Unblocking requirements:
- Heroism: level 1+
- Social status: level 10+
- Empathy: level 5+
- Communication Skills: level 5+
- Perception: level 10+
- Charisma: level 10+
- Luck: level 10+
- Intellect: level 20+
Tier 1
Ability name: Stealth and Vanish
Ability type: Active, Heroic
Allows the user to activate the Stealth system module in order to become invisible to all creatures around him or herself for a minimum duration of 15 sec, depending on their Spirit numbers. Can be used in combat.
Unblocking requirements:
- Heroism: level 1+
- Social Status: level 10+
- Strength: level 10+
- Agility: level 10+
- Perception: level 10+
- Stamina: level 10+
- Luck: level 10+
Cooldown: 1 hr
My current social status level answered both skills’ requirements. Still, I could only choose one. My stats were closer to Lie Detection, provided I made level 20 in Intellect and level 10 in Perception. At the moment, I had 18 and 7 respectively. Also, both characteristics kept growing organically. According to the slowly filling progress bar, my Intellect improved with every book I read. As for Perception, now that I’d quit smoking, it kept expanding naturally with every day. If I finished reading Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time tonight before bedtime, that might be enough to receive a new Intellect level. Then I could expect a new level in Perception the day after tomorrow after the expiry of the Nicotine Withdrawal debuff.
If I invested one point into Intellect now, I could reach the level 20 that was required. That way I could later invest the points awarded for the next two social status levels into Perception, and then... bingo!
How did it feel, being able to always tell when someone was lying? Truth isn’t always a good thing, you know. How many married couples live happily ever after with a few well-concealed skeletons in their respective closets? Would it undermine my faith in humanity?
True, as soon as my license expired, so would this double-edged ability — but sometimes even a few months of knowing where you’re standing with a certain person can drive you up the wall.
In which case, how about Stealth and Vanish? Having said that, what was I supposed to do with it? Offer my services to an intelligence bureau? Get enlisted and go to hot spots? Become a bounty hunter? In this case, the skill requirements weren’t just as easy to fulfil but were still doable.
I really had to give it a good think. Which leveling strategy should I choose? What did I want to become? What was my vision of helping the world? How would it affect me? Or my family? Did I want money and fame? Or would I rather become some kind of picture-perfect Marty Sue who could achieve everything, making even the wildest of my dreams come true?
I got so carried away I’d completely forgotten about dinner. What was that smoke in the kitchen?
It was the chicken legs, dammit.
LATER AT DINNER, we discussed my idea while demolishing the food.
“So that’s what we’re gonna do, help people?” Alik asked.
“We’re gonna help everyone who needs our help,” I said, finishing off everything still left on my plate. “It can be people, or dogs, or cats...” I rose and began putting the kettle on.
“Cats?” Alik gulped a big mouthful of his dinner without even chewing. “How do you want us to help them? And why?”
“We could find new homes for abandoned kitties. Find good jobs for those who need them. Or suitable accommodation for those looking for a new place. Basically, we’ll be a broker’s agency bringing people together. We’ll be matching vendors with buyers, landlords with tenants, athletes with coaches, singles with those looking for a partner... Why, might you ask? Firstly, they’ll all pay us a fee. Secondly, we’ll also be doing lots of non-profit stuff. We’ll try to spread the word about it on social media which should improve our agency’s visibility....”
“Sorry, didn’t get that last bit,” Alik interrupted me. “Improve what, did you say?”
“Well, for instance, we could create our group on Facebook. Are you on Facebook?”
“Of course I am!” he sounded offended. “Here, let me show you...”
I wanted to ignore the offer but he’d already opened his ancient smartphone and was shoving his Facebook profile in my face. I glimpsed his last post, a snippet of street wisdom:
“I have been fighting since I was a child. I’m not a survivor, I’m a warrior.”
His profile photo featured Alik crouching with a cigarette, blowing smoke at the camera. You could tell at once he was a tough streetwise cookie. And this was the man I was discussing my future business with?
“Excellent! You know what I mean, then,” I steered the conversation back on course. “The more people know about us, the more clients we’re gonna get.”
The kettle began to boil. Alik jumped from his stool, “I’ll make it. What do you drink, tea?”
“Yes, please.”
We drank our tea in silence. Alik pensively scrolled through his Instagram feed. Finally, he asked,
“Phil? Why do you need me and my guys in all this? Seriously?”
“Firstly, there’s too much work for me alone,” I said. “I’d have to hire some assistants, anyway. Secondly, your guys are tough. Their skills might come in handy one day, you never know. And finally, can’t I do it just to help you? To support your progress in life, what’s wrong with that?”
“I see,” he replied, his voice suddenly hoarse.
“But that’s not all,” I said. “Tell your guys they’ll be basically our combat section. Which means they have to clean their act up. No drinking or smoking. We’ll go to the gym, all of us, and train together.”
I knew full well this sounded like the pipe dream of a naïve wuss. These were seasoned muggers with God only knows how many victims to their names — possibly, even murders. As soon as I had Lie Detection activated, I might need to run “Alik’s guys” through it. If I found something major, I might even need to take justice into my own hands.
