The hazy feeling swept all over her as she squinted, feeling a dry throat and fatigue overwhelmed her. She opened her eyes to a white ceiling after adjusting to the new light.
She was in a large and deluxe suite that was only privated to the vips of the hospital.
"Ugh, what is this headache?"
Then there was a beeping sound that alerted the nurses on duty that prompted them to go over to her. The nurse looking relieved and shocked asked her if she was alright.
"I— I want water," Aria's hoarse voice echoed weakly.
While the nurse quickly gave her water, the other nurse on duty appeared like she went outside to inform the doctor.
She only saw a glimpse of the room being garnished with fancy furniture and complex and highly technological devices that hung onto her.
Unsure and dizzy, she quickly sipped in the water and soon fainted.
The nurse who gave her water noticed her fainting and cried in alarm and worry as she bolted to inform the doctor. Though the person who caused all this ruckus was deeply sleeping.
…
Feeling her eyes heavily, she was awoken by the buzzing noises that surrounded her.
An arrangement of voices chatted profusely as she could just faintly make out her mom's and dad's voice.
What?!
She opened her eyes wide and stared at her mom and dad standing by a doctor about the well-being of their daughter.
Two middle-aged couples stood with tired looks and dark circles beneath their eyes. They looked like they hadn't refreshed themselves in days and were looking haggard with worry.
She choked in sadness seeing the current predicament of her parents because they worried about the hidden harms her repercussions of over-exhausting herself could've caused her.
The doctor facing the patient's bed had noticed that she was awake.
"Uh— your daughter is awake," he said to the parents who turned to look over the bed.
Her parents shook with relief at seeing Aria awake, hugged her in elation as they came over to her crying in relief and kept her accompanied.
Her mom held water for her if she was thirsty from being asleep for five days.
"Five days? I was asleep for five days," Aria scrunched her face in confusion.
The repercussions of over-using your super power and going over its limit when your body can't handle it could cause a lot of harm to your potential growth that the usual cases of doing so leaves the user to be in a coma that could arrange up to years, devastation to the mind, or hidden damages throughout the body that can hinder a super user to advance to the next level.
Which is a critical blow to anyone hearing such news in this world because to be successful was to be powerful.
Aria was lucky that she only stayed unconscious for five days and it appeared in the doctor's first report that she also didn't have any serious inflicted repercussions except that it seemed like in comparison from her records before, she grew taller.
Guilty, she blinked her eyes when the doctor first told her then to her parents.
"Your report shows that you grew up 6 inches from your last check up."
"Oh," She nodded as if this was news to her.
"Hmm, you have to stay for awhile as we monitor you just in case your height growth was not the only thing that happened."
"Actually, I—"
She insisted that she wanted to be discharged as soon as possible but under the doctor's reprimandations, she still had to recover for a day before she could be released from the hospital.
'I guess that's fine… I can just take this as a break. May I have been too quick to ask? Ugh so many things to do in so little time when all I just wanted to do was just lie down in my bed.'
The doctor and nurses moved them out as they started to check up on her for further examinations. Her parents had left her alone after they had finished up her check up.
She told them that they didn't have to worry too much for her as she was fine and dainty.
After a long time persuading her parents so they can refresh themselves and be relieved.
She was now feeling bored doing nothing as she stared around her awaiting for her water she had requested from the nurse.
She perked her ears when she eavesdropped on a group of nurses passing by her door conversing.
"Did you hear about Qian Zhuang attending a party tomorrow?"
"What?! Oh my Gaia please!"
"Yes, it's hosted in the city's museum and I heard only important people are allowed."
"What superheroes?!"
They gushed in giggles as their voices faded away.
Aria was shocked at this sky fallen opportunity that came over to her lap.
She had looked at her system notifications while she recuperated and remembered it happened briefly before she overheard the nurse's conversation.
…
[ Mission tab: Newbie Guide to Stealing ✓ ]
The cat flickered out of the blue hue panel as he meowed, "Congrats! You are now at the threshold of being the weakest villain!"
'Huh? How did I even steal any attributes, in my sleep?" Aria said jokingly.
"Wait, how did you know?" Gatsby tilted his head in confusion as if he was pondering.
Aria, shocked, looked at her system notifications as she scrolled through and found at the top consecutive successful attribute steals.
She scrutinizes it and realizes that she may have stolen some of the brief glimpse of the blurry figure that helped her not face planting the dirt again.
