Chapter 48: [Recollection!]

[Location: True Skill Emporium Main Office!]Adrian/Crow left the place after buying the three B-Grade Skill Cards with him. Though he couldn't sign any form of contract with the shop owner, he was still guided through various processes of exchanges. As long as he provided enough cards, the shop would always be open for him to sell any high Grade Cards he wanted to sell.

There were two reasons why he didn't sign any contract. First was that the contract bound him to provide them with at least 10 B-Grade Skill Cards, 2 A-Grade Skill Cards or 1 S-Grade Skill Card.

The second was that he needed to provide information about his power levels and such so that they may assign an equal level of benefit to him, for example giving him free skill cards and items that would be helpful in his journey.

While the first one bound him to finish collecting additional cards, the second one revealed the extent of his powers. Both of them were something that he found erratic. Even though he was there to get some skill cards, he was primarily there to get some information. And since he already had enough to sustain through the next three tutorials, he decided to step back from getting too much involved.

Adrian then left thanking the [Administrator], before the five of them were left all by themselves. And as soon as Adrian stepped out of the shop, the admin, Clair looked at Annikan before speaking,

"Your skills have dulled Annikan."

Annikan sighed as he didn't retort. He simply kept his head down before slowly looking at the Admin, Clair.

"Was there really nothing special about him?" Annikan asked with slight hope, as he knew that there must be a reason for his special skill [Intuition!] activated when he first met Crow. It was a skill that activates only when something out of the ordinary occurs.

It wasn't like there were never instances where he finds people who weren't up to par, just that the demeanor that Crow showed made him believe that there was something special about him. Annikan couldn't pin point exactly what but he was pretty sure there was at least something.

But all his hopes were crushed with the next words that Clair spoke…

"Let me recall again. He has 9 skill slot filled with the average being D-Grade. He sure has a lot of C-Grade items, but that would only help him last against D-Grade mindless monsters for a small period of time," Clair said as she had analyzed Adrian partially.

Her skills never gave a direct answer, but showed her partial intel like the total number of items and skills a person has. Their average grade, and a bit about the base physical stats the target has.

"It's that bad, huh?" He sighed as he truly missed this time. Normally he would bring people with huge worth, but seems like he truly wasted the [Admin's] time this time.

"I can see how he got a million points and above. Given his stealth cloak on the top of those mindless monsters in the first tutorial, it's not that hard to collect points. Though I doubt he would survive even a day in the next tutorial. The monsters there don't just jump and attack, you know?" Clair spoke before she looked at the list of people that she got from her investigators.

It was a list containing the name of the people that have appeared in the safe zone in the last 24 hours.

"Well seems like, even I got excited for no reason," Mr. Alphonso spoke as he stood up before continuing,

"But one thing I must say. He didn't appear to be weak. I wonder about the grade of his [Gift]."

Mr. Alphonso left in silence before Annikan stood up as well. Bowing to the admin once again, he too left as he had more work piled up in the time he was here.

And left alone with the two staff ladies present there, the Admin looked at the names a couple of times. Her eyes were particularly searching for a specific name. A name that should have been there but wasn't.

"It's not here," she spoke as she looked at one of her staff members as she added,"the name Crowley isn't here."

"Hmmm? I had my skill active the whole time. He wasn't lying," the staff girl with the skill [Truth Detection!] spoke with a bit of surprise, while making Clair narrow her eyes at the area where Crow was sitting before.

…

[Adrian's POV!]

[Name: Adrian John Rodriguez

Nickname: Crow!]

'Who knew you can add a nickname for mere 25 GM points. Ain't that convenient?' I smiled as I looked briefly at the system before observing the three skills that I bought from the shop.

At first, I thought of saving the [Skill Upgrade Coupon!] for later when I get another B-Grade skill, but then on second thought, I should just use it now. After all, I need it now more than ever.

And the skill that I used it on was,

[Skill: Illusion

Grade: B

Effect: Create a near perfect Illusion based on your Wisdom Stat and extent of creation!

Restrictions:

-The Illusion is directly dependent upon the creation capabilities of the user!

-The Illusion is directly dependent upon the Wisdom of the User!

