Chapter 6

It's been a little over a month since I started my crime spree, and I have been extremely busy. Every single day I got the minimum eight hours of sleep thanks to my ability and filled out the rest of the day with something that needed to get done. Since aura and summon elemental were leveling even during my sleep, they ended up being the only skills that leveled twenty four seven. Summon elemental ended up at a skill level of fifty and finally hit the five MP per minute minimum.

Aura leveled to thirty-six, it just didn't go higher like "Summon Elemental" because of its slower growth rate, although when it hit level twenty-five it gained an extra effect. Now, it will also increase my total aura, or MP, count by twenty-five percent. If I'm correct, I'll get another bonus when it hits level fifty, and it'll be a fifty percent increase in aura instead of twenty-five.

There was a shooting range at Walter's criminal supermarket, the cost of using it was practically extortion but it let a criminal practice shooting in a safer environment. I used that place constantly, and while my firearm mastery passive might level faster in combat it still gained EXP while I practiced on dummies and targets. I leveled that skill to forty-six, and that skill along with my amazing cane let me do even more amazing damage at a distance. I'd shatter someone's aura in one hit unless they were high leveled or a huntsman.

Speaking of huntsmen, in my time doing crimes and leveling my skills I stalked a well-known cafe that was popular with Beacon students. Using observe on every high leveled student that came by told me what year of Beacon they were in and I began to categorize levels to year. First years looked to be in the high thirties to high forties, with some exceptional students even being in the fifties. Second years were in the fifties to sixties, third years were above the seventies. I couldn't give an exact measurement since I could only see fifty levels above myself, and I observed them before I started to increase my personal level. I can only imagine that an actual huntsman was in the mid one hundred range at the very least.

There was also this one thing I saw when I observed the Beacon students, they all seemed to have higher aura than what their intelligence stats would suggest. I did not know how this was possible as a lot of other people fell into what their stats suggested. As my observe skill started to slow down big time in the leveling department, I couldn't get an exact reason to why this was the case. My best guess was that the huntsmen and huntsmen-in-training had some modifier that increased their aura pool, their physical stats at least suggested some level of scalable normalcy even if a little bloated in some places.

Anyway, leveling my blunt weapon mastery and my new martial arts mastery was a tad slower as I couldn't just pepper a bunch of hard-light targets with Dust rounds over and over.

[Martial Arts Mastery Lv 21 EXP: 45.7%]

The ancient art of using your body as the weapon is a common factor in martial arts, but your body is not the only thing you can use. "Martial Arts" can refer to any sort of actual combat style, like boxing for example. You can activate your known styles to instinctively know them at any time. Using them when in combat still requires experience. (Some styles can conflict with each other)

-Passively increases martial arts attack speeds by 30%.

-Passively increased martial arts attack power by 30%.

-Can have up to (2) styles active at one time.

Known Styles:

-Bartitsu - Cane fighting (Active Style)

The martial arts skill seems to get an extra one percent in speed and power beyond its ten percent base for every level, whether it goes past thirty percent in speed and power, only time and a level up will tell. My blunt weapon mastery went up to level thirty-seven and I found that it's extra attack damage increased by five percent each level and the attack speed increased by five percent every fifth level. I'm sitting at an extra one hundred and eighty percent increase in blunt damage and an extra forty percent increase in blunt weapon attack speed.

In the past month, I've also managed to level myself up about an extra fifteen times, up to a nice level of thirty-six and getting close to Beacon first years in terms of level. I still needed to figure out why they have slightly increased aura and how to give it to myself before I can truly consider myself their equals, even if I could beat them in a fight. This is partly because of the fighting ring, I managed to convince the ringmaster to let me do "endurance runs" for little pay for a few levels in my persuasion skill, I even made up the excuse to test my fighting skills.

