Chapter 10: Idle Power v1.0

The year had changed. The long break was finally over, and children were busy finishing their last year's homework that they hadn't done throughout their christmas break. Adults returned to the usual, and the bustle of the welcoming of the year gradually calmed down after a few days. On the fifth of January, Mike looked at his computer with a relaxed expression.

"Okay, I checked everything. Nothing seems to be out of place. Then, it's time to upload the updates!"

That's right, on this day, his two games will be updated!

With the active participation of the community, it was easy for him to focus more on the development part. All the story came from the community, and he barely had to change anything, as they surprisingly behaved despite him already expecting the absolute chaos that a normal community would do on something like this. Its being a niche community was a factor in its clean atmosphere, and another was that the fans could easily spot bad actors right away and properly gatekeep the game. He doesn't really mind them stonewalling outsiders because he has seen communities fall due to being "inclusive" or "child-friendly" to strangers.

What he wanted were people who were actually interested in the kind of game he was making, not some stranger who would come just to spout whatever without even glancing at his game. What's the point of a community-driven game if the game was put aside for something else? It wouldn't be a game at all!

So he managed to finish version 0.1.1 of CGA and upload it.

What he added were more character poses for the twelve characters. All of which were distinct from each other. Other than that, he also added ten stages in the third world and three hard stages in the second world on mock-up challenges. There were new mobs on the mockup challenge and two new bosses that players could test their skills and strategies with the limited roster they had. He had also changed some values from the earlier mobs and bosses of the game, as it would be unreasonable if the first stage already blocked them from progressing due to its high difficulty. The exploration mode also got the front yard map, and he added some environmental interactions in the game so it would be more immersive as the players explored around the school grounds with their favorite student.

Those were the only updates he made for CGA. Everyone from the CGA server was ecstatic, and they couldn't wait to play it as soon as possible, but that wasn't the topic for today.

His fans were a lot more interested in the only game he had published on the Woogle Play platform.

The full version of Idle Power!

Idle Power version 1.0 has been officially released, and just like what he promised, he had implemented everything in there, essentially completing the game development!

Every member of the official server for his games was quickly updating their game. The game had reached 700 MB in size, and this was after he spent an entire week focusing on optimization and taking out whatever junk data remained in the game. It was that huge because he put ten times the content into it than its previous version.

It was natural for their reaction to it to be explosive.

____________________

"Finally, it's here! The official version!"

Nick Clinton exclaimed in excitement as the game finally finished being updated on his phone. Cute Girls Academy was a wonderful game, and he knows the gamedev does his best, but Idle Power is the best game the developer made in his opinion. It was unique in how it tackled its idle concept, and it truly embodied a game that could be played passively, regardless of whether the player opened the game or let it run in the background.

He quickly opened the game after he was done updating it. He hadn't bothered reading what was on the update logs, wanting to surprise himself. So he was unaware of the prompt that suddenly appeared the first time he opened the game. It was a tab that showed him only two options, which were "Evil" and "Good". Then there was a question mark icon on the top right corner of this tab that was beside the "X" button to close it. Curious, he tapped the question mark icon.

[Alignment Chart is a system that affects the behavior of your avatar. This system will either rise or fall depending on the actions of your avatar within the combat mode. Certain traits will become available depending on the level of your alignment.]

"Alignment chart?"

He was confused and also a bit excited seeing a new feature in the game. CastroGames hasn't said anything about this at all. His trust with the gamedev was high, so he believed this new feature was here to enhance the quality of the game. It also had something to do with the combat mode, so he can't wait to try it as soon as possible. He picked the "Good" option without thinking so much about it.

After picking that, he was expecting to start the game but was surprised when another tutorial started. This time the game was asking him to tap the Hero, which the game now called the Player's Avatar. He tapped it, and was surprised to find a series of options he could choose, along with a small tab that told him about the new function in the game called Traits.

Based on the guide, Traits further affect the behavior of the avatar in combat mode. It gave an example like an avatar with a "reckless" trait that would most likely move closer towards the enemy without regard to any attacks that could barely inflict 2% damage on the avatar's HP. If he chose a "coward," then the avatar would always distance itself from any enemies or any environmental hazard that it recognized, along with not fleeing from a boss as soon as it encountered one. A player could put up to 3 traits for their avatar, though it also told them that some traits would become unavailable after they chose one. This kind of limitation was done because Mike thought contradictory traits like "Coward" and "Reckless" don't really make sense.

