AN: Well this is later than I hoped but anyway here it is. as for the reviews there were only two, both from the same person.

Mola King:

Yes he will learn a healing skill, it'll be introduced in the next chapter, and as for becoming a savant. I didn't know what that was but after looking it up I think that that is a fitting term. maybe I'll turn it into a title if it fits in somehow.

Anyhow this chapter is a little shorter than I wanted it to be but the next one will be a lot longer so I guess you can look forward to that. Or not, I don't know if this story is any good.

And so onto the story

Ding

Good morning, you have slept in a bed in your home. XP gain is doubled for the next 12 hours

I woke up at 3 am, even if I only needed 4 hours before I was completely rested it was still a bit annoying. When I was still able to, I used to love sleeping, it was probably one of the only things I liked doing. Well, no time to complain I had an XP buff and I would be damned if I let it go to waste. Before I decided to go into the ID I entered the System Shop. I checked out the ranged section and went to the firearms section. I had nothing against hand to hand combat but It would be far less exhausting to use ranged weaponry. So I browsed the different sections and eventually settled on a pair of pistols(plus suppressors) and an FN-SCAR. The weapons were all enchanted to use my MP as ammunition so I wouldn't need to worry about that in the middle of a fight. The pistols only used one mana point per bullet while the SCAR used a whopping 25. It made sense because it did a lot more damage and had a lot more range. After some quick math, I figured out I could out-regen spamming the pistol bullets, yet not the SCAR. Then again the SCAR wasn't meant for spamming either so I suppose it all worked out nicely, I put the pistols in their complementary holsters and strapped the SCAR to my back preparing myself for the dungeon dive.

I figured I would try out the easy dungeon this time so I opened up the ID at max time dilation. I scanned my surroundings with my PSP and found a few different types of enemies. I found Lesser vampires and werewolves, among others. As I scanned my surroundings I noticed that the ID was also fundamentally different from its very easy counterpart. there was no sun but instead, cracks in the ground were lava seemed to flow. I didn't need light thanks to my eyes being rather useless so it didn't matter if the lighting was poor. On the plus side, I did gain the heat resistance skill which promptly started to level up.

After walking around for a little while I found my first target and pulled out my pistols, my first shot was, in one word, abysmal. I missed my target by about 4 meters, and had activated my stealth skill and hid for a moment. The firearms skill leveled up a few times so I decided I would level it up quickly. I took out my silencers and attached them to my pistols, I then proceeded to fire the firearms straight up a couple dozen times which seemed to do the trick.

Now with my firearms skill maxed out I started my hunting without fear of missing my targets. I quickly racked up a kill-count that would have made the white death jealous. (AN: The white death is one of the most legendary snipers in existence, he was a Finnish soldier who had a maximum estimated kill count of around 500) Kill after kill, assassination after assassination, I slaughtered their numbers in the hundreds. Eventually, I finally ran out of stamina and decided I needed to head back, being exhausted in a dungeon was not on my list of things I wanted to do.

During my hours of fighting I had obtained 6 points in both STR and DEX, Leveled up to 46, as well as, gained two new skills, Throwing mastery and Acrobatics, they both maxed out during my hunting escapade and I had to admit I felt nimbler than ever before. I had obtained a fairly large sum of cash during my hunting and I should have enough for a high-end laptop that I could use to fund my future endeavors. I decided I would do that later in the evening and headed back to bed to rest for a bit.

About an hour later Richard knocked on my door to wake me up, he asked me if I needed any help with showering. I asked him if I could try to do it myself but he didn't sound convinced. I told him I would like to try and would ask for help if I couldn't manage, he seemed reluctant but agreed nonetheless. After he set everything on a shelf in the shower and told me where it was he left the bathroom and left me to my own devices. I resolved myself to buy Utility magic once I saved up enough cash so that I wouldn't smell all day after training.

After about 15 minutes I exited the bathroom fully clothed, my blond hair rowdy as ever. I walked up to the stairs and started hugging the railing to make it seem like I was struggling, after all, I could see just fine but I needed to keep up the rouse for now. I trusted Alexis but I was still doubtful my stay here would last very long. After the initial period of shock had passed and child services had found a place for me to stay I would have to leave the Castle's custody. So I didn't see the point in revealing my secrets since they wouldn't care either way once I was out the door.