Weapons were allowed in the ring, but no guns or sharp objects, I even let him check Melodic Cudgel before I stepped into the ring every time. And while you could keep fighting without aura if you wanted to, it wasn't recommended, people have died in this ring. This was how I grinded my martial arts and blunt mastery, and the extra EXP for my levels was nice.

I didn't neglect training my physical stats, I had several weights in my inventory and whenever I was not working missions, more on that in a bit, I had strapped weights to my body and went for a long run around Vale. I even mixed it up and jumped across and up buildings to level my dexterity, my strength leveled the fastest due to its lower number, followed by my vitality, and then my dexterity. It was grueling and long in paying off, but I felt that it was worth it. I might not necessarily need the strength and vitality, but it's good to be prepared. I used the skill points I gained to get my wisdom to a base of forty, my intelligence to a base of one hundred and one, and I used the rest on my dexterity.

Name: Roman Torchwick

Class: The Gamer

Level: 36 (Next Level: 48,320/66,600)

Title: Up and Coming Kingpin

Bounty: 20,000 Lien

HP: 2,402

MP: 4,178 [3,214 + 160.7(5%) + 803.5(25%)]

STR: 42 [Base 30 + 9(30%) + 3(10%)]

VIT: 60.2 [Base 43 + 12.9(30%) + 4.3(10%)]

DEX: 159.9 [Base 78 + 11.7(15%) + 23.4(30%) + 7.8(10%) + 39(50%)]

INT: 141.4 [Base 101 + 30.3(30%) + 10.110%)]

WIS: 56 [Base 40 + 12(30%) + 4(10%)]

LUK: 11

Elemental Affinity: Earth (10)

Attribute Points: 0

Lien: 2,423,690

Status Effects: Inactive Aura

I also received a few skills from my intelligence and dexterity reaching new heights.

[By having your dexterity reach the 50 milestone, you have been granted a bonus skill!]

[Nimble Body Lv1 EXP: 0.0%]

You worked hard to get as flexible as you are now, all those yoga classes have really paid off so far.

-15% increase in dodge speed.

-5% increase in attack speed.

-10% increase in movement speed.

[With your intelligence having reached the 100 INT milestone, you have been granted two bonus skills!]

[Medium Aura Capacity Lv1 EXP:0.0%]

Given to those born with the ability to handle aura more easily.

-Aura based attacks are 15% stronger.

-Uses 10% less MP for all abilities.

[Mana Regeneration Lv1 EXP: 0.0%]

There are people that have a special ability to recovery aura faster than others.

-100% increased MP regeneration.

But what I found out in the help section of my options menu made me feel really stupid. It threw my whole plans of just leveling and stealing when I needed the cash right out the window. I could form my own "guild", and hire people into my employ. They would join my so-called guild and I could do missions with them to earn money and a good amount of EXP. Most of it was stealing, but sometimes there were a few that other criminals that needed some extra muscle beyond their own and offered money to other criminals to help them out.

The missions didn't grant me much in the way of extra money, usually just enough to pay the cut each one of my underlings gets for each mission they do. I tend just sell anything I got, only keeping enough Dust and ammo in my warehouse to keep my grunts well armed.

This was the source of most of my experience thanks to the EXP nerf my ability gave me when fighting other people or Grimm. If the guard from the store was any indication, a level eighteen person gives me around six hundred and fifty EXP. Most of the fighting ring combatants were around that level, and while it was a good way to level my hand-to-hand and melee skills it wasn't good for straight up leveling at a certain point. It doesn't happen every day too, only a few times a week and sometimes other people don't always want to enter the ring. I've had to supplement the downtime from fighting in the ring to wacking on trees or anything I could get my hands on.

I can also not create parties, lovely. My ability says this is because this is not an "MMORPG" game. I call bullshit.

I guess it saves me the trouble of explaining my ability to others, not like I could prove anything beyond a spatial storage and weird but not too unbelievable powers now anyway. Semblances are odd things, and I have seen some weird semblances amongst the criminals.