-The Illusion is inversely dependent upon the volume of creation!]

[You have upgraded the Skill: Illusion!]

[Skill: Illusion

Grade: A

Effect: Create a near perfect Illusion based on your Wisdom Stat!

Restrictions:

-The Illusion is directly dependent upon the creation capabilities of the user!

-The Illusion is directly dependent upon the Wisdom of the User!]

The last restriction that made the skill depend upon the volume was removed as the grade increased. It made me wonder if the S-Grade also removed the dependence of Wisdom Stat? That would be really overpowered.

And with that, I tried creating an illusion. Starting with a blue coloured small butterfly on my hands. It seemed to be made of a blue paper that slowly gained depth as I concentrated.

"It's itchy," I spoke out as it was getting harder the more I was trying to define the shape of the butterfly. Though after I adjusted for a few seconds, it became easier to control that stationary butterfly.

"Fly," I mumbled as I imagined it to fly in the air, and so it did, attracting the attention of nearby people. Slowly flying in the air, I tried checking the distance of how far I could send it, and after a few minutes when it was still flying high up in the air, I was satisfied as I erased its presence.

The next step was masking my own presence.

Surprisingly it was easier than creating the butterfly, as I just imagined myself to be invisible to everyone present around me. The illusion was nearly perfect as it even masked my sound and smell, before I began walking forward, this time towards the central area where the richest of the richest people stayed.

My target this time was the central towering golden building, which was probably the tallest building in the entire city. As for the reason why I wanted to visit the place was because of increasing the grade of my [Gift!].

A city that stretches many kilometers and the area beyond that, surely I won't miss such a chance to increase the experience of my gift, would I? Even though I can't look at all of it at once, I don't need to exactly see it in detail to map the entire area. A rough idea of the map should be able to increase my [Gift] by a huge margin.

"I am a little hungry too. Let's hope that place has some good diners available as well," I thought as I felt my stomach growling before I began moving towards the central tower.

While I was moving, I checked if I could store more skills given my special gamemaster privilege but sadly…

[All your skill slots are filled! You can't store any more skills!]

This made me sigh before I tried something.

[Would you like to create an Extra Skill Slot for 10,000 GM Points?]

"Oh! That's cheap," I smiled before pressing yes and then trying to increase the slot once more…

[Would you like to create an Extra Skill Slot for 100,000 GM Points?]

"…"

I pressed [No!] before giving it out a loud sigh. Seems like I need to sort out the direction of my skill category and how I need to utilize them.

[Would you like to remove [Cooking] Skill for 200,000 GM Points?]

'Hmmm? 'Remove' and not 'sell'? 'For' and not 'in exchange for'?' I noticed that I can't sell the skill. Hence, I began checking a few things with all the skills and items that I have, before I realized something crucial.

I can't sell skills or items that I haven't created. And they can only be removed by using more GM points.

'I guess it would be too broken if I could really do that,' not minding much, I closed down the [System] windows before increasing the pace of my steps.

There were many things that I wanted to try out, but I wanted to eat something. I was hungry. And hence I went to the location as fast as possible before moving to the nearest restaurant I could find there.

… Sёarch* The nôᴠel Fire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

[Near the Market Area: Alice and Mark's Party!]

The group included Mark, Alice and Alex on one side. Tristan, Julia and Reyan on the other side. And the rest of the girls from Julia's party standing in circles around them.

"So basically, nobody died for real and the people who survived the tutorial have a chance to gain even more without worrying about death?" Alex asked as he observed Julia's serious face.

Julia nodded as that summed up most of the things she talked about with Alice's group.

Even though it was mostly the story of Tristan and Reyan, explaining about what happened after they died, it gave various necessary intel that would help the group understand what's going on in the safe zone and what we are actually going through with the tutorials and all.

"All right. Thank you for providing us with the information Julia," and Alice stood up as she finished her plate before she started walking out of the shop.

"Alice?" Julia was confused for a few seconds before she momentarily stopped.

Without turning, she added," Mark. Alex. Let's go. We need to look for the fourth member of our team."

And then Julia's eyes widened as she recalled again, the main reason she ran all the way to Alice here. She was going to ask for her help to look for the guy who saved her life before.