Chapter 1: Ultimate Talent System

“Weak piece of shit! Hand over your protection fees or else I won’t protect you from my fists!”

A burly teenager gathered with his gang members as they surrounded a student from this school.

Unlike the burly gang leader, the student was tall but looked malnourished. Wearing thin black-framed glasses, the student was an easy-to-bully nerd according to the Bullying Master 101 handbook.

“I- I don’t have money! Can I pay tomorrow?”

The malnourished student spoke in a shaky voice while fearfully averting his eyes from the bullies.

“You hear ‘em, boys? This piece of shit doesn’t have money!”

“Being poor is a sin! Beat him up!”

After the burly teenager insulted the malnourished student, he commanded his gang members to beat up the lanky student.

The two gang members followed their leader’s command as they ganged up against the lanky student.

Shoving the lanky student against the floor, the lanky student sprawled on the floor as his body squirmed in pain whenever the gang leader and gang members stomped their foot on him as if they were squashing a bug.

The lanky student could only grit his teeth in pain as he endured the beatings he received from gang students.

‘Why?’

‘Why am I getting bullied? I didn’t do anything wrong.’

Thoughts filled the mind of the lanky student as he tried to keep his mind off the pain he endured.

After being beaten by the bullies for several minutes, Adam Spencer’s consciousness was on the verge of fading. His vision was hazy, but he could have sworn that he saw blood at the periphery of his vision.

Feeling the excruciating pain in his body, Adam knew that the blood was his. But before he could pass out, his head was pulled and lifted by one of the bullies, and was brought near the bully’s shoes.

“If you don’t want to stay in the hospital for the rest of your life, be the dog you are and lick my shoes! Clean it, you mutt!”

Gritting his teeth and biting off his lips to remain conscious, Adam had no choice but to listen to the bully’s command as he pulled his head closer to the bully’s shoes. He stuck out his tongue and reluctantly licked the bully’s shoes.

“Hahahaha! Look at this mutt! He is cleaning my shoes for free!”

As if that wasn’t enough, the bullies took out their phones and filmed Adam. The jeers and mocking insults of Adam’s classmates resounded in the classroom.

What was more infuriating about this was that one of the teachers was having a lecture while this bullying took place. But the teacher turned a blind eye to it since Adam’s bullies had rich and powerful parents.

As a nobody who was at the bottom of society, Adam Spencer had not only experienced bullying in school, but even the situation in his family had almost hit rock bottom.

Not only was his mother hospitalized due to brain cancer, but even his little sister was suffering from blindness. As if that wasn’t worst enough, even his father was assassinated by an unknown organization.

Because of that, Adam had resorted to begging for money from his rich classmates but what he received was a horrendous amount of beatings.

Adam was working part-time at a fast food chain called McDowell’s but his income wasn’t enough. If not for the fact that he shouldered the lifeline of his mother and little sister, Adam might have long committed suicide.

Those two gave him a reason to keep on living no matter how shitty his life had become.

After licking the shoes of one of the bullies, Adam was finally released by the bullies as the school bell rang, indicating that school had ended.

Although Adam was temporarily released from his hellhole known as ‘School’, he wasn’t glad since he knew that the cycle would keep on repeating and it would only end until he died.

Shaking off such depressing thoughts, Adam stood up from the floor and pulled up his school bag from his seat, wearing it on his back. Leaving his school, Adam headed to his home.

***

Lying on his bed, Adam listlessly gazed at the empty ceiling. He was starting to lose hope in this so-called cruel reality and he wanted to be free from it!

But before Adam could lose hope and fall into despair, an abrupt notification sound rang in his mind!

-Ding!

[The Ultimate Talent System has been integrated into the host’s soul!]

[As a starter package, the host can choose one Ultimate Talent for free!]

[Choose one from the three Ultimate Talents:]

[Ultimate Programmer, Ultimate Assassin, Ultimate Thief]

A notification sound that was similar to the notification sounds when one received messages from their phone resounded in his mind and it was followed by a series of blue-colored translucent screens appearing in front of him.

Adam Spencer started to doubt whether his head was hit too hard by those bullies that he began to hallucinate.

Fortunately, as someone who had experienced the ups and downs of life, Adam’s mind was already firm and steady. So even when he had witnessed such an unusual screen appear in front of him, Adam at the least wasn’t an uncultured swine who didn’t know about the existence of “systems”.

But that was what confused him the most. After all, systems were only introduced in fictional novels but their existence was never proven to be real.

“Fuck it! I have nothing to lose anyway!”

“I might as well check whether this system is real or just a product of my hallucination. If it’s the former… I might finally have my revenge and reach the peak of my life!”

Without further ado, Adam Spencer chose one of the Ultimate Talents that were presented in front of him!