《Everything, All at Once (A multifaceted LitRPG)》 Prologue, fourth times the charm? ¡°Where did it all go wrong?¡± Slie thought to himself. Time felt really slow right now, he could see every piece of rubble and debri falling with him. It wasn¡¯t that he did anything wrong, he was just in the wrong place and ended up going down with the top of the building, a four story fall he had no suspicion would kill him. He thought about his life and all the things he was going to be, all the things he did. It only took a couple seconds for the fall to happen but to him, it felt like a couple minutes and in that time he felt melancholic as he accepted his death. As he saw the ground get closer, he braced for impact and just before he hit the ground, he felt some part of him leave his body. Slyi¡¯s eyes darted around the cave. He could see his dead comrades, turned into an almost fine past of blood and metal by the huge ogre. He could see the goblins laughing and taunting him while he was lying there, half awake. Within himself, near his mana core he felt his soul merge with an outside influence. His brain felt overloaded by a rush of information, and his vision starting blurring, and he saw transparent text float in front of him saying ¡°Reincarnation Successful. Welcome to the Great Sage System¡±. It came with other messages, but there was no time to read them before the large wooden club of the ogre was flying towards his head. Right before impact, Slyi felt something within him happen and felt his soul exit his body. Xye was finally proud, he had been cultivating for five gruelling years and today was finally the day he was getting promoted to inner disciple. He was better than most of his peers, and he wouldn¡¯t deny it was thanks to his perfect memory giving him an edge over everyone else. It was especially useful when the recruits were allowed into the library of arts to select a martial art. Each student got five hours to select a martial art, but Xye spent almost all the time just reading all he could, and now he could recall all of them in perfect detail. It was a proud day for him, being one of the four students being promoted to inner disciple, and it was going to be a great celebration until the ground was shaken by the wind. Looking up, Xye and the others saw a large, white dragon descending upon them. It was fast, he didn¡¯t have time to react before it hit the ground in front of him. A roar from the dragon knocked most people except the sect elders down, and Xye was starting to lose his consciousness as the seconds went by. The sect elders tried jumping into action, and Xye felt a bizarre feeling of being invaded in his inner being. Something became a part of him, and he saw transparent floating characters telling him ¡°Congratulations on being reincarnated! You have access to the amazing cultivation system!¡±. Xye had no idea what it meant, and the large beam of concentrated fire coming from the dragons mouth didn¡¯t give him much time to think about what it did mean. Before the fire hit him, he felt his inner being leave his outer body and transport elsewhere. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Slye was having a bad day as usual. A little worse than usual, he was used to being beaten up by bullies, but today they may have went a little far. Usually he just ended up bruised, but today some of his bones were definitely bleeding, and his clothes look as if they were washed in his blood. Slye grew up an orphan, his parents died in a subjugation quest against a monster early in his life. He ended up having to be a loot jockey for a small hunting team. It was dangerous work, since blood usually attracted more monsters so you had to harvest the valuables fast and leave, and the team you were with usually didn¡¯t protect you much either. The pay was worse than other jobs too, and it was always justified by saying ¡°but you get skills and experience.¡±, which is true. Slye¡¯s harvesting did hit rank D, which wasn¡¯t much but it was something. Harvesting didn¡¯t help heal though, and Slye needed healing, or some sort of help. Instead of help, he felt a part of himself he didn¡¯t even know existed yet violently raided and settled into, and the shock and headache caused by it caused Slye to lose his battle with unconsciousness, fainting on the cold concrete of the back alley. Slye awoke in a weirdly bright void, and with him were three others. They looked like him, but slightly different, one was a little taller with nicer clothes, one had long black hair in a ponytail and robe-looking clothes with a sword on his waist. The last one looked like him but had a large pointy hat on with blue robes. ¡°Who are you?