Chapter 7: Securing the Win.

Chapter 7 - 7: Securing the Win.Back at the café, the atmosphere had simmered down. Most of the rowdy crowd had either gone home, passed out drunk, or were still arguing somewhere outside.

Richard glanced around. "Not much people left, huh?"

Jack leaned against the counter, yawning. "Yeah, well, either they fought it out or got too drunk to function. We're closing at 12 anyway." He glanced at Richard. "How's Auntie?"

Richard took a sip from a soda can. "She's fine. Probably already dozing off in the guest room beside yours."

Jack nodded. "Good. She deserves the rest." Then he grinned. "By the way, your lotto win was a total buzzkill for our drinking session, man."

Richard scoffed, shaking his head. "Tell me about it. I still can't get it off my mind."

Jack smirked, tapping his fingers on the counter. "So, the million-dollar question—how are you gonna spend your fortune?"

Richard leaned back, stretching. "Half of it is going into the house in Marawi. The other half? Business. Maybe our business. Game development. Investing in our future game studio, ya' know?"

Jack's face lit up. "I love it. I'll tell my dad and grandpa about this. Two future businessmen, huh?"

He chuckled before continuing, "My dad's been wondering what the hell I've been doing since I dropped out of college—like Steve Jobs, baby! They think I'm just playing around. But if they see us actually making money, BAM! They'll start taking us seriously."

Richard grinned. "Damn right."



Jack smirked, throwing his arm around Richard's shoulder. "And you know what? Why stop at just making games? Maybe we can build our own rocket one day."

Richard laughed. "Alright, Elon Musk. Let's get through one game first."

Jack stretched and leaned back against the counter. "Anyway, man, back to our first game. I'm gonna continue remodeling the tanks and some structures first—maybe implement structure-spawning mechanics too."

Richard nodded, cracking his knuckles. "Sounds good. I'll replace Dino while I test some stuff."

Jack smirked. "Alright, bro. Don't let the café burn down." He turned and headed into the back room to work.

Richard pushed open the door to the café operator's booth, where Dino was glued to his screen, fully immersed in Conquer Online.

"Heyo, Dino. My turn."

Dino sighed, not taking his eyes off the game. "Wait, wait—lemme log out first."

Richard watched as Dino hastily closed the game, muttering something about almost getting scammed in the marketplace. Once he was done, he stood up and stretched.

As he walked toward the door, he paused and grinned through the glass teller window. "Oh, give me open time on number 12, yeah?" He winked.

Richard rolled his eyes. "Whatever, dude." He punched in the request, shaking his head as Dino strutted off toward the computers.

With that, he sat down, cracked his fingers,


Richard cracked his knuckles and leaned forward, eyes locked onto the blank screen. "It's time to make the Vector Core," he muttered. His fingers hovered for a second before typing, the soft clicking of keys breaking the silence.

He started with the EngineCore class—the brain of the entire system. Initialization, the update loop, and the shutdown process had to be flawless. "If the foundation isn't solid, everything else crumbles." He meticulously structured the Init() method, ensuring proper memory allocation, subsystem initialization, and configuration loading. Everything had to be fault-tolerant. No room for crashes.

The Update() loop came next—the heartbeat of the engine. It had to synchronize physics, AI, rendering, and input without missing a beat. The logic had to be clean, optimized. Richard's fingers moved faster, his mind locked in. Time blurred.

Next, he built the ModuleManager, making sure every feature—graphics, physics, networking—could work independently yet remain interconnected. The engine needed to be modular, dynamic, and future-proof.

Then came the mathematics: Vector3, Matrix4, and Quaternions—the foundation of all physics and movement. "Dot product, cross product, rotation matrices... precision is everything." Hours passed as he optimized calculations, ensuring they were both efficient and accurate.

Finally, he moved onto the RenderingCore, the visual heart of the engine. OpenGL first, then DirectX. He outlined the abstraction layer, setting the groundwork for deferred rendering, real-time lighting, and ray tracing. The first steps toward bringing worlds to life.

Jack stepped inside, rubbing his eyes. "Dude, what the hell are you making? You've been at it for two hours now. I can't stand all that clicking."