Alexis stood up from her seat and grabbed a hold of me and lead me the rest of the way down the stairs and to the dinner table. She was one of the few things that kept my mood up nowadays. I had to admit that the gamers mind getting rid of my depression "Debuff" was one of the best things that came with my "mutation". Still, I was really going to miss having her around once I left the Castle's, maybe I still had a bit of a crush on her after all. I pushed those thoughts away as we sat down for breakfast, now was not the time to be thinking about such things.

After breakfast, I was handed my backpack, and Alexis and I were lead out the door to the car waiting outside. The drive to school was rather quiet, some mild conversation but she seemed to be studying rather intensely. That may have been mostly my fault so I felt a little bad. She had come to visit me in the hospital instead of studying as she said normally would, so I imagine that she felt behind on schedule. The driver stopped outside the school gate and Alexis lead me inside. I could hear all the students whispering about why I was with Alexis, she was after all one of the most popular girls in the school. Unlike the other popular girls she deserved to be popular, she was smart, kind and not that it should matter but also very beautiful. The girls looked at my stick in my hand and I could hear them taking pity on me, while I also got pity from a large portion of boys, some of them were jealous of me being lead around by Alexis. One of them even went so far as to attempt to trip me, one well place sideways swatt with my cane solved that problem though. I fought to keep a smirk off my face as the boy hastily retracted his foot, probably a little confused and maybe even wondering if I found his foot on accident or not.

We arrived at our classroom and the teacher seemed to have moved me next to Alexis since she had to keep constant "watch" over me. I knew that they had to be careful so I didn't try to kill myself again. I really felt quite fortunate to have survived, earlier I was just a weak boy who felt like there was nothing left to live for but that mold was broken with the Gaia system and in no small part the company Alexis had provided. Class started and a boring school day commenced.

POV change: Kate

Kate had been having a bad week, to start it off she had recognized the kid's name from somewhere but couldn't place it. Until Castle had mentioned his parents being murdered a few years ago. She felt a sort of kindred spirit with the boy, her mother was murdered and it was covered up for some inexplicable reason, while his case just went unsolved. So in the latter half of the week, she had done as much digging as she could but had come up with nothing. No DNA at the scene, no witnesses apart from Johannes who was hiding at the time, and worst of all no notable motive for the murder. His mother was just your run of the mill nurse. It didn't make sense, she should probably ask Castle for some ideas. As nutty as some of his weirder ideas were when he was serious about something the crazy stories he came up with were often correct. She was about to call him when I got another murder report, looks like Johannes' case would have to wait.

POV change: John

The school day felt like a bit of a waste since I had overleveled most of my school subjects I wasn't learning much. I still paid attention because I got INT and WIS for it but I would probably bring some other reading material in the near future. During the day some students had come and talked to me, asking how I was feeling and other stuff like that. It was a superficial though, once everything died down a little they wouldn't talk to me anymore, thus I felt no need to sustain long conversations with them. Plus they were clearly uncomfortable with my attempted suicide. I had to admit now that all my chemical imbalances were dealt with the suicide attempt felt rather stupid, but no use in crying over spilled milk or lost eyes in my case. The only people who didn't seem that way were Alexis' friends and that was mostly because they were busy teasing and praising her about saving my life, which I had to admit was very nicely done. They were pretty merciless about the teasing though. I was waiting for Alexis to finish talking to her friends and I overheard them teasing her about the fact that a boy was living under her roof. I stopped listening after that since the conversation probably wasn't meant for my ears considering the topic they were discussing coupled with the fact that they were on the other end of the classroom.

After Alexis finished talking to her friends she came over towards me.

"Sorry it took so long," she said in an apologetic tone.

"Don't worry about it, I've been keeping you from your friends all week so I can wait," I told her with a small smile on my face. I meant what I said, I felt bad about keeping her away from her friends and her usual study schedule. She told me not to worry about it every time it came up but still, I didn't want to get her annoyed at me because I was keeping her from doing stuff she wanted/needed to do. I was pulled out of my thoughts after she had decided to grab hold my hand and guide me over to where the car was waiting. We drove home and after about 30 minutes of traffic and driving, we arrived at the apartment.

