A week later.
Owshi! Anna quietly munched on a loaf of bread for lunch and stared into the distance.
Far away from where she stood, a young girl with blond hair and gentle blue eyes, fair white skin, and a face that reeks of holiness was sitting on the grassy ground and enjoying a nice sandwich.
Now, in most cases, that would have been it, but when you add in the Crown Prince, Kain Vizwel, and the daughter of Duke Lamuer, Alice Lamuer - then you get yourself a nice surprise!
Huh, so they’re on the friendship route? Whew, I thought Holly was gonna get bullied by Alice, but luckily for her, she avoided disaster and instead befriended that talented Duke’s daughter.
As her thoughts wandered all over the place, thinking about the future of the story and how the world would progress, Anna found her eyes gravitating to a certain corner of the open grass field and saw a young man sitting in a shadowy corner munching on a piece of toast.
Huh? What is Rob doing there? He looks like a real loner right now.
Oh wait, he is! Ahahaha!
Anna struggled to hold in her laugh over her lame joke and instead focused on her lunch, savoring the mixture of bread and vegetables in between while sipping on a bottle of cold orange juice.
With such a comfortable life, Anna only had one thought in mind, I love being a noble lass.
…
Rob quietly ate his lunch and inspected his luck, with its appearance radically changed into a treasure chest brimming with gold. Not to mention the bright light radiating from the swarm of gold coins, just its sheer size almost caused Rob to drool.
B Rank Luck… B Rank Luck!
After connecting my luck with the Crown Prince, even if the connection is only small, it’s really fucking astounding! S Rank Luck, that’s over one million times stronger than my C Rank Luck!
Rob’s hands started to twitch, just the mere thought of establishing a full-blown connection with the Crown Prince tempted him to no end, but eons of experience allowed his mind to remain as calm as a cucumber.
If he were to actually do that - establish an unrestricted connection with the Crown Prince, then a huge chunk, perhaps just shy of 50% of his luck would have gone to Rob Fortune in the blink of an eye. Luck is a mystical subject full of secrets and bizarre rules, one of which is connections.
Kain’s luck was directly connected to the empire itself, much like the emperor, the empress, and all of the other princes and princesses. The same can be said for the nobles, and in a way, himself. If his luck was directly connected to the prosperity of the bakery, then Kain’s luck was directly connected to the prosperity of the empire.
Now, if out of nowhere, 50% of the Crown Prince’s luck has been taken away to who knows where, who knows how, what would happen to the empire then? Luck is definitely not a one thing fits all solution, but boy it sure has a deep relation with cause and effect and the general development of the entire world.
Instead, what was best, and what was least risky, was to only establish a shallow connection, take a little nibble, and increase his luck to B Rank, which was over a hundred times stronger than his C Rank luck. With virtually zero risk, Rob magically created profit out of thin air!
This does put a strain on Fortune Stealer, meaning his ability to steal fortune would be a bit less efficient, but in the long run, this was one of the best moves he could have done. Not only that, the strain was also a good thing, as it would incite the growth potential of his supreme cheat and eventually open up the possibility to establishing more connections, stealing more luck, and such.]
As his thoughts churned, Rob autonomously stole luck from the others around him, all the while deepening his already deep understanding of luck to another level. It had become as habitual as breathing for Rob to steal luck, but it was more so him getting back into the grove. He had risen to greatness as the greatest thief to ever live after all - it was already in the name of his supreme cheat, Fortune Stealer.
Soon, lunchtime was finished and Rob had to return to class while enjoying the life of someone who has luck on par with nobles.
What does B Rank Luck represent? It meant he has the same level of luck as a spoiled noble brat! A brat whose family can earn tens to hundreds of thousands of gold per year!
If I were to break my connection with the bakery, my luck would even double by removing my connection with the bakery! But that’s unnecessary. The higher the luck of the bakery, the more money it would earn, and the higher its luck would become, and the more I can later on harvest!
While establishing a luck connection had its perks, it also had its demerits.
The more connections he has, the more his luck would spread out. After all, it was a two-way connection where both parties share their luck and not just a one-way connection. Because of this, the luck that the Crown Prince “shared” was equally distributed between him and the bakery, effectively splitting his luck into two.
I can’t wait to strengthen Fortune Stealer so I can exploit this connection. I’ve already conceptualized an ability where I can connect my luck to others, then break that luck connection while permanently retaining the luck they shared with mine!
