Anyways, Stan acknowledged the notification and switched to Maya’s profile. Just like Sophie, Maya was still new to the platform.
She had started streaming only a few weeks earlier, mostly to support promotional campaigns for her film projects. Her account contained only a handful of uploads; interview clips from the Ghost Signal press tour, behind-the-scenes footage from Unfinished Business, and a casual day-in-the-life reel she’d posted earlier that week.
Stan repeated the process.
He distributed another $1 billion in premium gifts across every recent upload, ensuring each video received a similar level of support.
Maya’s favorability had only recently crossed 120. The rebate arrived almost instantly.
[Favorability tier: 120–129 (12× rebate).]
[Rebate issued: $12 billion.]
Stan leaned back in his chair.
Less than an hour earlier, he had transferred virtually every liquid dollar he possessed into Maya’s company. Now his cash balance had climbed past $100 billion.
The number felt almost detached from reality. A distant thought crossed his mind.
Banks and financial regulators were almost certainly seeing activity that would trigger every automated monitoring system they had. Transaction volumes of this magnitude would inevitably attract scrutiny, generating alerts, reviews, and perhaps entire teams of analysts trying to understand what they were looking at.
It wouldn’t matter. From the day the system had awakened, every rebate had appeared as an ordinary Internal Credit Adjustment. Even the bank he’s using can’t keep track of or spy on his account.
The funds arrived through transaction records that couldn’t be traced to any identifiable sender. No matching outgoing account. No corresponding institution. No audit trail leading back to a conventional source.
The pattern investigators would normally follow simply wasn’t there. Whether anyone attempted to investigate was irrelevant.
There was nothing for them to find. Stan dismissed the thought as quickly as it had appeared. He still had work to do.
Stan pulled up Xenia’s account next. She was live. A faint smile crossed his face.
Xenia had been one of his earliest bindings, back when he was still discovering the limits of the system. Over the weeks since then, her favorability had risen steadily, settling at around 90, placing her in the legacy 9× rebate tier, which System 2.0 had retained for targets whose favorability remained between 80 and 99.
He entered the stream as Sir Streak. The effect was immediate.
The moment his username appeared in the viewer list, the chat erupted.
@Epstein’s4thChild: "SIR STREAK!"
@604thOnBonnieBluesl’sLine: "THE KING IS HERE!"
@I’mAMinorForDrake: "HE ACTUALLY CAME!"
@Diddy’sEx: "XENIA, LOOK AT YOUR VIEWER LIST!"
Xenia had been live for nearly an hour, hosting a relaxed Q&A session for her audience about her fun experience with Star Entertainment...
Her stream manager noticed the username before she did.
Something flashed across the monitor beside the camera. Xenia looked over. Her eyes widened.
"...Sir Streak?"
She leaned closer to the screen, almost as if she thought she’d misread it.
"Everyone..." she said, unable to hide the excitement in her voice. "Sir Streak is here."
The chat exploded all over again.
@JudebellinghamPleaseTouchMe: I was able to witness the Legendary Sir Streak in Action
@HeymenAndTheyArePigs: Guys, Guess How much he’ll spend this time around
@TheRock’sHairGel: I’m from another Stream, Sir Streak just spent billions of dollars on some random’s Stream before coming here
@KevinHartIsGay?: @TheRock’sHairGel I know he’s rich and all that but come on bro, come up with a better lie, who will spend billions on streams...
@TheRock’sHairGel: Iswr on my dick I’m not lying!
@KevinHartIsGay?: And you expect me to believe that?
@TheRock’sHairGel: Just go check bro, it’s not that hard...
@ToeSnifferSupreme: Its actually real! All Hail The Big Boss🙇
@KevinHartIsGay?: I don’t believe you two, I’m coming, lemme go check
Ignoring the comment section, Stan opened the gifting menu. Then, with practiced calm, he began sending gifts. Premium rockets. Golden crowns.
Mythic-tier animations that only the platform’s biggest spenders ever touched. One after another, they flooded the stream.
Meanwhile, @KevinHartIsGay? joined the stream again but was to shocked to type anything...
@ToeSnifferSupreme: @KevinHartIsGay? So what do you have to say doubting Thomas 😏
@TheRock’sHairGel: @KevinHartIsGay? Is to shocked to talk😂😭
@ToeSnifferSupreme: Don’t be shocked @KevinHartIsGay? It’s just chicken change to Sir Streak, if not, why else will he gift those so casually, that’s why he’s the G.O.A.T’ED Gifter...
@KevinHartIsGay?: Sigh
Meanwhile, Stan kept gifting, the animated effects stacked across the screen in an almost uninterrupted procession as the gift total climbed higher and higher.
By the time the broadcast ended an hour later, Stan had spent $5 billion.
Xenia had long since stopped trying to maintain the polished composure expected of an established streamer. She laughed. She teared up.
She repeatedly thanked Sir Streak, sometimes losing her train of thought halfway through her sentences as another wave of gifts appeared.
Near the end of the stream, she simply looked into the camera, smiled helplessly, and shook her head.
"I... I don’t even know what to say anymore."
She laughed softly, brushing away a tear. The fact she knew Stan just made this even more absurd. "Thank you, Sir Streak. Really... thank you."
The chat never calmed down.
Every new gift reignited another wave of excitement, and by the end of the broadcast, the stream had become one of the most talked-about events on the platform that evening.
The system chimed.
[Favorability tier: 90–99 (9× rebate).]
[Rebate issued: $45 billion deposited into linked account.]
Stan glanced at the notification, closed the stream, and exited the app.
He sat quietly at the dining table, his phone resting face-down before him.
The apartment was silent. His liquid cash balance had just crossed $122 billion. Only a few hours earlier, it had been $620 million.
The difference wasn’t merely the result of a profitable evening. It was the consequence of finally using the system the way it had always been intended to be used.
Until tonight, the Supreme Rebate System had functioned almost passively. It had rewarded him generously for a handful of investments and purchases, but he had never truly treated it as the scalable engine it was.
System 2.0 had changed that.
With higher rebate tiers, more daily bindings, and additional weekly rebate cycles, the system was no longer just generating wealth.
It was compounding it. At this scale, the figures had begun to lose their intuitive meaning.
A hundred billion dollars wasn’t personal wealth in the ordinary sense.
It was the sort of capital managed by sovereign wealth funds, multinational investment firms, and central financial institutions.
Stan leaned back in his chair. His thoughts drifted briefly to the Introduction to Earth.
The book had cost one system point. One point was One billion dollars.
At his current balance, he could afford roughly 110 system points. He still had no idea what that actually meant.
The introductory book had been little more than a primer. What would a genuine cultivation manual cost? An advanced body-tempering pill? A spirit weapon? A storage artifact? What if he could get all these from the system, what will be their cost?
Whatever lay deeper in the catalog, it was almost certainly more valuable, and more expensive, than anything he had seen so far.
For the first time since acquiring the system, he possessed enough capital to explore those higher tiers without hesitation.
He reached out with a thought. The system shop unfolded before him.
The interface shimmered briefly before settling into place.
[Shop inventory refreshed.]
[New items available.]
The catalog expanded across his vision. Rows of unfamiliar entries scrolled into existence, each carrying a name, a price, and a promise of something far beyond the ordinary world.
Stan drew a slow, measured breath. Then he began to read.