¡± They said, all in chorus. Chapter 1 Four of them stood in the void, looking at each other after they talked all at the same time. Xye, the one with long black hair and a dark blue robe, opened his eyes in surprise and announced, "I think this is the inner being, which means we all either share the same inner being, or we have somehow merged ours." Slyi, the wizard was still very confused but replied "Inner being? does that have something to do with the sou-". A spectral light flew out from the chest of all four of the Slye''s there, and they all ended up knocked over due to the violent burst. None of them knew exactly what was happening, but Slie and Slyi had the best guess as the first two who entered this cycle. When Slie''s soul first got into Slyi, they both felt themselves merge into eachother, but the process didn''t complete before Slyi died to the ogre and they were summoned to Xye. It then happened once again, this time with three of them that couldn''t complete the merging process before they died again and were sent to yet another body. Slye is where they currently resided, and though he was close to death he didn''t die, unlike the others. Now the body had to go through merging four souls at once to make up for how they couldn''t merge one at a time before. It felt extremely painful for each of them and they all felt extreme pain in their chest and head that ended up causing them each to faint. While they were unconscious, the lights in the soulspace were fighting each other, all four lights were constantly shifting, changing colors, and taking over one another trying to find a balance. They fought for what seemed like hours until it started to die down, and in the end there was a sphere of essence. It was split into what seemed like five sections, there was a golden light in the center, and there were four colors making sections of a shell that surrounded it. Blue soul essence was what Slie''s turned into, most likely because while he was on Earth he never really did anything on his own. He was like water and would ebb and flow without doing much. This was followed by a red section, being Slyi''s most likely because he was a fire magician. Xye''s soul essence was purple, most likely because that was the color his chi materialized as when he used martial arts. Slye''s was white since he didn''t have much going for him in terms of talent or skills, but he did have some determination to be something and prove everyone wrong. Waking up, Slye realized something was very, very wrong. His body told him it must have been days that passed judging by how hungry he was, but that wasn''t the most important thing to him right now. He thought differently, his brain felt re-invigorated and after some thought he could decipher what happened. Their souls successfully merged together, but due to the amount of them there were they couldn''t all merge into one. It seemed like each soul contributed to creating a soul with the memories of all of them, and personality traits that were shared between them all. That was the soul that was controlling the body, while the rest of them were within the soulspace. Each of them were themselves and the new soul, and it made itself very apparent since he felt like he could split his mind and think multiple times at once. Instinctively, he could do it and only noticed when he realized how he was focusing on his surroundings, body, and what happened all at the same time each with a train of thought to follow. While thinking of what to do, he felt conflicted. One part of him wanted to start magic immediately, and another wanted him to start meditating and do martial arts. There was the part that wanted to continue leveling up and get new skills too, and they all couldn''t decide what was the right course of action until they remembered what happened before they passed out. Tunnel vision started clearing, and they could see transparent text in front of them. Welcome to the Great Sage System Welcome to the Amazing Cultivation SystemYou might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Warning: Your status has undergone forceful changes Slie''s memories came forward, those webnovels, manga, and manwha about being transmigrated to another world after death and getting a system or skills seems to have come true. Three times in a row. Slyi was from a fantastical world with magic and swords, and he seems to have gotten a system pertaining to becoming a sage due to merging with his body. Xye was from a cultivation world, and they got a cultivation system because of it. Slye was from a world that was a mix of fantasy and futuristic. Everyone also had a status, it wasn''t special but the introduction of reincarnated souls probably gave some new strong skills if the webnovels Slie read were correct. Slye''s world was the closest to Earth than any of the other ones, with society being for the most part in futuristic mega-cities but outside of the cities there was monsters and dungeons, treasure to find and that sort of thing. Going down the line, Slye decided to focus on the messages. When he focused on the Great Sage System message, it opened a large transparent panel. Welcome to the Great Sage System! Your soul was brought to another realm into a dying body similar to yours for another chance at life! You have activated this system, which will give you quests, rewards, and more to help you become one of the greatest wizards of all time. You have gotten the skill {Affinityless Mana} and {Sagacity (locked)} You can find details on your status page by thinking "Status"! Next Slye focused on the cultivation system. Welcome to the Amazing Cultivation System You have died, but your inner being was brought to another body that matched you almost perfectly. This system was activated by this, and will help you become a heaven-defying immortal! To start, you have been given {Green Lotus Cultivation Technique} to kick-start your journey, good luck! to find your current skills and status, just think "Status"! This was very awkward. The native status of this world was also activated by thinking "Status". When Slye thought the word status, three different screens appeared in front of him.
Great Sage System Mana -/- Quests (!)
Skills: Affinityless Mana Sagacity {Locked} Shop Sage Points: 0
Amazing Cultivation System Quests (!)
