CHAPTER 42: REWARD THAT COMES WITH MYSTERIES

After his morning bath, Liam dressed in a crisp charcoal polo and tailored trousers. The clothes fit him perfectly — not just because of the cut, but because his new physique seemed to make anything look tailored.

As he fastened the last button, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and paused for a half-second, almost amused.

"Wow!" He muttered to himself and left his room.

When he made his way downstairs, the faint scent of fresh bread and coffee reached him before he even entered the dining room.

The air felt cooler on his skin than he remembered — another reminder that the enhancement had tuned his senses past anything normal.

Evelyn and the other maids were already in position. They straightened subtly when he walked in.

"Good morning, Mr. Liam," Evelyn said with her usual grace.

He gave her a polite nod. "Morning."

"Breakfast is ready, sir."

He moved to the long, polished dining table, the soft creak of the chair accompanying him as he sat. The maids moved with smooth coordination, placing dishes in front of him.

Today’s spread wasn’t overwhelming — no towering stacks of plates like last night’s feast. Just a reasonable, refined breakfast: fresh croissants, scrambled eggs with chives, smoked salmon, sautéed spinach, and a small bowl of fruit.

Liam noticed the portion instantly and smiled faintly. They’re testing the waters.

The moment he picked up his fork and took the first bite, the difference was clear. He didn’t wolf down the food like the night before. There was no gnawing hunger clawing at his insides now. Instead, he ate at a relaxed pace, letting each flavor unfold on his tongue.

And the taste... God, the taste.

Maybe it was the enhancement. Maybe it was the World-Class Culinary Arts skill the system had given him. Maybe both. But each bite wasn’t just food — it was a sensory breakdown.

If not for his enhancement, his brain would had been overloaded by all the sensory information constantly flooding into it.

The eggs were creamy, the chives releasing a faint, sharp perfume as his teeth broke through them. The croissant layers flaked apart with the perfect ratio of crisp to soft. The salmon carried the faint smokiness of applewood, and in his mind, he could see the entire cooking process — from the curing to the precise smoking time, to the final plating.

It wasn’t just eating. It was watching a dish’s entire history unfold from stove to plate, in perfect clarity.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Evelyn and the other two maids — Clara and Mira — exchanging the occasional glance as they moved about the room. They were subtle, but Liam’s upgraded senses picked up on it.

They’d clearly expected him to skip breakfast after last night. Six full servings had been enough to stun them into silence then, and they’d probably assumed his appetite would need a break. The fact that he was here, eating again, and doing it with such measured calm, was throwing them off.

They were probably also relieved. Preparing a feast like last night every day wasn’t exactly part of their original plan.

While they were quietly trying to figure him out, Liam’s thoughts were elsewhere entirely.

He was thinking about his rewards.

Specifically, the two new ones from today.

This was the first time since getting the system that he’d received something like this — outside the usual cars, properties, attribute boosts, skills, or shares. The second reward especially... it was on a whole different level.

The Winter’s Heart.

If the system hadn’t shoved the information into his head, he wouldn’t have even known what a Fabergé egg was. Back in his old life, his exposure to "luxury" was seeing knockoff Rolex watches on roadside stands and hearing about art auctions on the news in passing.

Now? He knew exactly what the Fabergé represented.

A jewelled egg, crafted in the golden age of the Russian Empire by the House of Fabergé. Fewer than seventy were ever made, and each one was unique. Most were already locked away in museums or private collections, their prices climbing into the stratosphere whenever they appeared at auction.

But Winter’s Heart wasn’t just another rare egg. It was a monster.

Two thousand four hundred flawless white diamonds. Two pear-shaped blue diamonds — fifteen carats each. A flawless seventeen-carat blue diamond set into its crown, and a three-carat pigeon-blood ruby gleaming like a drop of frozen fire.

Even without being an expert, Liam knew that blue diamonds were among the rarest gems on Earth. In 2022, Sotheby’s had sold a fifteen-carat blue diamond for $57.5 million. And Winter’s Heart had three of them.

Just the blue diamonds alone would push the value toward $200 million. The ruby, because of its quality and the prestige of its setting, would add even more.

The system had tagged its worth at $40 million — and Liam almost laughed. That price wasn’t just low, it was absurd. Unless the system was deliberately undervaluing it for some reason, the real number was far, far higher.

And that was just the egg.

The third reward was an ultra-rare, flawless blue diamond of 17.6 carats. Pure, clear, and perfect. By conservative estimates, it would be worth at least $70 million.

He did a quick tally in his head.

Today’s rewards — between the 0.02% JP Morgan shares, the Fabergé egg, and the diamond — easily tipped close to half a billion dollars in combined value.

Half. A. Billion.

It was getting ridiculous.

But money wasn’t the only thing on his mind. Because hidden inside Winter’s Heart was something else — something the system had been kind enough to mention in a small, offhand note.

A key.

Specifically, a key to a safe deposit box.

What was inside? The system didn’t say. Which meant Liam would have to find out himself.

The thought made his lips curl into a small smile. He’d always liked mysteries that came with rewards at the end.

He wanted to guess what he could find inside the deposit box but he couldn’t. But one thing he knew based on the system’s way of Don things was that he would be in for the shock of his life.

He finished the last of his breakfast and set down his fork.

Evelyn stepped forward, as if ready to ask whether he wanted more, but Liam spoke first.

"I’ll be in my room for the rest of the day. Don’t disturb me unless I call for you."

Evelyn inclined her head. "Understood, sir."

Without another word, he left the dining room and headed upstairs. His steps were unhurried, the quiet confidence in his movements almost at odds with the storm of planning already building in his mind.

When he entered his room, he closed the door behind him and locked it. The quiet click felt like sealing himself into a different world entirely.

He crossed to the bed, sat down, and leaned back slightly, staring up at the high ceiling for a moment.

The knowledge package.

This was what he’d been waiting for.

He’d held off until now for one reason — he hadn’t wanted to risk overloading his mind before his body was ready. But now, with the Molecular Enhancement Nanites running in his system, there was no reason to wait.

The Omni-Science Foundation Package.

If the system’s description was to be believed, it would give him instant mastery of every major scientific discipline — physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics — and all their advanced subfields. It wouldn’t just make him smart. It would make him the smartest person to have ever lived in terms of raw scientific ability.

It was the kind of knowledge that could let him design warp drives in his sleep, build fusion reactors from scrap, or rewrite genetic codes over breakfast.

Liam’s fingers tapped lightly against the mattress. The sheer potential of what he was about to do had his pulse running a little faster.

A Fabergé egg worth hundreds of millions. A flawless diamond. Another block of JP Morgan shares. These were all incredible, yes — but they were tools. Wealth could buy influence, assets, protection.

Knowledge could build empires.

With that thought, he called up his status screen.