Author's note: From this chapter moving forwards, all thoughts will be represented with single quotation marks. Sorry for the past inconveniences.

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Tutorial: Skill books

He summoned the skill window, and immediately noticed a new icon, which was a high-heeled shoe made of glass. This caused him to facepalm.

‘Oh. My. God.’

Clicking on it, a window appeared. The skill was called <The Cinderella Effect>.

“Mana cost: 50.”

“Cooldown: Once per day. Refreshes at Midnight Local Time.”

“Pre-requisites: A dropped shoe within a 4 meter radius of the target.”

“Description: Upon casting this spell on a target, the target will be forced to chase after the shoe’s owner for one *sole* reason; to fit the shoe onto the user’s leg. This spell will last until the target successfully fits a shoe onto the user or the user cancels it. With a strong will (Wisdom), the target can resist this spell. To cast, utter the words: It’s already 12 O’ Clock!”

Riley closed this window, his palm still on his face. He realized his ability to absorb a skill from a book was similar to in-game methods of learning techniques.

This method had completely slipped his mind. He had, in fact, been planning to actually read and train from the books he was looking for.

He never would have guessed that all he needed to do was touch them to fully absorb all the knowledge.

Riley headed off to the martial art section. The only way he could fight against Jake was using his fists. Bashing his face in with his bat would be much more satisfying, but it would also earn him an express ticket to the principal’s office.

As he looked through the martial art section, he found one of the books he was looking for. The moment he grabbed it, a window popped out.

“You have obtained the skill book {Art of Aikido}. Would you like to learn the skills?”

This time, he made sure he looked at the screen properly before clicking “Decline”.

Smiling, he looked around before finding another book, {Basic Punching Techniques}.

Picking this up, he declined the window and proceeded onwards.

After a few minutes of searching, he finally found everything he was looking for. Books in hand, Riley went to the counter.

As he was about to pay, he grabbed his wallet and realized he had deposited everything into his inventory. He whispered “Inventory”.

The inventory window appeared, and he dragged it near to his pocket to make it look like he was pulling the cash from his pocket.

Before paying for the books, Riley felt a small tinge of guilt for stealing the fairy tale story book. However, this was quickly overwritten by the excitement of the prospect of learning new skills.

After paying for the books, he exited the shop. As he walked through the street, he touched one of the books, and a window appeared, saying, “You obtained a skill book {Art of Aikido}. Would you like to learn this skill?”

This time, he smiled and clicked “Accept”.

A new window appeared, saying, “Skill(s) successfully learnt!”

Ignoring this, he summoned the skill window and found three new windows below the <The Cinderella Effect> skill. The first icon showed a person in a matrix-dodging position, the second was a picture of a person flipping another person, and the third was a person performing a sweep with his leg.

He clicked on the icon of the first skill, [Dodge Step].

“Passive skill: This move allows the user to innately dodge attacks by stepping out of the way. 10% + (10% of Dexterity) chance to dodge incoming attacks. Does not go on cooldown if the user manually dodges. Cooldown: 5 seconds.”

Closing this window, he clicked on the second skill, <Counter Flip>.

“Active skill: When attacked by an enemy, the user uses his momentum to flip him. Can use Strength to deal increased damage, increasing cooldown by 3x. Cooldown: 5 seconds.”

‘Boring. What’s next?’

He clicked on the last icon.

“<Leg Sweep> Active Skill: User rapidly moves his leg in a sweeping motion, tripping all enemies in a half-meter radius. Upon usage, the user is immobilised for 1 second. Can be dodged. Cooldown: 10 seconds.”

"<Counter Flip> and <Leg Sweep> seem pretty ordinary. [Dodge Step], however, should be pretty useful in combat."

Leaving his skill window on, he touched the second book. A window appeared.

“You obtained a skill book {Basic Punching Techniques}. Would you like to learn the skill?”

Clicking the “Accept” Button, the “Success” notification appeared.

Looking at his skill window, he found a new skill, with the icon of a punch with a spiky bubble around it. Riley thought that it was vaguely similar to the bubbles that were used in comics to express sound effects.

Clicking on it, he found out that it was called <Power Punch>. It was his first active skill that required mana, other than the <Cinderella Effect>

“By concentrating your strength into a single punch, you boost its speed and damage. Increases damage by 50% + (100% Strength)% and speed by 50% + (100% Dexterity). Mana Cost: 15.”

He smiled.

‘Not bad. The calculations are pretty complicated, but they shouldn't even see it coming.’

Picking the last book from the bag, the window popped up.

“You obtained the skill book {100 tips to Increase your Reflexes}. Would you like to learn this skill?”

Clicking affirmatively, he glanced at the skill window. There was a new icon, this time of a human sprinting, with multiple afterimage effects behind it.