Nick's eyes shone with intrigue. His smile widened as he thought about how he could further customize his character.

"Good! Castro really didn't forget about this game!"

He was a bit doubtful at first because, since the day the gamedev started development of Cute Girls Academy, Idle Power felt like it was put on the sidelines. There were still updates, but every update was all about optimizations and bug fixes. Even with the reassurance from Castro that an update was on the way and it would be uploaded this year, he still couldn't help but be anxious. Now, he knew that Castro was truly a man of his word. He wouldn't abandon his first game!

He quickly looked through the available traits he could choose and then picked three traits, which were "Righteous", "Street Smart", and "Cautious". It might not actually embody his personality, but those traits made it easier to insert himself in this character.

After that tutorial, he finally has time to look at the game itself. First was the home screen.

"Wow... now it looks like an actual house!"

His avatar, a white stickman who wore the business suit set, was idly walking around the humble interior of a living room. In the background, the points continuously generate on themselves while he watches his character do its own thing, like sitting on a chair or taking the small black pixel that he immediately recognized as the remote and seeing his avatar turn on the TV on the other side of the glass table. That alone made him excited.

"He even put something like this on the home screen!?"

He could feel Castro Games attention to detail in that he didn't spare the home screen. He watched his character, becoming more surprised when it stood up, turned the TV off, and then walked towards the edge of the screen that led to somewhere. Surprisingly, the scene actually changed into a new room that showed a dining room. There was a refrigerator in there, which his avatar walked towards and then opened. After that, he rummaged through it before taking something shaped like a bottle. The avatar made motions of drinking it, and he could hear the sound effect of gulping water.

He was moved. It was like watching the avatar's daily life when it wasn't out there fighting whoever it encountered.

"The basic ones... don't have any changes in them. But there are a lot of new options in it!"

His stats were still the same. They were already in the billions while his intelligence stat was still in the millions. The gamedev didn't reset their progress because it would be a waste if they had to start all over on the full version. Nick approved of this because he didn't want his entire progress that he grinded for several months to vanish.

Just like what the gamedev promised, there were 20 new options on [Activity] and 10 new options for the [Knowledge]. He also looked at the [Title] tab and saw a lot was added in it. Along with that, he just checked and found out that the "Supporter" title now had a 100% boost to everything instead of the 1% it formerly had. Nick recalled it was one of the complaints from some people who saw other titles being stronger than the "Supporter" when it was the only title they could get through microtransactions. It felt unfair to those who paid, even though it was only a buck. Nick's impression of Castro Games was further elevated by seeing that they took those complaints seriously.

[Equipment] was next, and when he got there, he was surprised when, instead of ten new equipment sets being added, there were at least twenty he had seen. All of them were still unknown as he hadn't found them yet, but it was still surprising because each piece of equipment had its own unique animation.

"I can't wait to collect all of the equipment sets!"

Other than that, there were 25 new weapon types instead of the promised 20. This made him more excited to go on the [Combat] mode and start grinding.

"I cannot wait!"

Feeling impatient, he quickly used up all of his accumulated points on the auto-assign button from both the [Activity] and [Knowledge] tabs. After that, multiple prompts told him that he unlocked new titles, and new powers littered the upper corner of the screen. He didn't check it carefully and immediately dove through the combat mode after doing that.

A stage select screen was the first thing he got. In the previous version, there were only three stages, which were "The Alleyway", "The Streets", and "Syndicate Compound". All of those stages were gone and were replaced with three new ones. The first stage was now called the "Amity Town". The second and third stages were still unknown, so he could only choose the "Amity Town" first.

After a brief loading screen, it transitioned into an isometric overview of an entire street. In the center of the screen was his avatar, and around him were different stickmen walking around the side road while cars occasionally passed by on the roads. He gasped at the breadth of life in the screen. It was as if he was looking at an entire simulation of a city. Then he saw a short message bubble on top of his avatar's head with the words "looking for bad guys". Along with that message, he also saw his avatar walking past the other mobs. He raised an eyebrow at that. The game usually started with the avatar already in a fight against random mobs. This new combat mode looked entirely different.

He tapped one of the walking mobs and was surprised when he saw a new status screen for them.

[Status]

Name: Kennedy, Warren

Age: 26

Residence: Amity Town, Third Street

Gender: Male

Entity Type: Civilian

Profession: Hairstylist

Alignment: Good (220)

Traits: Polite, Hardworking, Smoker

Fame: 120

Reputation: Just a normal guy.

