CHAPTER 1

KAI POV:

[ DUNGEON COMPLETED | REWARDS = 50,000 GOLD + 65,000 XP]

(100 Gold = $1 USD)  

I hopped out of the dungeon exit portal and quickly departed before the party I went in with could catch me. Why am I running from them? Aren’t they, my party? Well, they are but it was just temporary. I contributed nothing to the raid. Too much effort you know, so I instead leeched. Doing absolutely nothing, while those losers did all the work.

“HEY KAI, COME HERE!!!”

Shit, these guys aren’t as slow as I thought. I kept running and tried to outrun them by changing my direction multiple times, passing through multiple buildings and floors. I couldn’t shake them. Tch, they sure do have a keen eye. Guess it’s plan B.

[ YOU ACTIVATE THE SKILL DECEPTION ]

I paused and stopped running.

“Hey Kai, we just want to talk…” said one of the party members rather suspiciously.

“Sure…” I slowly turned around and began to walk towards them.

“So, what’s up?” I asked them.

“You leeched man, that isn’t cool…” They began to point their weapons at me and encircled me to ensure I didn’t try anything funny.

“Sigh.”

“What do you mean? I contributed, I was damaging the boss, do you guys not remember?”

Please, let this work, I’ve never used deception on a full group of 7 before. This is a hit or miss chance. I’m screwed if this doesn’t work. There was a moment of silence and suspense filled the air.

The party’s leader let out a loud laugh before covering his face. Did it work?

“Seems like we are at fault, I apologize Kai – we’ll be on our way.”

Success! The group began to depart as I let out a loud sigh of relief. One of the members of the party turned their head back and began glaring at me. Why we’re they glaring? Do they know? Did Deception not work? Okay, I’m overthinking, he probably just doesn’t like me. I mean a lot of people don’t like me so I wouldn’t put it past me.

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Man another success, honestly, it’s just win after win after win. The class I specialise in isn’t great, but it sure does have its benefits. At least if you can use it correctly like me of course. Most other people who try to level the Mischievousness Stat often do it entirely incorrectly and end up getting arrested or something, they lack the intelligence I have. This explains the huge gap in the Mischievousness skill leaderboard, there’s me sitting at the top with level 102 and then there’s just a huge gap with the 2^nd ranked person who’s like level 30. I really laugh every time I see it.

I decided to specialise in it due to the high rewards but that in mind it is also high risk. I’m pretty sure I’m at a high enough level that the risks aren’t really a thing anymore. I do say it’s not great but that’s only because everything’s so secret, sometimes I just want to be in the spotlight, fame,  under the flashlights, news, you know… Only those who specialise in combat stats get recognition and the problem is although people know I am the 1^st ranked worldwide in mischievousness, they don’t know it’s really me, the leaderboard just shows a name… Of course, I could always go out and say that it’s me but then that would cause a lot of trouble. I know that in some countries in the east like Japan, Taiwan, and Korea it’s illegal to even level the Mischievousness stat and for that reason, there’s literally no one from those places in the leaderboard or have any XP in the stat as it is so heavily looked down upon. That said, some of the ways to level the stat are illegal. Heists, robbery, arson… basically anything that lends you a criminal record will probably level the Mischievousness stat.

But there are also more subtle, less ‘illegal’ ways of levelling which is what I favour. These methods involve leeching and kill stealing. By far these methods are the most profitable from what I know. I’ve probably made around $50,000,000. Maybe that’s an exaggeration but you get the point. I make bank.

Mischievousness is a universal stat, so everyone has it along with the other stats, but you’re probably asking me: why don’t I just specialise in a combat stat if I want recognition?

Well, you see that’s the problem, I can’t level any combat stats because I don’t have a combat class! Combat skills are specific to classes, for example, the tank class alongside the usual universal combat stats like health, strength, agility, and intelligence will gain the stat defence which gives them special skills that help with levelling. A Melee DPS (Damage per second) class would gain the melee stat which gives them skills that allow them to deal more damage thus allowing for faster levelling.

So what about the universal combat stats? Do I not have them?

Well, I do, it’s just difficult to level them without an actual class that allows me to attack properly. As I don’t have any skills, I have to rely on basic attacks that do fuck all damage.

Hence, I specialise in Mischievousness. Plus I get money.