[Congratulations! You have received the Most Pathetic achievement!]
[Most Pathetic: You are a weak and wretched little man who has no regard for the help he receives. You are so spoiled that you can no longer accept doing anything yourself and always expect others to deliver what you want to you.]
[Perks: People will take pity upon your being because of your worthless self, seeing as you are unable to do anything. People will treat you the same way they treat those with mental handicaps.]
[Currently at Level 1]
[Evolution to (Pathetic): level 10 required]
“No! No, no! I refuse this! How can I tolerate not being able to posture? Wait! Is this not perfect for my current situation? If the Interrogator takes enough pity on me, maybe he will let me go, or at least give me a good person to watch over me. This is one of the best things that could have happened to me right now, but I can’t tolerate this for too long lest I become some laughingstock."
[Congratulations! You have received the Opportunist achievement!]
[Opportunist: You have managed to exploit the perks of your achievements to your liking. What is bad in one situation is great in another one, and the opposite.]
[Perks: You will be able to disable the effect of 3 perks.]
[Currently at Level 1]
[Evolution to (Schemer): level 10 required]
“There are truly good perks? This is great! This means that even if I have a lot of locks placed on my talent, I will still be able to become powerful!”
Samuel could hardly be happier. With his new system, his original talent, and his previous cultivation knowledge, he was sure he would transcend the peak standards of power in this universe! Then something struck him.
“Can I remove the perk of The Beginning?”
Ding!
[The Beginning transcends all the other perks, achievements, and other system effects. You will not be able to disable its perk. Attempting to do so again will result in punishment.]
“I don’t believe you. I’ll try again.”
[Congratulations! You have received the Tempting Fate achievement!]
[Tempting Fate: You have gambled on your safety and life for seemingly no reason. You find fate to be fickle and not set in stone; even ironclad rules have loopholes, which you attempt to exploit at great risk.]
[Perk: You have unlocked the Wheel of Fate, which grants you a 1/10,000 chance of disregarding punishment for your actions, both dished out by the system and real-life situations.]
[Current Level 1]
[No evolution is available! The effect of the perk will be enhanced at level 10.]
Ding!
[Punishment decided! You will enter the Garden of Doom for 24 hours with no chance of exiting before the allotted time has passed!]
[Freezing time!]
[Transporting you now!]
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
While Samuel was reading this sequence of messages and still feeling giddy at the thought of Tempting Fate, the world around him froze. Even the light emitted by the Guarantor of Truth was locked in place. Before he could properly react to this, however, a bright array of lights flashed in front of him, forcing him to close his eyes. When he opened them once again, he was standing on a patch of grass, surrounded by tall and thick trees.
[Welcome to the Garden of Doom! Your stay will last for 24 hours. All resources acquired in the garden will be converted to their corresponding rewards. In the same way, all the damage you suffer will be converted to 100 times the amount of pain you suffered. Both will be distributed upon your return to the Shattered Realm.]
[All perks other than The Beginning have been disabled, with only perks obtained in the garden functioning. Since this is your first time in the Garden of Doom, you have been allotted a Common Spear for your convenience. Enjoy your stay!]
In the middle of formulating his response, Samuel accidentally peaked at a nearby branch of a tree. Hanging from it was a serpentine creature of immense proportions, with a body length of dozens of meters. It was staring at Samuel with its piercing, wild eyes, containing its unbridled bloodlust. This serpent had killed thousands of creatures and was no easy foe. Samuel recognized this instantly and decided to find a safer location, lest he get eaten. As he turned around, however, the serpent lunged at his back.
The feeling of death closing in on him was enough to alert every sense in Samuel’s body, making him tense up before throwing himself to the side.
“Where the fuck is the spear I got? It seems I will be eating Chinese style today, fried snake!”
