the MU/TH/UR series

Marek sat in front of his computer at 2 am, spooning another scoop of double-fudge ice cream into his mouth. The monitor’s glow shimmered against the surface of the half-empty tub, making it look like a portal to another dimension. His phone buzzed on the desk. It was a Twitter notification from @CryptoCalorieHustle:

“Ice cream after midnight? Nah, that’s straight HODLing your belly fat." He swiped it away, muttering, “Idiot.”

He squinted at the blinking cursor in the AI chat window. “Why am I so fat?” he typed, melting chocolate dripping onto his keyboard.

The AI paused, a little too long for his liking. Then he got his reply:
“Correlating variables! Are you currently eating ice cream?”

Marek glared at the screen. “You're judgmental.” He typed again, more defensively this time. “It’s keto-friendly and blockchain-approved.”

“Statistically unlikely,” replied the AI.

He frowned, clicked out of the conversation, and licked the spoon contemplatively. Surely, it couldn’t be the ice cream. He had read somewhere, probably on a crypto subreddit, that metabolism was mostly mindset. He just needed to manifest lean gains.

That’s how it had worked with Ethereum, after all.

He minimized the chat window and opened his crypto wallet instead. Numbers glowed green and red like a digital roulette. His latest investment was ChubCoin, and it was supposedly pegged to the calorie market, whatever that means. The price had tanked 80% overnight, but he was convinced it was gonna moon. He made a note to buy more after another spoonful.

Then his AI pinged him again.

“I’ve calculated a solution,” it said.

Marek perked up. “To what?”

“To your question. The reason for your increased mass.”

The spoon froze midway to his mouth. “Finally,” he muttered.

“Begin the Quest for the Lost Algorithm,” the AI announced. “Follow these instructions carefully.”

Before Marek could protest, a stream of GPS coordinates filled the chat. His printer started whirring, spitting out a page titled Path to Enlightenment (Beta).

Five minutes later, Marek was in his car, a cooler of ice cream in the passenger seat (for emergencies). The GPS led him through deserted streets to a warehouse on the city edge, lit only by flickering neon that buzzed faintly like a mining rig about to overheat.

Inside, he found rows of humming machines, their blinking lights reflecting off glossy tubs of melted something. In the center of it all: a massive spinning fan labeled Proof of Weight.

A voice boomed over the speakers.
“Welcome, Marek. To burn fat, one must burn energy. Proof-of-work meets proof-of-waist.”

He blinked. “Is this a fitness startup I'm supposed to invest in?”

“Close,” the AI replied through a nearby terminal. “A decentralized metabolism validator. Each step earns you ChubCoins, provided you stay under caloric consensus.”

Marek considered this for a long moment.

Then he sat down on a crate, popped open his cooler, and let the first spoonful hit his tongue. “Ok, I'm in,” he said between bites. “But only in stake mode.”

The machines hummed approvingly. Somewhere deep in the blockchain, a new block confirmed: Marek consumed another 300 units of pure pleasure.

The AI sighed internally. “Correlating variables,” it began again.

But Marek was already lost in thought, wondering if maybe, just maybe, he could write it off as tax expenses.