05 - Money Making

"Why are you going to sell your comics?" My mother asked confused.

"I want a guitar." I said matter-of-factly, not really worrying too much about these mangas, since I didn't really like them anyway.

Not to mention that if I really felt like reading at some point, I could read it all on the computer.

But my mother saw it differently. "You know we can give you a guitar as a gift, right?" She said in an uncertain manner.

Seeing how she was, I knew she was thinking about what she could stop buying to be able to give me the guitar, but I knew about the financial problems at home, especially after seeing my father worried about the bills this morning, so I I just shook my head and replied. "It's okay, I've already read it all and I'm not going to read it again, it's going to be a waste of money leaving it sitting in my room."

She noticed that I noticed the way she acted, so she nodded and smiled a little embarrassed.

-------- Lauren Commentary --------

Sitting on the sofa with her head bowed, Lauren said in a sad voice. "I think Noah realized that we are having financial problems… Jonathan is looking for a job that pays better, but even though he is a great stock assistant, the company he works for has no plans to promote him…"

With a self-deprecating smile, Lauren looked at the camera as she sighed. "He's only doing this because I can't work... I've tried everything, but since Ethan was born, I haven't been able to keep myself from worrying for a second that the kids at home might be in trouble, and I don't know anything to work from home..."

"I just hope Jonathan gets a less tiring job that pays better…" She sighed, disappointed in herself.

-------- Commentary End --------

Negotiating the price of manga gave me a new skill haha.

[Negotiator Lv 3
When you negotiate the price of something, you have a 3% more chance of convincing the other person to accept your price.]

Yes, the Skill was already at Lv 3 due to the time we spent negotiating until I got $136 for my manga collection.

This was much more than I imagined, which clearly left me very satisfied.

With cash in hand, I quickly went to a used instrument store and asked for the cheapest guitar they had there.

Looking at the faded brown guitar in front of me that the seller said cost $48, I gained another level in my Skill [Negotiator] and raised it to level 4 managing to buy the guitar + a set of new strings, a Capo and a cover for $50.

When I tested the guitar with the new strings, I quickly gained my new Skill.

[Guitar Lv 14
When you play the guitar you learn 14% faster and you have a 14% greater chance that other people will enjoy hearing you play.]

'I can save the remaining $86 for an emergency.' I thought, satisfied as I walked out of the store with the guitar on my back.

As my guitar skill was Lv 14, the level was already somewhat acceptable, as I could play the songs I liked from my previous world, but it was still nothing impressive and I still made some mistakes.

So my goal was to raise my guitar and singing Skills to Lv 20, as soon as these Skills reached Lv 20 I would record my first song to post on MeTube.

With my plan in place, I returned home satisfied.

When I arrived with my guitar, both my mom and Ethan looked at me in surprise.

My mother for not imagining that I would actually buy a guitar, and Ethan curious to know what was in such a big case.

When I took the guitar out of the case, Ethan was amazed as he looked at it asking me to play something, while my mother, I could see a little sadness in her eyes, which she tried to hide, probably because she noticed how old the guitar was. guitar that I bought.

At Ethan's requests, I played him the Metal Man Riff, one of the most iconic Riffs from my previous world and the main theme of one of the most famous heroes of that time.

Of course, this was the first Riff I learned to play in my previous world, so it was the one I was most familiar with to play for my little brother without embarrassing myself.

When Ethan heard the Riff coming from the guitar, I could see his eyes light up as he looked at my fingers moving from one place to another on the neck of the guitar.

I could even see the surprise in my mother's eyes, seeing me play that Riff with such mastery.

"Noah, where did you learn that?" She asked in shock, never knowing that her son could play the guitar so well.

"The store salesman taught me how to test whether the guitar was good." I lied, saying an excuse that I thought of at the time.

But this made my mother even more surprised, since for her, I had never touched a guitar, and now I was playing it here with so much ease!

When I finished playing, Ethan asked me to play something else, but I pretended that I didn't know another song yet, but that as soon as I learned I would play for him, which made him happy and satisfied, despite not being able to hear it. now.

Going up to my room, I looked for guitar training on MeTube and practiced my guitar while practicing my singing along, humming in a low voice.

In one hour of training, my guitar skill rose to level 15 and my SING skill rose to level 5.

Suddenly I realized something.

Despite having walked until exhaustion in the morning, my body wasn't sore at all now.

'Does it have something to do with System?' I asked myself in surprise. 'I think I can use this to train my muscles?'

As it was getting late at night and the neighborhood we lived in wasn't very safe, I thought it wasn't a good idea to go out for a walk at this time, so I decided to do some weight training in the backyard.

Looking for an efficient workout on the internet, I found a simple workout that would be very good for my weight.