But yeah, my guild has been growing steadily. I'm sitting at thirty grunts under my employ right now, I even bought out the rather large warehouse I first woke up in through Walter. He is a jack of all trades kind of guy and I can see why he is so popular, being able to launder money into an account in another kingdom and use it to buy property through shadow companies was great.

When I bought out that warehouse I had my grunts start putting it back together again. The main office was converted into my personal quarters, as is my right as the boss, and the many rooms connected to the side of the building were turned into the living area for my underlings. Soon enough the warehouse was livable and can be decorated to my whims.

I even got a new title from reaching thirty subordinates.

[Up and Coming Kingpin - Tier 1 title]

A special title for a criminal beginning to spread his or her influence in the criminal underworld. This person already has a few underlings that do his or her bidding and is starting to gain notoriety.

-Guild membership limit increased by 15

-When completing a guild mission with your minions, gain an extra 50% EXP from the mission.

-When working with your minions, your minions gain an extra 15% in damage.

I had long since switched my Grimm Slayer title for this new one, I wasn't going to be killing Grimm anytime soon and the extra membership, EXP, and minion damage was far better for my situation. The great thing about my own guild is that I can make my own missions. I can't set what kind of rewards it gives me, that is determined by how difficult my ability judges the mission I made, but I can have my minions run around and gather information about potential targets for me. If they are successful in finding something useful then I get experience in my level, if not then they return empty handed and I get nothing.

I have a target for a mission right now actually, some posh and snooty jewelry store in the rich part of Vale that I marked on my map of Vale. For some reason, such an easy mission was labeled as difficult, and the EXP rewarded from it would level me up again. As I sat at the table in front of the map and stared at the piece of paper while I waited for my grunts to finish preparation I lifted a cigar, stuck it into my mouth, and lit it. Taking a long and deep drag from it I contemplated on the fact that this big smoking habit of mine would be a bad one for anyone else, but for me and my overpowered Gamer's Body, it did absolutely nothing. Not even a status debuff.

"Hey, boss, we finished preppin' up the van," Jerry, one of my favorite grunts, spoke up.

I pulled myself up from my seat and tapped my cigar over the ashtray, "Finally, let's get this show on the road."

[You have started a Guild Mission!]

Successfully rob the jewelry store and do not get arrested.

Rewards: 20,000 EXP, 10,000 Lien, increased respect within the criminal underworld.

Failure: Imprisonment, decreased respect within the criminal underworld.

I made my way to the main storage section of the warehouse as I accepted the mission, a small section in the front of the warehouse was cleared out to make room for the van. I got closer to the van as the large warehouse doors were being slowly opened by a few of my underlings, all wearing a nice and neat black suit to counter my own. I left the choice of shirts, ties, and other accessories to their own discretion as long as they also wore gloves to hide fingerprints. A few of my grunts were milling around the back of the vehicle, waiting for me to arrive.

"Alrighty then," I announced, easily grabbing the attention of everyone around me. "Let's make this a nice and easy job tonight. Fancy jewels come with quick police response, so how about we not waste time." I turned to the henchman I followed here, "Jerry, I want you and the others to prepare to sort out the goods for sale, I don't want to hold onto these things for long if I can help it."

Jerry saluted, "Aye aye sir!"

I jumped into the back of the van and took my seat near the driver and said, "Let's get a move on!"

The henchmen nearest the back door swung it closed just as the inconspicuous van drove off into the streets of Vale. The ride to the jewelry store was filled with jokes and conversation between the grunts, we had the time and silence wasn't required for this part of the job. I couldn't help but admire the roads and building of Vale as we drove towards the rich part of town, the city had really marvelous architecture.

Conversation dulled down as we neared the store, the driver of the van did his job and came to a stop just past the alleyway behind the store. He backed up the van quickly and drove it backward so that it was hidden between the buildings and gave him a good view of the street.

