The Idle System Box Set

by Pegaz

  BANG!

  The man managed to dodge just in time, but John adapted and redirected his attack. His leg crashed into the man’s arm, which pushed him all the way to the edge of the ring.

  The crowd cheered.

  On the ground, you could see two skid marks from the man’s feet. Some of the stone flooring was dug up by the sheer force of the blow.

  John followed up by rushing to the man. His target, however, was ready this time and swung his sword, hoping to split John in two. The blade was parried by John who blocked the sword and managed to get in close. He made a fist with his right hand and punched out, adding no Life Power whatsoever.

  The man easily dodged it by stepping to his right side. John didn’t grab onto the sword either.

  “You’re no match,” the man snarled. “Give it up, I can tell you’re a Rank 2 Level 1, right? You haven’t even created any branches in your shins yet, and you’re trying to beat me? You got a lucky shot in earlier, that’s all.”

  “Oh?” An innocent and playful smile appeared on John’s face. “If you’re so sure, how come you’re trying to make me give up? Why not just come and kill me?” John opened his arms up as if to show how vulnerable he was. His smile did not waver.

  John’s opponent had a sudden chill down his back. He noticed his back was full of sweat. John wasn’t breathing heavily, and there wasn’t even a single drop of sweat on his forehead. It was as if he’d just taken a stroll in the park, pleasant and relaxing.

  John lifted his right hand and put his middle finger and thumb together. “Would you believe me if I said that you’re dead if I click my fingers?”

  His voice was heard throughout the area. The crowd was dead silent, wondering what John was up to. They’d never heard of death by clicking before.

  “How would you be able to kill me by snapping your fingers together? I don’t believe you.”

  John was still smiling. “Doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me. Your life is in my hands. I also know you’ve committed many crimes. If you tell everyone all your crimes, I’ll let you live.”

  John knew there was zero chance of this happening, but he wanted everyone to think he was giving his opponent a chance.

  And, as John had predicted, the man did not believe him.

  “You’re bluffing!”

  With that, the man charged at John, but before he’d taken more than a couple of steps, John clicked his fingers.

  BANG!

  The man’s head was blown to pieces.

  Chapter 26

  Experiment

  Though the man’s head was blown into pieces, his body kept walking for a few feet before it finally collapsed onto the floor, blood pooling from the neck. His clothes were soon soaked in blood. The sight would make anyone pale and nauseous.

  Name: John

  Age: 23

  Idlers: 0/135

  Skill Points: 0

  Life Pool: 11.8M

  Sin: 104,294

  John grinned at the system’s display. As he left the ring, he transferred the Sin to Life Power.

  Life Pool: 11.9M

  Sin: 0

  John sat down in his spot in the dugout and relaxed. It wasn’t until he was out of view from the crowd that they came out of their shock and cheered.

  “How did he do it? He snapped his fingers, and his opponent’s head was gone.”

  “I don’t know, but he’s the top contender until someone figures the trick out.”

  “No one would want to fight him when they could die just by him clicking his fingers.”

  Most of the crowd was cheering and talking about how he did it, but not one person could come up with any decent theory.

  John heard the roar of the crowd and chuckled, but let no one see his worry.

  Damn, that was close. If he hadn’t stepped on one of my Explosion attacks that I planted all around the ring, then I’d be dead by now.

  John had learnt how to really control the Explosion attack over the past few months. He could now set up traps that could enter a person’s bloodstream through the skin if said person stepped on it. The power would travel to the brain and snap. It was over.

  John reckoned someone sensitive to Life Power or with sensitive skin would be able to detect these on the floor when stepping on them. If they weren’t stepped on and they didn’t enter the skin, then this ultimate technique would be utterly useless. The attack only did damage against the brain from the inside, and any other part of the body of an immortal wouldn’t even get injured.

  What nobody knew was that John left all the Explosion attacks in the ring for everyone else to step on too. John kept an eye on all the fights, especially where the contestants stepped. The goal was to plant some of his energy into each and every one of the contestants.

  When all of the other one-on-one fights finished, thirty-eight people had died in the ring. Out of the other forty-nine people who went through to the next round, forty-seven of them had Explosion balls inside of their brains, waiting to be set off.

  The next round of the fight was to be held three days later so everyone could heal up. When John stood up to leave, the rest of the combatants made a path for him. They were still scared to get too close.

  And so, after exiting the arena, John walked around town in his Jonathan disguise. He was bored.

  He eventually came to a big building that had the word ‘Dojo’ at the front. He looked at the side of the building, and he saw a dozen children practising a punch-and-kick routine. Most of them were in perfect form and in tempo with each other. There was a middle-aged man in front of all the children, watching them and correcting any mistakes.

  John smiled and walked into the building. A woman was sitting behind the desk. John approached her.

  “Hello,” he said. “I’m just wondering if you have any martial arts manuals I could buy? I already know a lot about martial arts, but I saw the kids practising outside. I’ve never seen this style before, so was just wondering if I could learn?”