Techniques: Green Lotus Cultivation
Cultivation level: -----------------------
Shop Cultivation Coins: 0
Status Level 3 HP: 1/80 Stamina: 110/110
Strength: 10 Dexterity: 10 Intelligence: 220 Vitality: 9 Endurance: 11
Class 1: -------- Class 2: Blacksmith Class 3: -------- Class 4: -------- Class 5: --------
Skills You have new skills! check the skill tab! Free Attribute Points: 2
And so, he checked the skills tab. Skills: Blacksmithing | rank F | Work in the forge with metal and ores to create weapons, armors and more. Harvesting | rank D | Harvest creatures for their pelts, bones, flesh, and more. Pentuple Mind | Rank SSS | Through some cosmic occurrence, your mind can think five times at once and your intelligence is increased by 10% Chapter 2 Looking at his stats, intelligence stood out like a sore thumb. The average stat in this world was 10, and his intelligence soared over 200, which put him ahead of most people. Stats could be increased either by doing something to raise them yourself, or by using free points gained from leveling up. To increase strength you would lift weights, endurance would be jogging, intelligence would be reading books and expanding your knowledge, and was a measure of how much you knew and how well you could apply it. His intelligence being that high was most likely due to the fact that two of the five him were in some kind of college, with the Earth Slye being almost done his degree, giving him a lot of knowledge. The Cultivating Slye also had a perfect memory, which was something his new body inherited, giving him lots of points because his knowledge-recalling ability must have seen a tremendous increase due to it. There were some other factors, but having a combined lifetime of experience from different worlds gave him a huge boost to intelligence. Slye could feel the increase too, his mind felt much faster than before, and his thoughts much more clear. His thoughts told him to check his quests, to which he did before he almost forgot. {Sage Quest} {Successfully cast a Rank 1 Spell} {Reward: Access to Beginners Grimoire} ---------------------- [Cultivation Quest] [Reach Peak Body-Strengthening Realm} {Reward: 1x Ginseng Chi Pill. 1x Random Martial Art} Both these quests had something in common, they were the beginner steps in the paths of both being a martial artist and being a magician. To start working with chi as a martial artist, you had to first overcome the Body-Strengthening realm, where you would rid imperfections in your body with chi and give yourself a stable chi base to be able to handle your own chi. Magicians were almost a step ahead, instead of having to rid their body of imperfections they just had to cycle mana into and out of themselves until they develop a mana base. The problem is you need to cycle mana of your affinity, and most people don''t have affinities, or don''t know theirs and will be severely injured or die if they even try cycling mana they cant attune to. That is where Affinity-less mana is a cheat, there is said to be only three magicians in existance who ever had it, and each one of them became a great sage or equivalent. It is because people who''s mana affinity is affinity-less mana can cycle and use any kind of mana, and myths even say that can turn mana from any element to another. The information on this kind of mana is extremely restricted, if there is even any information at all. He thought back to his status too, and the fact that he had five class slots. According to everything he knows, every person only has one class. When he thought that, it made sense since his status confirmed he had five beings within him who could think, he was given one class per person he is. Slye still didn''t know how to refer to himself, as a person or a collective. Maybe a collective of himself? A self contained hive-mind? Hunger pain snapped him back to reality. It has been days since he has eaten, and he has been lying behind a dumpster in some dank alley, its a miracle he didn''t end up dying (again). He should go back home, he could smell the garbage all over himself and he could tell that if we even tried entering the school grounds how he currently was, he would probably end up in jail for the night. The school he went to was some prestigious rich school, it''s what his parents saved for and what their life insurance was set to pay for after they died. They knew being hunters was a dangerous job, and they cared a lot about their son even if they couldn''t see him much and that was their way to keep him safe in case they were gone. It just sucks he couldn''t get on-campus housing, so he has to take shady porting jobs to pay his own rent. It was luckily only a ten minute walk to his apartment through the high-rise buildings plastered with advertisements, neon signs, and spray paint. Not many people had horrible reactions to him, impoverished people weren''t exactly uncommon but seeing a student walking through crowds covered in filth did cause some people to stare.