Boundless Family Upgrades For The Deadbeat Lord

The world around Raymond seemed to grind to an absolute halt. The agonizing cracking of the wooden door, the murderous shouting of the guards, and the heavy pounding of his own heart all faded into a dull, distant murmur.

The glowing blue text hanging in the air directly in front of his face was the only thing that mattered.

[ System Activating.... ]

[ 10%... 30%... 50%... 60%... 90%... 100% ]

[ Ding! Congratulations. The Infinite Family Treasury System has been successfully activated. ]

[ Ding! Welcome Host To The Infinite Family Treasury System! ]

[ Ding! A Newbie Gift Package Has Been Detected. Do you, the Host, want to open it? Y/N ]

Raymond was completely stunned. He stood frozen, his eyes wide as a literal waterfall of vibrant blue holographic screens popped up, filling his entire field of vision. The cold, mechanical voice kept ringing in his ears, bouncing around inside his skull with absolute clarity.

For a second, his brain short-circuited. He had read about this exact scenario in hundreds of Chapters online back on Earth, but experiencing a glowing, semi-transparent user interface appearing in the middle of a dingy, medieval bedroom was a completely different story.

Boom!

A violent shake from the bedroom door snapped him right out of his daze. The top half of the wood completely split open. He could see the jagged blade of an iron sword poking through the gap. The mercenary captain was laughing maniacally on the other side.

”I don’t have time to stare at the UI!” Raymond panicked.

He didn’t know if he had to touch the screen or just think it, so he raised a trembling hand and slammed his finger directly onto the glowing blue [ Y ] icon floating in the air.

”Open it! Open it right now!” He screamed in his mind.

Immediately, the system notifications rang out again, flashing rapidly across his eyes.

[ Newbie Gift Package has been opened. Reward processing... ]

[ Congratulations Host! You have received x3 Silver Rank Summoning Tickets. Do you want to initiate Summoning? ( Y/N ) ]

[ Congratulations Host! You have received 10,000 System Points. ]

[ Congratulations Host! You have received x1 Tier 1 Land Upgrade Ticket. ]

[ Congratulations Host! You have received an Item: Divine Grade Mana Heart! ]

Raymond’s jaw practically hit the floor. Ten thousand points? A land upgrade? A Divine Grade freaking Mana Heart? He didn’t even know what a Mana Heart fully did yet and he didn’t even know what the other rewards were but the word ”Divine” was universal in every webnovel ever written, it meant he had just hit the absolute cosmic jackpot.

But he didn’t have a single second to celebrate, let alone read through the descriptions of his new loot.

”Break it! One more hit and the deadbeat is dead!” the mercenary captain roared from the hallway. The door was hanging by a single, mangled iron hinge. It was about to come crashing down.

Raymond didn’t have time to hesitate. He didn’t know if the Divine Mana Heart would take time to fuse or if the land upgrade would just change the grass outside. He needed muscle. He needed protection right this second.

”Yes! Yes, I want to use the Summoning Tickets! Do it now!” Raymond yelled at the top of his lungs, completely ignoring the ’Y’ and ’N’ prompts and just shouting his command out loud.

A sharp, brilliant flash of blue light materialized right in front of his chest. The light coalesced, solidifying into three physical objects that dropped straight into his open, waiting hands.

Raymond blinked, looking down at the items he was holding.

The Silver Rank Summoning Tickets weren’t made of flimsy paper or parchment like he had expected. They were heavy, metallic plates about the size of a modern smartphone. They were forged from a polished, mirror-like silver metal that felt incredibly cold to the touch. Etched deeply into the surface of each metallic card were intricate, glowing blue runes that pulsed gently, like a slow heartbeat. In the center of the silver plates, an embossed emblem of a shielded crest with a roaring lion stood out in sharp relief. They looked expensive, magical, and entirely out of place in this run-down room.

Raymond stared at the heavy metal slabs in his hands for three seconds. He looked at the thick silver edges. He looked back up at the shattered door.

He blinked again.

”Are you kidding me?” Raymond yelled at the empty air. ”How the hell am I supposed to use these things? Do I have to go to a Pitbull concert, stand in the VIP section, and wave these at the stage to get inside?!”

He was genuinely baffled. The tickets felt like solid blocks of iron armor plating. There was no button, no string, no obvious way to trigger the magic inside them. Was he supposed to throw them at the guards’ faces like deadly frisbees?

Immediately, the system’s cold, mechanical voice echoed inside his head, cutting through his rising panic with absolute, deadpan efficiency.

[ Ding! Instruction: Tear it. ]

Raymond stared at the metal slabs. ”Tear it? It’s solid silver, you stupid machine! I’m an out-of-shape, hungover deadbeat! I can barely lift my arms, let alone snap a steel plate in half!”

[ Ding! The item reacts to the Host’s intent. Physical strength is not required. Tear it. ]

Outside, the guard captain gave a massive, victorious shout. ”Die, you useless trash!”

Raymond didn’t think anymore. He stacked the three heavy silver plates perfectly on top of one another, gripped the sides with his thumbs, and twisted his hands with a surge of pure, desperate adrenaline.

To his absolute shock, the solid silver plates didn’t resist at all. The moment his fingers flexed with the intent to destroy them, the metal turned soft, rendering like wet paper. With a sharp, metallic tearing sound, the three silver tickets ripped clean down the middle.

Instantly, the glowing blue runes etched into the metal turned from a calm blue to a violent, blinding silver-white.

The air in the bedroom grew incredibly heavy, dropping the atmospheric pressure so fast that Raymond’s ears popped. The torn pieces of the silver plates dissolved into pure, liquid starlight that erupted outward in a massive, expanding sphere of energy.

It was a total flashbang.

An intense, blinding explosion of silver light completely filled every single square inch of the bedroom. The illumination was so fiercely bright that Raymond had to shut his eyes tightly, slamming his eyelids shut and throwing his arms up over his face to protect his vision. Even with his eyes fully closed, the light pierced through his skin, turning his entire field of vision into a stark, burning white canvas.

At that exact, chaotic millisecond, a final, definitive CRASH echoed through the room.

The heavy bedroom door was completely blown off its last remaining hinge, splintering into hundreds of flying wooden shards as the mercenary captain and his men finally burst across the threshold, swords raised high, ready to slaughter the deadbeat lord.

But they weren’t met with a trembling, defenseless drunkard. They were met with a supernova.

”What the hell is this?!” the captain’s arrogant roar instantly twisted into a panicked, high-pitched scream.

”My eyes! I can’t see!” another mercenary shrieked from behind him, followed by the clattering sound of iron swords slipping from terrified grips and slamming heavily against the stone floor.

Through the absolute, blinding sheets of silver light filling the space, three massive, towering silhouettes began to materialize out of thin air right in front of Raymond’s bed, their eyes glowing with an intense, unyielding silver fire.