If I were to break my luck connection now, the luck the Crown Prince shared with me would return to him, and the same would happen with the bakery. But once I can do this special break luck connection, it would explode my luck to a whole ‘nother level! It’s a higher level of stealing, essentially.
But that’s gonna be a long-term project. Fortune Stealer as of now is still far from reaching that level.
Soon enough, lunch ended and Rob returned to his classroom and waited for the teacher to arrive.
“Hey, hey…” Anna said from the side. She wore a teasing grin, poking at Rob’s shoulders with a chuckle and a smug laugh.
“You know what I saw while eating lunch? It was a loner with no friends eating all alone in a dark corner.” Anna whispered to Rob’s ears,
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“Oh?” Rob perked his ears and looked at Anna with a grin. “Well, did you know what I saw while eating lunch?”
“It was a loner eating all alone at the rooftop, spying on the Crown Prince, Duke Lamuer’s daughter, and the hot topic of the school, the highly talented commoner of holy magic, Holly Lavestine.”
“And guess what? That stalker has done the same thing for the past two weeks every day when it was lunchtime.” Rob giggled. He then leaned back on his chair and muttered, “Oh, that stalker really is such a big loser. I bet she fantasizes about dating the Crown Prince or something and hates that talented commoner’s guts.”
“H-Hey!” Anna gritted her teeth and looked around, scared and fearful that others had heard what he had said. Luckily for her, which was to be expected since her overflowing luck almost blinds Rob every time he looked at it, nobody had heard their banter.
“How did you even know that?!” she said in a hushed voice.
“When you feel that penetrating gaze on your body multiple times while eating, you’ll obviously find its source eventually.” Rob rolled his eyes at her idiocy.
“Anyways, I heard a real interesting rumor while eating lunch.” Rob leaned into the side and slowly said, “It seems we’ll explore our first dungeon today.”
“Dungeon? As in an actual dungeon?!” Anna was surprised to hear that, but she had already expected this long before and calmed down.
“Yep. And it’s a group activity! A group activity…” Rob wore an annoyed gaze. “Tsk, I guess I’ll have to carry some deadweights soon.”
“Wow.” Anna rolled her eyes at the sheer arrogance she could feel from that one sentence. She couldn’t even be bothered to bicker with what he had said because it would be like talking to a brick wall - a brick wall so confident in itself that it became impenetrable.
If Rob were to know her inner thoughts, then he’d shrug his shoulders. Was he wrong to state a fact? He had lived as a Supreme Existence, a being at the top of the entire omniverse, with unrivaled strength and abilities. Bridging the gap between ranks was like asking him to jump - all he needs is to exert a little effort and he could take down a quasi-Grand Knight without much thought.
Corine Windsoar walked in, with her short brown hair fluttering with gusts of emerald wind. The whole class turned silent when she arrived as they had come to learn of her dislike for unruly students, which was quite bizarre when Anna thinks about all the times Rob wasn’t even listening to the lecture, something which she came to notice over the span of two weeks no matter how subtle the signs were. Two weeks is a long time, so it was inevitable for her to perceive these little ticks out of sheer boredom and having no one else to talk to but her seatmate.
Unfortunately for Anna, the reason for this apparent favoritism was that Rob was an expert at avoiding trouble. You don’t just survive by relying on brute force when your luck is as bad as it could possibly get. One of the skills he had come to learn was to make sure the teacher doesn’t notice you’re not listening. Who cared if another student would notice his anarchic act, they’re just a student.
“Did everyone eat well this lunch?” Corine walked up to the front of the class and beamed a smile.
Most of the class said yes, while a few remained silent. All in all, since most of the people here were of noble blood or born into rich families, the problem of food and hunger was something they never had to worry about in their lives.
“Good!” Corine Windsoar clapped her hands and slammed both of her palms to the table in front of her, which then caused a feeling of unease to bubble in the hearts of her student. “Because this afternoon, we’ll start our first dungeon exploration!”
“D-Dungeon?!” someone called out in surprise.
“Aren’t they dangerous?” another asked worriedly.
“Uwah, would we have to face those Boss Monsters? Watching those videos of adventurers fighting them is just so scary! I don’t want to face them!” a whiny voice questioned in fear.
