A while later, Cipher and the others were still walking along with the group.
"Strange. It hasn’t been that long since we fought, and I’ve already fully recovered," Dante said.
Cipher thought it was strange too. He had noticed this from the people accompanying the hero. Although some of them were fighters, the others were just normal F-rank people, yet they could walk such a long distance while chanting tirelessly.
"This has always happened when raiding this world, so I’ve always assumed it was the hero’s skill," Selene said. "Cipher, do you see something?" she asked.
Cipher nodded. "It’s indeed a skill of the hero," he replied.
He checked the hero’s skills and noticed where it was coming from. It was the C-rank Leadership skill. It recovered the party’s morale and healed them, scaling with how large the crowd was.
It was a decent skill, though he didn’t think it would work well for their team since they didn’t move in large crowds like this. It also didn’t recover mana - just stamina. So in the end, it was only useful for non-awakened.
At that moment, a huge tree fell before them.
A massive wolf jumped onto the fallen tree. "Hero, your journey ends here," the wolf spoke.
"I’ve heard that before," the hero said, raising his sword.
The wolf let out a loud howl, and instantly, the entire group was surrounded by hundreds of wolves.
"This is the second checkpoint. The monsters are still mostly E-rank and F-rank, but there are some D-ranks, so be careful," Selene said.
Cipher retrieved his sword from his inventory. He observed the monsters around them - they were mostly E-rank and F-rank with some D-ranks, just like Selene had said. Although D-ranks were good for leveling up quickly, he still decided to just target E-rank monsters so he would be able to open the shop every level up to look for the Fork card.
...
A while later, after the battle was over, Cipher was checking his system as they continued moving:
[Name: Cipher]
[Level: 41 (8,000/41,000)]
[Species: Human]
[Class: Cheater]
[Health: 2500/2500]
[Mana: 100/250]
[Strength: 25]
[Stamina: 25]
[Agility: 25]
[Intelligence: 25]
[Stat Points: 13]
1
[Cheat Points: 480]
[Skills (5/9): Mana Manipulation (A), Aura (D), Voice Transmission (D), Assassinate (E), Mana Recovery (E)]
[Cheats: Cheat Shop (Max Level), Absolute Appraisal (Max Level), Infinite Inventory (Level 1), ESP (Level 1)]
[Owned Cards: Fork, Merge (2), Soul & Blank]
In the fight, he had slain eighteen E-rank monsters and leveled up nine times, gaining 18 stat points in the process.
To prevent his true rank from changing to C, Cipher had distributed five points to Stamina, bringing it to 25 like the rest of his other stats, and remaining with 13 free stats which he decided to distribute now. He put five into Intelligence, five into Agility, and three into Strength, bringing his Strength to 28 and his Intelligence and Agility to 30.
He had also gained 360 cheat points during the fight, which when combined with his initial 220 totaled 580. He had spent a hundred points to buy the Fork card, and now he had 480 remaining points.
He decided to first check his Cheat Shop for the new cheat he had gotten. In the shop, he noticed something he had missed before - the voucher had refreshed. The current voucher was "Reroll Surplus," which reduced the cost for rerolling the shop by ten points permanently.
Although it seemed useful, he still couldn’t afford it.
Even if he saved his points, the amount of points he could get before the voucher was refreshed wouldn’t be enough to buy it, so he was ignoring vouchers for now. To begin planning for vouchers, he needed to be making at least a hundred points per level up, which was still a long way to go.
Cipher clicked the roll button:
[Congratulations! You have awakened a cheat]
[Cheat: Aimbot (Max Level)]
[Type: Passive]
[Description: Allows the user to mark targets when throwing or firing projectiles. Once marked, the user’s aim is automatically adjusted to ensure the projectile hits the target.]
[Note: This cheat guarantees perfect aim, but the projectile is still subject to external factors such as interception, environmental obstacles, or the target’s defensive abilities. It ensures accuracy, not guaranteed damage.]
After reading the description of the cheat, Cipher was impressed. Although the catch nerfed the ability a little, it was still pretty nice to have perfect aim. He wondered if he should visit Iris for a sidearm just in case.
Well, he would think about it later.
He navigated to the Owned section of the Cheat Shop. It was finally the moment of truth now that he had collected all the necessary cards. He first used the Fork card, and instantly, another Mana Recovery skill appeared. It was just like the first one, with no difference whatsoever.
Well, there was a little difference. Before, he gained 0.95 mana every ten seconds he was out of combat, but this time, he was gaining 1.9. It was just like he had speculated - each skill was independent from the original, with its own counter and cooldown.
But as much as he wanted to enjoy the benefits, he needed to confirm his hypothesis first. He used the Merge card, merging the two duplicate skills.
[Skill: Mana Recovery (E+)]
[Type: Passive]
[Cost: 0 Mana]
[Description: Regenerate 0.5% of maximum mana every 10 seconds while out of combat or 1% of maximum mana every 10 seconds while sleeping.]
The description was still the same. It hadn’t advanced. But before he could be disappointed, he noticed something. Although the description hadn’t changed, the rank had - from the previous E-rank to now E+. This designation meant that the skill had advanced at least a little.
But this also made him worried. Did this mean he needed to merge two E+ ranked skills to be able to advance? That would require another two Fork and Merge cards. This was so expensive.
But he paused, remembering how the Fork card worked. It made an exact duplicate, even duplicating editions. This meant that it would also duplicate the ’+’ designation if used a second time on this skill. Meaning he just needed a single Fork and Merge, and he could advance the skill.
At least in theory.