It's Not Gambling, It's a Hobby and Dedication.

Mark was glad he never got into gambling. This hurt Mark's soul, but it was also quite exciting. That was especially frightening.

He took a knee as he began to rummage through the small and dilapidated shelves of the F-tier Skill section.

'Come on. First book I touch has to be destined for me.'

The first book William touched was a 'Cognitive Acceleration' Skill, which Mark thought was absolute bullshit. Because it was.

As Mark took hold of a random F-tier Skill book, the system prompt appeared before his eyes.

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Skill: Summon Vines

Grade: F

Description: Creates plant vines wherever the user desires within a 20-meter radius. Useful for gardening or climbing vertical structures.

Cooldown: 3 minutes

Scales with Arcane

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Maybe he could summon plant vines in people's throats? Mark severely doubted such a loophole like that existed. At least, the odds that it did work weren't enough to risk his only choice of a Skill book.

'Yikes. Surely the next one is destined for me…'

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Skill: Shadow Sneak

Grade: F

Description: Turn the user perfectly invisible for 5 minutes. The user must be in a large patch of shadows and cannot move.

Cooldown: 10 minutes

Scales with Dexterity

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'Getting… better? Please don't tell me the Skills got balanced…'

Out of desperation, Mark began to go rapid-fire, touching all the books and glossing over their descriptions to get the spark notes.

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Skill: Quick Reflex

Description: Slight increase to reaction time upon activation.

…

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'Better, but still no. Slight isn't good enough.'

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Skill: Cat Eyes

Description: Sharpens vision during light hours and greatly increases visibility at night. However, the user will perceive a limited range of color as cats do. Permanent.

…

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'Pretty good actually. Wouldn't be much use to me in a fight. Maybe I'll come back for it.'

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Skill: Lead Belly

Description: Greatly decreases the chance of illness through consumption. Permanent.

…

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'No.'

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Skill: Night Owl

Grade: F

Description: The user's body doesn't require much sleep. Permanent.

Cooldown: None

Scales with Vigor

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'Damnit, this one's pretty good too, but they're just teetering on the edge of usefulness. They're all so niche… should I really go with the Vine Skill and just pray? Or I could just take the Night Owl Skill and grind stats as much as possible…'

Each Skill book opened a doorway—a path—for Mark's future. And so far, each path was quite dim.

He had about a dozen Skill books to go. It was time for double the rapid fire.

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Skill: Feather Fall

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'Nope.'

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Skill: Silent Step

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'You could probably just get the same effect with increased Dexterity.'

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Skill: Pebble Throw

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'Eh. It might be as dangerous as a bullet if I scaled. What does the system count as a pebble? Dunno, next one.'

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Skill: Minor Heal

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'Another underpowered skill. I could use a better healing Spell in the future or Potions. It's a waste.'

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Skill: Rock Skin

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'Actually not bad, but what good is defense if I don't have offense?'

Mark continued to go through the rest of the F-tier Skills. One of them increased reading speed. It would've been quite useful in his previous life, but in this one, he already had a lot of necessary knowledge.

One improved his hearing. Another was just a bonafide flashlight and another allowed him to increase his top speed by 5 km/h.

But as his heart and soul began to limp in defeat, fate threw him a bone on the very last skill book.

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Skill: Hidden Hand

Grade: F

Description: Extends the user's arm reach by 5 meters. The invisible hand can only be seen by the user and those with an Insight stat greater than the user's Strength stat. With each increase of the Strength stat, the hand's reach is increased by 1 meter.

Cooldown: 24 hours upon the Hand being destroyed.

Scales with Strength

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Despite despising the 'leashed dog' analogy, Mark gobbled up that bone with a smile.

Figurative tears of joy welled up in Mark's eyes. His overpowered skill had been found.

'Well, it's not exactly that overpowered. It's around C-tier levels of value, maybe even B. Still, it's incredible.'

Not only would its reach make up for his lack of defense, but it was incredibly deceptive on offense due to its invisibility.

The power of the Hand increased with the Strength Stat. If Mark had to guess, whatever power his normal fist could muster, the Hand would do as well.

'I could even force choke someone from a distance. Fuck I love Star Wars.'

And on top of that, Mark could use it all the time. That itself was the real cheat.

Someone would need a high Insight stat combined with combat prowess to destroy such an incredibly fast and powerful attack. And even if it was destroyed, it would be good to go the next day—if Mark survived such an encounter.

'Highway robbery.'

Getting the rest of the F-tier Skill books back in order on the shelf, Mark took his newfound cheat book to Kalé at his front table. Plopping it on the table dispersed a small cloud of dust.

Mark could hardly contain his beaming, gleeful smile behind his white mask.

Kalé turned on an overhead light, inspecting the book with the strained stare of an elderly person looking at a tablet.

"Hmm, 10 Gold is the price."

Mark reached for his coin pouch, removing it from his waist and setting it on the table.

The shop owner poured the coins out of the pouch. From his pocket, he took out a monocle, bringing it up to his wrinkly eye as he squinted.

He then proceeded to agonizingly count each coin one by one, using his finger to slide them into groups.

'God, this hurts.'

Mark was pretty confident that at one point Kalé had actually messed up his count, and then had to restart.

With so much time before his discovery, Mark's smile slowly died, replaced with a tinge of annoyance.

"Uh… it's 10 Gold's worth. I assure you," he said, trying to hurry up the old man's excruciating operation

"I'll be the judge of that."

'Kill me now. Strike me down.'

After a few minutes, Kalé finalized his verdict, removing his monocle from his face. He slowly tilted his head up to the masked face of his customer.

"You're two Coppers short."

…

Mark's face twitched. Especially when he realized that Kalé was right.

He had started with the equivalent of exactly 10 Gold. After paying for the mask to enter the Underground, he no longer had enough.

"Come on Kalé, it's just two Coppers worth. It'll be nothing," Mark tried his best to haggle with a confident and familiar voice. "Could you let it go by? Or just put it on my tab. This is a big transaction. Droplets in an ocean."

…

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Charisma Check Failed.

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'For fuck's sake.'