“<Extreme Agility> Toggle skill. When turned on, the user's muscles and nerves are supercharged. User gains +100% body speed (Dexterity), and reacts 100% faster. Costs 40 mana per second.”

‘Holy. This skill is seriously overpowered. Even if it only lasts 5 seconds right now.’

Satisfied, Riley smiled slyly as he walked home. Jake would have to be ready if he planned to fight Riley tomorrow.

“Good Luck Have Fun, Jake.”

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The bell started ringing, signaling the start of the first period.

Riley’s head was slumped on his desk as the bell woke him up. Rubbing his eyes — and trying to shrug off his sleepiness — he felt a pat on his back.

“Been staying up late playing games again, huh?”

Riley looked at Kyle, forcing a smile.

“Yea, haha... “

Riley was glad that he had such an easy bluff up his sleeve. He had actually been awake because he couldn’t sleep. The new abilities that he gained had kept his mind active the entire time.

He started fantasizing all the situations where his abilities would be useful in life. [Dodge Step] was definitely one.

He could imagine himself winning the inter-school dodgeball tournament with [Dodge Step] alone. It would gain him fame, and at the same time, help him train the skill and his dexterity.

Or, he could use [Extreme Agility] and stand a chance to beat his state, or even the national, record for the 100-meter sprint.

Class went on as usual, though Riley wasn’t paying attention at all. He couldn’t wait for recess. If Jake was going to attack him, it would be then, and Riley decided he was going to have plenty of fun with him.

Plus, there was baseball training after school, and Riley couldn’t wait to show off his batting.

The bell rang, and not a moment too soon. Kyle came over and patted him on the shoulder, saying, “Hey, my mum made extra sandwiches, so let’s go have lunch at our usual spot behind the school.”

Riley smiled and said, “Sure, I love your mum’s sandwiches.”

‘Damn it, guess I won’t get to meet Jake today.’

Riley followed Kyle as he led the way. As usual, there was no one around where they usually ate lunch. As they sat down on some stairs, Kyle passed him a packet of sandwiches wrapped in foil.

Riley thanked him and started munching on them. While they were chatting and taking bites out of their food, a group of people turned the corner and headed in their direction.

‘That’s strange. No one usually comes here.’

Riley couldn’t see their faces, but his gut stirred — his carnal instincts overwhelming his human intelligence — He had a very bad feeling about this.

A window appeared.

“Through intuition, the passive skill [Sense Danger] has been learnt!"

‘This is not good… This is not good at all… I can’t get Kyle involved in this.’

Riley stood up, his gaze fixated at the group of students coming towards them. Kyle wondered why Riley stood up and asked: "What’s up?" 

His question was answered; however, as he followed Riley's gaze and saw them.

"Well, well, well… Who do we have here? Just the two bugs that we were looking for."

The group scattered, showing about ten people, with Jake in the center, hands in his pockets, the world’s biggest smirk painted on his face.

"What are you doing here?! Didn't I tell you not to show your face in front of me? Was yesterday's lesson not enough?"

Kyle squeezed his fists, anger showing on his face. Jake snapped his fingers, and four of his minions tackled Kyle to the ground.

Jake lifted his shirt, exposing his right abdomen, revealing a large, purple bruise.

"You'll have lots of these by the time I'm done with you today."

While Kyle was preoccupied, he shouted for Riley to run.

"Get out of here Riley! Go get a teacher! I'll hold these guys back!"

With another snap of his fingers, a few of Jake's minions fanned out around Riley.

Jake approached him, his big figure towering over Riley.

"Too late. You aren't going anywhere, nerd."

Author’s Note:

Patch 5.0
- Bonus chapter released due to unexpected views and ratings.

- Patch 6.0 still due this Sunday

- New skills gained!

- <The Cinderella Effect> gained!

- [Dodge Step] gained!

- <Counter Flip> gained!

- <Leg Sweep> gained!

- <Power Punch> gained!

- <Extreme Agility> gained!

- [Sense Danger] gained!

Name: Riley Petesgeralt

Age: 16

Job: The Roleplayer

Level: 1

HP: 250

MP: 220

EXP: 10/100

Strength: 27

Dexterity: 23

Vitality: 25

Intelligence: 29

Wisdom: 22

Charisma: 25

Luck: 20

Skills:

Roleplayer’s Mind

Virtual Body

Analyze (Level 2)

Blunt Weapon Proficiency (Level 3)

Physical Endurance (Level 1)

The Cinderella Effect (Level 1)

Dodge Step (Level 1)

Counter Flip (Level 1)

Leg Sweep (Level 1)

Power Punch (Level 1)

Extreme Agility (Level 1)

Sense Danger (Level 1)