Looking at the star-filled sky, Adam couldn't help but take a deep breath as he appreciated the beauty that he was seeing at that moment. Rummaging through his pocket, he pulled out his smartphone to look at the time.
"It's almost midnight," He muttered before his clothes began to morph and shifted as he was revealed in the costume of Mister Cruel, "It's my time to shine!" He said jumping under the newly arrived trucks.
Strangely an awkward and rather embarrassing situation suddenly arrived, under the truck, he was met with a young teenage girl clinging at the same spot as him and he couldn't possibly leave after the truck move. As she was about to scream, Adam quickly shut her mouth with energy control.
The both of them silently agreed to stay in this position until they arrived.
Adam was kind of annoyed as he could feel the soft object pushing down his body, due to that he need to exert more than the usual needed strength to support both of their weight.
Soon, they arrived at their destination and Adam and the girl escaped from the truck and entered the factory discreetly.
Inside, both Adam and the girl was mesmerized at the sight of countless monster corpses, behind the mask Adam licked his lips.
"So much abilities~!" Adam muttered in astonishment.
The girl's reddened face returned to normal as she began to collect some part of the monsters.
"By the way… Mister, are you here for the corpse?" The girl asked Adam.
He nodded, "Right, the corpses are my goal." He said in a deep voice.
The girl quickly asked a follow up question, "Are you perhaps related to the recent man from the broadcast? I mean you look simi-" Before she could finish, Adam quickly intervened.
"That's right, he's my dear stupid, naive and idealistic brother. Our role in the organization are different, he handles everything bathed in the sunlight while I crawled within the depths of shadows." He explained, seemingly giving of a sense of sadness and emptiness as he walked towards a giant humanoid monster, Shadowfolk.
'Heist.'
Using his ability, Adam quickly saw three cards manifested.
[ C-ranked Ability Card
Name: Shadow Influencer
Description: manipulate shadow with high precision, can become intangible through shadowfication, high movement speed while moving through the shadows, extensive versatility in term of shadow manipulation
Evaluation: A very versatile ability, do you think you're a certain solo leveler? ]
[ C-ranked Ability Card
Name: Baron of Fright
Description: You can absorb fear as nourishment to amplify your physical capabilities, the usage of { Fear } will cause the target to see their biggest and deepest fears as an illusion, you possess a greater resistance to fear.
Evaluation: A decent ability I'd say, I wonder can it resist phobia or humanity's natural fear? ]
[ F-ranked Ability Card
Name: Heart of Light
Description: Amplified any ability output by a minor amount, increase received buff and decrease received debuff, slow regeneration
Evaluation: Upgrade! Upgrade! Upgrade! ]
'Damn! This is marvelous! It seems that I have used a lifetime worth of luck for this heist! Hahaha, let's get back to business.'
Adam quickly noticed that the girl had moved to a different location and then a loud noise erupted from somewhere, he saw the girl that accidentally knocked over some heavy objects, she's quite clumsy and pretty greedy but Adam quickly ignored her as he walked towards many more corpses.
He had received over 20 E-ranked Ability Card, 93 F-ranked Ability Card, 7 B-ranked Ability Card, 2 A-ranked Ability Card and a singular S-ranked Ability.
He sacrificed over 60 F and E ranked Ability Card to enhance Heart of Light, which upgraded it to barely B rank, the remaining F and E rank used to enhance Shadow Influencer and Baron of Fright.
The hundred of black cubes were absorbed into the three abilities and turned them into a higher ranked one.
[ Heart of Light (F) ] → [ Heart of Illumination (B) ]
[ Shadow Influencer (C) ] → [ Shadow Marionette (A) ]
[ Baron of Fright (C) ] → [ Duke of Terror (A) ]
Before Adam could continue his endless plunder, he found out a horrible news, a group of scientists suddenly popped out and ran from something, they're screaming something about 'it' coming back alive.
Ignoring the sudden commotion Adam quickly plundered one more ability, "Sick, S rank." He was more excited about these new abilities.
Suddenly a loud thud came from the metal door that flew out to the wall and smashed into it.
From the large gate comes out a gigantic skull with a diamond shaped hole on its forehead and eight purple tentacles made out of liquid poison that sprouted from under its skull.
"Um, Mr Cruel what should we do!?" The girl that was busy ripping apart monsters corpses suddenly asked, Adam just stared at her with a puzzled look.
"Run? Or are you implying that I somehow got a responsibility to defeat that thing?" Adam said as he slowly back away and turned his body to leave, 'I already got a bucket of great abilities so even if I leave now, I won't lose anything.'
"Huh?" She was stunned at Adam's response, "Um, are you sure?" She timidly asked.
"Yes, about 100%, who are you to make such a request to me?" Adam, still acting as the arrogant and ruthless Mr Cruel asked.
The girl suddenly realized that she hadn't introduced herself, "Ah, my name is Lin Maoyu! Nice to meet you, Mr Cruel!"
"I see, anyway, I refuse to save them, I am not my brother who has a savior complex." Adam said as he witnessed multiple scientists and dismantlers melted by the poison before him.
'S rank? Tempting but it would be really annoying to fight it,' Adam let out a sigh before his mind began to wonder again, "Fuck it, I really want to kill that octopus, it pissed me off." (Fuck it, I really want that yummy S-ranked ability, I don't care if I act out of character!)
Adam slowly approached the undead octopus with a menacing aura, his cane slowly coated with a thin layer of energy and darkness.
The monster quickly sent out a barrage of attack at Adam as it sensed that he was the biggest threat there is.
The poison tentacles swiftly swinging towards Adam at mach speed but just when it reached around 10 meters away from him, it was splitted into thousands pieces by Adam using his cane.
Out of fear and to recover its lost tentacles, the monster retreated, but the shadows around its body quickly bind it into place, to further disable the enemy, Adam used Psychic Wisdom to weaken him mentally before using Fear, this led to the monster losing all of its fighting spirit.
With a thrust that seemed invisible to the naked eyes he quickly disposed off the monster, not after he quickly took his rewards.
The gigantic skull fell into the ground, the remaining tentacles dissolved into a puddle, on Adam's hand was two abilities extracted from the monster.
[ S-ranked Ability Card
Name: Poison Authority
Description: The ability to have an authority over poison, the recipe and the knowledge over almost all type of poison are within your mind, immunity to poison and disease.
Evaluation: Don't let any creature bite you just because you have this ability, it's the immunity to poison not venom. ]
[ C-ranked Ability Card
Name: Posion Octopus Bloodline
Description: You will turn into a partial posion octopus, enhance physical capabilities, the ability to produce all sorts of already digested poison, high level of resistance towards poison and disease, the ability to breath underwater and swim, the ability to stick to wall, can form poison tentacles up to 8.
Evaluation: A decent ability, you can use this ability for a lot of new and exciting tasks such as using the tentacles for… you know?
Adam was quite satisfied with his heist before a group of people approached him with intense hostility, the five elemental sword, the sword saint and the dragon slayer, 5 A-ranked Hero, 2 S-ranked Hero, and all of them were thinking the same thing that Adam or now Mr Cruel was the one that must be the one behind the slaughter!