He shuddered at the sound she'd made, and as he walked down the hallway towards his room, he hollered back over his shoulder, "If you so much as whisper 'fava beans', I'm kicking you out!"
"What? Why would I-" she said, sounding a little confused, then just as he was closing his bedroom door he heard, "Oh, funny."
He quickly shed the many layers of clothes and just stood for a few moments in nothing but his boxers, enjoying the cool air. Realizing he felt sticky from all the sweat, he put on a pair of shorts and dashed into the bathroom for a quick shower.
After his shower, he changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt, then returned to the living room and sat on the couch next to Madison. The lottery drawing would start in a few minutes, and he was excited to see if their plan would succeed.
He turned on the T.V. and located the live stream from the lottery commission. As they waited for the drawing to start, he tried to stay calm. He kept reminding himself that there was no guarantee that their plan would work.
When the stream started, it looked exactly like it had in the simulation. The official moved and spoke in the same way, and as far as he could tell, was doing things exactly like they had in the simulation.
After loading the machine with the numbered balls, the official pulled a lever and one of the balls, exited the machine and rolled down a clear tube. The official looked at the ball and read the number.
"Forty-five," the official declared, then pushed the button again.
Jack had the predicted lottery numbers memorized, but still looked at his lottery ticket. Yup, forty-five was one of the numbers.
"Thirteen."
He double checked. Yep, thirteen was a match.
"Twenty-seven."
He checked, also a match. They were officially in the black. Three matching numbers were worth seven credits.
"Three."
He was trying very hard not to get excited. There was no guarantee this would work, and he didn't want to get his hopes up. He'd already seen how even slight changes could lead to differences between the sim and subsequent reality. But, so far, those differences had been localized, so he hoped any differences would remain local and would not propagate all the way across the country to where the lottery drawing was actually taking place.
He double checked, feeling the tension build. Three was also a match. Their prize had climbed to one hundred credits.
"Twenty-seven."
His heart sank. Twenty-seven was not one of the numbers on his lottery ticket.
"Damn," muttered Madison.
He tried not to be too disappointed, but it was difficult. He wanted to tear up the ticket in frustration, but it was worth a hundred credits.
They watched as the official drew the final Redball number. If that number matched his ticket, his 100 credits would turn into 50,000 credits.
"Eleven."
It wasn't a match. He sank back into the couch and closed his eyes. Was it just not possible? Did they do something wrong? Was Atomic level detail not enough? Or did they need to extend the radius to cover more area? He'd set the radius to 350,000 kilometers so that even the moon would be included, just in case. Or maybe he needed to use Nominal instead of Approximate level detail for the rest of the solar system. Despite the difference in cost per meter radius between Atomic and Approximate level detail, most of the cost for the simulation resulted from the many orders of magnitude larger radius of the solar system compared to the Earth plus Moon area.
The jackpot was up to 800 million credits. It rarely got that large, and he hated the idea of missing out on that opportunity. Most jackpots were much smaller.
He checked his status.
Energy Points (EP): 103,652,000/1,000,000,000 :-: (7,978/sec [10,000/sec])
Genesis Points (GP): 10,058,084,114
Soul Space Cost: 2022/sec
The next drawing would be in two days. By then, he'd have about one point four billion EP. That would be enough for another attempt at the same detail levels, but not enough if he bumped the detail from Atomic to Subatomic. But, if he only ran Earth at Subatomic level detail, out past the moon at Atomic level detail, and the rest of the solar system at Approximate level detail, he'd have just enough for two hours of simulation time, with a cost of about one point two billion EP.
If that didn't work, then he would have to extend the radius of the Subatomic level detail region, or change the Approximate detail region to Nominal level. Both would increase his costs. The former would push him close to four billion EP, the latter would push his costs to eighty billion EP.
"So, are you gonna try again?" asked Madison. "Four out of six matching, makes me think it's possible. We just need to figure out how to make it work."
"Yes. I think it's worth trying again. I'm gonna try using Subatomic level detail for Earth, then Atomic detail out to the moon. The cost difference isn't too big and I'll have enough to try again on Saturday. If that doesn't work, we'll have to increase the outer detail level to Nominal and that will push the cost north of eighty billion EP. That will take a couple of months to save up."
"Oof. And by then, someone else will probably win the big jackpot and you'll be stuck with a smaller jackpot, assuming this even works in the end. I still don't understand why it didn't work this time!"
"I think it's because the drawing is designed to be sensitive to initial conditions. Even the tiniest change in the position of the balls when they are loaded, or even a nanoseconds difference in timing when the lever is pulled, can result in different results. I suspect that slight differences in vibration can also alter the results. And we have no way of knowing where the differences are. I'm hoping that it's just some quantum level bullshit and that the Subatomic level detail will replicate it."
"What about light speed?"
"What about it?"
"I remember reading that it takes light eight minutes to get from the Sun to Earth. So, if you only need the simulation to run for two hours, do you need to cover the entire solar system?"
"Hmm." He fiddled with the spreadsheet he was using to calculate sim costs, "That won't save me much for this next attempt, but if I need to bump the outer level from Approximate to Nominal, that will cut the cost from over eighty billion down to about twenty billion. So, we'd only need to wait weeks instead of months."
"Is that much of a price to pay to become a multi-millionaire, or even a billionaire?"
[Achievement: Spend 1,000,000,000 Energy Points]
[Reward: 1,000,000,000 GP]
Before he could answer, he received a new an unexpected achievement.
"Yes!" he yelled, both in his soul space and in the physical world.
"What?" both Madison's asked.
"You know how my EP generation rate and storage capacity are capped because of some kind of soul strength limit?" said soul space Jack.
"Yes?"
"Well, I just received an achievement for spending a billion EP, and the reward was a billion GP!"
"Nice!"
"And, since it didn't start at one, it might not be progressive like the other achievements."
"And that means?"
"I might earn a billion GP every time I spend billion EP! That means I could purchase that soul enhancement technique in just over three years."
"Why is that important? You can already run solar system spanning simulations. What more could you want?"
"Mostly, I just hated the fact that it was there, but out of reach. It was like an itch I couldn't scratch. Also, I'm curious to see if it will allow me to do more than just increase my EP limits. Its soul enhancement, after all. Who knows what that could enable? What if it gives me some kind of extra power?"
"Power? Like what?"
"I don't know. Anything! Jeeves said that Genesis Heart was made by a goddess. What if cultivation is a real thing? Even if Jeeves doesn't know anything about cultivation, what if a stronger soul will enable me to figure it out on my own? The fact that Genesis Heart was made by a goddess suggests that cultivation exists. It's one thing to wonder if something is possible. But, it's another thing entirely to know something is possible, yet have no way to do it, or even learn about it. It's like an itch you can't scratch, or a mirage in a dessert, or... a locked gate across a path with a sign that says," paradise may lie somewhere ahead." And, while I don't have the key, and I don't really know what lies further down the path, I at least know approximately when I will obtain the key. So, in a few years, I'll be able to unlock the gate and begin my journey down the path. Maybe all I find is mundane EP limit increases. But maybe, just maybe, I'll find something more."