  “There are manuals, yes,” the woman drew her words out as if trying to be careful. “There are also different memberships available. If you want the books, then it’s a one-time payment. After that, you can also pay for private tutoring or an advanced class for people such as yourself.”

  “For now, can I buy the complete set of all the martial arts you’ve got for sale?” John tried to seem meek. “If I understand nothing, I might come back for private tutoring.”

  The woman nodded and gave a receipt to John. There were over a hundred books of different martial arts. Elated, John sat down near the reception desk and waited for the books to arrive. In a matter of minutes, John was walking out of the dojo with the books in his Storage Space.

  John ran into another flower shop. This time, he wasn’t searching for anybody or in hiding. He had time to experiment.

  The theory of flowers or herbs giving him Life Power had stuck in the back of his head. He wanted to test it out. Walking into the flower shop, he turned his Immortal Eye on. When looking at ordinary flowers then it showed nothing, not even the name of the flowers.

  He continued to the other side of the shop where they had different herbs on display. However, they were the same as the flowers until he found one.

  ???

  Life: 20

  Picking up the herb, he scrutinised it for a little while. It had a green stalk that shot straight up and green leaves too, but had an orange part growing in the middle. The orange part was curled up and curling around itself. It was shaped in a spiral, almost like his cone bullets.

  John checked all other plants, but this was the only one with Life Power. He took it to the counter.

  Behind the counter, a young man looked bored, clearly not wanting to be there.

  “I’d like to buy this.” John placed the herb onto the flat surface. “Could you tell me about it, though? If you can’t then could you please get me someone who can?”

  “Sure.” The man stood up and walked through a door
behind him. A few minutes later, a middle-aged woman came through the door.

  “Hello, I was told you wanted to know about something?”

  “Yes, this plant, I would like to know if it was grown here or in the wild. Also, anything else about it, if you could.”

  The woman examined the plant before placing it back onto the counter.

  “This plant is called Jewel Weed,” she said confidently. “We found it in the wild not too long ago. It was well hidden. As you can see, it has some darker orange spots on its inside. This shows that it’s over twenty years old. Other than that, I don’t have more information about it. Sorry, sir.”

  John smiled, paid for the herb, and left. When he got to his hotel, he changed his disguise back to his regular look and went to his room. He sat down next to a roundtable with the herb on top.

  He had tried holding it while absorbing Life Power, but nothing happened. Wanting to figure it out, he turned Taste option off, then ate the orange part of the herb.

  ‘Ding!’

  20 Life Power added.

  So, I can get Life Power from some types of flowers or herbs. It seems to collect 1 Life Power unit per year, according to the shop owner who found this herb. It must have something to do with the soil it was planted in. If I plant some of these in the cave where Danny’s body was buried, will they gather more per year?

  I need to get seeds of flowers and herbs that can hold Life Power and can survive without light so I can make a big farm. I wonder if there’s alchemy in this universe... If it is real and I have that farm going, I could get a major boost in Life Power! Ah…! No, don’t think about future possibilities without confirming if something is real or not first!

  With the confirmation of one experiment, John had three more questions about the results. He couldn’t get an answer for them just yet, so he took the few seeds of the plant and went to bed. It was only a matter of time before the next round of the tournament started.

  Chapter 27

  The Feast

  When John awoke, his Brakes skill had completed Level 4. The new time for the next level read as 1mo 12d.

  It’s twice as much as the last skill again... well, it does not triple, at least. There are more skills than usual, though, so the last skill’s time is going to take forever...

  He stayed inside the hotel for the remaining two days, reading the martial arts books he brought from the dojo. Most of them covered different variations of what he’d already learnt years ago in Newbie Town. When he thought up to this point, he wondered how all the people he had met along his journey were doing.

  Only eight years had passed since then, yet he was already on a different planet, light-years away. Even though the worlds he’d visited had little in regards to quality of life, they were more advanced than Earth in many ways. His imagination wandered over how Earth would evolve if they had the same greater teleportation runes. They only needed to send a satellite out to a different world to put a rune there, then they could come and go as they please.

  He was drinking tea on the balcony when someone knocked on the door. John got up and answered it. A guild staff member had come to fetch him. The group matches were supposed to start in two hours, so John followed her to the arena.

  John’s assigned number was still ‘100’ in the tournament. He was in the last group of ten. The matches started after two hours, and it took over four hours for John’s group to start. When it was finally his turn, he walked towards the ring and looked at each member. All other nine combatants in this group had the trigger for his Explosion attack inside them. Perfect.

  All nine people had sins above 100 points, so John had no qualms in killing them. Even though he didn’t know the exact value of each crime, he remembers from Danny’s memories that killing someone in cold blood amounted to 25 Sin points. John then concluded that 25 Sin points were equal to one life, so that was his cut off. With 24 points, they would live. At 25 points or more, they would perish.

