Ohh such weealth

Maria got herself and Luke a room at the nearest hotel to the hospital and returned soon after. It was the afternoon of the day after the incident happened as she and Luke arrived back to Rowan's bedside.

Noticing the feeding tube, a urinary catheter, and an IV line she knew that the situation has not changed and that they were preparing for this to be a long term stay at the hospital.

She got called from work from her supervisors if she needed more time off and now it looked Maria will have to quit her job. She sighed looking at him connected to all the monitoring equipment laying there peacefully.

"Rowan, you have to make it through this!", she told herself.

Luke was full of guilt and just watched everything without saying a word. He was like a puppet being dragged by his hand. Doing what he was told and trying to make himself invisible.

It was past lunchtime and Maria knew Luke must be hungry even though he had not said a word the whole day. She brought him to the cantine in the hospital and visited an ATM machine that was nearby. Maria needed some cash for daily expenses although most places took payment with credit and bank cards some were still unwilling to change their ways.

As she inputted her pin number Maria first checked her balance and saw $20.027.423,78. She was first in shock. The disbelief kicked in. Next thing was the feeling of guilt. She felt like she sold Rowan's pain and suffering to NovaTech. She sold his life to them.

Maria was aware they talked about the settlement in exchange for a no disclosure agreement but she was more concerned about what they were saying about making him better. She was in thought when they mentioned the specific number and this was a shock to her.

Maria would gladly return these 20 million if Rowan could return to her as he was before.

"What have I done? I hope I have not signed something I should not have.", was a sudden fear that came over her. Maria had a rough life and knew money doesn't come from the air and for that amount of money, there must have been a catch in those papers.

She took out 400 $ and had lunch with Luke and then returned to Rowan's room. If she knew Rowan was bashing mice and somewhat enjoying himself without even giving a thought about them she would be very disappointed in him, to put it mildly.

Meanwhile, Rickman returned to his lab. He asked for a status report with a stern voice.

The staff was used to Rickman venting himself on them when he visited the CEO Robert Fraser and knew he will soon return to normal so nobody got scared by his loud voice anymore.

"The medical staff's side of things is as it was. They prepped him for a long stay with a feeding tube, physiological fluid IV and a urinary catheter. In-game, he is still active. He made some weird choices when starting the game and we were wondering if we should return him to the first login window?", a staff member reported.

"What do you mean weird?", Rickman frowned.

"He chose all the starting professions available unknowingly when the needles stabbed him in his brain.", the researcher explained.

Rickman was in thought.

"Leave him for now. Let's see what he does with it.", Rickman said.

"He started to cook and bash mice so far. Sold jewels and bought himself some clothing and a bigger inventory.", another researcher chipped in.

"Let him be. We can't do much anyway. Adjust the spawn algorithm to avoid Rowan's continent for new players. We can only get him more time in the game before we have to move him to the test server again once the helmets are retrofitted.", Rickman ordered his underlings.

Rowan was being isolated from other players but Rickman thought it was the only way to keep him in the game longer and to have a plausible excuse for Robert when he did so.

In-game Rowan came back to Old Jonas' shop and when he entered he immediately got two packs of oatmeal and raisins.

"Go make us a meal, please.", Jonas looked at him with hopeful eyes.

He quickly made the two dishes and drank some water while he was at it. His proficiency with the oatmeal rose to 4/10 and also the attributes gained rose somewhat.

Jonas ate happily and commented.

"You are getting better at it. Maybe soon you will reach my Lora's level with oatmeal."

Rowan just nodded and thought of having oatmeal three more times will be a pain.

After they ate Rowan got back to hammer time.

He bashed 100 regular mice and 10 mutant mice when a rat showed up. It was significantly bigger than mice. It crawled out from the darkness beyond the light the torch carried. Cautiously approaching the flour sack where Rowan was waiting with his hands raised gripping the basic blacksmith hammer like a statue.

It sniffed around but even though it could smell the strong presence of humans food remained its main priority. When it was about to enter the burlap sack Rowan employed his whole strength and hit it over the head. It got stunned. It shook its head and made a screech at Rowan who again dropped his hammer on its head. Rowan repeated this action for what seemed like forever and after countless swings, it finally gave out.

Rowan checked the corpse.

[Mutant Rat]

Quest item [Search]

He chose to search and the familiar disemboweling scene appeared making Rowan wince.

A red gem came out of it and Rowan examined it.

[Flawless Ruby]

[Appraise] [Cut] [Embed]

Rowan naturally chose to appraise. He got a response that his jeweler level was too low.

"Whatever. I will just play it by ear.", Rowan thought.

After the workout right now he was not in the mood to continue with bashing mice any longer so he picked up everything and visited Jonas upstairs.

He gave him the rodent carcasses and got 1 silver for the mice, 1 silver for the mutated mice and 1 silver for the mutated rat.

He left the shop again and visited Old Hugo the jeweler.

"Hi Ayx. You have something for me?", Hugo greeted him with a smile and enthusiasm.

"It must be my clothes.", Rowan thought.

"Hi. Yes, I have plenty.", he said as he took out the 10 pieces of loot he got from mutated mice.

They soon settled on 95 silver coins.

"I also have this.", Rowan said as he took out the flawless ruby.

Hugo's eyes gleamed.

"How much do you want for it?", he asked with a cunning look.

"Give me an offer?", Rowan replied.

"How does 5 gold sound?", Old Hugo said.

"Sounds good, but 15 gold would sound better.", Rowan replied.

Hugo looked at him and offered 8. Rowan countered with 12. In the end, they settled at 10 gold for the ruby.

"Jackpot.", Rowan thought as he was happy inwardly but trying to keep his emotions in check.

"These things aren't stolen?", Hugo asked worriedly.

"No. They were found inside terrible beasts.", Rowan replied.

Rowan didn't want Hugo to know he was killing rodents and getting rich by doing so.

"I heard that some creatures like to eat shiny things and as they absorb its powers they get stronger. Be careful if you are slaying those things yourself.", Hugo replied.

At the same time he though he doesn't look like a fighter. He is just probably fencing stuff for someone else. Well, as long as he keeps his demands reasonable and I clean and cut these I can make a decent profit reselling it. Who could have thought this kid who looked like a beggar would turn into my biggest customer in this week.

Rowan checked his coins and he had 11 gold, 14 silver, and 73 copper. It was time to go on a spending spree.