"Oh, my Supremes! It's Xandra Cromich! Why is she here?!"
"I can't believe that she's so much more beautiful in real life!"
"What foundation does she use? I need to buy it ASAP!"
Just a second earlier, these mean girls planned to humiliate these two girls who dared steal their spotlight. But the moment that they saw that aqua blue hair and that milky white skin with big beautiful eyes, they immediately changed their attitude from anger to adoration. They were looking at a goddess of beauty and money right in front of their eyes! How could they not gush over her?!
Those girls immediately rushed over to Xandra and her blonde friend to try and strike up a conversation with her. If they became acquaintances with Xandra, their lives would immediately jump up the social ladder. Of course, they took this opportunity to try and create a connection with the Chromic princess herself.
Xandra immediately tried to put her cap back on, but it was already too late.
"Why did you even try to hide yourself?" asked her friend.
In response, Xandra just looked at her with annoyance. "Did you really think that I would be convinced that 'air' blew off my cap? Did you think I wouldn't notice, Beatrice?"
Beatrice cheekily put out her tongue. "I was getting annoyed with those girls. They tried to humiliate us with that stunt. Now that they know who you are, look at them and how they change their attitude like a flip of a switch. You should have shown your face from the very beginning so that this wouldn't have even happened."
Xandra shook her head, disappointed. "You know how my family gets. I was planning on staying low-key so that my disappearance from the ball wouldn't be noticeable."
"You think that they won't notice the Gem of the Century missing from the ball? You're the main event, for Supreme's sake. Suitors from all over the world will visit this country just to try and court you!"
This ball was arranged by the Chromic Matriarch herself to see which eligible young man would be suitable to become her life partner. Talented young men, prodigies, and geniuses would try to compete for her hand. Which girl wouldn't want to live that dream?
Apparently, Xandra.
"It's just my mother's way of trying to confirm my inheritance. She'll officially announce that I'll inherit the family's company after I found my partner."
"AND THAT'S BAD?!" Xandra made it seem like that was a terrible thing that would happen to her. Anyone would want to become the inheritor of such a large company like the Chromic family, and Xandra made it seem like she was getting imprisoned or something. Does she not like the Money that would be flowing through her hands once she inherited the business?!
"Excuse me, can we take a picture with you?" asked the girls. "Oh my Supreme, you're so pretty!"
Xandra gave them a courteous smile and nodded to their request. She didn't dislike the attention she was getting because of her beauty. She only disliked it if she was getting recognized because of her family. She didn't work hard to make herself pretty just for people to label her as the inheritor of the Chromic family.
The girls crowded Xandra and Beatrice as they tried to take a group picture with their phones. Unfortunately, some of them couldn't squeeze in the frame as they were being blocked by someone.
"Excuse me, can you–" the girls made a 'shoo' gesture.
Patty simply ignored them because he was too lazy to move. It took a lot of effort for him to push the rolling chair onto the table, so he wasn't going to undo all of that effort just to let some girls take a picture with a celebrity or something. He ignored all of their nasty stares.
Sam finally finished ordering a cup of coffee and took a seat opposite Patty. "You really should start looking over companies that offer internships. This is our senior year! What if you can't get a Teqx? How will you enroll in the University?"
He didn't know that Patty already had a Teqx of his own. Not only that, he could copy any kind of Teqx, no matter how high class they were, as long as he could make contact with the user. And that wasn't just the kicker: he could use his Credits to buy any kind of Teqx that was possible in this world. Of course, he was limited with F-class and D-class Teqx for now, but he guessed that if he improved more, then he could get access to better-class Teqx in the future.
So when Sam warned Patty about enrolling with a company to be in an internship, Patty couldn't be more disinterested.
"You should consider joining the Ruobber Company with me. Not only will you get resources for your cultivation…"
Patty checked out of his conversation with Sam the moment he started another endless lecture about the importance of companies and internships in his future. Patty was content with just being by himself. Despite how annoying and vexing the system was sometimes, it still allowed him to be lazy. Most of the time.
