In the year 2047, the world didn't belong to nations anymore. It belonged to superheroes and the money that created them.
New Eden City stretched along the coast, shining like a testament to power.
The tallest skyscrapers in the Core District reached into the clouds, housing the real rulers: the Ancient Families, megacorp CEOs, and S-tier Superheroes capable of destroying entire city blocks with a mere thought.
These stakeholders held control over Hero Guilds, illegal serum labs, and whole economies.
Just a word from an S-tier hero such as "Titan King" or "Void Empress" could manipulate stock markets or wipe out entire gangs.
The city was strictly divided into tiers.
Tier 1: The Core. Gold and platinum districts where laws favoured the elite. Superhumans moved freely, their capes waving like symbols of their untouchable stature.
Tier 2: The Inner Ring includes the upper-middle class, minor heroes, and corporate executives. It is considered relatively safe.
Tier 3: The Mid Districts, where the majority of people fought simply to survive.
Tier 4 and below: The Slums. These neglected concrete jungles weren't just crime hotspots—they were the very fabric of the ecosystem.
Gang conflicts, black-market serum dealers, and desperate low-tier mutants dominated the streets.
Police only ventured in with armored convoys, and often, they never returned.
And then there were people like Ethan Cross.
A twenty-four-year-old, overwhelmed by $347,892 in debt, stands on the verge of a collapsing rooftop in Tier 5, the Deep Slums.
The wind whistled past him, bringing echoes of sirens, gunfire, and the thumping bass of underground fight clubs.
Ethan looked down at the neon-lit streets thirty stories below, gripping the rusted railing so tightly that his knuckles turned white. A half-empty bottle of cheap whiskey lay beside his foot.
"Superpowers," he muttered bitterly. "Money. Connections. That's what rules this fucking world."
The last message from his ex-girlfriend still lingers in his mind: "Don't contact me again. Marcus arranged a Tier 2 apartment for me and got me a hero's protection pass."
Marcus, a modest C-tier hero endowed with a minor flame power and wealthy parents, was enough to win over the only woman Ethan ever loved.
Ethan chuckled, his laugh hollow and strained. "Here I am, no powers, no money, no family name, just debts from my deceased parents' medical bills and a dead-end delivery job that only just covers the interest. I'm at rock bottom, the sort of nobody this city consumes and discards daily. People like me, void of influence or hope, are merely background noise in someone else's empire."
He kicked the whiskey bottle; it spun once and then stopped.
He shouted at the skyline, facing the floating hero-ads that looped across the Core District towers,Titan King's golden grin towering forty stories, promoting an energy drink. "You hear me up there? I existed! Ethan Cross existed!"
Nothing was answered, as expected. The city didn't care about names like his.
He has an eviction notice in his pocket, and debt collectors keep calling, six missed calls just in the last hour, all from the same blocked number.
He has no friends left since Jake stopped replying to texts after Ethan failed to repay the two hundred dollars he borrowed.
There's been no hope since the doctor's unemotional words three years ago: "I'm sorry, Mr. Cross, there was nothing more we could do."
He draped one leg over the railing, the cold metal piercing through his old jeans.
"Fuck this world."
That was when it happened.
[Detecting Host's Extreme Despair and Life-Ending Intent…]
[Urban Sugar Daddy System initiating emergency binding…]
[Binding… 47%… 81%… 99%… 100%]
A cold, mechanical voice spoke directly inside his mind.
Blue holographic panels appeared before his eyes, visible only to him.
[System Activation Complete!]
[Host: Ethan Cross]
[Current Balance: $0.00]
[Main Quest: Spend at least $500 on a woman within the next 24 hours.]
[Reward upon completion: 10,000x Rebate + Beginner Gift Package]
Ethan paused suddenly, one leg resting on the railing while the other hung freely in the air. His heart pounded intensely.
"What the hell?" he whispered, eyes wide with disbelief.
The panels remained in place, glowing consistently against the night sky, calm and untroubled, as if they had all the time in the world.
"Okay." He blinked hard, certain the whiskey had finally cooked his brain. "Okay, I'm hallucinating. Great. Even my breakdown can't be normal."
[Negative. Host is not hallucinating.]
This time, the voice responded directly, with a smooth and nearly amused tone, resembling a customer service representative who's encountered this reaction countless times.
Ethan nearly lost his grip on the railing. "It talks?!"
[Correct. The System talks. The System also judges. Currently judging Host's decision to end a perfectly serviceable existence over a woman who left him for a man with a Tier 2 lease and a minor fire trick.]
"Excuse me?" Ethan's voice cracked between fury and disbelief. "Who—what are you? Get out of my head!"