Abilities: None

(Main Status)

HP: 470/470

AP: 50/50

Satiety: 87/100

Hydration: 75/100

Energy: 97/100

STR: 56

VIT: 47

AGI: 50

DEX: 57

INT: 40

CHA: 44

LCK: 30

(Current Action)

Moving to Commercial District

"Wow... that's new..."

The main status was normal. The first section was a new thing in his eyes. It doesn't exist in the previous versions. He wanted to learn more about it as he looked around the screen. Quickly, he noticed that the bar above was different. It doesn't just indicate the amount of souls, gold, and an EXP bar that indicates his avatar's familiarity with the stage. There were now six boxes there that were indicated with icons. Tapping them one by one let him learn what they were.

The one with the dollar sign symbol is the "Currency". His avatar would automatically use it to buy food, drinks, clothing, and equipment depending on their mood. Next is "Familiarity", which was just the same as the former EXP bar system of this game, and currently he saw it was reset to 1, which meant his avatar had to start grinding levels to become familiar with the stage again. The next three are "Satiety", "Hydration", and "Energy" which respectively indicated the hunger, thirst, and stamina of the avatar. The avatar would automatically try and solve the issue when these bars got lower than 30. Then the final one is called "Reputation", which displayed the current opinion of everyone on the stage to the avatar.

Reputation was the most interesting in Nick's eyes, as, based on its description, it affected how the mobs on the stage behaved toward the avatar. There were many hidden reputations that a player could unlock, and it depended on their "Fame", which was a new addition to their status. Currently, his reputation was "a nobody", and the description said every mob's reaction to the avatar would be normal.

He wondered just how that system would work as his avatar continued to move towards the alleyways of this urban town. After looking at his avatar going deeper within the alleyways, a series of text appeared just below the six boxes on the top corner. Written in it with normal fonts was ("Alleyways - Central Street") which seemed to indicate which area in the stage the avatar was currently in.

'Wait... does that mean...?'

He narrowed his eyes, taking in the scenery of the game carefully. As he watched his screen transition from one scene to the next, he couldn't help but exclaim in awe.

"It's a whole map!?"

The screen was mostly centered on his avatar, though he could see that the entire stage wasn't randomly generated. It was a fully modeled map, and each stage heavily resembled the first two stages in the previous versions but was whole and connected to each other.

Nick might be clueless about the process of game development, but he had an inkling that procedural generation was much easier than making an entire map design manually. Procedural generation meant leaving it to the computer how a level would look through a set of map presets already in the game. Most gamedev who usually made dungeon crawler games used this technique to shorten the time and also make the players experience unlimited amounts of variety in their games. Manually designing a level was hard work, and it also doesn't guarantee player satisfaction. It really depended on what kind of design the level had and whether it had a reasonable logic in its design.

But this is an idle game. Balance doesn't matter to this!

Even if random map generation should be much better in a game like this, an entire map gave the impression that the setting in this game already had an established world. It wasn't just a randomly generated map that had nothing beyond it, where players should intuit whatever was happening in the game and why it was happening. It might be a bad idea on most games with this kind of design, but this specific game felt thematic because it made it more immersive in his eyes.

He watched as his avatar saw mobs that wore red scarves on their faces. Tapping one, he saw that their profession was thugs, and their alignment was evil. Their traits were on the violent side, like "Sadistic", "Bully", "Violent", etc. When his avatar engaged, he moved with incredible speed, instantly appearing in the center of the group of thugs. Then, his avatar combined a normal animation of its roundhouse kick and a usage of power. The power caused pixelated electricity, along with the sound of electrical shocks and grunts, to occur, creating a beautiful full arc of yellowish trail that knocked out every thug in his avatar's vicinity unconscious. The damage his avatar inflicted was enormous, already in the billions, though there was also another prompt that occurred other than the damage numbers called "Incapacitated".

He was confused and quickly browsed through his [Power] tab. The power his avatar used, based on the effects he saw, was an application of [Electrical Generation]. It was an ability that he got after getting Level 50 on the [Shadowboxing] activity, Level 20 on the [Fixing Appliances] activity, and then Level 10 [Elemental] knowledge. So he looked at that ability, as he doesn't remember it inflicting "Incapacitated" status on enemies in the past versions.

