Chapter 13: Scam Level Two

Liam groaned as he threw Eric a pouch containing 20 shiny, gold coins.

Eric smiled as he looked at it and heard two notifications from the system. He decided to check them after he was done talking with Liam and Lily; so he ignored it for the moment.

"I gave you the coins that you 'rightfully' won by not telling me you were a cultivator." Liam was a bit salty but he got over it pretty quickly.

"You wanted to know how we broke through so fast, right. Well, since we are descendants of the Miller Family, we have a lot of resources. At the family gathering, while most of the time dad was having meetings with the other uncles and grandpa, we were cultivating with the help of various herbs and elixirs." Liam explained.

'So they also used external help, huh?' Eric thought as he continued listening.

"I awakened yesterday and Liam awakened two days ago." Lily said, "Now that we have told you how we broke through, answer our questions as well."

Eric spoke calmly, "I happened to find some herbs as well and they sped up my cultivation speed by a lot. I broke through a couple days ago and had time to gather even more Qi than you guys; that explains why I beat Liam easily."

He hoped to not reveal the fact that he had broken through twice, since they wouldn't believe he was able to do that in such less time.

The bigger problem that he would face later on in the day, though, would be his dad. Someone of his level would definitely know how many layers he broke through and he still hadn't thought of a way to explain this fact to his father.

"But I wasn't able to catch your movements. If you are in the same layer, albeit if you have just broken through or you are at its peak, I should be able to fight on equal footing, right?" Liam asked Eric, doubting his own ability.

"It was probably because you weren't expecting me to be a cultivator as well. I caught you off guard, that's all there is to it." Eric replied confidently.

He wasn't confident about what he said at all, because it was false; but he was using the false confidence strategy to make the other two believe him.

He had learnt this through his 24 years of life on Earth: if you want someone unsure of something to believe your opinion, putting on a false show of confidence will make them believe you most of the times.

Just as he had predicted, it worked and Liam had unknowingly started to agree with him.

"Yea! I was caught off guard; that's why it was your win. If I was paying attention, then it would have been a draw at best." Liam declared, trying to rebuild his shattered ego.

"Nah, you would have still lost." Eric replied mockingly, while dodging a punch thrown at him.

***

After the three of them walked around the peaceful, empty outskirts of the forest and talked about what they had done a bit more, they decided to head back home.

'That was oddly satisfying. They may just be little brats but they are best friends to 'Eric Tyler'; and since I am now that 'Eric Tyler', they are my buddies as well.' Eric thought, back in his room.

Having friends was fun. No matter if it was back on Earth or in this game; Eric still enjoyed the company of people close to him. Without really realizing it, he had started to become one with the 'Eric Tyler' of this world.

Along with the body, knowledge and memories, he had also inherited the feelings of this game world's Eric Tyler.

Compared to what games he played on Earth, this was on a completely different level. If the mysterious voice hadn't called this a game, he would assume he was in another real world.

If he took into consideration the level of virtual reality and artificial intelligence of his home planet, it would be simply impossible to create a game like this.

Eric once again started to wonder about the origins of this world and the mysterious man.

After a while, he remembered that he still had unchecked notifications from the Scam System and opened them.

[Notifications:

Communication Skills Menu (1)

Level Up (1)]

He decided to first check the communication skills menu. Since he scammed someone, his communication skills should have increased should have increased.

[Communication Skills Menu

Persuasion: 4

Intimidation: 5

Charm: 1]

He had gained one point in Persuasion and Intimidation each. His previous scams had given him the points in Persuasion even though he didn't cultivate his mind yet; while the points in Intimidation were from his hard work cultivating and quest rewards; plus one point for each of them which he received just now.

While the two of them were at 4 and 5 points, his Charm was still at a default 1.

Seeing this, Eric wanted to improve his Charm, but his current situation wasn't very favorable for doing so. He wasn't a body cultivator yet and he couldn't Charm people to scam them as an 11 year old kid.

He still had the consciousness of an adult and didn't want to seduce a child; and for seducing adults, he was almost certain that it wouldn't work.

For now, he left his Charm at 1 point and decided to check his reward for Leveling Up instead.

[Congratulations!

You have leveled up.

Scam Level: 2

(100/300 Experience Points)

Level Up Reward: Soul Cultivation Technique: "Pressuring the Mind" added to inventory]

'The reward is a technique; that too, it's only the second level's reward!' Eric was incredibly satisfied with this.

Techniques were what Soul Cultivators used to fight, while their Body Cultivation counterparts were Martial Arts and Mind Cultivation variants were known as Skills.

After reading the scroll and comprehending it completely, the cultivators are able to manipulate the Qi they possess to do all sorts of stuff.

In this case, his technique was called "Pressuring the Mind". Even though it sounded like it was a Mind Cultivation Technique, it was explicitly mentioned to be for Soul Cultivation. Eric was naturally interested to see what the technique was, so he read the item's description from his inventory.

[Name: Soul Cultivation Technique: "Pressuring the Mind"

Effect: With the help of this technique, the user can direct their Qi towards their target's mental sphere and apply pressure on it to disrupt it. The mental sphere is filled with Mental Energy instead of Qi. Due to this, if a different type of energy: Qi, that too, a one which was foreign to and hostile towards the target tried to pressure their sea of consciousness, it would cause them serious harm.

This will slightly decrease their mental abilities, such as decision making, general thinking and reactions; and will be beneficial in both a fight… and while scamming.

This will work the best against targets who aren't Mind Cultivators.

Requirements: Spirit Apprentice Realm 5th Layer]

'Damn, this is good.' Eric thought as he read the description of the item, 'too bad I'm not at the minimum required level yet.'

As he checked his rewards and didn't have anything better to do, Eric got straight back to cultivating.