Chapter Twenty Four: Wrong Performance?

At the time when Alex received a quest to show how skilful he was with the dish at Stacy's restaurant, he had received a reward of 100 cheat points.

Thinking of where to spend it on, he had chosen to increase the most important factor and that was his voice.

[Perfect Voice: 12%]

Since 100 cheat points will increase his perfect voice stats by 20%, he had opted for the option.

[Perfect Voice: 32%]

It may be low but it's still better than how it previously was. He was hoping to get a rank one or two since his voice wasn't on the level of what could be called an Angelic voice. He couldn't aim higher since at 50% he would still be thriving in rank three.

That was until a system message appeared in front of him, granting him something he wasn't expecting to happen at all. Neither did he have an idea that such a thing was possible.

Meanwhile, he had previously gotten a Side Quest to help Bob regain back his confidence, turns out he won't be doing that anymore, or so he thought.

[Old Quest has been overridden and turned to a hidden quest]

[New Side Quest: As a Superstar, you should aim higher, use every means possible to obtain your rightful rank Five. To ensure success in the quest, the system has decided to give the user a temporary gift]

[A temporary full voice stats has been granted]

[Perfect Voice: 100%]

Suddenly, Alex started feeling his throat getting clearer and wider than before; a sign that the perfect voice stat was taking effect. It was surprising indeed and it almost felt like a dream. Maybe he's yet to believe that this whole thing was real, 'cause he's never heard of anyone having superpower or a system similar to the one he had.

He wants to believe some people have this type of system or superpower he has, so he had to come up with a logical excuse. Maybe such people are hiding their secrets to themselves just as he was doing his.

'Of course if such thing as superpowers existed in real world, they wouldn't want to reveal their secrets to the world. Unless they decided to wear capes and superhero-suits like Superman and Shazam.' Alex reasoned.

While he was busy in his thoughts, he had suddenly heard the name Alex Gene being called. His body had reacted upon hearing its name, which made Alex think that there might still be a little bit of the boy left in this body. Or it could be just a normal reaction from the body. Either way, it doesn't matter right now, as he have other things to worry about and that includes the side quest he was given by the system.

Before he received the stats upgrade, he already had in mind to sing a song that wouldn't stress his vocals too much, maybe one of his earliest songs when he was still Alex Stale. But now that his voice stats was at 100%, he could sing any type of song, and by so doing he had chosen a very special song, an original song he dedicated to someone special, a song he was sure no one knew about, not even Thomas.

He performed his special song while also tuning it up with a guitar. The mixture of his sweet voice and the instrumental had made the song sound very soothing and pleasant to the ears.

When he ended his presentation, he was expecting to see people clapping instead everywhere had become almost as silent as the graveyard. An occurrence when a participant performs badly, like singing off-key, forgetting lyrics or singing a meaningless song.

The only thing he could hear was a few muffle sounds of crying from different people.

'Hold on, did I say something wrong?' Alex darted his gaze around the arena, trying to see the expression on people's face but due to the stage light focusing mainly on him, he wasn't able to see anything.

'Damn it, I should've known this System was a prank. There's no way my voice will suddenly shoot up from 32% to 100% all of a sudden. I must've sang so badly to the public while in my ears it was a good song.'

Feeling embarrassed, Alex had decided to apologise. He couldn't believe he got pranked by the System who made his voice only sweet to his ears, while to the public it was an entire different thing.

Bowing down his head slightly, Alex had decided to speak up. "I'm sorry, I'll work on my voice next ti…"

Before he could even finish uttering his apology, a loud eruption of applause and cheering had filled the whole arena, even the VIP participants had stood from their seats to applause his performance.

The lights of the arena were turned on and it was only after seeing the faces of everyone that he came to understand what had happened so far. The ones that were crying were doing so due to the emotional feelings coming from his song.

"What…?" That was all Alex could blurt out. He was so engrossed in his own song that he didn't realise everyone was captured by the lyrics of his song. It had touched everyone's heart to the point where it had made them so emotional to clap.

They only realised Alex was done with his performance when they saw him bowing his head down. Unbeknownst to them, Alex was already having multiple guilty thoughts and regrets running through his head. He was so annoyed to the point where he had started blaming the system for tricking him.

The cheering didn't stop as others also joined in to applause Alex's song presentation.

Bob and Tyler were the most excited as they could be seen jumping up in the air like kids. Despite the fact that the three had only met each other today, yet there was this connection they could feel towards each other. With all honesty, they all have pure intentions towards the other.

"I told you he's going to do well." Bob said amidst his jumping.

"Yeah, but let's hope he gets judge rightfully. I'm sure you remember a fellow participant here who should've been given rank five. Do you think Alex won't be the same."

As Tyler said this, the excitement Bob has been feeling instantly died down as a specific word from someone suddenly struck his mind.

"No, I shouldn't be worried about the words of a cheater like them. I'm sure Alex's luck will play out somehow. Who knows, I might be lucky too." Bob shook off the bothering words he had on his mind and instead cheered Alex more. This didn't go unheard by Tyler who had a wide smile written on her face.

The cheering soon died down, and now it was time for Alex to obtain a rank. Will the judgement be fair or not? This was the question on everyone's mind. They weren't so dumb to notice the injustice that was happening in the arena, even though they couldn't do anything, they had to stay calm since this was their only way to become a Star!