My Scumbag System - Chapter 249

Chapter 249: Every Asset Has a Price, Every Rival a Weakness
I found Jacob in the kitchen at 2 AM, his gaunt face illuminated by the harsh light of the refrigerator that cast shadows across his hollow cheeks. The soft hum of the appliance was the only sound in the otherwise silent building. He grabbed an energy drink and popped the tab, chugging it like a man dying of thirst while his Adam’s apple bobbed with each desperate swallow.

“Your brain burns approximately twenty percent of your daily calories,” I said from the doorway, causing him to choke and splutter in surprise as he sprayed a fine mist of neon-green liquid. “If you’re not feeding it properly, all that processing power goes to waste. Like trying to run high-performance software on a dying battery.”

Jacob wiped his mouth with the back of his hand while his glasses slid down his nose, and without the thick lenses his eyes looked smaller and more vulnerable. “I’m tracking a pattern in the data from this week’s training. I think there’s a correlation between Aspect activation and metabolic—”

“Fascinating,” I interrupted while taking the energy drink from his hand and replacing it with a protein shake from the fridge. The cold bottle left condensation on his palm. “But your pattern recognition will improve approximately thirty percent with proper nutrition and rest. Your brain isn’t separate from your body, Williams.”

He eyed the shake suspiciously and turned it in his hands to read the label in the harsh fluorescent light. “Is that a statistic or a hypothesis? What’s your control group? Your methodology seems questionable.”

“Call it an educated guess.” I leaned against the counter and crossed my arms over my chest. “I have a project I could use your help with, something that might interest that overclocked brain of yours.”

His eyes lit up immediately as the fatigue seemed to vanish from his face. “What kind of project? Data analysis? Algorithm development? Please tell me it’s not another social dynamics survey. I still have nightmares about that speed dating experiment Carmen made me participate in last semester.”

“A data collection exercise. I’m developing a guild-wide combat readiness algorithm, but I need baseline stamina measurements from different body types and Aspect categories. The kind of cross-referencing that would take me weeks if I did it alone.”

“That sounds incredible!” Jacob nearly bounced with excitement as his thin frame vibrated with sudden energy. “What sensors are you using? How are you accounting for Aspect energy fluctuation during physical exertion? We should look at circadian variations too! And environmental factors!”

“I’ve got equipment set up in the gym. Want to be my first test subject? Your perception-type Aspect would make a great baseline.”

The hook was set. Now I just needed to reel him in.

Twenty minutes later, Jacob was running on a treadmill while wired up with biometric sensors that blinked and beeped with each heartbeat. His face was flushed and his breath came in short gasps, but his eyes remained glued to the tablet in his hands as he stayed completely engrossed in the data streaming across the screen. He didn’t even seem to notice he’d been exercising for half an hour, probably the most physical activity he’d voluntarily undertaken in years.

“The correlation between heart rate variability and Aspect energy conservation is fascinating,” he panted while still staring at the screen like it held the secrets of the universe. Sweat dripped down his temples and fogged his glasses.

“We should cross-reference this with different activation patterns! Maybe set up a control group with similar physical attributes but different Aspect types!”

I hid my smile behind a thoughtful nod because I wasn’t training his body. I was tricking his brain into training his body, and in the process making him see me as the one person in the guild who truly valued his intellect, who spoke his language, who could translate his thoughts into action. Perfect symbiosis where his brain served my vision.

“Let’s try some interval training next,” I suggested while increasing the incline on the treadmill. “See how your Aspect reacts to sudden bursts of exertion.”

He nodded eagerly, too caught up in the experiment to realize he was becoming its primary subject. Too distracted by the data to notice I was collecting information on more than just his stamina. I was learning how he thought, what motivated him, what made him tick. Every response to the changing variables told me something new about how to manipulate him.

“Your heart rate spikes faster than I expected,” I noted while watching the monitors. “Could be stress-related. When was the last time you slept more than four hours?”

“Sleep is inefficient,” he gasped between breaths. “There’s too much to learn and too little time to learn it.”

“Sleep is when your brain consolidates memories and processes information. You’re essentially running defrag on your hard drive. Skip it too often and your system crashes.”

He blinked at me through his fogged glasses like I’d just revealed some profound truth. “That actually makes sense from a neurological standpoint.”

“So does eating real food instead of living off energy drinks and whatever Carmen leaves in the fridge.”

“Carmen’s cooking is statistically more likely to cause food poisoning than provide nutritional value.”

I couldn’t argue with that assessment.

Day five found me in my room making notes on my datapad after another brutal session with Braxton that had left dark bruises blooming across my ribs. The soft glow of the screen illuminated my face in the darkness as I updated my assessments, and the pack was dividing just as I’d anticipated with the fault lines growing more evident each passing day.

The loyalists were easy to identify since Emi, Soomin, and Jacob were firmly in my camp and responding to my attention like flowers turning toward the sun. Marco and Hikari were drifting my way too after being won over by my more hands-on approach and willingness to help with their individual challenges.

Marco appreciated that I took time to show Malachi respect, while Hikari simply responded to anyone who could help her hit things harder and more effectively. Even Malachi had given me a curt nod of acknowledgment when I’d spotted a flaw in his shadow-stepping technique, which was high praise from the silent oracle who usually acted like the rest of us were furniture.

But five of them remained a wall I hadn’t yet cracked, and each represented a different challenge to my authority.

Raphael was the most straightforward obstacle since he saw me as a rival and a direct threat to his self-proclaimed position as alpha. For him, respect could only be won through domination where words meant nothing and action was everything. Nothing less than total victory would work, which meant sooner or later we’d have to throw down and I’d have to win decisively.

Juan was a ghost who participated when forced and occasionally displayed flashes of tactical brilliance that made everyone’s jaws drop before vanishing back into apathy like a candle being snuffed out. Pride couldn’t motivate him and fear couldn’t touch him, while threats rolled off him like water off a duck. I hadn’t found his currency yet, the one thing that could pierce his bubble of indifference. Everyone had one, I just needed to keep searching until I found what made him give a damn about something.

Akari played her own game where she flirted and teased and seemed friendly enough, curving her body just so when I walked by and letting her fingers linger when passing equipment. But her fox-sharp eyes told a different story because there was calculation behind every giggle and assessment behind every wink. Her loyalty would be transactional, I simply hadn’t made the right offer yet.

Skylar remained the cynical observer who perched on the periphery with her headphones and her piercing gaze. She wasn’t impressed by displays of power or leadership since she’d grown up surrounded by fame and had developed an immunity to charisma.

She saw through performances including mine, which meant earning her respect would require something genuine and something interesting. Boring was the one sin she couldn’t forgive, and I’d need to figure out what qualified as interesting in her book.

And then there was Isabelle.

The Queen.

She was both the biggest obstacle and the greatest prize since she continued to observe and evaluate from her self-imposed distance, measuring my every move against some internal standard I couldn’t quite grasp. She wouldn’t follow because she would only choose to align with someone she deemed her equal, and I hadn’t proven that to her yet. Maybe I never would. But if I could bring her to my side, the rest would fall into place like dominoes toppling in sequence.

I glanced at the calendar on my datapad where the joint training with the Argent Sentinels loomed exactly one week away. Time was running short, and I still had too many loose ends to tie up before then.

Bartholomew crawled slowly up the side of his terrarium while leaving a glistening trail behind him on the glass. The immortal snail seemed unbothered by the passage of time as he moved at his own pace with the confidence of a creature that could not die.

I unfortunately didn’t have that luxury.