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Slye got to his apartment, it was in a less-than stellar area than town, and when he reached the front door he punched in the code to unlock the door and walked into the apartment. Going up to floor three, he got to his door and took the keys out of his jacket and went inside. It was exactly as he left it, nothing out of place and it barely looked like he was gone for more than a couple hours. The first thing he did was take off his jacket and hang it up, then he walked over to the fridge and opened it. "Fuck" was all he thought seeing the inside of the fridge. The day he almost died was also grocery day, all he had left in the fridge was a quarter gallon of milk and a green onion. He took the green onion and ended up taking one of his last packs of instant ramen and used the onion to give the ramen a gourmet twist. He almost smiled at his joke while eating, the green onion almost added no flavor and it was as bland as it usually was. It was atleast enough to stop his stomachs incessant rumbling, so the threw the styrofoam noodle cup into the garbage and threw his clothes into the laundry basket. Slye grabbed a bath robe out of the closet and took a shower. He came out and put the bathrobe on before looking at himself in the mirror. He didn''t look exactly like how he did before, his face was a little more defined and he looked more handsome than he did before. He looked like a mix of all of the hims and his hair became a long and silky black. Slye stopped admiring himself and took the laundry and a couple coins down to the laundromat, he was still in his robe but didn''t care since most people wouldn''t judge him anyway. He inserted his laundry, then his coin, and closed his eyes. With the instincts of his past life, he started meditating and focusing on chi around him. Feeling the chi around him, Slye could tell this body had a long way to go, it clearly hasn''t seen chi before and had a hard time seeing it, like it was obscured by a thick layer of fog. What was surprising was that this world even had chi at all, Slye subconsciously thought that this world would most likely be devoid of chi and mana in place of the system everyone had by default, but it seemed like at least chi coexisted with the system here. Green Lotus Cultivation given to him by the system was implanted in his mind, and he would most likely use it later but in martial arts the body-strengthening was the same for everyone. It was hard to specialize your technique when you couldn''t handle chi, after all. Almost in a trance, Slye started the beginner steps for anyone on the cultivation path, he just breathed slowly in and out. Being able to sense chi was the beginner stage of body-strengthening stage. Next was intermediate-tier, and It would take a while but if you meditated and breathed while sensing the chi, slowly more and more would start entering and exiting your body with every breath. The late stage was when you learned how to control the chi within you and used it to get rid of all the imperfections within yourself. Imperfections was a broad term, but it just meant any injuries, scars, or negative chi that was held within your body. It was also popular since you could modify your own body becoming a few inches taller, more muscly, etc, etc, if you became proficient enough with moving your inner chi. Once you were out of body-strengthening, it was impossible to do any more changed without help of specialized techniques from that point forward though, so a few people who invested heavily into vanity would take a little longer in that stage figuring out how to make themselves look best. The fog in his chi sensing started becoming thinner slightly, and Slye was taken out of his meditation by the beeping of the laundry machine. He slowly opened his eyes and saw that someone else was in the laundromat, despite it being around one or two am. What startled him more was the fact that she was wearing the same uniform as the school he went to, and she didn''t have any laundry with her. Slye turned his back and started loading his laundry into the dryer when he heard her say in a strict tone, "Are you done yet?". "Done? With what?" he replied to her, without even turning around to see her. "Oh I don''t know, your deep breathing, your laundry, skipping school? any of that ring a bell?." She said, in a meaner tone than before. Slye recognized her, she was the class president and was also the girlfriend of the bully who kept beating the shit out of him. "What''s your problem? Maybe if your boyfriend didn''t try killing me I would be in school, I''ll be there tomorrow so just leave me alone. I don''t want salt rubbed in my wounds after I was left to die for a couple days." he replied in a stricter tone. Frustrated, she replied "I''m the class president and it was left to me to give you a warning for skipping school, I had to come down to your poor neighborhood and this is how you treat me? No wonder you have no friends, and just wait till Bruce hears about how you are treating me.". Bruce was the bully, and at this point Slye didn''t really care for him. From today on he was a new person. Maybe not a new person but he didn''t feel like having that conversation with himself again. Slye didn''t reply and was met by her leaving the laundromat stomping all the way. Starting the dryer, Slye saw the clock that said 12:30, it was past midnight and school usually started around 9. It was going to be a sleepless night if he wanted to make it, but honestly what would one more missed day be? One more droplet doesn''t make a difference in a rainstorm. Chapter 3 Slye meditated for the next hour until his clothes were dry, and no one else entered the laundromat in this time. He took his clothes and went home. Putting his pants away, he felt his wallet and took it out just to see it was devoid of any cash. There wasn''t much in there to begin with, but it must have been taken while he was unconscious. Slye decided to go to school the upcoming day, since he didn''t have money for groceries then the lunch he would get at school would be the only food he''d have for a while. It was about 1:00 am, and school started at 9, so if he wanted he could get a bit of sleep then go to school. The walk to his school was about a half hour, going to the center of the city. Slye opened his status and wanted to assign new classes to himself with the open thoughts, and he tapped on one of the open class positions.
