The chances of you winning the lottery are close to zero. You'd put more money into gambling your money away than you'd ever get out of it, unless you're super lucky. Becoming rich overnight was a fantasy everyone dreamed of, and for David that's what happened. No one can even fathom the saying, 'One person's trash is another man's glory' but David was taking that saying literally. Any canned bottle he could get his hands on, he got it. Heck, he even went to his dormitory back on campus to collect the old cans that him and his roommates had. Outside of a store where people could turn in their plastic and canned bottles for money David was there. He offered them a flat fifty bucks in return for their bags full of cans. Sorting through them all for every aluminum can he could find and giving away all the plastic ones.

Every can was worth more money to him than the people turning them in would have got. It was a win-win deal for both parties.

Crazy thing was, David could do more than just make spherical metal balls, he could shape them into other figures and sizes. Instead of a ball, he kept making bars. It was easier than way since he found out the prices of metals went by their purity and weight. Creating metals with 100% purity was unheard of as no metal was that pure, but David's was. No one who brought the bars from he thought so, they chalked it up to being 99.99% pure which was the highest they'd known.

He started out by making gold bars with a weight of a few ounces, ten at the most and one as the least. This easily netted him a couple thousand dollars, but David also found out that even transmuting the metal he still needed a certain amount to make the size and weight larger. Five aluminum cans could be turned into one ounce of any metal. David wasn't sure how it translated to this, but it did.

The first thing he did after camping with Soo-Min was head to the nearest pawnshop to get the sphere appraised. It was easier to use gold since it was common and David figured no one would really question him. He was a bit wrong as the old man at the pawnshop wondered why it was in a sphere, but David just told him he was seeing how much gold he could melt into a sphere and see how much it would be worth. The old man didn't ask any more questions after that, but David felt he didn't truly buy his story. He did however entertain David after he did an appriasal on the golden sphere.

Soo-Min who drove to the pawnshop was also curious about David's strange ability. Neither of them believed that his ability was real, and both eventually went to bed only to wake up to see the two sphere's still there. Seeing that when they got some shuteye made it more real. Yet, getting it appraised was another story. When the old man told them how much it was worth and that it was real, that hit the nail on the coffin.

This was better than winning any lottery since David would never run out of money. He could turn trash into gold.

Yet, when David produced the second golden sphere the old man got really suspicious so David knew he had to be more cautious. He was honestly caught up in the moment seeing so much cash in front of him. He's seen thousands before, but he had to work for that and it always went into his bank account. This was different, he didn't really do much heavy lifting.

After they returned to New York, they kept quiet about the entire situation. Soo-Min was too busy with work but she always called to check in on him. David told her he was planning on quitting school, there was no longer a point in him pursuing his computer science degree. They both knew how this would look to her parents, who already gave David a tough time considering his race.

They were very vocal about Soo-Min marrying another Asian instead of an African American. Truthfully, they wanted her to marry another Korean. But, they were still living in Seoul, so David did not have to hear much from them. Yet, him quitting university would be a conversation he was not ready to hear. He'd already have to get an earful from his own parents about his choice since he took out loans and was in debt like every other university student trying to get a degree.

His options for a job would narrow, and that was not something his parents wanted for him. They didn't mind him playing his games as long as he got an education. It was the sole reason he was in college if he were being honest, that and for e-sports. However, this changed the game in more than one way.

It's been a week since that fateful night, and a lot has changed. David barely attended class and was hoarding cans like a madman while also traveling to various pawn shops to sell them. Sometimes he'd give them to Soo-Min so she could sell them instead, but David knew he had to do something else.

One man, one of color at that kept appearing with ten-ounce bars of gold. Yeah, something was definitely up. It wouldn't be much longer before one of those pawn shops called the cops to investigate him. From there they'd wonder how a university kid from Bronx managed to snag himself so many gold bars. They'd see that he visited multiple pawn shops, and that was all they needed. Case was as good as closed. Hard to prove? Yeah, but would they still lock him up? Most definitely.