The back doors of the van were opened and we poured out, I pointed to my men with a cigar holding hand, "Keep watch back here, I'm going to open up this back door."

I stuck the tobacco in my mouth and yanked a small rectangle device out of my inventory and flipped it on, the display screen lit up and I held it up against the back door's security panel. I bought this nifty device for a nice little price, it was supposed to unlock password protected security panels by holding it over them, like a scroll lock mechanism. Even if it didn't work we could just blow the door down and nab as much as we could before the police showed up.

The little box beeped twice to let me know it as done and I gently pulled the door open, no alarms seemed to have been set off.

"Seems the thing worked," I muttered, shrugging and sticking it back into my inventory. "Alright, set the bags up nice and quickly and don't smash anything yet. We don't want the alarms to go off before we're ready to leave. And you two," I pointed at two random henchmen as everyone else went to work, "Go look for the keys to the display cases if you guys can't find any just tell everyone to smash and grab."

The grunts each grabbed a bag and went around setting them up on the counters. I stood in the middle of the shop and watched them run around, getting everything set up. I eventually got bored of watching them do their thing and walked to the back office as one of the grunts I sent to look for keys returned empty handed and told the others to just smash, I heard the sound of breaking glass as I entered the back room. Setting my cane against a desk I rummaged through the papers, I might find where the safe is and the code to get into it.

During my search, I heard a yelp of surprise and a loud thump following it. I sighed and picked up my cane by its shaft and walked out into the main store.

"Just what is going on here?! I thought I said to keep-" A gun pointing to my head from behind interrupted me.

"Freeze, you are under arrest criminal!" A young woman's voice shouted.

I sighed melodramatically, "And just who are you?"

I heard metal clicking around, she must be fumbling with her handcuffs, amateur, "Who I am doesn't matter, now put your hands behind your back. You have the right to remain silent."

I moved my hands ever so slowly downwards, a small burn crystal dropping from my left hand to land on the floor between us. "What the-" was her first reaction before the crystal exploded into flames from being overloaded with my aura. Thankfully it was small and didn't do a lot of damage, only meant for a distraction.

I ducked under the gun just as it fired off a round, swinging Melodic Cudgel up to slam home into the officer's chin with a power strike, catching her off guard. She crashed into the wall, almost going through it.

I finally got a good look at her as a few of my henchmen were regaining their bearings, my eyes widened when I saw what floated above her head.

"Hey! Anyone who can move grab someone and a bag and load up the van, we're leaving soon! I'll keep the lady entertained."

"Right boss!" a few of my underlings replied, at least these guys were tougher than the average mooks. But they wouldn't hold a candle to the woman before us.

"I think not, criminal!" the policewoman shouted as she pried herself off the wall.

The True and the Just

Lv 62 Jeanette Arc

"An Arc, huh. I don't have to be a psychic to know she must be one of Jaune's sisters," I thought to myself. "Observe!"

Name: Jeanette Arc

Job: Police Woman

Level: 62

Title: The True and the Just

Age: 18

HP: 4700

MP: 12,530

STR: 96 [60 + 36(60%)]

VIT: 160 [100 + 60(60%)]

DEX: 48 [30 + 18(60%)]

INT: 48 [30 + 18(60%)]

WIS: 40 [25 + 15(60%)]

LUK: 85

Status: Active Aura, Arc Bloodline (+200% total MP)

Mood: Angry, wants justice.

A young and spirit filled woman, it's been her dream to be a police officer and help the people of her home city. Sure, she could have done it as a huntsman, but all of her other sisters were already doing that. So as soon as she finished up at Signal she applied for the police academy the second she turned eighteen, graduating at the top of her class. She is a firm believer that strength overcomes any odds against her.