But then again, if I didn’t, who would? If I failed to provide them with an opportunity to do something with their lives, they might continue their perilous slide down the wrong path.
“Consider it done,” Alik thumped his chest with a fist. “Should I quit my new job?”
“No, you’d better stick with it for a while. We might not start for another month. I still have my own job to sort out and lots of other things. I’ve got to get a divorce first.. plenty of things to do. Then I’ll have to make a plan and see what exactly we should be doing and how to go about it.”
He nodded. “Mind if I smoke? I can go out onto the balcony.”
“Sure. You can sleep on the couch. The bedclothes are in the closet, help yourself. I need to get some sleep. I’ve got to get up early tomorrow.”
“Me too. The commute to my new job is a nightmare. I’ll have a smoke, clean the plates and go to bed.”
“Excellent. Good night!” I said.
“Same to you,” he headed for the balcony.
I climbed into bed, opened a book and only then remembered I’d forgotten to distribute the available skill points. I spent some quality time pondering over this. I couldn’t improve Learning Skills because Optimization was still in process. Should I invest in something else, maybe?
In the end, I decided it wasn’t worth it in the long run. Once Optimization was complete, I’d receive my 4 points and add them to the current 2 which would allow me to bring the skill up to 9. That would give me +270% to Learning Rate in less than a month! That’s not even counting the stat booster and the skill’s priority status. Which in turn would allow me to level up Reading much faster, thus accelerating my Intellect too.
This sounded like the right decision. Especially considering the fact that the more advanc
ed a skill was, the harder it was to level. That’s when the extra system points would come in handy.
I finished reading the book on my smartphone. In the lounge, the couch creaked its rusty springs as Alik kept tossing and turning, heaving an occasional sigh in synch with his own thoughts. Finally, he fell silent, then began snoring.
Just as I finished reading the last page, my Reading skill predictably upped.
Congratulations! You’ve received a new skill level!
Skill name: Reading
Current level: 7
XP received: 500
Right. But where was my new Intellect level?
I checked its progress bar and heaved a disappointed sigh. Only 99% full. Never mind. I’d have to leave it till tomorrow. I had to stop reading for the night. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. They itched as if full of sand.
So I invested a system point in Luck.
Warning! We’ve detected an abnormal increase in your Luck characteristic: +1 pt.
Your brain will be restructured in keeping with the new reading (10) to comply with your current level of decision making.
The world must have blinked — not that I would have noticed it in the darkness of my bedroom. I did feel a new embrace of the great void, though.
Now the second point... I really should invest it in Perception. Intellect could wait. At the moment, Perception took priority.
It was the first time I was trying to upgrade it, so I expected to experience something extraordinary, like when I'd first upgraded Strength.
Warning! We’ve detected an abnormal increase in your Perception characteristic: +1 pt.
Your sensory organs responsible for the reception of visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile and gustatory stimuli, as well as those responsible for your balance and spatial orientation, will be restructured in keeping with the new reading (8) to comply with your current level of Perception.
Changes required: new adjustments made to your eyes, ears, nose, skin, tongue, vestibular system and nerve endings.
Warning! In order to activate the skill, an undisturbed 3-hour period of sleep is required. Please ensure your location is safe. You are recommended to adopt a prone position.
Accept / Decline
I pressed Accept and immediately was forced into an obligatory sleep.
I awoke in the middle of the night from the insistent vibration of my phone under the pillow. It looked like this Perception thing did improve my senses. Before, a paltry thing like this would never have awoken me.
I pulled out the phone and stared at the screen. WTF? Was I seeing things? Or was it indeed my almost-ex mother-in-law?
Their whole family must have been on a mission to strip me of my sleep! Were they on a schedule? First it was Yanna, then her new beau, and now it was her mother in the flesh, as large as life and twice as ugly!
“What is it?” I snapped in the receiver.
“Phil, sweetheart, it’s me, your mom-in-law,” her voice echoed. “Is Yanna there?”
“My mom-in-law? I thought you made it pretty clear during our last meeting you were no ‘mom’ to me any longer? No, Yanna isn’t here. She hasn’t been here since the day you came here to collect her stuff.”
“Phil,” she broke down, bursting into tears, “Yanna’s gone!”
Another sleepless night, dammit.
Chapter Twenty-Eight. Caught in the Eye of the Storm
“It takes three to divorce.”
Aleksander Kumar
“PHIL, WHERE’RE you going?” Alik’s voice asked me from the lounge.
“Go back to sleep. I won’t be long.”
Cussing, I laced up my sneakers. That stupid, careless girl! Not to mention her control freak mother!
I was angry with myself more than anything else. As it had just transpired from my brief but rather mournful discourse with Mrs. Orlova, Yanna hadn’t been seen for a while. At first, her mother had thought she must have moved back in with me but when she’d heard I hadn’t seen her either she’d dissolved into panic. I wasn’t even sure what exactly she feared the most: the fact that her girl had gone missing or the probability of our reunion.