[I am the Urban Sugar Daddy System. I am now bonded to your soul signature. I cannot, in fact, get out of your head. We are stuck with each other, Host.]
"Sugar Daddy System?" Ethan repeated the words like they physically hurt. "That's— that's a joke. This is a joke. This is some Tier 4 black-market drug, isn't it? Someone laced my whiskey."
[I assure you, Host, no drugs are involved, though given the bottle at your feet, I question that judgment independently of my own existence.]
"I am not in the mood for a system with an attitude problem."
[And I was not given the option to choose a host with better life choices, so we are even.]
Ethan let out a strained laugh, a sound that often precedes tears or anger, he wasn't certain which. Instinctively, he swung his other leg back over the railing and sat down on the rooftop gravel, gazing up at the glowing blue panel as if it could give him answers.
"Fine," he said. "Fine. Let's say I believe you. Let's say some system just decided to wake up inside my skull right as I was about to jump. Why? Why now? Why me?"
[Because you were one breath from death, and the System does not activate on the comfortable. It activates on the desperate. Despair is fuel. You, Ethan Cross, are currently a very full tank.]
"Comforting," Ethan muttered.
[I am not designed for comfort. I am designed for spending.]
"Spending what? I have zero dollars. Zero. I just told the entire skyline that five minutes ago, in case the System missed the memo."
[The System missed nothing. Current Balance: $0.00, confirmed. Which is precisely why the Main Quest exists.]
The panel flickered, refreshed, and expanded into a second window:
[Main Quest: Spend at least $500 on a woman within the next 24 hours.]
[Reward upon completion: 10,000x Rebate + Beginner Gift Package]
[Failure penalty: System dormancy reset. Soul signature returns to baseline despair levels.]
Ethan read it twice, then a third time, hoping the words might rearrange themselves into something that made sense.
"Spend five hundred dollars," he said slowly, "that I do not have. On a woman. In twenty-four hours. Are you insane? Is this some kind of cosmic prank? Did the universe decide kicking me while I'm down wasn't enough, it had to mock me on the way out too?"
[The quest is not a prank. It is an opportunity.]
"It's impossible. I have negative money, you walking calculator. I owe three hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars. I don't have five hundred cents."
[Ah.] The voice carried something almost like satisfaction.
[That is where Host is mistaken. Allow me to clarify the mechanic: Host does not need to possess the money. Host needs only to spend it. The System provides.]
Ethan blinked. "...What?"
[Every dollar Host invests in a woman, be it gifts, meals, or experiences, will be facilitated by the System and immediately credited back to Host's personal account at the specified multiplier once the quest is completed.]
[Spend five hundred, and you will receive five million. The only obstacle remaining for you, Host, is this debt.]
The figure struck Ethan as if he had been physically hit. Five million. He repeated it aloud to gauge how ridiculous it sounded coming from him. "Five million dollars."
[Correct.]
"For spending five hundred. On a woman. Any woman?"
[Any woman who accepts the spending, yes. The System does not discriminate by tier, status, or prior animosity toward Host. Compatibility is Host's problem, not the System's.]
Ethan sat among the gravel and wind, with his whiskey bottle by his foot and debt collectors continuously calling on his phone.
For the first time in what felt like ages, he sensed something other than despair inside him.
It wasn't hope yet, but rather a dizzy, disbelief-laden feeling like a man who had been falling so long he'd forgotten what firm ground felt like, until he managed to grasp a ledge just in time.
"Okay," he said, voice rough. "Okay. Say I do this. Say I actually pull this off. What happens if I don't? You said something about a penalty."
[If Host fails to spend the required amount within twenty-four hours, the System enters dormancy. Host's soul signature resets to baseline.]
[Translation: you go back to exactly where I found you. Standing on a railing, with one leg already over it.]
The voice lost its amusement, sounding flat and final.
Ethan's jaw clenched. "So, it's that or nothing."
[It is that, or nothing. The System suggests you choose carefully, Host. Most don't get offered a third option.]
Ethan gazed at the glittering skyline of the Core District, appearing distant and timeless from this rooftop.
He then shifted his focus downward to the gravel, the whiskey, and the crumpled eviction notice in his pocket.
Slowly, he stood up. His legs were shaking, but he stood.
"Fine," he said, and for the first time that night, there was something other than bitterness in his voice. Something sharper. "Tell me where I'm supposed to find a woman worth spending five hundred dollars on, with zero dollars to my name and zero hours of sleep behind me."
The System's reply came instantly, almost cheerful again, like it had been waiting for exactly that question.
[Host's first target has already been identified. She is closer than you think.]
A new marker bloomed on the corner of Ethan's vision, a pulsing blue dot, three blocks away and one tier up, blinking steadily against the night.
[Quest tracking: active. Clock: started.]