AWACS - An American With A Chinese System
Copyright© 2025 by PT Brainum
Chapter 50
I summoned a piece of obsidian, about a meter tall, and ramped up my artistic ability. Molding with my hands I soon had a perfect Big Mama. She didn’t look old, but wise, and healthy, if not young. The ideal mother, if moms were giant heads on big necks.
I shrunk her with my new skill, and she dropped down to just ten centimeters tall. She was some of my best modeling work ever. I could barely see the resemblance between her and Adelle. What was nice was the little twinkle in Big Mama’s eyes that reminded me of my own mother.
I set the model on the dresser, and got cleaned up for bed. I had a few things on my list for tomorrow, so I had my chicken alarm clock wake me at 6 am.
I woke screaming just after 330 in the morning with the massive arrival of points. The 630 pm evening news in Oregon I guess, a different station this time must be reporting on flowergate. The haul this time had even more bonuses attached. These were positive points, so I got a times 10, plus an extra 100%. I used my conversion skill, and shoved them all into neutral points.
When I stopped crying from the pain of the entire universe looking at me with disapproval, and my soul being squeezed like an angry hulk squeezing a ripe lemon, I realized it could have been much worse. I had overflowed the bank, and instead of being smited with 3.7 billion points, and made a karmic smear in the hotel bed, it had only gone up to the bank limit of 1.3 billion points.
I certainly wasn’t going to sleep now. I was afraid I might never sleep again if this was to keep happening. I relaxed when I realized it wouldn’t now, because I had more points in my neutral bank than could fit in my positive bank. Those neutral points would automatically keep me balanced. I guess I’d have to keep those points there until the story left the news.
I checked my stats:
0/130,000,000 (113) Level
50,000/1,300,000,000 positive points
1,259,637,964 neutral points
2,775,000/1,300,000,000 negative points
33 Active Skills
30 Passive Skills
47,605 Bonus Neutral Points
Active Skill Upgrades: 6/10
Passive Skill Upgrades: 6/10
About ten minutes later it happened again, and it was extremely uncomfortable, as my neutral points were not quite enough. The five percent cost of the transfer had left a 60 million hole remaining in my auto balancing ability. I quickly transferred the whole amount again, breathing a sigh of relief, not even caring about the 130 million lost points after 2 full conversions. They didn’t matter. Being able to breathe mattered. Not being an ass pimple in danger of being forcibly popped by an angry universe mattered.
0/130,000,000 (113) Level
0/1,300,000,000 positive points
2,494,712,964 neutral points
2,850,000/1,300,000,000 negative points
33 Active Skills
30 Passive Skills
47,605 Bonus Neutral Points
Active Skill Upgrades: 6/10
Passive Skill Upgrades: 6/10
I needed a distraction. I asked Scribe if there were any passive skills he recommended I upgrade. He helpfully provided a list:
~高山流水 Alpine mountains, flowing water (2/4)
So I did it:
高山流水 Alpine mountains, flowing water (4/4)
- be my friend, see whether people are compatible with you or can be a good friend, when meeting people you will see a scale of friendliness and a percentage marker of how close they are to being your good friend
- Wilson W. Wilson, naturally attract people you are compatible with, and easily form deep friendships, friendship growth rate doubles
- Joey or Monica, see a chart of all your friends displaying their level of friendship to you no matter how far away you are, see what friendships are growing or shrinking
- friendship is magic, gain 25% of all the karmic points generated by your ten closest friends, stackable with other skills
I checked my friendship chart, happy to see that Mo was still there, listed as stable, and moderate friendship. My top friends included Pete of course, Aida, Tom, and Anthony. Mick was in there too. Even the knuckleheads were there. They weren’t doing much at the moment, they were all finishing their day out. I sighed, and tried to figure out what I should do. I had a huge point balance now, but I was afraid to use it. But I really appreciated Scribe looking out for my mental health.
I summoned my laptop, sitting up in bed, and tried to pull up the news story. I found it easy enough. Interestingly there was mention of a statement from the hospital administrator the following morning. If he confessed then I’d get the final batch of points, and maybe the news would let it die down. The disturbing thing was seeing myself on the news, there were a number of photos of me, in my wheelchair, handing out flowers with a goofy grin on my face.
I went thru my emails, there was a rather stern one from Aida about talking to reporters without her, but a second one said that the publicity was in my favor, and I was being seen as just a guy caught up in something, and trying to do good even when injured, and it was playing well. There was even a joke that I should run for public office. At least I really hoped she was making a joke.
I wrote back and asked for a link to all the news sources that had carried it so far, and that if anyone asked, I was not available, and I hoped the entire thing would die down as I found it embarrassing to see myself on the evening news.
Pete had an email that said he had found a company that could deliver cargo containers of nordic spruce and pine in a variety of dimensions. I had to go back to look to see what the actual dimensions of the cargo deck were. I knew it was about 660 square meters, but I didn’t know the dimensions. I found the information, there was room for 7 containers side by side, and three 40 footers long. It advised against stacking containers, or using containers larger than the crane could handle. The company sold only in 20 foot containers, but they were high cube, which was an extra foot taller. I could put 32 of them on the cargo deck, but would probably go over weight.