Class unassigned. Choose a class below, or come back at a later time if you unlock more
Warrior
Slye sighed, he thought at least he would have unlocked another class choice. The two basic classes everyone has access to are "Blacksmith" and "Warrior". This choice defines your life, choosing warrior means you can get access to evolving your class into other fighting-based classes, and blacksmith is where you go into being into production for the rest of your life. It was a weird system, but you also unlocked classes based off of what you did, which just gave rich people and nobles even more advantages in life. For example, noble children would have access to jobs which matched their titles, the son of a baron would have the baron class, a duke''s son would have duke, and so on. Parents could also pay to have their child tutored by a certain class, which increases their chances of that class being immediately available. The richest had access to their talents though, which was a strong skill that every person had but could only be activated if you had activated a talent stone. Most people''s talent skills were at minimum rank B and there were those that could grow, called evolving talents. Each person who has a talent hides what it is for the most part, so the information on exactly what they are is kept confidential. That was a long way off for Slye though, since talent stones were only dropped by strong monsters, usually A-grade monsters or rarely B-grade monsters as well. Slye decided to just go to sleep instead of staying up later, setting his alarm and passing out. When he woke up in the morning, he felt a lot more refreshed than when he came back to life. It could have just been because he was on a bed this time, but he felt a lot better than he did before, though he could still feel the injuries were still there. Slye put his school outfit on and left the apartment at about eight. The sun was rising above the horizon, and gave a nice view of dawn with orange permeating the sky around the landscape. Getting to the school was boring, and so were his first few classes for the most part. It was interesting how much easier school felt with a massive intelligence stat, he understood everything the teachers were saying and a lot of the stuff he was learning now was stuff that he already learned before. Mathematics didn''t change much between the worlds, meaning the him who almost graduated engineering for college was overpowered for learning high-school math and physics. Even if it was a futuristic-ish societies mathematics and physics.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Unfortunately, missing school two days in a row then perfectly answering the first worksheet Slye saw did raise some eyebrows and he was asked to stay with the teacher for lunch. Slye was sitting at his desk and when the other students left, the teacher stood in front of his desk. "Slye, what do you want me to make of this?" he said in a strict tone then continued, "You went missing for two days and now you come back with scratches all over your face and became a genius? We both know your grades before make this suspicious.". Slye sighed because he knew the teacher was right. He was teetering on the edge of failure before, and even he could admit that his situation at the moment looked super suspicious, to say the least. Slye was never good at social situations in most of his lives, and he ended up lying "I fell down in the shower and ended up hitting my head, I crawled onto my bed and ended up passing out for a couple days. When I woke up I felt smarter.". That was probably the worst lie ever told, Slye thought to himself the moment his words left his mouth. The teacher sighed then he replied in a softer tone "That has to be one of the worst lies I have ever been told. I can tell you have things you want to hide, whatever it is I''m not going to get you to tell me. If it''s cheating however, you know I have zero tolerance for it and you will be expelled." Slye responded again, "I''m not cheating" "I''ll believe you became a genius overnight if you keep giving me reason too, I am just letting you know my policy on cheaters in my class. You are free to leave now.". The message was clear, he was being accused of cheating but he wasn''t being investigated for it. He wasn''t cheating, so he didn''t really have to worry about it. There was about twenty minutes left of lunch when Slye got his food and sat down at his regular table. No one else was there as usual for about five minutes until a taller student with short hair and a couple other students arrived at his table. ¡±Slye you fucking loser, I almost got in trouble after you went missing after our last meeting.¡± He said with a hint of anger in his voice. The Slye from before would have been scared and apologized, but now he felt his newfound confidence as he replied, ¡°Yeah it¡¯s a miracle what beating someone half to death will do to them.¡±. Bruce grinned and replied, ¡°It¡¯s not my fault you can¡¯t handle some friendly rough housing. Where is your arrogance coming from? Is it your new wig? What happened to your short brown hair?¡±. Slye stood up and looked at Bruce in the eye, before telling him ¡°Bruce, I¡¯m sick of your shit. Seven days from now I will be challenging you to a duel. Leave me alone until then.