Once we got inside Martha was waiting for us at the kitchen table so we sat down and started doing homework. I did my homework slowly because I couldn't really do it quickly because writing blind was pretty difficult. I wrote a few sentences crooked and overlapped a few letter&numbers which Alexis and Martha called me out on and helped me fix. After all the homework was done I told them I needed to go to the bathroom and Martha guided me up the stairs, I didn't really need to go but thanks to my time-dilation I could just take an extended bathroom break due to difficulty finding stuff and go grinding for a few hours. I would, however, have to learn Utility Magic before I went back, coming out of the bathroom all sweaty might give them the wrong idea.

I Jumped into the ID and pulled out my guns and started executing the monster at an incredible pace. All the sitting still in class had caused my tension to build up again. After about three hours of grinding I got a notification telling me about a "Treasure boss" spawning, the system told me they drop really rare loot so I definitely figured it was worth going after. I pulled my SCAR off my back and took aim, the system showed it was an alpha werewolf and that it was around 500 meters away. With my maxed out firearms skill and my SCAR I could comfortably snipe over a kilometer away with pinpoint accuracy so this was a piece of cake. I pulled the trigger and repeated the process 3 times, the alpha then started charging straight in my direction. I through my SCAR into my inventory and pulled my pistols out of my holsters, I fired shot after shot. Right before it reached me I jumped up and used my acrobatics to flip right over its head. I used my stealth skill to hide from it, snuk up behind it and plunged a dagger into its back doing 32x damage killing it. The drops were indeed very nice, two skill books: Utility Magic and Animal transformation. I got another levelup notification telling me I had reached level 73 and that I had gained 6 DEX and 3 STR.

Name: Johannes (John) Koivisto

Title: N/A

Level: 73

HP: 3,375/3,375 STR*LVL (Regeneration is DEX*LVL/m)

MP: 3,869/3,869 INT*LVL (Regeneration is WIS*LVL/m)

STR: 45

DEX: 40

INT: 53

WIS: 23

LUCK: 13 (LUCK*LVL = drop-rate%)

SP: 265

BP: 49

BP skills: 1/2 XP/level up(cost 8 BP), 1/4 CP/level up(cost 16 BP)

Money: 83,000$

The next 30 minutes were spent maxing out Utility Magic thereby cleaning myself and using partial and full animal transformations. I must admit giving myself claws really intrigued me, if I combined that with a bunch of stealth skills It could be a deadly combination, no weapons needed. I left my ID and saw only around 10 minutes had passed, I walked downstairs and sat down at the table counter again. Alexis looked at me and seemed to notice something.

"What happened to your cheek?" Alexis asked in a worried tone. I was confused and it must have showed because she elaborated further by telling me I had a cut on my cheek. I cursed my luck, I must have cut myself with my animal claw and not have noticed. I checked my resistance skills and sure enough Claw resistance had been added a while ago. I had to come up with an excuse, I decided a half truth would be the best option.

"I forgot to cut my nails so I must have cut myself with them," I said with a sheepish smile on my face. Alexis then walked up to me and dragged me back upstairs. She then proceeded to cut my nails much to my embarrassment. I tried to stay calm and normal about it but the close proximity was really messing with my hormone drugged brain. I cursed the Gamers mind skill, why wasn't it helping me out of a tight spot. I guess I wasn't going to get over my crush on Alexis anytime soon.

After she was done I asked her to bring me to my room and she told me that she would come and get me for dinner, I thanked her for the help and then she left. Well now that that was over I could commence phase two of my not so master plan, I entered the System store and went to the electronics section. They had a ridiculously beefed up laptop that would more than suit my needs, but best of all, It was linked and powered my MP. This meant that no matter if anyone got their hands on it they would never be able to power much less unlock it. It cost me a pretty penny, around 50,000$ but considering what I was going to do with it I would make it back tonight.