What the fuck was with those stats?! That vitality and strength is freaking insane, and let's not forget about that luck. And that arc bloodline thing is unbalanced, it triples her MP for god's sake! And once again her intelligence doesn't even add up to her MP. My only saving grace is that my dexterity, intelligence, and wisdom are much higher than hers. But this'll be a tough and drawn-out fight if I let her set the pace, I don't have time for that. No wonder this mission was a high difficulty…

[You are entering a Boss Battle!]

You can't run from a Boss battle, they'll just chase you down anyway. The requirements to defeat each boss encountered will be given just before the real battle starts.

Requirements for current Boss:

Survive for three minutes while your underlings gather your unconscious henchmen and the loot.

"Joy," I sarcastically thought.

Jeanette unsheathed a baton from her waist and charged me, I dodged around her strike easily thanks to my dexterity and slammed my powered strike enhanced cane into the back of her knee. She grunted and fell onto her knee, but swung her baton at me anyway, I deflected it to the side and felt how much more power she had than me. I'm glad I wasn't dumb enough to try and match it directly.

Jeanette recovered from the knee strike and launched herself up, kicking off the ceiling to slam an ax kick down at my head. Leaping to the side, I hooked my cane around her arm as she came down and spun around, flinging her over my recovering henchmen and at the store's front window. I immediately brought up Melodic Cudgel, using my forearm to make a stable aiming platform, and fired several shots at the flying woman. She brought up her baton to try and bat away the explosive bullets, but the force of my weapon's ammunition and Jeanette own force of impact made the metal grate over the windows bend and break, shattering the windows and letting the young woman continued her flight path back.

The officer ended up outside the store and came to a sliding stop on her back on the other side of the street. It didn't faze her as much as I hoped it would've, her aura compensating well for the blow and barely down a sixth since we started this fight. Well, considering her immense aura pool I'd say I did well in that regard since I didn't dish out a whole lot of attacks myself.

I stepped over the broken window and took my cigar out of my mouth, "Well well well, blondie. You're tougher than you look, so I'll ask again. Who are you?" I dropped the burnt up cigar to the ground and walked further into the street.

Well, I already knew who she was but that's because of my gamer ability.

She got into a defensive stance, clearly knowing she was outmatched in terms of close quarters. I might have a lower level, aura, vitality and strength score than her, but that didn't mean a single thing if she couldn't actually hit me. It's all about dexterity, if I can dodge around you and whittle you down without being touched, I win by default. Some more strength would always help in melee though, no point risking my life by taking too long to beat someone. Plus, while I might not have graduated from a fancy place like Signal Academy, I have plenty of combat experience from the constant ring fighting. I doubted she had any aside from the safe fights in school and the police academy.

"My name is Jeanette Arc, and it's my duty to the city to bring you in for justice. I know who you are, Roman Torchwick, you've been busy gaining the police's attention recently." She replied, narrowing her eyes and firing a few shots of her pistol at me. Seems she really didn't want to waste any time talking, but I did. Just had a little under two minutes left.

I casually deflected each bullet with Melodic Cudgel as I appraised the young woman before me.

"Your duty hmm? Seems like too big a responsibility for a kid like you, how about you turn back now and save yourself the humiliation. Let the real adults work here," I taunted, twirling my cane around my hand when the bullets stopped.

She growled and gritted her teeth, reloading her gun. Seems I touched a nerve.

"Oh?" I tapped a finger to my chin, leaning forward on my cane and squinting my eyes dramatically.

"What?!" She nearly shouted.

"Maybe the adults are trying to get you to stop getting in their way, maybe they gave you some unimportant duty in hopes to get you to stop bothering them? Like patrolling the rich district of Vale, a place where there isn't nearly as much crime as the other districts? A fitting place for a kid like you to snoop around and not bother anyone." Just a minute more.

"I managed to find you," she retorted.

I tapped my cane on the ground and made a big of a show acknowledging her truth, "True. But do you know why they don't want a kid like you to work the big cases?"

"Indulge me, criminal," Jeanette spat out readying her weapons once more.