So David's been accumulating cans while turning them into bars and keeping them hidden in his dorm. But, now he had to switch things up for his own good. What was he to do? David had no clue, but he wasn't about to stop making money when it was this easy.

He quickly turned the last few of his cans into another gold bar when he received a notification.

'Skill tree?' This was a first. David never thought of a skill tree, frankly, he was still finding it hard to digest what happened to him. Was he in a game? David shrugged and tested something out that he should have done a while ago.

'Status'

'This is interesting.' David thought to himself as he read the screen a few times just to make sure he fully understood it. 

'Skill Tree.' A new window appeared before him as his status one closed.

There were a ton of skills, a crap ton. David couldn't count them all as the screen took up his entire vision and it felt overwhelming. Not to mention the note said he could only obtain ten skills. Wasn't that limiting his abilities too far? Why did he even have these skills? Did anyone else have them? David had a lot of questions, but he settled for better understanding this system of his.

Out of all the locked skills, many of them had prerequisites that needed to be met before he could unlock them. Such as Magical engineering, or Quantum computing, both of which interested him.

With one point to spend, David took his time on finding the best skill for him. He was searching for anything that could help him make money with ease. After some time he shook his head and closed the window. He couldn't make this choice right now, he had to do more research, maybe talk to Malik or Soo-Min to see what they thought. His best friend Malik didn't know of his unique ability, but David knew the guy would give him an honest opinion. David would ask him about a job change to see what Malik thought. Should he go into being a mechanic to repair and fix people's cares, maybe becoming an engineer like his father. That's how David would phrase it.

For now however, David closed the window which happened with a simple thought. He took a glance at the time, it was already 8:28 p.m. Soo-Min was off work by now. He called her, and she answered. From the background, he could hear the wind blowing.

"You driving?" He asked her.

"Yeah, just got some chinese, want some?" She asked him.

"No, I'm good." He told her as he already had some pizza that him and his roommates had left over. "I was just thinking about my future, you know..." David led on.

"Yeah? Go on." She urged him forward knowing his was skirting around saying his ability. Neither of them were dumb enough to say he could magically create metals over the phone. Davids has been around too many Reddit forum posts to know that the government was always listening.

"I just realized there's a lot more I can do. I mean, far more than I've been doing now."

Soo-Min was interested, what was David talking about. Was he actually thinking about his future or did this relate to his ability? She didn't know. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what would you rather do? Have the chance to create complex projects like my dad? Or, analyze prototypes for various companies and test them out to find ways to make them better? There's just too many choices, I don't know if computer science is really for me anymore." He said.

Soo-Min was silent for a while before she finally spoke. "Well, it's still early so you can take your time and choose right? Complex projects can be made if you understand them right? Whatever company you work for can hire people like your father to work on them, so is there a need to do that? I mean sure, it's more money but then again it is your future. I'm not sure how much testing prototypes and seeing ways to make them better can be handy, can you give me an example? So far I'm leaning more to complexity since it'd just make your life easier in the long run."

David sighed. "How about I just come over so we can talk about it?" David asked as he disliked beating around the bush.

"Yeah sure, but I have to be up at 6:00 a.m. so that means leaving at 5." She said.

"Yeah, that's fine. I'm not in the mood to do anything anyway with my mind elsewhere." David told her.

The two of them talked for a bit longer before David hung up. He covered up all his gold bars before leaving his room and heading to his car. He shared his dorm with two other guys, but one was always out partying and the other one was a loner. Like David, but more detached from the world. He was a quiet kid, even after David has known him for months now. The guy just rarely ever talked.

David got into his black Bronco and headed to Soo-Min's house. She lived in Manhattan in a small apartment, but David was planning on changing that soon. He just wanted to make more money before he got them a house to live in. After that a couple of cars, and from there who knew. The sky was the limit, as long as his ability wasn't found out and he was used by who knew who. That's what he was scared of the most, but so far he figured things were going well. His roommates didn't question him since they never caught him bringing in all those cans. As long as he stayed off the radars for as long as possible, then that was fine.