"Can be used to incapacitate foes? What does that mean?"

After reading that, he tried to look around the game settings. He found a new option there called Guide, so he immediately tapped that. After looking around for a while, he finally found what he was looking for.

"Oh... this just makes this game much better!" He was excited after reading the new info.

In the alignment chart guide, it told him what each trait would do. "Good" would usually incapacitate, immobilize, or knockout a foe when they defeated them, while an "Evil" player avatar would kill or grievously injure their foe. This gave a clear divide between the two, which gave more flavor to the game itself. Then there was the trait part. When he read the "Righteous" trait, he saw that among everything the avatar could do, one of them was always incapacitating foes and then calling in any entity who had any law enforcement related profession to put his foes in jail.

"I see, so that's why my character stopped and did a calling law enforcement action." He exclaimed, now understanding what was happening.

While he did that, his avatar was continuously moving around the map. Whenever it encountered an evil-aligned mob, it would immediately teleport towards them and incapacitate them with various powers like lightning manipulation and hypnosis. After he was done, he saw that the scenery had changed and his character was in the streets once more. The entire surrounding was a bit dark, and the streetlamps had their lights lit up along with the lights on the windows of the building being open.

"There's even a day and night system here!?"

His shock doesn't end there, as he saw his character walk for a bit until he stopped at a building with a post sign "Central Amity Hotel" written on top of its entrance door. His avatar actually moved towards the door and opened the door. Then the scene transitioned seamlessly. When his character entered, the entire street behind him became a void while the interior of the building replaced the scenery. He gasped, his heart beating in excitement as he saw his character doing a "speaking" action towards one of the stickmen who was standing behind a counter. After that, he saw his money decreasing before his avatar moved towards the elevator, saw the entire scene of the elevator moving floor by floor in its isometric art, and then saw his avatar move towards a room that was assigned to it. After that, his avatar was on a free chair beside a table, and after waiting for five seconds, a stickman entered and gave a tray to his avatar. Then he saw the next action of his avatar, which was "eating", and after he was done, he walked towards the empty bed and then plopped down on top of it while the action "sleeping" popped up on top of its head.

"It even has a sleep cycle!?"

Nick was fired up. These simple features go beyond a normal idle game. It felt like a simulation game, but it had more content in it than those simulation games. It could even be mistaken for a sandbox game due to how much depth this game had!

"What the heck!? Castro is so godly!"

All of these features weren't part of his promises, but he still did it anyway. Nick was unaware, but while Mike was putting most of his attention on the CGA server, he hadn't neglected the official server for his games. He saw the Idle Power fans suggestions, and excluding the demands for more power and equipment, one of the most requested was that the combat mode should have more interactivity. They wanted to truly play an idle game where they could watch their hero go on a journey with their own customization, and they also wanted to add some daily life features so it would look more life-like.

Mike found those fun, so he added them. It was quite easy too, because the framework for the AI of this game was already there. With his talent for innovation, he managed to splice most of those parts and turn them into new systems, which made it easier for mobs to recognize who was their foe or ally. Each trait was easy to implement, and the alignment chart wasn't that hard for him. Mike had also mastered the talent for sleeping six hours a day. There might be some health issues that might crop up if he kept doing this, but for the entire few months since he started the development of CGA, he had been doing all-nighters just to cram all of these systems.

Once more, Nick bore witness to the obsession of the game developer. If he was going to implement a feature, he would go all out, and this was the result. An entire miniature world that players could watch while their avatar dominated it. They lived inside it, and every mob, even with the minimal details about them, gave subtle depths to their background, which made the entire stage feel complete. Players could easily understand that this stage wasn't just in the middle of nowhere. Now they could identify the stage by its actual name.

"This is it! The true idle game I've been looking for!"

Nick was glad he supported Castro Games. He felt like he actually contributed to a decent game from a great developer. That's what he has been looking for.

"Alright, I have something to spend my entire month on again. Before that..."

Having said that, he stopped playing for a moment before quickly opening a browser for forums.

"I have to advertise this game to the masses! I can't let such a gem be an obscure one!"

He quickly did just that. Writing a lot of praises for the author while putting everything he found fun in this game.

After doing that, he continued playing the game, wanting to discover what else he could find out in this game.