Richard barely looked away from his screen. "Oh, this?" He leaned back, stretching. "It's a game engine framework... Vector Core." He said it with a dramatic flair, grinning.

Jack blinked. "A game engine? Bro, we barely even remember all of Unity's tools, and you're out here making an entire engine?"



Richard smirked. "Yeah... Remember the Keeper I told you about?"

Jack sighed, shaking his head. "Whatever, dude. Whatever you're working on is way too complicated for me. I doubt it even works."

Richard chuckled. "Just trust me, bro. It's gonna work. But I gotta finish this thing in my free time."

Jack yawned. "Yeah, yeah. Come on, let's close up already. There's no one here, and I'm sleepy." He paused, scratching his head. "You know what? If you're that dedicated, I have my old dusty M17x R4 in my room. I'll give it to you—otherwise, this thing is just gonna die on you."

Richard's eyes widened. "Are you serious?"

Jack shrugged. "Of course, bro. Just save your project file on my hard drive first." He tossed him a portable HDD.

Richard caught it but hesitated. "You're giving way too much, man."

Jack smirked. "Just take it as an investment from me." He chuckled. "Besides, it's inefficient if we can only work from home. We need to be able to code anywhere—trips, late-night grinds, whatever. Plus, I've got two other laptops. You'll make better use of this one than I ever will."

After turning off every PC and rolling down the lid of the café, Jack and Richard walked to Jack's house. The place stood tall—a modern three-story home, almost like an apartment, with peach-painted walls and massive glass windows lining the staircase. Three cars were parked neatly outside, completing the scene.

Richard whistled. "Dude, I still can't get over how big your house is."

Jack gave him a look. "Bro, what are you saying? You come here at least once a week. Plus, you literally just gave Auntie a tour earlier. What the heck are you on about?"

Richard smirked. "Just admiring it."

Jack squinted. "What?"

"Nothing," Richard said, shaking his head with a grin.

Richard and Jack walked up to the second floor, passing through the living room and the hallway lined with rooms. They stopped in front of the guest room and knocked before stepping inside.

"Ma, how are you adjusting?" Richard asked.

Anita was sitting on the bed, eyes on the TV. She turned to them and smiled. "Just watching some shows. I just finished talking to Uncle Estello—he said he'd welcome us and even booked tickets with Jack for Laguindingan tomorrow at 3 PM, right after we claim your winnings."

Richard's eyes widened. "Tomorrow? Damn, we should've packed our bags earlier."

"No rush," Anita said calmly. "We'll just pack early in the morning—clothes, documents, and whatever else we need. Oh, and I told Marcello he could stay at our house. Poor guy's basically been living in a copra dryer."

Jack, still scrolling through his phone, spoke up. "We can leave at 7 AM tomorrow, so we'll get to Mandaluyong by 9. Then straight to the airport. Maybe even do some shopping for our lucky boy here." He smirked at Richard.

Richard scoffed. "Yeah, first thing I'm getting is a phone. My Motorola's been screaming for retirement."



Jack grinned. "I was actually gonna give you my Samsung, but nah... I'll let you enjoy your shopping spree instead." He chuckled.

"Anyway, Auntie, I'll sleep first. There's some cake and snacks in the fridge if you get hungry," Jack said, stretching. "Gotta get some shut-eye."

"Alright, Jack," Anita replied as he stepped out.

Richard flopped onto the other bed, sinking into the mattress. "Ma, you turning on the air conditioner?"

"No, I'm not used to it. Just turn on the fan."

Richard sighed, got up, switched on the fan, and lay back down. "So, what did you and Uncle Estello talk about?"

Anita shrugged. "Just catching up, seeing how we're doing. He's still the same, cracking jokes and being his usual self. He even suggested selling our lot and building a house next to his."

Richard raised a brow. "And?"

"I told him no. That lot is the only thing my father left me. Too many memories attached to it."

Richard nodded. "Yeah, makes sense." He yawned, pulling a blanket over himself. "Anyway, I'm still buzzed. I'll sleep first."

"Alright, good night."

Richard mumbled something incoherent before dozing off.