The Skill Roulette King

Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Morning Roulette

The morning sun hit Bagas’s face, but instead of his usual mental checklist of quadratic equations, his brain felt like a glitchy cassette tape. A strange, rhythmic thrumming vibrated in his veins.

"What is this? Why do my feet feel like they’re vibrating?" Bagas groaned, staring at his ceiling.

A translucent blue screen flickered into existence before his eyes.

[SYSTEM ALERT: SKILL SWAP ACTIVATED. MATH GENIUS: 0% / STREET DANCER: 100%.]

"Wait, what? A system? Is this a prank?" Bagas sat up, his body lunging into a crisp, involuntary body roll. "Whoa! Stop! My body just—I didn't tell it to do that!"

He stood up, intending to walk to the bathroom, but his legs executed a perfect moonwalk across the bedroom floor.

"Not again! Dude, I have a calc final today. I need my brain, not... whatever this is!"

*

Twenty minutes later, Bagas slid into his seat in the classroom, his movements unnervingly fluid, like liquid mercury. He looked at his desk, where a surprise pop quiz sat waiting.

"Okay, Bagas. Just read the variables. You’ve done this a thousand times. X equals… wait, why is there a neon arrow pointing at my shoelaces?"

"Bagas, eyes on your own paper," Pak Hadi grumbled, his voice like sandpaper.

"Yeah, sorry, Pak. Just… trying to find the flow of these numbers," Bagas muttered, sweat beading on his forehead.

"Flow? It’s a differential equation, not a music video. Get to work."

Bagas stared at the page. The numbers weren’t just numbers anymore; they were choreographic cues. Every fraction looked like a rhythmic beat. His left leg started tapping a complex polyrhythm against the leg of the desk.

"Dude, stop," Bagas whispered to his own leg. "You’re going to get us expelled."

"Something wrong, Bagas?" Pak Hadi loomed over his desk, his shadow swallowing the quiz.

"No, sir! Just, uh, preparing for a… creative breakthrough?"

"Creative? In Advanced Calculus?" Pak Hadi squinted. "You’re shaking. Are you on something?"

"Just nerves, sir. Serious academic nerves."

"Then write. If I don't see an answer in ten seconds, you’re failing this unit."

Bagas gripped his pen. He looked at the equation: f(x) = x³ - 3x + 2. Suddenly, the system flared red. His body hijacked his motor functions, snapping him out of his seat with the force of a coiled spring.

"Wait! No! My knees!" Bagas shouted.

He didn't walk; he spun, landing in a perfect flare on top of Pak Hadi’s mahogany desk, scattering papers like confetti.

"What in the blazes are you doing?!" Pak Hadi roared, his face turning a dangerous shade of plum.

"I can't stop! It's a protest! A, uh, kinetic, interpretive, academic protest against, uh, the constraints of linear algebra!" Bagas yelled while his body transitioned into a frantic, high-speed popping and locking routine.

"Get down from there this instant!"

"I literally can't! My glutes are possessed by a street dancer from 1994!" Bagas vaulted over the desk, landing in a split that defied all human anatomy, his hands hitting the floor in a rhythmic beat.

The class went dead silent. Everyone stared, mouths agape.

"Bagas, you are in serious trouble," Pak Hadi hissed, his voice trembling with rage.

"Sir, listen, if I told you I was being held hostage by a software update, would you believe me?"

"I believe you’re going to the principal’s office. Now!"

Bagas scrambled up, his feet doing an involuntary triple-tap shuffle. He backed out of the room, panting. "I'm going, I'm going! But I'm warning you, the tempo is picking up!"

He sprinted—well, break-danced—into the hallway, the sound of his sneakers squeaking rhythmically against the linoleum. He ducked into the boys' bathroom and slammed the stall door shut, collapsing against the cold metal.

"Okay. Okay. Breathe. Let's try to focus on the Pythagorean theorem. A squared plus B squared equals..."

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to summon the math. Instead, his right hand started krumping against the toilet seat.

"No. No! Come back, calculus! I need to graduate!"

He tapped the system interface in the air.

[SYSTEM STATUS: MATH GENIUS SKILL CURRENTLY LOCKED. ESTIMATED RETURN: UNKNOWN.]

Bagas let out a jagged, hysterical laugh. "Unknown? You have got to be kidding me."

A shadow crossed the stall door. It was Rina, the top student in his class, her expression unreadable. She kicked the stall door open, catching him in a crouch that looked suspiciously like a breakdancing pose.

"Bagas?" she asked, her eyes scanning his erratic, twitching frame. "That was... quite the performance in there."

"Rina? I, uh, I can explain. It’s an artistic experiment?"

She stepped closer, her scent—vanilla and expensive stationery—wafting into the cramped space. She looked at him, not with judgment, but with a strange, sudden intensity.

"You didn't answer a single question on the quiz," she whispered, leaning in until their breaths mingled. "But those moves? They were... hypnotic."

"Rina, I think my brain is broken."

"Maybe," she said, her hand brushing his arm, sending a jolt of electricity through him that had nothing to do with the system. "Or maybe you’re just finally doing something interesting for once."

Bagas tried to pull away, but his legs betrayed him, executing a suave, slow-motion slide toward her.

"This is not a flirtation! This is a technical malfunction!" he gasped, his heart hammering against his ribs like a drum solo.

"Sure it is," Rina smirked, grabbing his collar and pulling him closer. "Let’s see what else that malfunction can do."

Bagas felt the system pulse again, deeper, darker, and more insistent. He looked at the blue screen as it flickered to a new warning.

[WARNING: HOSTILE SYNCHRONIZATION DETECTED. SKILL DRAIN INITIATED: EMOTIONS NOW INTEGRATED INTO DANCE ROUTINE.]

"Rina, wait—"

But he didn't wait. His body grabbed her waist, spinning her into the air with impossible, superhuman grace. As they landed, he realized with a sinking dread that he wasn't in control of his heart, his feet, or the girl currently pressed against him.

And then, his phone buzzed. It was an email from the principal: Expulsion Hearing: 10:00 AM.

Bagas looked at Rina, then at his twitching, dancing hands. "This is going to be the worst morning of my life, isn't it?"

Rina leaned in, her lips inches from his, her eyes burning with a sudden, competitive fire. "Depends. Can you keep up the beat until we get out of here?"

Bagas tried to apologize, but his mouth opened and out came a rhythmically precise, "Oh, baby, we’re just getting started."

He froze. He hadn't said that. He didn't want to say that.

The system wasn't just taking his math skills anymore; it was taking his voice.