Back in his room.
He placed the tray on his desk and leaned back in his black-and-orange gaming chair.
But he didn't eat right away. He needed to sort his thoughts first.
Top of the list. Get rid of those dirty thoughts about his hot aunt. He failed miserably, so he ended up thinking about the invasion instead.
'If I'm gonna survive, I need to build a bunker. A big one. But that's... gonna take money. A lot of it.'
Hiding first was the smarter move. Find a safe place, pull in a bit of outside air, filter it, and start building strength from there.
With his knowledge, martial arts training, and insights from the future, gaining a foothold at the start of the new era wouldn't be difficult. And with better resources, he could keep growing at a faster pace.
One reason he stayed a nobody in his past life was because he got his power too late. Back then, the older someone was, the harder it became to absorb mana. .
On top of that, resources became scarce as younger people were given more priority, while middle-aged men like him were left with scraps.
He never really blamed them for that, since it was the logical choice to better safeguard their city.
'If I'm remember this right… yeah. This was the year it happened.'
He faced the monitor and started typing. Around this time, a cryptocurrency called Kitcoin would boom to popularity.
It had been gaining traction recently, but this year, it surged from $80 to an astonishing $27,000 before the year's end.
The reason was that most whales in the main coin started selling when it neared the $100,000 mark. Many instant millionaires and billionaires diversified their portfolios by transitioning to other assets before the bull run ended .
As for buying the main coin, that wouldn't be a good idea. It was too expensive now, around $50,000. Even if he bought in, he'd only double his money at most.
He opened the website, refreshed the page, and quickly check the price. Kitcoin's value was now at $84.
That was still a lot for a young man.
But he was different.
When his parents died, he inherited a one bedroom apartment in the city, which was being rented out.
He also had a trust fund and insurance money that he could access once he turned 18, which, as luck would have it, was in just two days.
This was how he was able to buy everything he wanted so far. It also helped that most of his relatives were well off and didn't really care about his inheritance.
Click!
He double-checked his bank account and saw that he had $23,000, mostly savings from his rental property, which were directly deposited into his account.
'I can work with this.'
The mouse hovered over the Kitcoin purchase button when an ad popped up at the top of the screen, promoting a new coin called Octocoin.
'I know this one!' he recalled how it had gained infamy. It went up in price in just the span of a month, only to be suddenly rug-pulled and leaving many people with a lot of loses.
This coin was especially hard to forget because one of his online friends ranted about losing his entire college fund, thinking it would turn him into an instant millionaire.
'This one jumped from 0.010 cents to 0.25 cents before it got rug-pulled.'
It was now at 0.012 dollars. Even if he exited at a safe point, say 0.20 dollars, he would multiply his money by 16.67 times.
Taking into account the price impact and the selling fee, he could still gain around 14 times, which would turn his $23,000 into $322,000.
Just like that, he drained all his money purchasing it.
Though there was a possibility it could get rug-pulled right away, he still owned assets he could sell. For a returner like him, it was a low-risk bet.
'Damn, buying crypto is addicting. Why do I feel like $23,000 is too small?' He sighed, already drawn to the adrenaline that gamblers often feel.
Tapping his desk, boredom quickly set in while he stared at the monitor.
'Can't keep wasting time like this.' He leaned back, grabbed something to eat, and started scrolling for anime.
While watching a romantic comedy, he took a bite of the bacon, its crispy edges melting in his mouth with a smoky taste.
The eggs were soft and creamy too, perfect with the warm, fluffy bread. He sipped the hot chocolate milk, the sweet, smooth flavor filling his mouth.
From time to time, he would smile like an idiot, especially when he saw the main character get confessed to by girls, all of them fighting for his attention.
It made him laugh so hard, he even teared up from too much joy.
'Man, the content before was really something else.'
After the invasion, the anime industry completely vanished, and finding old shows became nearly impossible.
Even movies were all but wiped out, and with most people focused on survival, the films made afterward lacked the quality of the past.
'I should buy a lot of DVDs and solid-state drives to store movies… and por..' He trailed off, surprised by his own line of thoughts.
But, he wasn't wrong.
In a world filled with danger and death, those shows would save many lives from stress. Especially, men.