Chapter 019 Skill Selection (Part 1)

"What kind of mythical avatar will my older sister have? When she shows up, will she also bring full special effects like Zeus, stirring up the weather?"

Ke Mingye was thinking this and had already roughly envisioned Bai Qiuwu's mythical avatar in his mind—after all, Sun Wukong's appearance is well-known to every household, how far off could it possibly be?

Now Ke Mingye needed to pray that within a year, Bai Qiuwu's path to divinity through "Sun Wukong" hadn't reached the sixth realm yet; otherwise, that would be another tough enemy to deal with.

But no matter how powerful those superheroes at the top of the Superhero Association were, those were concerns for six months down the line.

At this moment, no player had grown powerful enough to contend with them.

The pressing issue hanging over Ke Mingye's head was how to survive the encounter with his older brother "Ke Yinzhi," who was about to come home—he had just caught two players who were Anomaly Control Bureau employees, one of them an S-class enforcer. Surely you couldn't just pull out a web shooter and slap a web on his face, then turn tail and run, right?

As his thoughts drifted, the school bell rang in the teaching building, yet the classroom remained empty.

This was the last afternoon class, and the schedule indicated it was time for P.E. Turning to look out the window, his classmates had all gathered on the playground, leaving him alone in the classroom.

Ke Mingye had asked the class president to excuse him from the physical education teacher, claiming he had a stomachache. Since final exams were over and vacation was near, most teachers wouldn't be too hard on him.

Now, he turned his attention to the "mall icon" in the upper right corner of his field of vision; he had clicked it once before, and the system had clearly indicated that this function would be unlocked today at 15:00.

The time was just right, and he clicked on the mall icon once more, finally entering the "Player Mall" smoothly and without any hindrance.

A light blue background panel appeared before his eyes.

[The current version of the mall is divided into three pages: a page for daily consumables, a page for equipment and tools, and a page for skills.]

[You currently have 0 Mall Coins.]

Ke Mingye casually browsed through the first two pages.

In the daily consumables page, most were items like "Fast-acting Healing Spray" and "Stamina Recovery Potions";

One noteworthy item on this page was something called a "Travel Ticket"—according to the description, by using a travel ticket, you could instantly move to any city in the world and return to the starting point at any time.

However, the functionality of the travel ticket couldn't be used during combat, so it wasn't very practical for escape. Its price was also outrageously high: 10,000 Mall Coins per ticket.

As for the "equipment and tools page," there were ten slots, each loaded with a piece of equipment or a tool, with a wide variety of items.

Regarding equipment, there was everything from ancient cold weapons, to modern cold weapons and firearms, and even something as specific as "Magic Girl's Magic Wand," with an overarching theme of diversity;

As for the tools, "Poisoned Dentures" and "Magic Cards" were the two strange and oddly shaped items that appeared.

According to the system's introduction, at midnight every day, this page would timely refresh to showcase ten new pieces of equipment or tools for players to purchase.

Also, the equipment and tools refreshed are only available for purchase within 24 hours. If the time limit is exceeded, they will be replaced by another batch of equipment during the next refresh—however, players can lock an item to make it stay unrefreshed until the next day, but they cannot repeatedly lock the same item. This means that a piece of equipment will stay on the page for a maximum of two days. If not purchased by then, it'll be gone, and you can only hope to be lucky enough to see the same item appear in a future refresh.

The lower the player's level, the lower the probability of refreshing high-level equipment on the page; conversely, the higher the level, the higher the probability.

Ke Mingye's level was only Lv.1, so the current probability of refresh for this page was—[E-grade equipment 80%; D-grade equipment 10%; C-grade equipment 8%; B-grade equipment 2%; A-grade equipment 0%; S-grade equipment 0%].

The most outrageous thing would be to refresh a B-grade equipment item—a mere 2% chance, but even if it did refresh, it would be useless without money.

After reading the first two pages, Ke Mingye flipped through the textbook while clicking on the [Skill Exclusive Page] in the marketplace.

Just as he entered this page, a system prompt popped up, covering his pupils.

[As this is your first time entering the marketplace, the system will gift you the right to obtain two skills for free (please use within 24 hours, the right will vanish after the skill page is refreshed).]

"Free to obtain two skills, a zero-cost purchase, huh?"

Ke Mingye's eyes brightened with interest.

As the prompt disappeared, the contents of the Skill Exclusive Page also came into view.

Compared to the previous page, the mechanism here was utterly the same. Every day, 10 skills would be refreshed, and the chance of getting higher-level skills also increased with the player's level.

The current refresh rate was: [E-level Skills 80%; D-level Skills 10%; C-level Skills 8%; B-level Skills 2%; A-level Skills 0%; S-level Skills 0%].

Since players could only use their "free two skills" privilege before the next refresh on the exclusive page, trying to play slick by waiting for powerful skills to refresh before using the privilege was impossible. Therefore, the choice had to be made from the existing 10 skills.

"Out of the ten skills, everyone gets to pick two for free. But luck is another story; maybe some player will hit that 2% and get a B-level skill right at the start on the exclusive page," Ke Mingye thought.

Ke Mingye mused, "I hope my luck is a bit better, don't just give me 10 E-level skills, or I might as well just remake..."

After roughly understanding the rules, he began to filter through the information: setting aside what the skills could do, he first checked the names and levels of the ten skills.

This was the only way to determine just how bad his luck was.

The filtering complete, the skill information slowly appeared on the panel and came into full view.

[①: Hundred Percent Slap (E-level Skill, refresh rate 80%)]

[②: Snap Finger Gun (D-level Skill, refresh rate 10%)]

[③: Moon Stomp (C-level Skill, refresh rate 8%)]

[④: Deception Puppet (B-level Skill, refresh rate 2%)]

[⑤: Thought Delivery (E-level Skill, refresh rate 80%)]

[⑥: Sword Draw Strike (E-level Skill, refresh rate 80%)]

[⑦: Animal Communication Skill (E-level Skill, refresh rate 80%)]

[⑧: Flat Ground Takedown Expert (E-level Skill, refresh rate 80%)]

[⑨: Same-Sex Charm Skill (E-level Skill, refresh rate 80%)]

[⑩: Disaster Dice (D-level Skill, refresh rate 10%) (Note: This skill can be leveled up through usage)]

Ke Mingye stared at the sparkling skill in grid ④, expressionless. For a long time, he clenched his fist tightly, took a deep hiss of breath, almost on the verge of howling at the sky.

"Well, that settles it, the king of luck is none other than myself."