Thank you for playing- much much appreciated. Yes, I'm paying for the AI responses, although they've been very very cheap with only a few players, with each call/response API cost being only a fraction of a penny (using gpt-3.5-turbo API calls).
Honestly, progression will be rough to find here- I really butchered the game balance at the end with last-minute price adjustments and removing a non-working competition element for the rewards on so all I can say is I very much appreciate your patience and checking it out at all!!