Immortality Starts With Selling Pills

Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Attack On Humanity

Cassandra took Derrick to the bedroom they apparently shared on the ground floor.

There were two single beds pushed against opposite walls, separated by a small side table with a single cordless lamp in the middle.

It gave off a warm light that was not too sharp and still bright enough to fill the room.

Even though he was lying in the same room before, this was the first time Derrick looked around more carefully.

Cassie walked up to the lap and pinched her fingers in the air before it. She twisted her wrist to the left side and the light dimmed on its own.

”I will sleep first, if you need anything do not hesitate to call for me Derrick.” She walked up to him and gave him a light hug before slipping into her sheets.

And within minutes, she was out. Curled up tight around her pillow like she could hold the whole day together through sheer grip strength.

Derrick on the other hand had opened the boy’s old PC instead of sleeping.

If I’m going to survive in this unknown world. I should probably understand what it has in store for me.

He started simple.

First came the history of the world.

It was the year 2026 After Armageddon. Or shortly known as AA.

There was no details about the great cataclysm. It only said that the EE (Enhanced energy) which was a powerful substance in the air that used to make everyone stronger than a normal human being had started to thin out from the air.

Everything changed that day.

Powerful people started to die out and the beasts of nature started to take back the lands ruled by humans.

Humans were heading towards damnation when a new power system was announced.

PSS

Physical Strengthening Stage.

It was made possible by the miracles of alchemy and leftover ruins of the past and treasures in the world. As it turned out, by some miracle, even though the energy in the air had thinned out the soil was still brimming with it and it produced several natural treasures.

Since the people could not use energy in the air to get stronger, scientists discovered a way to use these plants and create pills to grow stronger.

That was when the whole power system of the world changed. After many trials and errors, they found the more stable method for the humans to fend themselves from the wild beasts of the nature who remained unaffected by the changes of the world.

Each stage of strengthening required a fixed number of pills.

To breakthrough this realm, one would need to eat several Physical Enhancement Drugs.

Low Stage: 10 unranked Pills.

Mid Stage: 100 unranked Pills.

Upper Stage: 1000 Unranked Pills.

The whole realm took a total of 1110 pills to advance to the next stage and surpass the domain of mortals.

Social Credits were the currency of this world.

An average family in the federation only managed to earn a 1,00,000 social credits a month.

But from what he had learned from Cassandra, their family only earned about 30,000 S.C every month, not including the pension from the government.

It all came from Rebecca’s Job but now she had lost that.

She worked as a waitress in some cafe but she was fired recently because she asked for a raise. The owner of the cafe even took the tips she got which left her with nothing but crumbs.

This was something Rebecca did not want to tell a boy who had just woken up from amnesia but Derrick had to ask Cassandra once.

She had told him everything without hiding anything. But she refused to talk about their secret.

He wanted to know the situation of their family.

Ever since I got my first royalty check back home, I couldn’t stomach asking my parents for a dime, he thought. Old habits die hard. Apparently, they even survive being shot three times and reincarnated into a superhero economy.

There is no way I will let a person like Rebecca to take care of me. I will earn my keep here and not be a burden.

Guilds.

Derrick’s attention moved to the guilds as read that people who joined them on their adventures into the wilderness earned more money than most of people made in a year.

Then Guild School.

An hour in, the picture came together, and it wasn’t the one he’d braced for.

There were no dungeons in this world.

No monster gates swallowing city blocks. Apparently the defense of the federation were already strong enough to keep the beasts at bay.

The danger here didn’t live behind some convenient portal waiting to be farmed for loot, it walked around in broad daylight, wearing normal clothes, ordering coffee.

This was a world of superhuman individuals.

Since there were super soldiers, there were super terrorists too.

People who could turn their bodies into running water, or living fire, or steel that shrugged off bullets — the same kind of bullets, Derrick thought grimly, that had ended his last life in under four seconds.

Great. So instead of dungeons, I get ”your neighbor might be able to punch through a wall.” Guess I can make money safely.

To get stronger, apparently, you didn’t meditate under a waterfall for forty years.

You bought pills, Power Enhancement Drugs, the internet called them, PEDs for short, which Derrick found personally insulting on behalf of every athlete who’d ever been falsely accused of same thing in his old world.

The cheapest one he could find ran about 1000 Social Credits.

Just for fun, he checked the system’s shop.

[Unaccessible]

He nearly laughed out loud.

I guess I have to finish the mission first. But even then...

I need to make my own money. I have to... get a job.

The thought alone sent a shiver down his spine.

He would rather work on missions than get a job and be ordered around like a slave. Back home he’d built an entire career out of turning blank pages into rent money.

He could do the same here as well.

With that in mind, he pulled up the local web fiction platforms out of curiosity and found the entire market split cleanly in two: smut, or romance in an adventure packed fantasy novel.

It didn’t even qualify as fantasy here, since half of it was just every Tuesday.

If everyone in this world already lives the adventure fantasy, Derrick thought slowly, an old, familiar itch starting up behind his ribs, then the actual fantasy is something boring. Something... normal.

A world where nobody can turn into fire and the biggest threat in your life is a bad breakup.

People starving for chaos write chaos. People drowning in it just want quiet.

A quick research of the market told him that divorce rates in this world were around 70%.

Which was not shocking since there were more reports on gold digger wives and killer husbands. With his sharp mind he recalled all the great novels or fictional works that had made grown men cry and a devious smirk slowly appeared on his face.

Oh, the world has no idea what I am about to unleash on them. His fingers started flying on the keyboard as he prepared his first attack on humanity.