Chapter 4: First step
Aron rose from the ground, his breaths ragged and laboured after a series of push-ups on the grassy expanse of the park. As he steadied his breathing, he began to jog, his movements smooth and effortless as he moved across the verdant landscape.
With each stride, he felt his muscles come to life, his feet pounding the soft earth with a steady rhythm. The morning sun shining down on him, casting long shadows as he ran through the open spaces, his senses alive to the sights and sounds around him.
Despite the challenge of the workout he had just completed, the figure pressed on, pushing himself harder and harder with each passing moment. His breathing grew deeper and more measured, his body working in perfect harmony as he ran with the power and grace of an athlete in his prime.
This continued until a screen appeared in front of him. That's when he knew that his training has came to an end.
DING!!!
[Quest complete]
[Reward 100sp]
After taking a few deep breaths, he looked at his current sp numbers that showed that he only had managed to get 400 sp.
Knowing that even the cheapest thing on the system shop costs about 85,000sp. That means he will be running for a very long time or he needs to use the system taught knowledge very well, to compensate for the little points he gets from the daily quest.
…..
When he returned home, he found his mother watching tv.
"Are you done with your exercise?" Asked Aron's mother while fiddling with the remote.
"Yeah, today took longer than usual because i rested halfway through my jogging"
"Not that I'm against it, but why did you start doing these exercises?"
"I needed to do something to vent out my stress or i might go crazy by overthinking that's why i chose to start doing exercise because when i'm tired i can't think complicated topics so it saves me from some depressing thoughts" Answered Aron half of the truth and not telling the other half as that was because it was a Quest.
"Okay, you know that you can confide in me right?" said Aron's mother softly to show that she really cares about his son.
"Of Course mom, I know that." Smiled Aron, knowing that he has a place to depend and a family to depend on.
And this is the last bump he needed to make him decide to begin with his first step on his long journey for his and his family's better future.
…..
Aron could be seen sitting on his chair after he came out of the bathroom.
He was thinking on how to use the knowledge he got from the system. The reason he didn't copy the program word for word from the system is because the system was way too ahead of its time that it would be useless in the current internet infrastructure. He needed to dumb the current program down in order for it to be able to word on the existing programs and sites.
That's why it took him a week to decide on his approach on how to dumb the program while still keeping its ability intact. You can think of it like how translation works, as the program given by the system was designed to check programs that were written in the year 2100 and later, he needed to translate the system for it to be able to work on programs that were written before that.
And so his work began, he started writing his program slowly and while making sure his program is capable of finding all sorts of weaknesses that can be exploited by others and being capable of listing them out in an understandable manner.
While its first function is game breaking by itself, the second function of the program is the one that will be among the best ways he could use to double his income that he could have gotten by only finding the weaknesses of the program.
It took him two weeks to complete the program, but those two weeks did not go quietly, because when he replied to the email from the scholarship department they said that he needed to visit them for a meeting, So that they could talk on the plan of payment.
But when he replied to them that currently he wasn't capable of visiting them for the meating they sent him different plans from which he could choose one of them for him to begin his repayment.
The choices were:
1.Lump-sum payment
2.Installment plan
3.Income-driven repayment plan
But each of them was difficult to him for a different reason
When it comes to lump-sum payment, he didn't have even a fifth of it, for him to be able to choose this option even if he wanted.
The Installment plan was difficult in its own way because he will be paying it in part over a long period of time but this also comes with its challenges since the interest option that they gave him was way too high for him to accept.
As for the third option, he couldn't choose this because he didn't have any income for him to choose this plan.
So he was between the rock , the hard place and the tough place.
But after a long time of thinking and the otherside urging him to give them his decision he ended up choosing the lesser of the evil which was the second option which came with a hefty interest rate of 15%
What made him think that someone could be attempting to bankrupt him.
Because when he signed the scholarship contract there was a section that was there in case of repayment being of the grant being needed to be repaid, the university has the liberty of choosing the interest of the payment plan which will be between 2,5% and 15% yearly.
But when he asked about this provision he was told that even if repayment was going to be needed the amount of interest that they usually chose is always under 5%, even the highest amount given to a rapist student was 9% but what the hell did he do to be made to pay it with 15% the full amount of interest. who the FUCK did he piss off to have this being done to him?
Although it was the lesser of the three evils, it didn't leave him with a good taste in his mouth. Because if he continues with this payment plan to the end in the span of 10 years he would have to pay almost $1,239,000 in the span of 27 years by paying $1000 monthly which is what he can currently afford.
$1,239,000 that's the total amount of money that he will have to pay due to the interest rate that will be accumulated for the period of 27 years. I mean come on who the fuck would they do that to someone who was once their student?. He swore that once he completed the program for detecting weaknesses on the systems, he will start with his universities system and hack the shit out of it to find out who the fuck is the mastermind or the architecture that was planning for his miserable life.
But since this was the only option that he was capable of paying, although he will have to pay a brutal amount of money, he still ended up choosing it though he was angry.
The only peaceful grace in all of this was that he managed to schedule another meeting in 2 months where he was capable of choosing another option from those three. That also meant that he would not begin with his repayment plan until after the second meeting, which was after 2 months.
So, he had a 2 month grace period and he needed to earn the amount of money within that period lest he end up having to pay a million something bullshit dollar.
That's why the moment he finished making the weakness finding program, (BugZapper) he kept his promise and tested it on his university's system.