Apparently, my father-in-law had been invited to the funeral of some ex co-worker who lived at the other end of the country somewhere. In the meantime, Yanna had returned home from Vlad. Not for long though because, as you can well imagine, two snakes sharing one nest is a recipe for disaster. Even if they lie curled up together, nice and snug, it doesn’t mean they’re enjoying a hug. They’re simply competing for the best spot in the cage.
So Yanna, being younger and less experienced in the fine art of Chinese water torture, had left home and hadn’t been heard from since. At first, my mother-in-law had rejoiced thinking she’d finally managed to nag some sense into her daughter.
“Because Vlad is such a respectable young man with lots of potential,” she explained.
I’d heard enough. I mentally told her to kindly return to whichever dark corner of Inferno she’d crept out of, then hung up.
Five minutes later, the landline in the kitchen began buzzing. I was too sleepy and disoriented to simply unplug it, so I hurried to answer it, afraid of waking Alik up.
“We’ve been disconnected,” Mrs. Orlova sobbed, then continued with her story.
Cursing my good manners and respect for old people, I didn’t dare hang up on her twice. Also, I was admittedly curious to find out whatever could have happened to Yanna.
So basically, she’d been missing for three days now. She’d left her parents’ home just before the weekend. Mrs. Orlova had assumed she’d simply returned to Vlad. Since then, there’d been no trace of her anywhere. Her telephone was switched off. She hadn’t showed up at work, either. Vlad had assured them he hadn’t seen her at all. Mrs. Orlova had called all of Yanna’s friends, with zero results.
“You sure you didn’t upset her?” I asked.
Because if she had, then Yanna might have told her friends to lie to her mother, offering her a cooked-up story. I wouldn’t have put it past her.
“God no, I didn’t!” Mrs. Orlova exclaimed. “All I ever did, I tried to convince her to get back with Vlad.”
This time I hadn’t batted an eyelid. No point in hanging up on her. Even though formally Yanna and I were still married, in my ex-mother-in-law’s eyes I was a finished case, a has-been with whom she could be perfectly open. In her naïvely tactless simplicity, she had no consideration for my own feelings.
By the end of our conversation, I’d already located Yanna on my mental map. Now I had to decide what to do about it.
I couldn’t just ignore Mrs. Orlova’s call. We were still family, after all. Her motherly concern for her daughter’s wellbeing was perfectly understandable. And in her old-fashioned vanity, she wouldn’t go to the police, afraid for her family’s good name. Just the way her brain worked.
Judging by the map, Yanna was perfectly fine. But simply giving her address to her mother would trigger another tidal wave of questions and suspicions, and I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with them.
So I did my best to calm my “mom-in-law” down, then called a cab and got ready to pay my ex a visit.
“Phil, wait,” Alik emerged out of the lounge, wrapped in a sheet. “Problems, man?”
“It was my mother-in-law. Apparently, my wife’s gone missing. I’m gonna check out a couple of places where she might be. Go back to sleep now.”
“No way,” he declared. “I’m coming with you. One sec.”
It was pointless trying to argue with him so I just waited for the cab as Alik got dressed. A couple of minutes later, we left and headed for some hotel in the suburbs where, according to the program, Yanna now was. Its name — Red Rose Inn — said nothing to me, but judging by its location, it wasn’t the Hilton, that’s for sure.
Alik took the passenger seat next to the driver[32]. As we drove across the deserted night city, he engaged the man in a passionate discussion about our soccer team’s chances at the home
World Cup. The road before us glistened, reflecting the golden glow of streetlamps.
“We’re gonna do ‘em all!” Alik ranted. “We’re playing on our own turf, aren’t we? At the very least we’re gonna get out of the group stage!”
“I don’t think so! Our team is at its absolute worst in years-” the driver began.
I didn’t listen any further. I really felt like asking him to turn round and take us back home. My brain was boiling. What the hell was I doing? This was the most stupid, pointless and irrational thing I’d ever done in my life.
My heart was silent. No prompts coming from that department. Ditto for the interface which hadn’t issued me any tasks nor quests. Why on earth was I going there, then?
Was it because I wanted to see Yanna? Not really.
Did I believe she was in need of my help? Hardly. She wasn’t in some deserted out-of-town location. She was staying in a hotel. And I had this confident feeling that she was perfectly fine.
Was I trying to appease my indefatigable mother-in-law? Yeah right. Part of me was currently on a protest rally, shaking banners in the air and demanding she be granted a personal cauldron in hell.
What was it, then? Was it my desire to help her simply because I could? I concentrated, focusing on my feelings. Nope. Not that, either. Even though this alien software seemed to be breeding altruism in me, uprooting my inbred selfishness, this particular task had too many cons. It was going way too far, compromising my private life and my own goals; it even messed with my sleep.
As we approached the hotel, I finally had an epiphany. I was going there to bring closure to the whole thing. To officially finalize my relationship with Yanna and her family. I still couldn’t forget the morning when I’d been crumbling under the pressure of my freshly-acquired Strength. How they’d arrived without warning and begun rummaging through the place, throwing my own possessions on the floor. I remembered Vlad yelling at me for no reason whatsoever and then leaving as I stood outside like an idiot watching his Jeep whisk Yanna away.
Restart (Level Up Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 38