____________________

The following days made Nick more shocked as he got farther in the game. He was still at Amity Town, but the entire town itself was massive. He discovered a few functions, like the "Action" feature, which would appear when he tapped his avatar while he was in combat mode. Choosing this option, he could dictate which area of the city his avatar would go to. The area must be a place that his avatar must have already explored. It wouldn't be available otherwise.

He discovered a lot more, like how the bosses for the previous version became the area bosses on Amity Town. How sometimes, when he was fighting near civilians, they would run away. Or how, when a police officer or other mob with a law enforcement related profession was nearby, they would help him beat his foes. There were new mobs like the robbers, kidnappers, and the like, and most of the time he would encounter conflicts between the police and the thugs.

What made him shocked was his character. On the home screen, it looked as if it just did things idly, but on a stage, it looked as if it was living in the city itself. It talked to civilians, shopkeepers, and the like, and whenever it got hungry, it would go to fast food stores, convenience stores, and many more. There were even apartments there that his character could stay in for many in-game weeks or months, and there was even a system where his avatar would just argue with someone whenever it encountered something it considered injustice.

It truly felt like he was watching a righteous person with a lot of power doing good deeds all around the town while fighting crime on the sidelines. The reputation of his avatar had also turned from "a nobody" into "the hero of Amity Town Central Street". This reputation had an effect where civilian mobs would recognize him and point him towards any area that had criminal elements in it, trigger help from the law enforcement, and make the evil-aligned factions in the town either flee from him or attack him.

There were also new bosses like the villain "Syndicate Lord," whom he easily defeated due to his humongous status. It's one of the villains he needed to defeat to unlock the next stage. The next stage was called "Sin City", which was an entirely new map with stronger mobs in it. He briefly tried that stage before coming back to Amity Town because he still wanted to discover what else he had missed out on.

In the next three days, when Nick decided to look at the server to know the reaction of the others about this version, did he once again exclaim in shock at what he discovered.

"Are we even playing the same game!?"

On the clip channel, Spicawolf, one of the loyal fans of Idle Power like him, had posted a clip of his run. It was his avatar wearing the rich suit equipment and carrying a pistol-type weapon, and along with him were evil-aligned goons raiding what he recognized was the Amity Central Bank. He saw his reputation was called "The Amity Town Syndicate Lord". The effects looked like they let his avatar order evil-aligned mobs into his goons and then cause terror around that stage. He also saw in the later parts of the clip how his character fought law enforcement mobs and even fought a new boss called "Amity Town Sheriff", who easily fell due to his overwhelming status. He knew that mob. It was one of the special mobs that usually pointed him towards the dangerous areas of this town. He didn't know he could fight good-aligned mobs.

It's not just SpicaWolf. Other members of the server were mostly picking evil-aligned characters and letting their avatars run amok on the combat stages. They kept making memes about watching the world burn or other memes from some movies about causing genocide or becoming a gang lord. Surprisingly, only a few players like Mino chose to be good, and a strange faction war was happening in the server.

Shirocc: Bastards! Causing terror on innocent civilians!

I swear I'll find a way and save your version of Amity Town from your tyranny!

TheCreationTrio: Evil monsters! Fight my avatar with 100B in stats!

SpicaWolf: How naive!

You goody-two-shoes are too strict with yourselves. We have all the power; why not have fun?

Lopez: (Image of a soldier staring wide-eyed on the screen while behind him was a devastated, war-torn battlefield)

MafiaLord: Hah? Am I hearing something?

Nah, just flies buzzing around smh

Loki999: With power comes great enjoyment!

Mino: This is just sad ;sad;

Idle_Nick: What the hell is happening?

SpicaWolf: Ah, at last. My rival has arrived!

Come at me, young hero! Let us fight in the boundary of dimensions!

Idle_Nick: I cannot understand you! ;confusion;

Gloo: ;laugh; ;rofl;

Hero: I won't give up! I'll find out how to breach dimensions and save those poor innocent souls!

Lima: Lmao, this is fun

Kaokao: Good aligned run is trash. Reset your game for evil aligned goodness!

Shork: Slander!

The evil aligned ones are delusional! They only want to see destruction and pain everywhere!

Join the hero alliance if you are a good aligned player!

SpicaWolf: The alliance is nothing. We at the Syndicate are the strongest, and the most free!

Loki999: Hero Alliance ;thumbs down; ;crossmark;

The Syndicate ;thumbs up; ;smug glasses; ;checkmark;

Spiderguy: No, with great power comes great responsibility!

That_Guy: The Syndicate is the strongest!

