Later on, Lawrence found himself trying to suppress his hangover. Thinking about the good times had made him want to drink more, and there was no exaggeration when I say he drank over ten beers in a row, maybe more.
Which was pretty much the extent of his head-wrecking headache right now.
Anyone would've said he'd learn from his brothers mistakes, nuh?
If he could chop his own head, put it somewhere below a giant pile of pillows and cushions, and then pick it up and put it back on its place when it was all over, he would. At least he wouldn't feel like someone was using his head to bring pigs down instead of just your regular red bird.
So yes, he felt like hell.
To entertain himself, maybe forget a bit about the overwhelming pain, he decided to look at his status. There had been a notification ping at some point, hadn't it?
"Let's check it out, then."
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Lawrence Lakewood --- Villain
Meta-ability:
Criminal Mastermind --- Certain actions you make trigger a chain of coincidences that will eventually act on your favor. (Grade: C)
---
Features:
-Facade: While interacting with others, unless purposefully avoided, your thoughts will be unreadable. Affects language and body language as well.
-Silver Tongue: Become an excellent negotiator. Effect wears off after negotiations are done. Cooldown: 2 hours.
-Evileye: Targeted objectives will have their status displayed, in the case they are meta-humans. Observing a target for a long enough time gives you an insight on how they fight and how to fight them.
---
Pending Tasks:
-First Stain
-Grand Master
-Financial Fiasco
-God Raises Them... (Completed)
-Spider and Fly (Completed)
---
55 FP
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Spider and the fly? That was new.
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-Spider and Fly-
Your power has not gone unnoticed. A competent villain has noticed your plans, and he says to be an ally. Accept her or reject her.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Reward: +30FP per allied villain. +30FP per defeated villain. +40FP per subjugated villain. +50 FP per recruited minion.
Completed! Claim reward?
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Oh, so it was that. Guess Lawrence could've turned Christiane down as well, though that would've be much more dangerous on the long run.
"Let's claim the rewards on both" he sighed. His head pulsed, throbbed, and he looked at his status again...
The last part caught his attention, though.
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155 FP
Ready for Rank Up
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Again?!
Why...?
No, wait. To be fair, he did go through a lot lately. Maybe it wasn't so undeserved?
Also, 155 feature points... If he remembered correctly, the next feature was at 125, right?
Ohoho, he couldn't wait to see what it did.
"Let's get this feature first and see what to do from there..."
This time, for a nice change of pace, he would assign the points to Evileye. The skill got him curious, and he wanted to see what he could get from there.
He looked at the new window opening up in front of him.
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-Devil's Eye of Redemption: Turns a target's guilt into binding chains. Effective time: 10 seconds
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Lawrence was about to wonder what in the hell was that supposed to mean, when an acute pain hit him in the eyes. It was so damn strong that the hangover was completely forgotten. He arched forward. The pain sunk deeper into his eye sockets, as if something was twisting and carving, plucking his eyes out and putting them back in. And he swore that, for a fraction of a second, his eyes banished into nothing. He swore that he could feel his eye sockets empty...
But then, the feeling was gone. The whole pain faded as soon as it started, leaving him with an eerie feeling that something was out of place. His eyes felt... not so hims anymore...
He rubbed his eyes.
"What on damnable earth was that?"
Something catch his attention. The television was gleaming... Gleaming?
He looked closer, and realized.
It wasn't the television.
It was his disturbingly uncanny purple eyes, like windows to another realm reflected on the screen.
"Damnable hell" he said under his breath. The longer he stared, the more anxious it made him feel. His eyes seemed to shift, and stare. They seemed to grow so big it was like the Moon was observing at you. A moon of chaos and madness, distorted and wicked, like a giant eye of an otherworldly entity. Then they went so small it barely looked like a small dot in the horizon. And yet it never moved, never shifted. The purple color of the irises looked not entirely natural, and they gave Lawrence a sense of... staring at something he shouldn't.
He looked away from his own reflection. He decided not to stare much at his eyes any longer. This was something the Root had given him, then it should prove to be useful.
The headache was gone now, too. That was good.
"What should I invest the rank up, then?"
He pondered. Rank up was, as stated before, not something that happened very often. It was crucial to know where to invest them, and you couldn't reassign rank ups. It was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of business.
Upgrading the Devil's Eye of Redemption was out of place. As useful as binding your enemies in their own guilt was, the skill felt...
Dangerous.
Something he shouldn't use very often. There was no cooldown, he just had to stare ten seconds at someone without moving and it would do what it was supposed to do. He could only use it in one person at the time, as all the target skills were unless otherwise said. It was relatively easy to use...
But Lawrence felt like it should be a last resort thing.
Back to the rank up.
After much deliberation, he decided to invest it into Facade. The skill was growing incrementally useful, and he was sure that he wouldn't have survived to that meeting with Christiane if he didn't have it. It was time to give it the recognition it deserved.
"Let's see what comes out of this one" he said as he invested his well-earned rank up into the skill that had seen him through everything so far.
This was what he got:
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-Incomprehensible: Extends a mysterious aura around you, making enemies anxious and unable to read your mind or expressions. Turn immaterial for an extremely short period of time. Immateriality cooldown: 24 hours.
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Great! A proper villain needs an aura of mystery around them. This would make it even more effective to deal with bothersome people. And the anxious effect combined with Silver Tongue would render anyone without training practically unable to refuse his offers!
This was great, so so great!
What a shame the next feature would be unlocked with... 625 Feature points.
Yeah... Lawrence presumed he had almost hit the top of his lateral growth.
It was all about ranking up his skills now, huh? He would see about that.
He never noticed Criminal Mastermind going to rank B in all that time.
Busy days were to come.