Skill Usage

"What the hell?" Sanjay exclaimed.

All the people around him turned to look in his direction. Sanjay froze.

Thankfully, more than a hundred people were around him as they exited the gate, and people were still coming out in a continuous flow. Everyone was looking at each other, not able to digest what they just heard.

Sanjay figured now was the best time to slip away. From all the movies he had watched in his past life, he knew that getting the limelight in public was never a good thing—unless you were strong enough to protect yourself.

Soon, a large commotion broke out. This was the first time anyone had received an SSS rank since the towers came into existence.

Everyone had thought that A rank was the best anyone could get, but now it was confirmed that an SSS rank existed, even above A rank.

Announcements for A ranks were only made once, tower-wide and only the people conquering that tower could hear it. Still, it had been a huge deal when an A rank had been achieved by someone from North America. But now, it was an SSS rank, and the person was from their own South Asian Tower.

Fortunately, Sanjay managed to flee from the tower area before the authorities moved in. Soon after he left, the area was completely sealed off by the Asia Hunters Association.

Their actions were swift; they interrogated every person present. Even those who had left had their entry records checked.

A black sedan pulled up near the tower, and a man in a black suit stepped out. Anyone familiar with the players' association could tell he was a higher-up.

"Did you get it?" he asked his subordinate, who had come to greet him.

"No, sir. We're not sure. They used a pseudonym, which goes against association rules. There's no one named City Hunter on the list. And today, being the first tower entry day for all the schools, more than a hundred thousand kids entered," the subordinate explained.

"Hmm. Start keeping an eye on the top students from all the schools. One of them has to be our person. We need to recruit them into the association before the other nations take action," the man in black ordered.

"Understood, sir. I'll try my best," the subordinate bowed.

Seeing this, the man in black got into his car and left the scene.

Unaware of everything going on, Sanjay had reached home. He texted his teacher to let them know he was fine. He hadn't had the chance to inform anyone when he first exited the tower.

If he hadn't come out, he might have been declared dead, as survival rates on the first floor of the tower were less than fifty percent. He wouldn't deny it—he had seen it with his own eyes.

Now, when it came to the prize, he selected the first option without hesitation. He knew how difficult it was to increase an invariable stat, and he might not get another chance. There was nothing else he really wanted out of the tower at the moment.

Of the three stats, he tried adding one point to Luck, but it wasn't allowed. Perhaps there were limitations to what Luck could achieve. Not thinking too much about it, he added two points to Intelligence and one point to Charisma.

A gust of wind blew, and Sanjay felt his mind become clearer. It was as though he could do anything now. No math problem in the world was too difficult for him. No insect could escape his notice. He felt like a human supercomputer with access to all the knowledge of his life, ready to recall it in the blink of an eye. He might just be one of the smartest people alive.

This would be immensely helpful in his quest to conquer the tower.

He checked his available points.

"Shit," he muttered. He had leveled up to eleven and now had four points. Previously, when he leveled up, he had added all his points to mana. Now, his mana stood at thirteen. He added two points to mana and one point each to Strength and Agility.

STATS

Name: City Hunter

Level: 11

Exp: 139/23300

Skill: Replicate

VARIABLE STATS

Strength: 11

Agility: 11

Mana: 15

INVARIABLE STATS

INT: 8

LUCK: 9

CHARISMA: 7

Current Available Points: 0

At last, all his stats exceeded human limitations. Breaking through these limitations wasn't easy—most people only managed to do so after reaching the fourth or fifth floor. But due to his luck, Sanjay had been somewhat successful in killing many zombies.

A sound came from his stomach.

"I need to eat sometime. Let's check how much money I have," he muttered to himself. He took out his purse and found a five-dollar note. The original owner had only one hundred dollars with him, but Sanjay had exhausted most of it by eating out and taking the bus to school. This currency, the Asian Dollar, was used in this nation. He looked at the bill closely—could he replicate it?

He concentrated and tried to create the same amount of money. To his surprise, there was the same five-dollar bill. Now he had two five-dollar bills. He smiled. Having money was the most important thing in any world. With this, he could start creating more money, live in a big house, drive a fancy car, marry a beautiful girl—he could do anything he wanted. He dreamed of all the things he desired, feeling jealous of the rich people.

Afterward, he checked his mana: one unit had been deducted. He frowned. It felt as though he had just fallen from heaven to the ground. The deduction was too much. But even with the deduction, he didn't stop. He began creating more bills. After making almost ten bills, totaling fifty dollars, he stopped.

He checked his mana again.

"Huh," he said, surprised. His mana was six. He had previously had fifteen units of mana, and after creating bills, one unit would be deducted for each five-dollar note. According to that logic, he should have had only five units left, not six. Why was the consumption suddenly reduced? He created one more note and checked his mana—it was still six. He created another note, and his mana dropped to five.

He was surprised.

Assuming the system didn't show fractional values, it seemed that creating two notes consumed one unit of mana. Was there something like that in the system?

Without delay, he checked the web regarding mana consumption. He found an entire article about it:

"Well, well, well, someone's late for exams and doing a last-minute revision on mana consumption. If that's you, you're in exactly the right place. What is mana, you ask? Most of you will probably be able to answer that, but if there's a question about mana consumption, many of you might start losing confidence. Mana consumption comes with practice—the more you practice your abilities, the more proficient you become. The more proficient you are, the less mana your skills will consume. So, how do you calculate how much mana your skill will consume? It depends on your skill set—the more powerful your skill..."

The entire page was filled with explanations and calculations.

After reading the article, a smile finally appeared on Sanjay's face. According to the explanation, the more he used his skill, the less mana it would consume.

He then checked the internet for mana recovery liquids. There were special shopping sites for players. One of the most common was Metazon. He opened the Metazon website and began looking for mana potions. They must have huge supplies of mana potions. But when he opened the website, the first page he saw advertised full-body armor.

The armor was covered from head to toe and was labeled Level Four, costing a whopping ten million dollars.

"What the hell? Why does it cost so much?" Sanjay checked the stats of the armor. Strength +2, Agility +2, Mana +3.

"And why are the stats on the armor so bad? If Level Four increases stats this much, how much worse are the armors of Level Three or lower?" Sanjay stopped thinking about it and checked the potion section. He had no idea that these were only for rookies. For VIPs, auctions were held where armors and weapons with better stats were sold at much higher prices.

There were potions to refill mana, potions to refill strength, and even potions for animals. Maybe in the higher floors, there were missions related to animals.

He checked the price of mana potions. The lowest one cost a whopping ten thousand dollars, and there didn't seem to be any limit to the highest ones.

PS: Please keep on reading, it gets more interesting later.