After his short outburst, he felt a spear magically appear in his hands. The spear was lean, long, black, and had a sword-like blade at the end of the shaft. Although Samuel was a complete amateur, the spear felt very comfortable in his hands. However, seeing as he was not at the leisure of his own home but rather on the edge of death, he decided to focus on the task at hand before anything else.
Never having used a spear before, he tried to slash at the serpent with clumsy movements, allowing the snake to easily dodge the attack. The sound of a whip sounded from the body of the serpent as it flicked its tail towards Samuel with shocking speed. Speed so extreme, there was no chance he could dodge it with his current power level.
“Cough!”
Hit square in the stomach, Samuel coughed blood as he was sent flying into the nearest tree. He was barely able to hold onto his spear as he lay on the ground, watching the serpent, nay, death, approach. ‘The system did not mention what would happen if I died here. Will I die in the real world if that happens?’
Ding!
[You are in the Garden of Doom with your real body, meaning death is death. Good luck!]
“Shit! No, no, I will not die like this! Especially not to some snake!”
Standing up on his wobbling legs, Samuel brandished his spear towards the serpent as he tried to envision himself as a master hunter. Imagination can do wonders for people's states of mind. He soon found himself calming down and starting to analyze the situation. ‘The snake is fast, but its body is big, making it an easier target. It seems to lack intelligence and is acting mostly on instinct, from the looks of it. I have to take advantage of this!’
“Whoosh!”
Appearing in front of Samuel’s face was a massive maw, big enough to swallow him whole. Instead of freaking out in the face of death, however, Samuel, who was an avid watcher of shows and movies, knew the inside of a beast is often the most vulnerable, especially when it comes to creatures with scales. The serpent was at the peak of the Superior Mortal stage, making it impossible for Samuel to defeat it with conventional means, making this his only viable solution. ‘Don’t think, just do!’
“Argh!”
The warcry of Samuel echoed across the nearby region before abruptly disappearing. Or, well, not disappearing, but rather being muffled. Sound penetrating the flesh of a creature is quite difficult, after all. That’s right, Samuel was eaten and is now stuck inside the body of the serpent. Without giving the serpent the chance to engulf him in its stomach acid, he started slashing and thrusting his spear like a madman. It was quite beautiful, really, almost as if a legendary spearman were reborn, only without any of the poise, power, or skill it would have. In other words, he looked like an idiot. But say what you want about how it looked; the effect was still crucial. Every second, the serpent was losing a huge amount of blood from the injuries inflicted upon it by Samuel. It is now thrashing around on the forest ground, howling in pain, and attempting to spit Samuel out again, making his job harder. Spearmanship requires balance, which he did not have in his current situation. This stalemate continued for over ten minutes before the serpent finally started to lose its energy, giving Samuel the opportunity to inflict heavier and more lethal injuries on it. Slash after slash continued to dissect the inside of the serpent's mouth before the flesh became weak enough to allow one of Samuel's thrusts to penetrate deep enough to puncture its brain, killing it immediately.
Crawling out of the now-dead serpent was a bloodied Samuel. He was covered in injuries from head to toe, with blood drenching his every body part. Luckily for him now and for him in the future, the damage he suffered and the pain he was currently experiencing were not too extreme. Imagine having his arm cut off, only to then experience that pain multiplied by 100. Just the thought of it brought chills to Samuel.
Ding!
[Congratulations on killing a Level 19 Predator Snake! Your reward has been calculated and will be distributed to you after your return.]
[Congratulations on unlocking the Common Serpent Slayer achievement!]
[Common Serpent Slayer: You killed a common Predator Snake way above your level, embarking on your journey of snake hunting.]
[Perks: Suppressive presence on all common snakes below level 20, as well as having a 20% increase in damage inflicted on those under the suppression.
[Current level 19]
[Evolution to (Rare Serpent Slayer): Kill a Rare Serpent or level 40 required]
Ding!
[Do you want to absorb the kill to recover health and stamina? Yes/No ]
“How neat! Yes, please.”