'Gold Spoon'
A term that refers to those who are born with everything they need in terms of education, bearing, and financial support. They had no wants or needs for their entire lives.
However I, Adam Fyre, was not born with a golden spoon. Quite the opposite, I had a dirt spoon since birth.
My parents struggled to provide for me, as they could only provide so much with their low salary jobs as a housekeeper and a simple delivery driver. I wore clothes that were found at the lowest markups as possible, we reused takeout containers as dishes, and even went months without using electricity when possible.
My life only got slightly better with the death of my parents, as awful as that sounds it was the truth, that when they died I only had to work to provide for a single person household. I lived in a single room studio apartment, with no more than $15 in my bank account. I only had a measly $50 for free spending a month, and while that might seem alright, I had the debt of my parents passed onto me with their deaths.
The situation behind that was... unfortunate.
I was just a child of 12 years old, and didn't know my rights. The loan sharks took advantage of me and made me sign a contract, stating that I willingly take on the debt of my deceased parents. Or perhaps we should look at the shady contract my employers had me sign, enslaving me to the company or pay an absurd price to cancel my employment.
Can you imagine how insane that is? To have to pay my employer to quit? However I truly didn't know any better. I let myself become deceived. However that changed on the fateful day of my 16th birthday.
[System of Deceit has responded to your wishes!]
[You have been given Illusion (F-Rank).]
[New Mission!]
[Use your illusions and guile to steal at least $5,000!]
[Reward: X-Ray Vision (F-Rank).]
[Failure: You lose the system forever.]
----
I was currently sitting in my room staring at an exact copy of myself. I was testing the illusion to see what it was capable of, however it simply stood in place, not following any of my instructions or even reacting to the environment.
"This thing is kind of useless, no? If it can't do anything it isn't useful for anything really... I guess... There is one way I could use it? I could always use it to shake people off my tail, or as a momentary distraction to pull someone's attention away from the real me." I thought, aloud.
As I continued to flesh out my plan, I made my way to a popular market area in the city, where there were many stands and people. I planned to do a bit of five finger thrifting while hiding in the crowds, using my illusion to distract people further. After only a few minutes of walking, I came to the edge of the market block, where I began taking stock of items. Even without illusions, people had been stealing from vendors in this place regardless.
I passed by a fancy jewelry vendor, he had set out many expensive looking pieces, and I had a simple trick in my mind.
I created a illusion of myself with my hand outstretched towards the back items.
"HEY!" the vendor quickly grabbed the wrist of the hand that tried to blatantly steal his goods.
It was during this window of time I quickly snatched a handful of necklaces and disappeared into the crowd, dismissing my illusion. With the hand he was holding vanishing, the vendor was thoroughly scared, and then enraged about what he just experienced. Others in the crowd were equally surprised, since they had also felt that the person was just standing there next to them, even rubbing against them with his physical body.
No one knew it was just an illusion though, so I was glad that no one would figure it out and link it to me. However when I checked my mission progress, I was a little annoyed.
[Steal $5,000 worth of goods.]
(15/5,000)
'This fucking scammer! He was charging hundreds to thousands of dollars for these fakes!'
I began to rethink my plan, because I now realized that I was inexperienced in recognizing goods for their true worth, I was one of those fools who thought these were luxury items that I could one day buy with enough hard work. However the truth now began to sink in.
I decided one another approach, and that was to steal from an actual store. I took a detour to buy a black ski mask, and a black hoodie. I used the last of my money, to buy these two cheap pieces of clothing, in hopes that I could make some more money with my system.
After changing in an alleyway, I made my way around the corner to a phone store, the owner of which I knew. His name was Sergei. He was a fat guy who was an associate of the loan sharks I owed, and he was a known scumbag. Several times I had seen him come along for the collections of the sharks, and he was always rude to my parents and me.
I felt no remorse stealing from him. I also targeted him because I knew he carried genuine goods, which meant that the price of the items were the full retail price.
I walked into the store, and I knew that there would only be him at the store. So I summoned my illusion, and had them standing at the door with an illusionary gun in their hand. With a full black para-military get up, he stood menacingly. So I walked up to the counter, and rang the little bell that was sitting on the counter.
The moment Sergei came out, he silently understood what was happening. He quietly, and slowly, came to the register.
"I can give you the money, please just don't do anything, no one here has to get hurt over some phones..." Sergei was getting ready to pop open the register, when I stopped him.
"No. I will take phones. These ten, now." The reason for asking for phones and not money was simple: he probably only carried a little bit of cash in his register, while the phones had actual value that exceeded what he would ever carry in the store. People also tended to pay for their phones using a payment plan. The phones had a hard monetary value upfront.
Sergei seemed to have noticed that I realized this, so he had a slight scowl on his face, but one look at the silent man by the door with a gun he begrudgingly began packing the ten new phones I pointed out.
I took the bag of phones out of his hand, and walked out of the store. As he stared at the illusion I left behind, too scared to move but confused why this accomplice didn't run off as well.
However that was soon answered for him, as the illusion was cancelled, and he showed the same look of confusion as the vendor from earlier. If it weren't for the fact that there were indeed ten missing phones, he would have thought he was having a daydream.
Sergei soon snapped out of it, and ran out the door to look for his robber. However he was simply met with an empty street and no one wearing black in sight. I had already ducked into an alley, and was making my way for home. The system had already confirmed that I was finished with my mission.
With the completion of my mission, I felt a burning sensation underneath my eyelids, the pain was so great it forced me to collapse into another alley. I fell to the ground and screamed as my eyes felt as though they were being scorched out by a blow torch. After a few moments, my eyesight returned and the pain went away. What was left surprised me:
I had indeed gained X-Ray Vision, as I could see through the brick wall besides me, into the Chinese restaurant. I could see people eating and talking, but I couldn't actually hear anything. I stood up and walked towards my apartment again. I needed to check everything that changed, and play with my illusion a bit more. I was able to change my illusion and control it's appearance, but nothing else. Perhaps this skill could be further improved if I practiced it more?
As I mulled over those things, I saw I had another mission from the system.
[New Mission!]
[Scam the gambling ring run by local loan sharks!]
[Reward: Lucky (F-Rank)]
[Failure: Bad Luck (A-Rank) will be applied for a day. Death possible.]