¡±. Bruce¡¯s grin went even wider, ¡°I might have given you brain damage from that, didn¡¯t I? I¡¯m from house Williston and you think you can beat me in a duel? I¡¯ll be leaving you alone, but if you are too weak and die in a duel, that¡¯s only to be expected from you.¡±, he replied with a mix of anger, surprise, and arrogance. After Bruce and his crowd walked away, Slye got back to thinking to himself. House Williston was one of the biggest warrior families in the city, a lot of them end up personally drafted to the kings personal guard or become high ranking military personnel. It wasn¡¯t an understatement to say they were some of the most powerful people in the city, and by duelling even the third son of the current house head it was equivalent to declaring them an enemy of yours. Slye could feel it though, he was close to being able to intake chi, and when that happens he will become much stronger than he currently is. Slye theorized that he could probably reach late-stage and possibly even start working on starting magic after that. Chapter 4 Slye finished his lunch and with the last few minutes left until he had to start going to his next class he closed his eyes and meditated until he could see chi. The mist was still there and the chi he could see felt blurry and out of focus, but that was how it was until you were out of the body-strengthening stages. He finished the rest of his school day in relative peace, and bought more groceries on his way home. When he got home, he meditated and this process repeated for the next two days until he was able to intake chi and start getting rid of the impurities in his body. Slye already knew how to move chi from his past life, so the process of purifying himself with it was much easier and in the day after, he had already purified most imperfections. He grew more than a few inches overnight, going from about 5 foot 6 to a comfortable 6 foot. His facial features became more defined and he looked much better than he did before, modelling himself after what he liked about each of his previous lives. Most people would have suffered chi deviation and injured themselves, but due to his past experience cultivating and the added bonuses of his intelligence stat it made more extreme modifications extremely easy. It wasn¡¯t an exaggeration to say he became a different person overnight, and he looked older at the end of the process. This was part of his plan too, one thing he noticed with his intelligence stat was he was able to do mental calculations much faster, proportional to how hard he focuses on it. Not only could he split his attention and thoughts up to five times, but it turns out he could also focus up to five times harder on a single subject, speeding up his thoughts immensely. The fact that intelligence also made you think faster made this even more insane, being able to put in minutes worth of focus and thoughts into seconds if he really focused. Testing already proved that his body couldn¡¯t keep up yet, not even close. It was much better to keep his insane focus for just thinking for now, until his body caught up he learned after ending up falling over once too many times. Where would having a superhuman ability to think and looking older help? The casino, of course! It was somewhere his college Earth self loved a bit too much, and would get kicked out after counting cards if he wasn¡¯t losing money on roulette. He would even bet amounts from his student loans on gambling, it wasn¡¯t something he was proud of and he could be called a gambling addict, but he usually ended up making some money or coming out net neutral. Slye also didn''t feel bad about taking another day off school, he felt a small sense of shame that he was skipping school to gamble, but he has been in enough schools in his lifetimes, and he doesn''t feel like trying to be a great student anymore. There were no big casinos in his side of town though, so he grabbed the last one hundred credits he had in savings and left to start his walk to the biggest casino in the center of the city. He could try taking the train or a taxi, but his 100 credits was worth about 50 United States Dollars based on his rough estimations from the prices at the grocery store, and he would rather walk the extra hour or two to save the money to earn more later. The legal age for gambling, drinking and the rest was sixteen as Slye learned as he got to the doors of the casino at around 11:20 am. Before he got inside, the bouncer outside warned him of the casino rules. Most of the rules were similar to the ones on earth, except that no system skills were allowed to be used, if you did it would automatically forfeit your winnings for the night to the casino. They probably had cameras, a magic field, or some magic equipment that could tell who or when someone use skills, and Slye didn''t worry about it, since he wasn''t going to use any system skills to win today. Slye got up to the chip counter to exchange his money into chips and the lady at the counter gave him 100 his credits worth of chips. After a quick thank you, Slye got to the general floor and beheld the sight of the floor. Looks like gambling psychology was the same on earth, the room was lit up and the interior design just exuded a sense of wealth and excitement. A red carpet with gold designs spanned the entire floor, and it was busier than he expected for it being lunch during a weekday.