Chapter 5: A Familiar Face

The number $900.75 was burned into Leo’s retinas. It was a masterpiece of malice, a monument to a fool’s greed. He had made a king pay a royal price for a box of rusted scrap. The wave of pure, unadulterated victory that washed over him was so potent it left him lightheaded. The System notifications chiming in his vision were just the icing on the cake.

[Quest Complete: Bleed the Enemy] [Rewards: 500 EXP, 150 SP, +1 Composure]

He felt the change instantly. The +1 to Composure wasn’t just a number ticking up in a status window. The frantic, vengeful energy that had propelled him through the last two auctions settled into something colder, calmer, and infinitely more dangerous. The emotional, angry man who had lost the auction for the Jeep wagon was being reforged. He was becoming a strategist.

His total System Points now stood at a healthy 250. A small fortune in this new, bizarre reality. He could use it for… something. But what? Harassing this KingMidas75 was satisfying, but it was a hollow victory. It didn't solve his real problems.

His gaze drifted toward the hallway leading to his kids' bedroom. He pushed his chair back quietly and tiptoed to their door, cracking it open an inch. Mia and Noah were tangled together under a single thin blanket, their chests rising and falling in the peaceful rhythm of sleep. Their birthday was in two days. He still didn't have a gift.

His little war had cost a stranger a little over a thousand dollars. But it hadn’t earned him a single cent. This couldn't just be a game of spite. It had to become something more. He needed to understand the game, and to do that, he needed to understand his opponent. Who was this person with so much disposable income that they could automate their avarice, deploying bots to sweep up every profitable item on a second-rate auction site?

He returned to his laptop, his purpose solidified. The high of his victory was gone, replaced by a chilling resolve. It was time to find out who was behind the crown.

He focused his mind, calling up the System’s skill tree. The blue, branching diagram materialized in his vision. His eyes went straight to his core skill.

[Basic Data Analysis - Lvl 2]

• Description: Allows the user to perform a surface-level scan on auction data, revealing bidding patterns and user history.
• Upgrade Cost: 200 SP
• Upgrade To: [Advanced Data Forensics - Lvl 1]

The cost was steep—it would take almost everything he had. But the name of the upgraded skill sent a shiver of anticipation down his spine. This wasn’t just about analyzing bids anymore. Forensics meant digging. It meant finding what was buried.

Confirm upgrade, he thought, focusing his will on the button.

200 of his SP vanished. The skill node for [Basic Data Analysis] flashed with a brilliant light before morphing into a new, more complex icon.

[Advanced Data Forensics - Lvl 1]

• Description: Allows the user to execute a deep-level scan on a target's digital footprint, bypassing surface-level security to trace IP addresses, associated accounts, and financial markers. Consumes stamina based on the complexity of the trace.

A bead of sweat trickled down Leo’s temple. This was it. This was the key. He navigated back to KingMidas75’s profile page, the familiar list of won auctions mocking him with its sheer volume.

“Alright, your highness,” Leo whispered, his voice low and steady. “Let’s see who you really are.”

He took a deep breath and issued the command in his mind. Execute deep scan on user KingMidas75.

The world seemed to lurch. His stamina bar in the corner of his vision began to drain, dropping from 100 to 95, then 90. The profile page on his laptop screen dissolved into a chaotic sea of data streams, visible only to him. It was like looking directly into the source code of the internet.

He watched, transfixed, as his new skill went to work. A glowing blue probe, representing his scan, slammed into a wall of digital noise—a VPN.

[Encountering IP Masking Protocol… Bypassing…]

The wall shattered into a million pieces. The probe shot forward, tracing the connection back through a dizzying array of rerouted servers—Germany, Singapore, Brazil. It was a sophisticated setup, designed to make the user untraceable. But it wasn't designed to fight a supernatural skill.

The probe continued, relentless. It found the origin point of the VPN subscription. It was paid for by a shell corporation registered in the Cayman Islands.

[Analyzing Financial Data… Tracing Parent Company…]

Another wall, this one made of legal jargon and corporate loopholes. Leo’s stamina dropped faster, hitting 60. He could feel the mental strain, a dull headache forming behind his eyes. But he pushed, pouring his focus into the scan. The corporate veil tore apart, revealing another shell company, and another. It was a labyrinth of money laundering and legal obfuscation.

And then, he found the source. A direct funds transfer from a major US bank. Sterling-Silverlight Investments. The name pricked at a distant, unpleasant memory.

The final layer of security was a personal firewall, linked to a private server. It was a fortress. The scan slammed against it, and his stamina plummeted. 40… 30… 20…

“Come on,” he gritted out, his knuckles white as he gripped the edge of his desk. “Break.”

At 15 stamina, a crack appeared in the firewall. The System’s probe flooded through the opening, and the data cascaded into his view.

Email addresses. Linked social media profiles (all dormant). And finally, the account holder’s name registered with the investment firm.

The result appeared in his vision, clean and stark and terrible. And with it, a picture. A professionally shot corporate headshot of a handsome, perfectly groomed man in his mid-thirties, wearing a thousand-dollar suit and a smirk that dripped with condescending self-assurance.

Leo’s breath hitched in his throat. The air in his tiny apartment suddenly felt thin, cold. The headache from the mental exertion was nothing compared to the ice-cold dread that flooded his veins, extinguishing the last embers of his triumphant warmth.

He knew that smirk. He had seen it every day for two years. He had seen it on the day he’d excitedly pitched his revolutionary data-analysis project. And he had seen it on the day he was fired, watching as this man took credit for that very same project, accepting the promotion that should have been Leo’s.

Beneath the photo, the name materialized, confirming the impossible.

[Mark Sterling]

KingMidas75 was Mark Sterling.

The war wasn’t with some anonymous, rich reseller. It was with the very man who had ruined his career, stolen his future, and pushed him into this desperate, hand-to-mouth existence. The man who had turned him from a rising star into a single father struggling to buy his children a birthday present.

Every infuriating 75-cent outbid, every smug victory, every automated act of greed—it was all Mark. Of course it was. It was his signature move: effortless, arrogant, and utterly dismissive of the people he crushed beneath him. Mark hadn't just beaten him in a single auction; he had been grinding him under his heel for years without even knowing it.

Leo leaned back, a chillingly calm sensation washing over him. The shock receded, replaced by a clarity so profound it was almost serene. This was never about a toy Jeep or a box of junk. The System hadn’t activated by chance. This was fate. This was justice, delivered in the form of a game-like interface.

He looked at Mark’s smirking face on the screen. The war was no longer about auctions. It was no longer about petty revenge.

It was personal. And it was just getting started.