Eli arrived at Harvey's bar at around 6:30 pm. The bar itself was half full, unsurprisingly as it was a Sunday, and he heard a cacophony of noises, laughter, and chatter. As Harvey's bar was more masculine-themed, mainly catering to sailors and factory workers, few women were present. Those who were were usually the girlfriend or wife of someone already, with the rare prostitute in the mix, hoping to solicit the occasional drunkard.

As Eli entered the bar, he already saw Mogensha there, sitting next to a few joined tables, enough to fit a dozen men. Sitting along with him were most of the factory workers from the boiler section. It was apparent that they arrived a bit early, as the scheduled time was 6:30 pm.

Mogensha, who saw Eli coming, waved at him with a smile, "Eli, over here! Come sit next to me!"

Eli smiled and sat down next to Mogensha, and then they all chatted, drank, and laughed together. Time quickly flew by, and it was soon 8 pm. As Eli drank his fourth pint of beer, he noticed that he still didn't get the usual buzz he would get after drinking so much. To be more exact, he did feel something, but on a smaller scale.

I guess this is the effect of increased vitality and immunity. They increased my metabolism, hence, my tolerance to alcoholic beverages.

As he was musing to himself, he saw something on the news. The barkeep also saw it, lowered the music, and increased the volume of the tv.

"... Yesterday night, thanks to an anonymous informant, the notorious serial killers running on the loose, who were identified as Rénald Thibault and Cora Foret, were shot down by police forces and rescued an anonymous victim who got lightly injured. Here is an interview with police spokesman and chief investigator Liam..."

Eli smirked at this. The police clearly took the credit for the case. However, he didn't really care. For him, it was good enough that he didn't get bothered by the annoying paparazzi. It was also apparent that Chloe lied about who rescued her for his sake as well.

As long as I am not bothered, I'm happy.

Mogensha couldn't help but comment, "Thank god that those sick assholes finally got what they deserved. I feared for my Carmélite's life when I heard rumors they were coming this way."

Eli, who heard this name for the first time, raised an eyebrow, "Carmélite? Is that your granddaughter?"

Mogensha, who was a bit drunk, corrected, "Grandniece. I adopted her as my own granddaughter back in 2005."

Eli understood what he meant, "Sorry to hear that..."

Mogensha nonchalantly waved his hand, "It's fine, it's fine. 16 years have passed since then. What remains are a few old scars. Cmon, let's drink some more."

After another hour of drinking and chatting, the factory workers went home, and Mogensha got picked up by his grandson, Hector.

Eli, who drank six pints of beer¹Around 3L, was tipsy but not drunk. Using public transportation, he got back home safely, took a quick shower, and went to sleep.

 

 

The next morning, after doing his usual routine, Eli exited the apartment and locked the door. When he looked to the side, he saw Chloe, who also exited her apartment. When she saw Eli, she smiled and greeted, "Good morning Eli!"

"Good morning Chloe. I see you got back home yesterday night?"

"Yeah, the CT came back negative, and my head injury wasn't that serious in the first place, so my parents drove me back to my apartment."

She then paused and carefully looked at Eli's eyes, "I see that the bags under your eyes are gone. You managed to sleep well tonight?"

Eli shrugged, "Yeah, surprisingly well. 'Had some drinks with my coworkers at the retirement party of my senior. Probably the alcohol helped a bit."

Chloe said worriedly, "Alchohol is fine, but just don't rely on it, ok?"

In response, Eli did a goofy salute, "Yes, ma'am!"

They then walked to the streetcar station. On the way, Eli couldn't help but notice that Chloe was using her old bag, and not the new one.

Chloe's bag was fine that night, just a bit soaked, so why is she using her old one?... Oh right, her phone wasn't working either...

"Hey, Chloe, did you get a new phone? I couldn't contact you yesterday. And why are you using your old bag? I remember it was fine."

Chloe looked a bit bummed out and showed Eli an older model, "Yeah, my phone got smashed that night. I'm now using my old phone, and luckily, it's insured, and I will get a new one soon. As for the bag... Yeah, I threw it away. I couldn't return it since it was mildly damaged, and it gave me bad memories."

"That sucks..."

"It's no biggie. My data was backed up on the cloud, and I can make do with just my old bag."

While she did say that, she still looked bummed, especially about her bag. Eli couldn't really do much about it, however. He was a poor orphan, barely scraping by, and couldn't afford to buy her a new bag from his already small savings.

The rest of the ride was normal. He soon arrived at the crab factory and started his workday. It was noteworthy that it was a tad lonelier today than normal since Mogensha was retired now.

 

 

 

Basic training(5/30)

Vitality (4/20)

After Eli returned home and finished his daily quest, he started to think about ways to practice it, as well as test it. After ruminating for a bit, he decided to test it using dice. He took a cup with two cubes and rolled them, still covered with the cup. Then, each time he tried to guess the result of the dice. Each time he tried to guess, his gut told him what to choose, and he would choose according to it.

For the first 30 rolls, he tried to guess the exact result of the roll. In dice, 21 results were possible when using two dice, which means that the chance to guess the result would be 1 to 20, or 1/(20+1)=0.0476. On average, he would only guess one or two times correctly when rolling dice 30 times. However, he guessed three times correctly, more than double the estimated average. However, such a result did not mean anything, so he tried to make different guesses.

On the second round of 30 dice rolls, he tried to guess not just the exact result of the dice but also their sum, parity (even or odd), and if they were a pair (both cube results are equal), and then he tried to guess through those guesses the result. While his individual guesses were about twice the estimated results, when he combined them all to make a guess, he managed to guess the exact result four times correctly. This meant that he could layer the guesses to increase probability... Maybe.