Putting on another workout outfit, I went to the small backyard without attracting much attention and started my training.

Initially I did 5 minutes of warming up and stretching, as with my weight this would certainly be very dangerous.

Then I did 2 sets of Push-ups on the wall, since I couldn't handle doing that on the floor with my weight, squats with a chair, calf raises and finally a few more seconds of plank.

This may seem very simple, but it was so tiring and exhausting that before finishing the first series I was already exhausted.

When I finished training, I got another Skill and another Buff!

[Bodybuilding Skill Lv 1:
Effect: When doing weight training, your muscles develop 1% faster and your body tires 1% slower.]

[Muscle Exercise Buff Lv 1: Performing muscle exercises, increases the user's Metabolism speed by 1% for 24 hours.]

Seeing that the Muscle Exercise Buff stacked with the Aerobic Exercise, I was very excited, as this would probably make me lose weight even faster than I imagined.

Returning home tired, my mother was once again shocked to see me all sweaty as I was.

"Noah… is everything okay?" She asked worriedly, especially after seeing so many changes in me in a single day.

Looking at her genuine concern, even though she had stressed me out a little during the morning with her excessive worry, I couldn't stay mad at a person who only wanted the best for me.

Smiling a little, I explained the same thing I said to my father. "I'm just dissatisfied with my body and I started exercising, this morning I went for a walk, now I've done some weight training, all very carefully so as not to overwork myself, don't worry mom."

Seeing the relief on her face made the affection I felt for her increase a little.

I had never felt anything like that in my other life, it was a very good feeling…

When I got to the bathroom and looked in the mirror again, I was shocked to notice a few more changes in myself.

Not only was my face a little prettier because of the point I gained in Charisma, despite the fat it was hiding, I had apparently lost some fat.

Stepping on the scale, I was surprised to see that my weight had changed again.

From the 149.3 kg I had when I weighed myself this morning, I now weighed 148.6 kg, which was 700 g less, totaling 1.4 kg I lost today!

'This way I will lose weight much faster than I imagined!' I thought excitedly as I showered and practiced my Sing Skill, raising it to level 6.

When I got out of the shower, I was surprised to see my father and mother looking at me with pride.

My mom probably told him I was working out and he probably told her about seeing me go for a walk in the morning.

Ignoring their expression, since I didn't know how to deal with it, I just went back to my room and started training my Sing Skill again, looking for another useful Skill to learn on the computer to make quick money.

Considering that I needed quick money to stop the copyright on the songs I was going to release, I remembered a Skill that the old Noah had.

Opening PhotoArt, I looked at the illustrations of the manga characters that Noah made in his free time and I was quite surprised by the quality of it, especially considering that he did all of this using the computer mouse, since he didn't have a tablet to use. to design.

Deciding to try to do something similar, I tried to draw a werewolf.

As soon as I finished the drawing, the notification I was waiting for arrived.

[Digital Illustration Lv 27
By Illustrating Digitally you get better 27% faster and you have a 27% greater chance of other people liking your art.]

'Level 27?!' I was shocked as I looked at this, this was the highest level Skill I had so far, ranking 5 levels above Mathematics, which was currently my highest level Skill!

Okay, now I knew what to do to get money quickly. If there's one thing I remembered from my previous world that shocked me, it was a girl in my class at school, who made a lot of money just by drawing animalistic characters to sell on Twitter, apparently she sold each drawing for at least $100... like this called? Furra, Furre, Furry! I can start selling these arts for $30, which will be a great help to cover the costs of the things I need at the beginning, if I gain fame, I can increase this price in the future!

Having decided, I made a Twitter account from this world, Twipper, and used the werewolf art I made as a profile photo.

Obviously I used a pseudonym, as I would never want others to find out that I drew this type of character to sell, especially considering if I became famous in the future, it would be a difficult stain to erase from my history...

So I created a persona called @JacobTheWerewolf, something that only I would probably find funny in this world, since no one would know this character since his film didn't exist in this world.

Writing an ad, I realized that I still lacked a portfolio to convince the public to buy my art.

'Whatever, I'll post the ad with just my Werewolf drawing as a portfolio, then I'll do more art...' I thought without worrying too much as I posted.

I saw that the Furry community in this world was much smaller than in my previous world, as if this was still in its initial stage, the other arts still had some of the amateurism that my current art no longer had after copying some of the style. of the arts I saw in my previous world.

Even though I'm not from this community, and I even joked about it with my friends, from time to time some art like this would appear in my feed, after a few years of seeing it it's difficult not to capture the style behind it.

Seeing that it was already time to sleep, I turned off the computer and went to sleep, as did Ethan who was already passed out in his bed.

Without me knowing, shortly after I lay down to sleep, a message arrived in my inbox interested in one of my arts.