POV change: Alexis

'I can't believe I just did that. I wanted to help him out and I didn't think anything of it but that was so embarrassing.' She thought to herself. She was genuinely worried about him cutting himself, it might have had something to do with his earlier attempt on his life but she didn't want to see him injured ever again. After she cut his nails she had cleaned the cut and put a band-aid on it much to his displeasure. She could swear she had seen a slight blush on his face though. Did that mean her crush would reciprocate her feelings? She wouldn't think about it, for now, she walked over to her bed and lay down to rest for a bit.

POV change: John

I started off by creating a few Identities, that earned me the fabrication skill which immediately maxed out. My fake ID's were now basically indistinguishable from the real thing, I then opened up a bunch of bank accounts in different tax havens. The system had told me any money I owned be it online or cash, it would all be spendable in the System Store. After all that was set up I looked for my first victim, the person I found was a plague on the city of New York but especially an area known as Hell's Kitchen. The man I was going after was Wilson Fisk, or Kingpin as he was known in the underground. It took some digging but after finding his bank accounts I started my first drain. I could see the money draining from his accounts and my own filling up after this had gone on for about 30 minutes I had done enough damage for now. I ended up with a very respectable 150,000,000$, why was I not ecstatic? well, the most expensive skills I could currently buy were priced in the billions. It was enough for now but I would be back for more eventually, if not from him some other criminal and eventually, the dungeon would probably drop a lot of cash for kills.

As I was putting my laptop in my inventory I could see Alexis rising up from her bed, I had assumed that meant she was coming to get me for dinner. sure enough a few seconds later I heard her knock on my door.

"come in" I told her

"Dinner's ready, and it's just us today. Dad is out on a new case and Gran is out with her acting club, so dad told me to order pizza, I thought we could just eat that and watch some TV." I just looked at her and waved my hand in front of my face. She seemed to see what I was getting at.

"I'm sorry I wasn't thinking," she said

"Don't worry about it, I'll listen to it instead of watch," I told her with a small smile on my face. Alexis was noticeably relieved by that, she grabbed my hand and we walked down the stairs and over to the couch. She turned on the TV and a few minutes later the pizza arrived. We talked a bit about studies and games and watched some TV. After an hour or so I noticed she fell asleep with her head on my shoulder, now I could have done the sensible thing and woken her up, but as much as it pained me to admit it I just couldn't. She looked so peaceful and her short breaths were rather cute. So I let her sleep there for a while, I turned off the TV and just waited for a while. If this moment could last forever I would be content, I knew that eventually, I would leave the Castle's and Alexis, as much as it pained me to think about it, would probably stop spending time with me. I decided that I didn't want that-

I would take action this time, I stroked her head once to wake her up slowly. She woke up and seemed to have realized where her head had been resting. Before she could say anything I wrapped her in a hug, she froze and I thanked her for everything she had done for me so far. I then let go slightly worried that she had neither moved nor spoken. She seemed to recover and notice the worried expression on my face, I tried to apologize for my sudden action but was surprised in turn when she wrapped men in a hug. I smiled at this and thanked her again, I then told her I would head off to bed to get a good nights rest. She brought me upstairs and after we both brushed our teeth she bade me goodnight and closed my door. I was happy and felt a warmth inside that I hadn't felt in a long time. This was a good reason to live for, and with that, I drifted off into another night of dreamless slumber.

POV change: Alexis

'That was so embarrassing, I can't believe I fell asleep like that.' Alexis had gone to her room and collapsed onto her bed with a flushed face. She could hardly believe what had just happened. First, she had fallen asleep on his shoulder, then she had woken up and been given a hug and then she had hugged him afterward. The best thing about the whole ordeal was that John didn't even seem to mind, perhaps there was a chance for something to happen. Her face flushed an even darker shade at the thought. She just lay there on her bed smiling before she too fell asleep. It had been a good day for her.

AN: and that's chapter two, now I know that this was later than I said but I honestly didn't expect school to dump this much shit on my plate. Worst of all it's not going to get any better either considering exams are coming up... oh well life's a bitch like that. Anyway, I won't make any promises about when the next chapter comes out but I hope it'll be within a few days.

DrCheeze signing off