While Valentina was rushed to the hospital, she woke up halfway and was extremely embarrassed. After speaking cool words like “I’m fine” and “I know my body well”, she went on to pass out. She stared at one of the film assistants who followed along with her and really wanted to tell the woman to go home. This was a waste of everyone’s time.
However, the assistant told her this was the will of the director and Valentina had no choice but to let her continue to be there.
As she was placed in the room and they began examining her body, she really wanted to tell them that she was fine okay? It was a stupid author who gave Valentina’s body the vicious setting of being sickly, occasionally throwing up blood, and fainting like a damsel in distress.
As expected, after a couple of hours of tests and examinations, none of the doctors could figure out what was wrong with her. They could only give her an IV to help hydrate her body, write a prescription to help her anemia and tell her to get some rest. The nurses wanted her to rest overnight to be observed but Valentina overruled them. There was nothing found by the tests, her vitals were stable, and she didn’t want to be uncomfortable in the hospital by herself.
Hearing the patient list out the logical reasons, the nurses had no choice but to discharge her. Thankfully the assistant had brought her phone and clothing, so she quickly changed. The assistant safely drove her home with a message to take care of her body and Valentina thankfully collapsed on the couch in exhaustion. What a stressful day.
She turned her phone and saw that she had a lot of missed messages on her Instagram and a few were to her regular messages. Reading through them, she saw they were from the director, some assistants, and some staff asking if she was okay.
She respectfully responded to each one and assured them that she was fine and healthy. She was also surprised to see that she got a couple of followers and friend requests, including one from Rina the stylist. She saw that Rina had posted a picture of her completed makeup look on her page and the responses looked pretty good. Quickly following the artist back and accepting the friend request, Valentina continued browsing the latest news for a bit before she heard a sound.
[Ding!]
[Host has received the acknowledgement of 30/100 people]
[Hidden Task Completed!]
[Hidden Task – Gain the acknowledgment of the Poison-Tongued Photographer Jonathan Steele]
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[Skill drawn! Emotional Body Language]
[Effect: Host becomes able to convey all emotions through body language]
[Extra effect: When combined with 2 other skills, can become an active acting skill.]
[Extra Effect: Increases Acting skill level.]
[The effect will be automatically applied]
What was going on? At the surprise notifications, Valentina then remembered that she was given a task to get the acknowledgment of 100 people. But a hidden task? She supposed that the photographer had been impressed to see her work through her illness today.
Anyway, she was quite happy that she had gained a new skill, and that would help increase her acting level since she would have to say some lines tomorrow.
Curious about her status, she said “status” and the window popped up.
[Name: Valentina Salazar]
[Age: 22]
[Current Level: LV 0]
[Acknowledgment needed until next level: 30/100]
[Current Specs:
Visual beauty: 91/100
Acting Skills: 40/100
Vocal skills: 30/100
Dancing Skills: 10/100
Body Health: -10000/100 (chronically ill, anemic, low energy, occasionally throws up blood, fainting spells. Please increase your body health as soon as possible
Current fame level: -10000 (please do your best to improve people’s perception of you)
Active effects: Graceful Body Movement, Low-Level Recovery, Emotional Body Language]
Sweet! It seemed that receiving the new effect increased her acting skills by a whole 20 points! Although she hadn’t tried acting before, 20/10 was definitely a failing grade. Who knew if she would be like an ice block when she tried to show emotion?
Additionally, it seemed like the acknowledgment she had received counted towards her next level. And all she had to do was cough up a little blood! Honestly, it wasn’t a bad deal for her! Maybe if she vomited blood a couple of times more, then she would be able to quickly fill up her acknowledgment bar.
Sadly, things weren’t meant to go the way Valentina wanted them to. When she returned to the set the next day, everyone treated her as if she were a weak baby bird.
Although her body continued to be weak, she didn’t have a large blood-coughing episode like last time. Anytime she so much as cleared her throat, somebody would have her immediately take a break and bring her some herbal tea and tissues. Since she was being monitored so carefully, her body’s state was actually not bad.
And for her scenes. She was thankful that they were mainly visual shots of her planning or her performing some action. Since she was a supporting character, she only had to say a couple of lines which pleased her immensely. The other thing that happened was that the crew started becoming friendlier with her which raised her acknowledgement level to 50/100. She hadn’t done anything extraordinary. She was just polite to everyone she met, making sure she greeted them properly and remembered their name. Whenever somebody waved at her, she waved back and smiled which really endeared her to the crew. They were used to being treated badly or completely ignored by actors, even new ones. The fact that somebody treated them politely and chatted with them made them feel good and really endeared Valentina to them. It seemed that she understood that even though they were background characters and workers, they still played an important role in getting a film done.
***
Just like that, five days went by quickly. It was the last film day for Valentina since her scenes would be done soon. Her final scene involved a heartfelt confession to the male lead in which he rejected her harshly and told her he would never forgive her even if she were the last woman on earth. Afterward, he abandoned her and entered the car to drive away with the female lead.
It would be Valentina’s first time meeting both the male and female leads. All their scenes had been filmed separately and since she was a minor character, she hadn’t directly interacted with them.