“Shut your traps!” Corine Windsoar chuckled and waved her hand, allowing gusts of emerald wind to whip up a storm and transform into a floating wall of windy text and images. It was a pretty advance spell, Rob concluded. “The reason we’re doing dungeon explorations is to give you guys ample combat experience because theoretical knowledge is useless when you have to enter a fight for life and death.”
“Starting from now, all of you would have to fill up your monthly quota of dungeon completion, and if you were unable to complete your quotas, then you won’t get any of your precious grades!” Corine Windsoar smirked and the students read the wall of texts, explaining the rules of the school and the dreaded quota.
“So this is the infamous Dungeon Quota the upperclassmen told me before,” a voice murmured in helplessness.
“Phew, luckily for us, we only have to do a single dungeon. But it’s scary to think that the higher your rank, the more dungeons you’ll have to finish to maintain it.”
Rob didn’t care about the grades one bit, but he was definitely curious about the dungeons. He had been meaning to see one himself out of sheer curiosity and to perhaps confirm something that had been bugging him the moment he realized there existed dungeons in this world. Dungeons could mean a lot of things, but with his knowledge at the level of a supreme being, he could deduce a lot of things from just one little gimmick.
He was also gleeful about having access to dungeons within the school. This meant he didn’t have to get an adventurer’s license/card to enter a dungeon!
Just thinking about the requirements needed to enter the Adventurers Guild, and all the paperwork he’ll have to do is something that Rob found quite annoying. Now, with access to numerous dungeons, he can tick that problem off the list until he graduates from the academy.
By that point, he would most likely be strong enough to acquire an adventurer’s license without having to do any of the long-winded processes needed to get one.
“Now, meet me at the Dungeon Sector by 1:15 pm sharp! If you’re late, well you better get going without a group unless you wanna fail in class!”
With a final warning, Corine Windsoar walked out of class, leaving the students stupefied.
…
Class 1-B walked out of one of the numerous school buildings in the Vizwel Royal Academy, and walked along a neat stone path through a grassy plain, enjoying the refreshing winds with each step, before they finally arrived inside a large building like a fortress of sorts.
The fortress-like building had thick and high walls, walls that can defend from attacks both outside and inside. It acted as a sort of natural cage for the numerous dungeons placed within it, dungeons that once wreaked havoc in the Royal Capital before being gathered here to train the students into shape.
It was done by using the spell the legendary Archmage Hekvurn Nowal had created, a genius of Space Magic that had revolutionized the entire world with his achievements in that domain - by creating the spell Dungeon Relocation.
With that spell, Royal Mages who have decent skills in Space Magic and a big enough mana pool can forcefully place the entrance of a dungeon to another place entirely. Dungeons continuously leaked mana into the atmosphere, so gather enough of them into a single place, and you can forcefully raise the level of ambient mana in the surrounding area!
Not only did Hekvurn Nowal save innumerable lives in the process, but he had also indirectly contributed to the creation of the prestigious academy the class was in right now. Without the numerous dungeons placed within this fortress of a building, the ambient mana in the academy wouldn’t be so high, and wouldn’t be so enticing.
Rob thought of this legendary figure and he could already imagine just how high his luck must have been. S Rank; what an absurd luck. Archmage; what an absurd talent. If he was alive, then Rob would have a few funny ideas in mind already to do a little heist, but he’s dead and his wishful thinking would remain as nothing but wishful thinking.
Shaking his head, Rob Fortune soon entered the fortress-like building alongside his classmates of Class 1-B and eventually found Corine Windsoar in the area where F and E Rank dungeons were stored.
“You greenhorns ready?” Corine laughed and snapped her fingers, producing another gust of emerald wind and creating a new wall of windy text. This time, the wall of text showed the names of the class, and the names mystically rearranged themselves on their own and assigned everyone into groups of four or five.
“Anna… Anna…” Anna mumbled to herself as she looked for her name.
“Hmm?” Rob raised his eyebrows and looked to the side, his eyes landing on a certain young man with dark skin, white hair, and golden eyes that had repeating rings in the middle.
Melvin Dolton also squinted his eyes in surprise, while Leo Regulus had his eyes shine brightly in delight.
The last one to react was Annabeth Auburn, whose eyes were fixated on one name that stood just above hers.
“R-Rob Fortune…” She gulped and looked to her side, and her eyes were met with an incredibly bored face that couldn’t be bothered to even feel any excitement. Her heart skipped a beat as she felt her heart turn heavy.
NOOOOOOOOO!