'Hahh, now a tiny itsy spider of a favor has been added…' Aria sighed thinking that she needed to find a way to quickly get rid of these but her mind quickly realized.
She now had a villain lair!!
'Hurry up and explain it," Aria was clearly excited about receiving her hard earned reward. There in the new section on top of her system panel laid a tab called, "Villain Lair."
She mentally clicked on it and an empty space appeared in front of her. Her consciousness pulled herself into a subspace as far as her eyes could reach pure white of nothingness.
She hovered over the air but she felt nothing, no gravity, no nothing but she had one reaction.
"Cool!" Aria's eyes turned wide open to marvel at the empty white area around her.
"The Villain Lair is your personal subspace where you can hang up your goods here, basically what you call your system inventory of where your actual items are placed at, and a home you can customize however you want it with a price of course."
"How much?" She squinted at Gatsby with a suspicious look.
"..."
"Uh, nothing much really, just look at this!"
The system panel showed itself into the shop where a new department was unlocked, unraveling new features that cost a lot of system points!
There countless arrays of beautiful and gorgeous colors of items appeared in front of her as long as you just ignored the tags of some of them. She saw detailed shelves, carved pillars, and sheets and sheets of varying attributes to help preserve rarity of items depending on usage.
Her face contorted to a spiral when she saw something new that she hadn't noticed before. The conversion between real life money and system points were five to one.
Square up now she had to tearfully add herself a money-grubber knowing all the rarity of collections of items would take a lot of time to amass.
An elegant yet dark blue hue villain lair vibe is hers!
'Ugh, there's got to be corrupt rich old men in this world too," Aria's eyes showed with greed already imagining her personal lair decked out.
And with a certain amount of system points of 100, she could set her lair into the real world to show potential future visitors how cool and mysterious Rain shall be as the main hall will have an enshrined throne maybe littered in crystals, jewels, and gems that'll hold a detailed carved like throne. Imagine how cool it'll be!
Having such riches should at least be looked at by other people than herself so she was willing to spend 100 system points.
She currently does not have the capital yet to be indulgent with her system points as before she wasn't really planning on heavily stealing people's money, she was forced!
She laughed maniacally as she scrolled through the prospects of endless items she knew she had to grind in the future, she faced her newest mission.
Gatsby popped up again whispering, "Good riddance, the mad lady has gone back to normal," he swept the imaginary sweat off his face as he clenched his paws.
"Another day another save from her tickles!"
[ Mission tab: Learning As You Go ]
Learn the art of stealing through the traditional means of skillfully or vulgarly picking up items that seem like nobody owns it. Why is it just lying there? For every successful steal, you get system points according to its grade and an end rating of your tutorial that'll finalize the grading of starting level and perks of Tutorial.
Time: {{ one week }}
Reward: {{ Unlock Tutorial Space }} {{ ?? Sp }}
"Gatsby, why are the rewards mainly about places in the system?"
"It's because right now you're in tutorial mode, Aria."
"Tutorial mode, me? I'm in a tutorial? What the fuck I didn't know that."
"Yes, the first three missions help you accommodate your new setting and by the end of it, it'll go back to normal mode where the missions will be issued only to certain requirements met or special occasions. You are free to do whatever."
Gatsby muttered, "Fucking dumbass didn't know she was in a tutorial mode. She really thought this was easy."
"Gatsby, I heard that!"
…
After she pulled her consciousness back to the real world, she realized that time did not pass by much. Aria estimated that maybe an hour passes by in the system every one thirty seconds.
She wasn't sure as she sucks at mental math.
The nurse came over with her glass of water finally and after she gladly took it and gulped it down. She had spent her idle time scrolling through the system shop and information about the city's museum when the nurse went back to duty.
The time flew by til the next day where she could be discharged from the hospital.
Her parents were with her for moral support as they insisted and stepped out of the hospital.
She turned to her mother and pleaded with sparkly yet tearful eyes in a spoilt manner.
She raised her voice a couple octaves higher than normal.
"Mom, can I go to my friend's house," Aria said to the woman next to her with sparkly eyes.
"Which one, hunny if it's the girl—"
"Uhm Alora," her mom paused for a second then nodded as if to approve.
'Yes!'
She knew she could count on Alora.
"Okay, but before you can go to Alora's place, rest for a while at home then you can go."