On the third round of 30 dice rolls, he didn't roll them and then guessed but guessed beforehand and then rolled. He only managed to guess one time correctly out of 30 times, a normal result. This meant that guessing beforehand has a butterfly effect, as long as he is the one doing the rolls.

In conclusion, his ability to guess something predefined was enhanced by about two times the odds. He could layer his guesses and make a better guess through that, as long as the guesses were dependent on each other. However, his ability to guess something that was not predefined was most likely hampered by his own actions after the foreknowledge, creating a butterfly effect that changes the result.

On another note, his precognition skill got raised a bit.

[Precognition LVL 0 (35/1,000)]

"It took me one hour to raise this skill by a single point... Would it take 1,000 hours of practice to raise it to 1,000? But that wouldn't explain the result I got from the killer incident... Then again, that time was unique and was overflowing with danger and pain. I prefer 1,000 hours of practice over getting shot any day."

Having figured out what he wanted, Eli decided to call it a day, put points in Time Stipend, and went to sleep.

 

 

The following days, Eli did as usual. Each day he would get on average 12 points, train and got his quest reward, and practice gambling for one hour. In these few days, he also learned the basic rules of some gambling games, such as roulette, blackjack, poker, baccarat, and craps.

Now, it was Sunday again, and Eli finished cleaning Ms. Owen's home, as well as training and taking the potion.

Basic training(12/30)

During this week, there were luckily no strange encounters or incidents where he needed to risk his life or save other's lives, so he didn't need to use any of his accumulated time.

The price to upgrade Time Stipend doubled again, now costing 8 points for each second. At this point, he started to consider if he should place points in his stats instead. However, every time he thought about it, he remembered those times he got shot, as well as his promise with Saturn. Besides, his gut told him to focus on it.

What was bothering, was that this so-called Time Factor increased again. When he tried to check it, all he got was the following message:

Time Factor: multiplies the inner realm's time flow by a set factor.

This explanation stumped him since it explained absolutely nothing! He didn't know what the inner realm is, and the system didn't explain it, so he had to give up on understanding it.

As for precognition, it got raised from 35 to 40 since he practiced one hour each day.

For his physical changes, he lost more weight and now weighed 166lb and 1.74m tall, making him look chubby instead of obese. He noticed that he started losing less weight the more he trained and that the impurities he let out were less each time he took a vitality potion. His skin looked healthier, more moistured, and less oily. The acne that bothered him for a year now was gone, not faded, but gone. The acne scars were also fading, and only the deeper and more prominent scars still had a presence on his body.

More of the unwanted hair all over his body, such as his unibrow hair, back hair, part of the chest hair, nose hair, butt hair, and ear hair, was falling off. Even nether region hair was falling off, particularly from his penis and balls.

It was honestly a bit disturbing since it basically damaged his masculinity, but now he didn't need to worry about those hairs either, so he had mixed feelings about it.

The one thing that did slightly displeased him was that his dick remained unchanged except for looking smoother. In the beginning, he thought that his dick would also grow along with his body, but apparently, that was not the case. His penis was 7 inches long in the beginning, and it stayed that way.²Yes, and he actually complains about it. lol.

In terms of fitness, he was getting better at a rapid speed. He strongly believed that when the 30 days end, he would be as fit as before, if not more.

For non-physical changes, Eli noticed that he was more energetic these days and needed less sleep for the same benefits. In fact, he only slept for seven hours last night, but he felt like he slept for eight, although he could continue sleeping if he wanted to.

Another change was that the unknown energy in his body has grown, but he still didn't understand what it was, and he didn't manage to tap into it, so he gave up for now.

Overall, he was pleased with the changes. He not only looked better now, but his life quality got better. And he didn't even finish half of the quest yet!

However, his changes were not left unnoticed. The factory workers did not notice those changes, as they were not close to him. Ms. Owen did seem to notice something, but she was a bit dementic, so she attributed it to her worsening memory. Chloe, on the other hand, fully noticed his changes and asked questions with a peculiar gaze.

"Eli, did you grow taller? I feel like you are taller now. This is weird. Maybe you should check it."

"Eli, are you on a special diet? You look thinner."

"Eli, did you wax your body hair? You seem less... Hairy?"

"Eli, your acne is completely gone now! Even some of the scars I remember you have are gone, and your skin is as smooth as mine! Is the saltwater treatment that effective?!"

And naturally, Eli couldn't really tell her that he got a system and his body was changing, so he needed to make excuses, however bad they were.

"Did I grow taller? Maybe, not sure. I really did feel some discomfort these last few days. Maybe I inherited my father's late growth spurt genes."

"I didn't go on a diet. I think it's part of the growth spurt and my exercises working in tandem."

"My hair is falling off?! Wow, maybe I have stress issues or something."

"Yeah, my acne is finally gone! Pretty neat, right? I think my scars didn't completely vanish, just my skin stretched. Maybe it's the growth spurt at work."

Chloe knew that something didn't sit right with his replies, but she studied social science, not biology or a medical degree. She could not and did not want to refute what he said. If he didn't want to talk about it, so be it. It's his body, not hers. Besides, those changes were positive. She would have even found him a bit attractive now if it wasn't for his unkempt beard and hair.

In any case, Eli was relatively safe from public opinion. For now.

 

 

After Eli finished his potions and did his other routines, he decided that it was time to test precognition in a casino. There were two reasons for that. First, it was to train precognition in an outside environment. Until now, he did it in the controlled environment of his house, but he wanted to test it in the more chaotic environment of the casino. Second, he wanted to see if he could earn some cash. Even a few hundred bucks would make his life a whole lot easier. He wouldn't bet large amounts, only using $100 and making $5 bets. At least, that was his plan for today. If he lost all the money, he would never bet in a casino again.

He put on some winter casual clothes, locked the door, and headed to the biggest casino in New Orleans, Harrah's casino.