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Surprisingly, slot machines were in this world too and their return was mostly the same, bright flashing lights to draw you in and past the forest of lights there was a circular shaped bar area in the center of the room with a large, golden chandelier hanging above it. Past the bar were the game tables which involved games which looked vaguely similar to poker, blackjack, roulette, and the rest. Slye walked past all the slot machines, dissuading their intense allure and going past the bar as well. Going up to one of the roulette table he watched others around him bet while focusing intently on the movement of the ball. After about five minutes, he smirked because he was right, and with about 90% accuracy he felt like he could accurately guess where the ball was going to land every time, and he only felt more confident as he saw it continue more and more. Then he threw in his first bid, putting a nice even 50 chip on black. No surprise to him, it hit black and he got 100 chips winnings. Then he threw his 100 on black again, which was right once again winning him a nice 200. No one was looking his or thinking he was suspicious yet, but before they could he threw another 50 on black again, and when it landed on red he feigned the grief of losing money. He wanted to win and earn as much money as possible, but he also didn''t want to get caught so he was going to have to throw some false losses in there just to make sure he didn''t get flagged as suspicious. Sure it wasn''t illegal to do well at roulette with no skill use, but at the same time the casino could forbid you from playing roulette whenever they wanted if they so felt to. He continued his game betting on black or red until he got up to a comfortable 2500 credits, which the people around him started to take notice since it was hard not to notice the person who started with 100 and now has 2500. Sensing he had some attention on him, he decided to go all in on the lucky bastard idea, and was going to make one last bet. Now becoming extremely proficient on how to guess the ball, only failing twice the whole half hour, he could tell it was going to land on 7 this time. He put all 2500 on a trio bet of 6, 7, and 8 and it the ball spun around and ended up landing on 8 in the end. He was scared he messed up, but took his win and was glad he didn''t do a straight guess on 7. Betting on just 7 would have given him 35x his money if he was right, but he chose to be safe and bet on a trio still giving him a nice 11x the amount bringing his total up to a nice 27500. The table exploded when he got the guess right, and they tried goading Slye into betting more but he just told them he "ran out of luck" and retreated back to the bar. His next target was the poker tables, but he wanted to grab a quick drink to calm his nerves first. Chapter 5 Cras was on the fence because on one hand he could try the alcohol of another world, but he should also try to stay sober to make sure he doesn''t slip up and lose his money. In the end, he grabbed a nice water on the rocks. He moved through the casino floor to the poker tables, and there weren''t many people playing. The only table he found with an open seat was taken by four old men, each dressed in fancy attire. Fancy was almost an understatement, their suits were adorned with gold trim and gems embroidered into them. Each suit was a distinct color, and Slye noticed one of them had the house colors of house Williston. Before he could double guess himself, one of the men called over to him "Don''t be scared, you looked so confident before. Take a seat." and gestured towards the open seat on the table. Slye gulped as he sat down and he saw the chips on the table read in the hundreds of thousands to the millions, "Do you even have chips small enough to play with me?" he said a little sheepishly. The man in the house Williston colors laughed, then whistled and an employee rushed over to the table, and he handed her a 100k credit chip and told her "Break this into 5,000''s for me if you would not mind.". The other men followed, handing the lady chips to get broken into lower denominations. "That solves that, does it not?" The Williston grinned and spoke to Slye. "I guess it does." Slye sipped his water after responding. They already probably thought he was just an arrogant kid who feels nervous around the real high-rollers, and while that is right he decided he would play into it to his advantage. For the next couple of hours he played against the men, acting like a new player with obvious tells and not really having a poker face, and he was down to just 20,000 credits when he finally got the chance to make his play. He got a royal flush, and it was time to play it out. He started at first acting like he was upset at his hand, though also acting like he didn''t want to give the impression he was faking it. He only matched the bets at first, but made what seemed like a very obvious bluff at the very