"Look, if you don't want to join, then you should just join me and go to their headquarters. You know, for moral support. You are supposed to be my friend, right?"
[Mission]
[Requirement]
Visit the Ruobber company headquarters with Sam
[Reward]
500 Minion Growth Crystals
[Accept? Y/N]
'Really, system?'
Just when Patty decided to complement it, the system always seemed to find a way for Patty to get irritated. Why would it give this mission when it knew that there was no way that Patty was going to accept it? And the reward was just a meager 500 MGCs. Didn't it know that Patty earned 3200 MGCs every day without doing anything? So why would he accept this mission?
[You have refused the mission]
[Penalty]
1x Patty's Do-Everything Coupon
Curse you, system. Just when Patty thought he got rid of his coupon, it gave him another one even when he hadn't even finished the first one yet. He was in the middle of performing the coupon mission that Sam gave him, and because of it, he was rewarded with another coupon. What was this repeating hell that he was on?
Patty was so angry that there was only one thing to calm his mood, and that was through summoning more minions.
[Summon Scrolls: 53]
He saved those scrolls just for this very moment. He knew that sooner or later, he would be annoyed by the system and its shenanigans once again. This was his therapy. Summoning new minions gave him a sense of happiness and bliss that the system couldn't take away with its missions.
He used 9 scrolls to summon another 10 minions. This time, there wasn't any star that stood out to him, meaning that there wasn't any minion that was A-class or higher. His mood got darker. He knew that not every summoning could net him a high-class minion every time, but he thought that he would somehow get lucky. He has once again fallen for the gambler's fallacy.
[D-class Credit Pig acquired!]
[F-cass Basic Element acquired!]
[F-class Basic Element acquired!]
[Consumable B-class Spear of Faith blueprint acquired!]
[Consumable D-class Chainmail Blueprint]
[F-class Basic Element acquired!]
[Consumable C-class Fertilizer Blueprint]
[D-class Tendora]
[F-class Basic Element acquired!]
[F-class Basic Element acquired!]
Patty was disappointed that he didn't get many minions this time, but he was surprised to see that he summoned another Tendora. He didn't think that minions could be summoned again, but at least he could finally earn more Yi Power. He also got a D-class Credit Pig, which was a pig that gave him a daily income in the form of Credits.
[D-class Credit Pig]
[Description]
A plastic pig that is similar to a piggy bank generates Credits every day. As it levels up, the plastic pig grows larger and larger to accommodate the amount of Credits in its belly.
[Level: 0/30]
[Growth Crystal Required for Level Up: 5]
[Ability: 10 Credits/day]
[Application]
Farm
[Real-world immersion failed due to low class]
Finally, he got another useful minion. Although he wasn't lacking in Credits at the moment, he wasn't going to neglect trying to get more. These Credits could buy him any Teqx that he wanted, and also allow him to someday buy something out-of-this-world from the otherworld store.
Also, he got more Minion Growth Crystals
[Acquired 5000 MGCs]
This was another slap in the face for the system. He earned that many MGCs while doing nothing, and it expected Patty to do a mission for only 500.
"Patty, are you listening to me?" asked Sam.
Of course, Patty wasn't listening. "Yeah. By the way, can I go home now?" He wanted to leave so that he could save enough energy to buy more Summon Scrolls. Even though he still had 44 left, he felt that it still wasn't enough. He was like a hoarder who liked to see his Summon Scrolls always filled up.
"Xandra, you need to go to the ball," Beatrice said adamantly.
"Sorry, I can't. I have to go." Xandra said and also turned away.
In a startling coincidence, just when Patty turned around to leave, Xandra also left her chair.
The two of them bumped into each other, with Xandra falling into his lap in a princess hold.
She looked at him and Patty looked at her. Both of them stared at each other.
Everyone went silent when this happened.
[SSS+class Gluttonous Adephagia skill activated]
[Sensing Teqx Power by direct contact…]
[Initializing…]