"Okay, thanks a lot, Mom!"
They arrived at home from their flying car, which Aria couldn't still help but marvel at how everything is so futuristic yet had the same energy of going out to hunt for animals that evolved to monsters.
She laid down recuperating in her bed.
A familiar feeling enveloped her cuddling her blanket wrapped around her body.
The normal occurrence of a blue panel hovered in front of her as she dazedly looked at what she should buy for tonight's errand.
Nothing too big of a deal, just going to steal the rarest artifacts her home city had to offer under the protection of many high tier bodyguards and in front of the eyes of all attendee superheroes.
"Ahh! How am I supposed to do this?"
Gatsby popped up walking by her side, he purred, "Well, look up your attributes."
Bewildered, Aria said status and concentrated her attributes to show up.
She saw digits of numbers and a similar figured status panel that replaced the old one.
Host: Aria
Age: 18
Strength: 31
Constitution: 17
Dexterity: 19
Intelligence: 21
Wisdom: 14
Charisma: 2
What? Why does this feel a bit overpowering for a dear ol' sweet auxiliary super user?
The tier given to super users are categorized differently because for example in terms of battle typed super users they have to overcome a certain hitting wall to gain the next power boost.
The tiers for auxiliary super users are way different because instead of how much combat force you can use. It's more important about how you can utilize your gift as every tier is the hitting point deciding on the advancement of your super powers.
Her attributes rivaled as an unbalanced mid-leveled E-tier ranked battle-type super users that if they knew Aria had only spent a little over a week including the five day sleeping.
They'll be too stunned to speak.
"Yeah, the boost of attributes that you underwent was like a boon your body was receiving that you ended up waking up from your coma in five days. Such incidents, especially those that do go into a coma usually end up months to years sleeping."
Oh, Aria thought back how worried her parents were when she first saw them.
The relief from their eyes almost saddened her eyes to tears. She now got it, pouting how much her parents cared for her even mother had let her go to Alora's house when she just went through a life-changing moment.
She pursed her lips thinking.
"You're lucky that the last guy was an E-tier and had at least 18 strength attribute points, 16 constitution attribute points, 14 dexterity attribute points, and 1 charisma attribute point that you somehow leeched off successfully.
That was a handful to say."
Aria opened her eyes wide, "What an E-tier! Who was that guy?"
He was basically an E-tier super user that although wasn't rare or uncommon, she remembered that he had looked young. That was a genius she had met.
No, wait— she was going to meet him there at the party that was obviously hosted for them.
She connected the dots when the doctor told them that the Qian family paid her bill and her parents didn't need to worry about it because the Qian Zhuang paid for it.
Well it was under his name, under the family, and when her parents wanted to dig deeper because although thankful, they didn't want their daughter, her, to owe favors to them.
It was already paid and who hasn't heard of the Qian Zhuang.
Her.
Well, the original owner was also, similarly, living under a rock too.
Qian Zhuang goes by the hero name of Hercules because his main and famous weapon, the broadsword of Elvidelphia, wipes all those that come across him of his strength powers.
The broadsword of Elvidelphia that came from when he single handedly cleared out a monster field and it's boss and unraveled a grade green weapon.
That broadsword.
The superheroes that helped eradicate the monster tide and calm down the masses with their sole presence.
He came from a great background and was compared to her.
A girl who had no experience in everything this world had to offer and was just ages ago a someone who cried in her sleep when things didn't turn out well.
She smiled deviously seeing that she had stolen 18 strength attribute points of his…
The legendary "Hercules," she laughed when she first heard it because she connected it back from her world to the mythical Greek hero famous for his strength and his far-ranging adventures.
(Author: I just want to say I thought Hercules was Greek but apparently he got two different names the other Heracles HUH which is the Greek one and was named after Goddess Hera bc Zeus cheated again.. And to appease her so she doesn't kill the child. AND yk Hercules is Roman.. Huh, you learn something new everyday.)
The Hercules that they both shared in common strength, famous stories of adventures, and winning in life.
Her status twinkled with a marvelous appeal of almost coming close to E-tier when she hadn't worked for it the last time she checked.
The girl with messy cascading bed hair wasn't as worried as before cooling down her nerves, she picked up the air as if to hold it up and kissed it.
"Gah! Keep you pesky kisses away!"
'Thank you for cheering me up in this subtle manner.'