end to go all in. Only one of the old men folded when he did it, but the other three called his bluff and went all in themselves, matching his 20,000. Then the last card flipped, and Slye revealed his royal flush. The three old men looked on in disbelief, and the one that folded laughed. Slye took the pot, stood up, and said a small goodbye before leaving the old men almost fuming in the table. They weren''t mad at losing 20,000 credits, to them it was nothing but it was the principle of having the wool pulled over their eyes by someone who looks a fraction of their age that made them mad. While Skye was cashing out his check the one elder who folded pulled him aside, "You are a sly one, I haven''t seen anyone pull a move like that on Williston in years.". "Oh trust me, Williston''s going to lose again in a couple days. What''s it to you?" Slye replied to the man. The man grinned and pulled out a business card, "I''m the patriarch of the Golden Merchants, I''m sure I don''t have to tell you what that means.". Then he continued, "On the surface, the big families of the city seem to be on friendly terms, but in reality we all want to expand our control over the city.".This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Slye took his business card and asked, "And you think I could be an investment, someone my age being able to trick some of the great houses of the city?". "You''re smart for your age, give me a call if you want to talk more." He said before starting to go back to the poker area. Slye looked at his business card and saw his name was Richard Ermine. Slye grinned and told him one last thing as he was walking out the door, "Rich, you were right in some ways, I am a pretty Sly guy.". Rich looked back as if a realization struck him, and Slye heard him laugh more as he left the building. Slye did want to call him and possibly get some items from him, but there was one problem. He didn''t have a phone. Living in poverty and having almost no savings meant he never had the time or money for one. He also needed a bank account, he never had enough money he was worried about losing it. Slye had 80,000 credits now, so he was going to get a phone and see if Richard could hook him up with a good bank. After that, he would try getting a weapon and then either try to learn a cultivation technique or start magic. Since he was already downtown, it was a short walk to the phone store. It was a high-class one, the walls made almost entirely out of glass. It took less than an hour to find a phone and buy it in cash, it was a bit of an older model just to save some money, and it came out to about 1,500 credits. He also got a phone plan, all that boring stuff but he has a working phone at the end of it. He ended up texting the rich guy telling him that he wanted a bank account. He didn''t get a text back immediately, texting at the poker table has been bad manners here too it seems. Before going back home, he decided to check out some shops before he was going back home. Slye walked into the first shop that caught his eye, a small smithy hidden away near a back alley. There was no one at the front desk, and he looked through the works in the almost dingy looking front room. Average looking equipment bordered the walls, nothing fancy, flashy, or fantastic really jumped out to him. It all looked really simple, and he found the weapon he was looking for. It was a simple quarterstaff, made out of a kind of wood he couldn''t quite identify but long enough for him to use like the one he had back in the cultivation world. If he was going to fight beasts, he would also need a spear, since quarterstaffs were blunt and weren''t as good for fighting beasts. He was going to take a bet that his opponent in three days was going to have armor, and he simply just preferred the quarterstaff opposed to the spear. He brought the quarterstaff to what looked like the front counter, a large wooden desk with a door labeled "staff only" behind it. Slye put the staff down and coughed loudly, hoping to alert whoever worked here that someone was here. Minutes passed, and no one came out. Slye coughed louder, and for minutes still no one came out. Slye used the staff to knock on the staff only door, and he realized how hard the simple looking staff was. He looked at the staff, it was denser than he thought it was, and was heavier than he expected it to be. After about a minute, a gruff old-looking worker came out with a blacksmithing hammer in one hand and a simple sword in another. "You''re lucky I was almost done with the sword and you didn''t have to wait long. Quit making so much noise while I try to smith." he said. "I just want to buy this, if you wouldn''t mind." Slye said. The blacksmith took it out of his hands and inspected it, then put it back on the counter, "25,000 credits." Slye seemed taken aback by the price and said "Seems a bit steep, do you make many sales like this?". "I care more about smithing than selling, and if you knew how to tell what a good weapon was, you''d think that''s a steal." He responded like he had said this a thousand times before, most likely because he has. Slye took 25,000 out of his wallet and dropped it on the table and took the quarterstaff, leaving the store.