Chapter 161: Levels

"Never reach out your hand unless you're willing to extend an arm."

- Pope Paul VI

...

[Congratulations! The host has completed the customary task of stealing the 'Ocean Gem.]

[Mission Difficulty: Difficult (Easy, Normal, Difficult, Extreme, Desperate, Impossible)]

[Treasure Value: Low (Low, Average, Normal, Excellent, Outstanding, Rare, Legendary, Incalculable)]

[Elegance Level: A (D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS)]

[Overall Evaluation: A+ (Your excellent performance and creative use of props have earned you a high rating.)

[Rewards: 30,172 Amazement Points (from the audience at the stadium, GCPD police, Jim Gordon, Robin...) + 2,400 Amazement Points (for completing the mission, fixed reward)]

[Additional Objective Completed: Stealing the 'Bat-Signal,' additional reward of 3,000 points.]

[Balance: 235 Amazement Points with a total of 35,807 Amazement Points.]

Hearing the system's prompt in his ears, Dean couldn't help but show a hint of joy on his face.

This time, he really hit the jackpot!

The Gotham City Stadium, which could hold more than a thirty thousand people, gave Dean more than thirty thousand points directly from the audience.

In addition to the points received from the audience, the reward for completing the mission also increased to 2,400 points.

What surprised Dean even more was that he received an additional three thousand points as a reward for stealing the Bat-Signal.

The main reason he stole the Bat-Signal in the first place was that getting the gem from the bat symbol using the Hard Cutter would take time.

It would be too risky to do it openly in front of Robin and the GCPD.

So, it would have been better to hide the Bat-Signal and then do the cutting work.

Of course, the topic and show by making the Bat-Signal disappear were also part of Dean's considerations.

With nearly thirty-six thousand points, Dean hadn't seen this many points since he got the system. This time, he could finally enjoy himself.

It turned out that spending almost all of the balance and leaving only a couple of hundred points was the right decision.

It seemed like he hadn't made a mistake back then.

After all, only those who dare to give up everything can get everything. If they don't risk much, how can they expect high returns?

"What should I buy for now..."

Dean had been struggling, so when he got a huge sum of money all at once, he didn't know how to spend it for a moment.

Before, Gotham's life was pretty calm, and he didn't encounter any really dangerous villains.

The Penguin had always intended to plot against him, but even so, his methods were quite cautious.

As a Gotham resident, Dean lived the glorious period of the Penguin, which was right after the downfall of Falcone and the first two years of Batman and Robin's debut.

At that time, famous supervillains like the Scarecrow, Killer Croc, Clayface, the Mad Hatter, Deadshot, Solomon Grundy...

Many of Gotham's named supervillains were working under the Penguin's thumb.

Although they went their separate ways many years ago and several of them ended up in prison or Arkham Asylum, none of them have been released to this day.

However, if the Penguin is really determined to spend a lot of money to kill someone, Dean believes that the Penguin could easily hire those supervillains back.

But the Penguin hadn't done that yet, which at least shows he doesn't have a strong desire to kill the Phantom Thief.

That's also why the Phantom Thief has had a somewhat smooth time in Gotham recently. So far, Dean hasn't encountered any troublesome characters.

Characters like Firefly and Man-Bat, who had appeared recently like Phantom Thief, hadn't given Dean any major problems either.

In short, before this incident, Dean could easily complete his crime performances even without relying on the powerful items provided by the system.

But now the situation is different.

Bruce Wayne's public challenge to the Phantom Thief has sent a signal to Dean.

It meant that he was now on Batman's radar.

While he hadn't encountered Batman at the stadium this time, there was no guarantee it wouldn't happen next time.

When it comes to facing Batman, Dean will have to make a major upgrade. He definitely doesn't want to end up in Arkham Asylum for further education.

But...which should he upgrade to?

That required careful consideration.

'Let's start by checking my current abilities and equipment,'

Dean thought as he brought up his personal panel.

[Name: Dean Thurston]

[Age: 16 years old]

[Skills: proficiency magic, proficiency vehicles, proficiency lock picking, proficiency shooting, proficiency hand-to-hand combat, quick disguise, voice alteration without props.]

[Items: Card Gun, Grappling Gun, Triangular Glide, Bulletproof Cloak, High-speed Self-Filling Dummy, Homemade Smoke Grenade, Homemade Flashbang, Homemade Tear Gas, Homemade Hypnotic Gas, Mini Surveillance System Jammer, Stone of Misfortune, Hard Cutter, Mini-Bug, Fabric Repair Solition, Soil Absoption Device]

[Talents: Resistant Skin (Low Level)]

[Superhuman Reflexes (Mid-Level)]

[Curse-Resistant Shield (C-level Misfortune)]

[Balance: 35,807 Wow Points]

Hmm~ What an impressive balance...

At this point, Dean looked at his three existing talents.

According to the system's description of talents, they are divided into five levels: Low-level, Mid-level, High-level, Special-level, and Perfect-level.

Dean can directly obtain high-level talents by buying high-level talent cards, or he can upgrade low-level talents to high-level talents by paying an equal amount of points.

Take the Resistant Skin talent as an example; at the Low-level, it reduces external damage from special attributes like burning, freezing, corrosives, toxins, radiation, and explosions by ten percent and accelerates healing.

The mid-tier level was thirty-five percent, the high-tier was sixty percent, the special-tier was ninety percent, and the perfect-tier was one hundred percent immunity.

The price of upgrading talents depends on the type of talent.

For low, mid, and high-tier talents, the prices were fixed at one thousand, two thousand, and five thousand points, respectively.

The prices start to get high for the Special-level talent, ranging from ten thousand to a hundred thousand points.

The price for upgrading to Perfect-level talent starts at two hundred thousand and has no upper limit.

But, considering how powerful it is, this price seems reasonable.

Dean's Superhuman Reflexes talent was in the highest price range, with an upgrade to the Special- Level costing one hundred thousand points and an upgrade to the Perfect-Level needing one million points.

The Resistant Skin talent is considered in the medium-priced range, with upgrading to the Special-Level requiring fifty thousand points and upgrading to the Perfect-Level requiring four hundred thousand points.

After careful consideration, Dean decided to upgrade Resistant Skin and Superhuman Reflexes to the High-Level.

Both of these talents had a lot of potential and were essential core skills.

At first glance, the description of Resistant Skin might not have been very impressive since it didn't offer complete immunity from damage.

However, is that really the case?

Of course not, because the system didn't assess damage based on the size of external attacks but on the size of the damage the host received.

What does this mean?

Let's say a hand grenade can kill Dean, and a missile can also kill Dean.

In both cases, the system would consider them to have caused fatal damage.

The Resistant Skin talent can reduce fatal damage to non-fatal damage.

That's the real purpose of this talent.

In other words, whether the enemy's attack power was one hundred or ten thousand, it could only deduct a maximum of a hundred points from Dean's health.

It could never go into negative numbers.

The Low-Level Resistant Skin reduced damage by ten percent and turned a fatal injury of one hundred into a severe near-death injury of ninety.

This doesn't seem very impressive since the enemy would just have to fight again.

But once it reaches a High-Level, Resistant Skin can reduce fatal damage to only forty points of moderate damage.

Didn't that sound interesting?

Based on this, Resistant Skin seems like an invincible cheat code.

But is that really the case?

...

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