Cipher observed his status screen:
[Name: Cipher]
[Level: 61 (8,000/51,000)]
[Species: Human]
[Class: Cheater]
[Health: 4000/4000]
[Mana: 10/330]
[Strength: 40]
[Stamina: 40]
[Agility: 40]
[Intelligence: 33]
[Stat Points: 0]
[Cheat Points: 1280]
[Skills (6/9): Mana Manipulation (A), Aura (D), Dagger Throw (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), Aimbot (Max Level)]
[Owned Cards: Merge, Soul & Blank]
He had slain twenty D-rank monsters, leveling up twenty times and gaining forty stat points in the process. From that, he had distributed 12 points to Strength, increasing it from 28 to 40.
Of course, all this had been done gradually to avoid changing his rank or true rank to C-rank and losing out on stat points. He had also assigned 15 points to Stamina, increasing it from 25 to 40.
Another ten went to Agility, increasing it from 30 to 40. As for the remaining 3 points, he had put them all into Intelligence. Now only his Intelligence was below C-rank.
He had also gained 40 cheat points per monster, adding up to a total of 800 points, which when combined with his initial 480 points made 1,280.
At that moment, Selene walked over to him. "We can go now," she said.
Cipher looked up. "Did you talk to him?" he asked. She had gone to tell the hero that they were going back.
"Yeah," she said.
"He was okay with it? I thought someone like him valued honor more than anything and wouldn’t tolerate quitting," Cipher said.
"I just told him that my teammates were tired and he allowed us to retreat." She raised her hands, showing a bunch of potions. "He even gave us some potions as a reward for joining them."
"I guess you need that kind of attitude to be considered a hero," Cipher said. "Anyway, let’s go back."
The team began walking back.
On the opposite side, the hero’s party continued walking forward, still chanting as loudly as ever.
...
Back on Earth, the portal shimmered and twisted for a moment before bringing out Cipher, Selene, Ryker, Dante, and Maya.
Cipher exhaled, then looked at his group. "You three, go freshen up and get some rest. We’ll meet up at the workshop tomorrow. Me and the captain will go file a report on the expedition," he said.
The three nodded and bowed before leaving.
"Why don’t you go get some rest too?" Selene asked.
"I will, after filing the report," he said.
"Just leave it all to me," she said.
"No, I’ll help," he said.
Selene placed a hand on his shoulder. "No need. Even if you’re not tired, I am. I don’t think I have the strength to teach you how to file a report right now. Let me just handle it, and I can teach you next time."
Cipher understood her meaning and decided to give in. "Alright. Thank you," he said.
"No need to thank me. It’s my job, after all." She paused. "Now go."
"Alright," Cipher replied, bowing slightly before leaving.
When he arrived at his apartment building, he took a shower and instantly passed out on his bed.
...
The next day, Cipher got up from bed and took a quick shower.
He finally felt alive once again. The events from the day before had left him completely worn out.
He sat at his study desk and opened up his Cheat Shop.
At the shop was a Patch card and a Class card. For the packs, there was a Mega Code Pack and a Mod Pack. The voucher was "Antimatter" - it gave an additional skill slot.
Cipher didn’t think too much of it. He already had quite a number of skill slots open so it wasn’t all that useful for him.
He bought the Class card.
He had been eyeing this for a while now - he needed it for his Assassinate skill. Although he wasn’t sure if he should commit to the assassin build since he would need quite a lot of resources to upgrade E-rank Assassinate all the way to C-rank.
Well, now that he had bought the Class card, he supposed he had to commit to it.
He then used another 300 points to open up the Mega Code Pack.
From what he had seen so far, there were only five code cards: Merge, Commit, Patch, Delete, and Fork. This meant that if he opened a Mega Code Pack - which allowed him to select two out of five code cards - he should be able to get the two code cards he wanted.
And just like he had thought, when he opened the Mega Code Pack, he got the five code cards. He chose Fork and Merge without hesitation.
Now he could finally complete the Mana Recovery upgrade.
He wondered if he should reroll for a Blank card and make Mana Recovery negative, but after some thought, he decided against it. There was no need to waste points on this when he could just apply an edition later when it came up naturally.
He used the Fork card and created a duplicate E+ Mana Recovery skill. He then merged the two using the Merge card.
[Skill: Mana Recovery (D-Rank)]
[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.]
It worked.
Although the description was still the same, the rank had changed.
Now instead of counting 190 mana as the max, it used 330 instead and would later cap at 390. Now he recovered 1.65 mana every ten seconds out of combat instead of the previous 0.95. With his current mana, it should take about half an hour to recover completely.
With that out of the way, he returned his attention to the Cheat Shop. He had leveled up two major levels, meaning he could roll for two more cheats.
He pressed the roll button.
[Congratulations! ESP (Level 1) has advanced to ESP (Level 2)]
[Cheat: ESP (Level 2)]
[Type: Passive]
[Description: Extrasensory Perception. Sense and visualize surroundings beyond normal perception. Creates a mental map of the environment, detecting objects, creatures, and structures within range. Current range: 50 meters.]
"I actually rolled a duplicate," Cipher thought.
Although the increased range improved the efficiency of the skill, he really hoped he hadn’t hit the limit of cheats and would start receiving duplicates. He pressed the button again, and his suspicions were cleared.
[Congratulations! You have awakened a cheat]
[Cheat: Fly Mode (Max Level)]
[Type: Toggle]
[Description: Grants the ability to fly freely through the air. Toggle on to levitate and move in any direction at will. Flight speed scales with Agility stat.]
[Note: There is no mana cost for this cheat. However, flying consumes stamina at the same rate as walking the equivalent distance on the ground. Flying at higher speeds will tire you out proportionally faster, just as running tires you more than walking.]
...
Author’s Corner
Me wrote these 2 when half asleep, if you spot any errors, comment and me fix them if I’m still alive.