I mockingly pointed my cane at her, "You, are just a silly little girl who just didn't see the big picture in front of her." Honestly, I'm just spouting a bunch of bullshit to waste time. I, quite frankly, have no idea what I'm talking about.

And with that, the timer ticked down to zero and I used Rumble's abilities to suddenly make the very ground below her swallow her up to her neck. She was caught off guard from that and started struggling to get out of the earth. Already there was cracking forming on her makeshift prison, a henchman came running up behind me.

"Boss, we got everything ready to go!"

"Right, let's get out of here, I can already hear sirens," with that I sprinted to the back of the jewelry store with my goon and we shoved ourselves into the back of the van. I tapped on the van with Melodic Cudgel, "Get a move on!"

The van sped out of the alleyway and down the street and with one loud boom of displaced earth later, I could hear the war cry of Jeanette Arc as she rounded the street corner and fired her pistol at us. Most just embedded into the van's back door, the gun didn't have the stopping power to pierce it from this distance. I opened the back door of the van and just before we got too far out of sight I mockingly saluted the woman.

Style, I gotta have it.

[You have completed a Guild Mission!]

Rewards: 20,000EXP, 10,000 Lien, increased respect within the criminal underworld.

[You have gained a level!]

(A/N) I'll be taking a small break to plan the rest of the Neo arc out a little more and rest my fingers.

Name: Roman Torchwick

Class: The Gamer

Level: 37 (Next Level: 1,720/70,300)

Title: Up and Coming Kingpin

Bounty: 28,000 Lien

HP: 2,402

MP: 4,178 [3,214 + 160.7(5%) + 803.5(25%)]

STR: 42 [Base 30 + 9(30%) + 3(10%)]

VIT: 60.2 [Base 43 + 12.9(30%) + 4.3(10%)]

DEX: 159.9 [Base 78 + 11.7(15%) + 23.4(30%) + 7.8(10%) + 39(50%)]

INT: 141.4 [Base 101 + 30.3(30%) + 10.110%)]

WIS: 56 [Base 40 + 12(30%) + 4(10%)]

LUK: 11

Elemental Affinity: Earth (10)

Attribute Points: 5

Lien: 2,423,690

Status Effects: Inactive Aura(Toggled Off)

Omake (Canon)

We parked the van inside the warehouse so we didn't attract unwanted attention, as soon as we left the vehicle the other grunts that didn't go on the mission started unloading the cargo. I waved the ones that followed me and got beat up away so they can go rest up, that blonde chick really did a number on them with her crazy strength. Reminded me of what Yang would be like in a few years.

I was just peachy and decided to relax while my henchmen did all the hard work, and right as I sat on a random box my scroll went off. Shrugging, I pulled the device out of my pocket and checked the caller ID. It was Junior, I felt excited.

I answered the scroll, "Hey, Junior! How's the wife and kids?"

"Cut the crap Roman, I found something you might want to hear, or not depending on how sane you actually are. Cost me an arm and a leg to get this info too, so you better be damn well grateful," came the cheerful voice of Junior on the other end of the call.

"Yeesh, what's got you so worked up over?"

"Just come by my club tomorrow night, you'll understand then," he replied.

"Fine, fine! I didn't have anything planned anyway. I'll be there," with that the pleasantries were over and we both hung up. I stared at my scroll for a bit, once again wondering just what the hell was I about to get into.

[Quest Updated]

One scoop, or two?

What's a master criminal without his true partner in crime? Going lone wolf will only take you so far in this industry. But, unfortunately, you have no idea where this prospective partner of yours is. For now, you will just have to wait for Junior to come up with something.

Quest Progression:

-Commission Junior for his services in finding information. [X]

-Wait until Junior contacts you about the information he found. [X]

-Go to Junior's club at the time he tells you to. []

Rewards: 100,000 Lien, 1,000,000 EXP, new title "Partners in Crime", a new follower, storyline progression.

Failure: Death.