  So, 100 points was a lot for someone under thirty years old. John wondered what the man he killed in his first fight did to accrue over 100,000 Sin points. That converted to over 4,000 lives.

  John smiled at his opponents and raised his hand to his eye level. He put his fingers together.

  “Confess your sins, and you live.”

  The crowd fell into a hush. The referee hadn’t even started the match yet—he was frozen in place with his hand up. One of the nine opponents opened his mouth as if to say something, but John cut him off.

  “Too late.”

  John snapped his fingers.

  BANG!

  A series of explosions rang out and nine heads were gone. Their corpses dropped to the floor.

  John looked at the referee. “Call it, please.”

  The referee was shocked, and it took him a moment to snap out of it. With a stutter, he shouted out.

  “Winner, 100!”

  John nodded at the referee, turned around, and walked off the ring back to the dugout.

  Inside the betting stations, John’s odds of winning were 3:2. However, the staff announced that since the match hadn’t begun yet, all bets were voided. This move almost caused riots in the audience. A few members of staff even got dragged outside and beaten out of anger. It wasn’t until after the backup security arrived that the problems were sorted out.

  The next stage of fights was in three days. Each of the contestants would all fight each other once. A win was 2 points, a draw was 1 point, and a loss was 0 points. The highest score would win.

  And so, John had nothing to do to pass the time. He wandered into a bookstore and bought copies of everything.

  Three days passed. At the tournament, John was standing in the ring. He was just about to raise his hands when his opponent forfeited. For the other four matches, the same thing happened before John could raise his hand. John was crowned the champion with the full ten points.

  What his opponents didn’t know was that John was bluffing. None of his opponents had many Sin points, so he wouldn’t have used Explosion on them anyway. Two of them didn’t even have the Explosion trigger in them.

  At the awards ceremony an hour later, John took the money and Life Stones but left the Rank 4 armour set and weapon of choice. He just told them to auction it off and give the money to some charity.

  He would have rejected the king’s feast, but they promised delicious food that he couldn’t find anywhere else in the kingdom, or maybe even in the world. John couldn’t decline. He changed into his silver armour and arrived at the hall.

  It was evening now, but even in the dark, the palace was well-lit. The walls were made of a white stone and marble foundation. It was a three-storey high building, glimmering white. Within the castle, the decor was green jade, the walls covered in paintings and displays. The throne room had golden walls and tables all around—it was absolutely massive.

  At the opposite end of the room to the entrance was stairs which lead to the throne where only the royal family and trusted officials were permitted to walk up.

  John was placed at the same table as the king, who was seated right next to the stairs. John smiled and nodded at the king’s questions most of the time, but he was more concerned with the food.

  ???

  Life: 140

  The cooked food of the creature still held Life Power, so it was just like with the herb. He ate what he could, savouring the taste. His stomach was like a bottomless pit. He ate for most of the night, but only food with Life Power in them. When he was full, he sat in his chair for a while and relaxed with a glass of wine. Even though he couldn’t get drunk, he still liked to drink alcohol for the taste.

  The king even introduced his daughter to John, but he only said hello to be polite. He wasn’t interested in her at all. When the daughter tried to get closer to John, he got up and walked away.

  He escaped the feast by going to the balcony. He sat to the left of the door. Since it swung open to the left, nobody would find him there. He was on t
he stone railing with his back against the wall, his right foot on the ledge and his left leg swinging through the air.

  As he was enjoying the view, the door opened and closed. A woman ran through to the edge of the right side of the balcony. John looked over and found she was looking through the window next to the door. He assumed she came to hide too. John chuckled.

  “Who are you running from?”

  The woman jumped in fright, almost tumbling over the balcony.

  “Sorry!” John laughed. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was just asking.”

  The woman steadied herself and narrowed her eyes at him.

  “Hmph! You didn’t frighten me,” she said with a slight blush spreading across her cheeks. “I thought the guy who was harassing me looked over. I panicked because I thought my face was visible through the glass. You just happened to ask at the same time.”

  “Okay, I believe you.” John turned his head back to the front to enjoy the view again.

  “Ah, you’re the champion of the little tournament, right?” She tilted her head, eyes narrowing once more. “My friend said she’d taken a liking to you, but you ignored her all night.”

  John looked over at her. “Don’t tell me your friend is the princess?”

  “Yup, that’s right. She was almost in tears,” her tone turned icy. “You men are so rude. You didn’t even acknowledge her. Her father even introduced her to you and everything.”

  John thought back to his past life, a sad smile spreading across his mouth. He closed his eyes and sighed.

  “I don’t deserve her affection.”

  Chapter 28

  His Past

  The woman was taken aback but was interested to hear an explanation. She waited for John to continue.

  “You sure you want to hear this?” John raised his eyes to meet here. “It’s not a fun story.”

  “I want to hear.”

  I’ll have to change the names of everything while telling her the story though. Siders have written about their lives before reincarnating, so if she’s read some of them she could connect the dots and figure out I’m a Sider.