Tensa_Zangetsu: Moon Fang Heaven Piercer!

Warawa: How uncouth. Spreading your filth in thine eyes?

Lowly criminal bugs should vacate this place, or else ;deadpan;

Endymion: The Hero Alliance will prevail! Join us to defeat the evil Syndicate!

CQC_Expert: Iron Edge, breaching the facility.

Jump_Dazai: Are you sure about that?

U-Turn: Fight me, hero losers!

Hero: I won't let you evil monsters win!

Haagen-Dasz: ;popcorn; ;popcorn; ;popcorn;

Other than that joke rivalry, other players were busy gushing about the game.

Nijima: Seriously, this game is amazing!

Hypeman: New player here! Is there any tips how to optimize my stats?

Pupils: No need to optimize. Just play the game how you want it. You'll get stronger eventually.

Shapeshifter: I agree. This game is very amazing!

Shirocc: Seriously, how does the developer do all of this? Isn't he just making this alone?

Average-Person: Wait, the gamedev is just a single person!?

Lookout_Guys: I don't believe it! They must have a team!

Mino: It's true guys. He's just alone.

Pop&Rock: How the hell?

Shork: Have you seen just how much content this game have?

And all of this just for an idle game. The dev is truly pushing himself just to spoil us!

Castro is so manly, kyaa <3

Lima: Yes. The gamedev works a hundred times faster than every gamedev I know. I think he even surpasses AAA developers.

And you know, he alone made this. Not just the game but even the animation, the sound effects, and even the BGM. Can you imagine how much effort it takes just to do all of that?

I can't imagine it!

DemonGod: This is the kind of casual game that I am looking for. Exciting, action-packed, but still casual enough that I can just play it for a minute and close it without compromising my life.

Truly, the best idle game ever!

Idle_Nick: That is right.

We have to support the gamedev more. It will be our lost if we only take everything for granted!

Mino: I agree.

SpicaWolf: Yep. I agree but... we alone can't support him. We have to spread this game far and wide. That's the best way to support the gamedev!

TheCreationTrio: I already told about this game from my Gachamon server. Hopefully I manage to pull some players here.

Shork: I also told it about my friends in my joined servers. They also like casual games, so I'm sure they will like it.

Shirocc: I'm still waiting for the maintenance, so I also said it on the Azure Archive RP servers I am joined with.

Counter: The boss have clear territories. How did the dev program their behaviour!?

HugeGuy: Best game ever!

Members of the servers, fans of the game, and even newbie players got hooked on this idle game, and with it only having a single microtransaction that only costs a buck, the majority of the players wanted to support the game more.

For new players...

"Why is it only a single pack? Why does it cost a single buck? Does the dev hate money?"

"Why is the donation link so hidden? Are they scared of earning cash?"

"If I don't support this kind of game, then what else should I support?"

"Such a game should have many players. Tsk, whatever! I'll just donate!"

"I'll advertise this game to my friends, and then I'll ask them to donate. I can't let such a conscientious developer go bankrupt!"

"It will be a great loss if the dev can't eat. I have to throw in a cent so he can continue developing!"

As for the veteran players and longtimefans...

"Why hasn't Castro added any in-app purchases? Didn't I tell him to add one? Whatever, I'll just dump most of my savings on him!"

"I don't have money, but I have friends. I'll support you by dragging them to this game!"

"Castro is so funny! If he is going to be like this, then I might as well!"

"Is this a new form of reverse psychology, because it is working for me!"

"This game is too good to be an idle game. None can compare to it. It should be recommended anywhere!"

While all of this was happening, Mike was in his home taking a rest for the day. He had worked hard, and he knew that constantly pushing his body to the limit would be bad for his future health. He planned to continue improving his games and checking for any bug reports if something came up next time.

He hasn't checked the statistics of his game yet. In Woogle Play, his game, which only had thousands of downloads,suddenly surged into hundreds of thousands. It didn't stop there. Overnight, it kept rising and getting closer and closer to a million.

His phone was on mute, so he was also unaware of the many notifications from his PayBud fleeting through his lock screen. It would be the next day when he would discover the big surprise.

"... What!?"

He doesn't know whether to laugh or cry about it. Any improvement he could gain from Idle Power didn't appear, because he just earned so much that it canceled any improvements he could gain for today.

"Ugh... why..." He nursed his forehead, a bit sad at the lost opportunity for at least a little improvement.