Chpater 12: Project/Enhancement

"Haven't thought about it yet. I'm thinking of starting after you. Maybe you could give me a guide that's less dangerous?" he asked.

"You basically mean I should carry you?" I replied, a hint of amusement in my voice.

"Heh, you got me," kyle chuckled.

"Hey, don't exclude me! I need someone to carry me too," Joe chimed in.

"First, get your tattoo, bro," kyle said with a playful grin.

"I don't know if I can even get it," Joe said dejectedly.

"Don't worry, you'll definitely get it," I said, offering him a reassuring smile."

As the conversation shifted from the Tower and back to Joe's tattoo worries and Kyle's cautious excitement, I couldn't help but feel a mix of relief and unease. The fact that my unexpected S+ rating had stirred up such a buzz made me question the cost of my secrecy. It was strange to be at the center of so much speculation when, just the day before, I had been more concerned about a science project.

When the bell rang, signaling the end of our conversation and the start of the next class, I tried to focus on the day's lessons. The noise from earlier still lingered in my mind, and every now and then, I'd catch snippets of conversation from other students about the mysterious new top scorer of the Tower of Trials.

As the day wound down, I was eager to get home and dive back into the project. But when I finally arrived, I was greeted by an unexpected sight—my sister had set up a small mock-up of our solar panel project in the living room, and it looked impressive.

"Hey, you're back!" she called out, her face lighting up as soon as she saw me. "I've made some great progress today. Come check it out."

I walked over to the table where she had set up the model. The solar panels were neatly arranged, connected to a few LED lights and small gadgets that demonstrated how solar energy could power everyday items. It was clear she had put a lot of effort into it. And the great thing about this project is it incoparates mana stones. Yes the mana stone one of the fancy element of every fantasy world. It exists here to. And its quite expensive but an empty one is affordable. and we can use it as a battery, to store power it works better than any conventional battries from a decade ago. 

"This looks fantastic," I said, genuinely impressed. "You've done a great job with the setup."

"Thanks! I tried to get it as detailed as possible. I even made a little presentation to explain how it works," she said, pointing to a tri-fold board with diagrams and explanations.

"Awesome. Let's review it together and see if there are any tweaks we need to make before the fair," I suggested, rolling up my sleeves with enthusiasm.

We spent the next few hours refining the project, adding finishing touches, and rehearsing the presentation. My sister's enthusiasm made the work enjoyable, and the more we worked on it, the more confident I felt about our chances at the fair.

After everything was completed, I went back to my room. Now it was time to enter the Tower of Trials again.

After all, I needed to increase my stats.

But first, the shop.

Once inside the Tower, I navigated toward the shop. I approached an interface that quickly scanned me and showed a list of items available for purchase.

Skills:

[Basic Hand-to-Hand Combat] [Obtained]

[Intermediate Hand-to-Hand Combat] [Increase Basic Hand-to-Hand Combat proficiency to 100%][Basic Firearm Mastery] [Obtained]

[Intermediate Firearm Mastery] [Increase Basic Firearm Mastery proficiency to 100%]

[Basic Battle Focus] [Obtained]

[Intermediate Battle Focus] [Increases Basic Firearm Mastery proficiency to 100%]

[Basic Speech] [Unobtained] - 200 coins

[Intermediate Speech] [Buy Basic Speech to unlock Intermediate Speech]

[Nimble Hands] [Unobtained] - 400 coins

There was another section besides the skill section; it was the item section.

I went to the item section.

Items:

[Corporate Slave Suit] [Not a special item] [Resale value: 0]

[Military Knife] [Not a special item] [Resale value: 0]

[Semiautomatic Pistol] [Not a special item] [Resale value: 0]

[Military Shield] [Not a special item] [Resale value: 0]

[Baton] [Not a special item] [Resale value: 0]

That was it.

These were all the items I had come across in the first-floor mission. There were no items to my liking, but I still didn't know what the mission on the second floor of the Tower might entail. Maybe buying the firearm would come in handy. I decided to focus on increasing my stats first.

I left the store and navigated toward the enhancement pod section. The enhancement pod required a cost. It wasn't much, just a few coins per enhancement, but a single coin could deprive me of one stat point since I couldn't increase a stat point with 99 coins.

The starter funds I had received from entering the Tower were used on the training facility.

---Author's Note---

At that time, I didn't think about using coins for the facility, so I'm going to edit some parts of the previous chapter. No need to go back and reread again. Just keep in mind that every facility in the Tower costs some points (1 coin for 12 hours of use—it cost him 60 coins for 2 months and the rest 140 for instruction for different basic skills).

---Author's Note End---

I paid the fee for an enhancement pod, which costs 100 coins per use.

Entering the enhancement pod, I found it right in front of me in a private room. I approached the pod, opened the glass lid, climbed inside, and lay down. The glass automatically closed. A blue screen formed on the glass, displaying two options:

[Stats Enhancements][Artificial Enhancements] [Locked]

The second option, Artificial Enhancements, was locked, and I didn't know what it was.

I clicked on the Stats Enhancements option.

Status

Name: Alex

Health: 100%

Stamina: 100%

Fatigue: 0%

HP: 80 +

Attack: 8 +

Agility: 9 +

Defense: 8 +

Endurance: 9 +

Focus: 9 +

Additional Information:

Skills:

Basic weapon mastary

Basic hand to hand combat

Basic Battle Focus

Enhancements: [None]

Supernatural Abilities: [None]

Total Coins: 3400

My stats were the same as last time, but the difference was the + sign in front of them. I had 3400 coins, which meant 34 stat points. Each stat point in HP increases HP by 10 points.

Since I was currently fighting physically, I needed to focus on attack power, agility, and endurance. I should increase them.

I clicked on the Attack option 6 times, but I wasn't able to increase it any further. An error message appeared:

[Other physical attributes lower than 10]

This meant I couldn't increase a single attribute more than the others.

I then clicked on the Agility attribute 4 times, but another error appeared:

[Cannot enhance more than 10 points in an attribute at a single time]

Given the limits, I decided to increase Attack by 4, Agility by 3, and Endurance by 3.

[Enhancement in process]

[Time remaining: 1 hr]

[Applying sleep anesthetic]

A gas filled the pod, and after a few inhales, I fell asleep.