing berries for breakfast every so often.

Turning around and looking back at the rest of the bottom floor, James sold all the bland white curtains and replaced them with a dimming system that would fade the windows to black with the flick of a switch. Nothing else bothered him on the floor, except for a random painting he quickly disposed of, and so he happily moved to the second level.

Sure he would need to spend some time stocking the kitchen and a few other minor things along those lines, but they could all be put off till later.

Coming up to the top floor, James was quite satisfied with pretty much everything. After removing the curtains, getting rid of a few cacti that were also there for some reason, and replacing one horribly colored bathtub, the man saw no need to alter anything else.

The very open and simplistic design philosophy checked all his boxes when it came to the ideal house. Even the small balcony just hit the spot when he thought about sitting out under the stars with a cold drink in hand.

All-in-all, the man was more than content with his new home.

Looking out the window, James bought the latest IPhone model from the [Shop] and had Queen use it to link with all the tech in the building. He then placed the UVR Pod in a good spot before buying a few more electronics such as a PC, laptop, and all the gaming consoles he’d ever played plus the new ones to have been released since his death.

After having his AI link and set up all his devices, he flopped atop his bed and let out a satisfied sigh.

He finally had a new place in which he could call home. After spending the last few years of his first life in the hospital, the feeling of having his own place hit him way harder than previously anticipated and caused his ‘eyes’ to begin to droop.

For the first time in a very long while, James slept in his own bed and began to dream of a hopeful future.