This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist-Chapter 298: I Just Want to Improve So Badly
After thinking it over, Rita crossed out the content in the first parenthesis of her wish list. She also crossed out the third item, replacing it with: "A ranged attack skill (the quieter and more discreet, the better)."
Shadow.Q accepted Rita’s wish list with a speechless yet still smiling expression and said, "Wishing you a long life!"
Rita happily accepted the blessing and replied, "Same to you."
Shadow.Q: "..."
Bending down slightly, Shadow.Q spoke to Nivalis in an exceptionally gentle tone, "Feel free to tell me if you have any requests too~~~"
Rita couldn’t help but shiver at the overly sweet voice, and Shadow.Q pressed down on her shoulder. "Be careful! Don’t shake Nivalis off!"
Nivalis adjusted the miniature sunglasses on her forehead, pulling them down coolly. "Yeah, you be careful." Then she tilted her head up to look at Shadow.Q and said in her baby voice, "Big Sis Shadow.Q~~ I want an S-grade skill."
Shadow.Q chuckled and gave Nivalis a pat on the head before turning to Rita. "Such a funny kid."
With that, she straightened up and walked off.
Nivalis: "..."
Rita, for the first time, felt that Shadow.Q’s snarky comments weren’t so annoying after all!
Though her words could be biting, Shadow.Q’s efficiency was top-notch. That evening, Rita received three skills from her.
[Break Time]: Temporarily removes B-rank and below crowd control effects, granting you 3 seconds of freedom. After 3 seconds, the original control effect resumes, and its duration is extended by 6 seconds.
[Blood Shield]: Sacrifice 30% of your HP to create a shield that lasts for 12 hours. The shield can absorb damage equal to 10% of your max HP. Casting time: 3 minutes. The shield cannot stack, and there is no cooldown.
[My Silence is Deafening]: Deals mental shock to the target with a 10% chance of causing deafness for 5 seconds. Casting time: 0.5 seconds. Mana cost: 200. Cooldown: 3 minutes.
Rita immediately learned all three skills and even sent Shadow.Q a polite message: "I will fight to the last drop of my blood for Eclipse Vanguard!" Discover stories with novelbuddy
Shadow.Q replied with a deadpan: "Looking at the skills you picked, they don’t seem like they’d ever let you get hurt, let alone bleed."
Rita didn’t have the energy to argue and instead sent Shadow.Q 10 grams of Moon Sand, suggesting it be handed over to the Special Affairs Bureau for research. She had previously given Hecipah 10 grams, and anything less would feel stingy…
Of course, she opted for paid delivery. Charging 300 gold to ship 10 grams of Moon Sand wasn’t unreasonable, right?
While Nivalis went out for a game of mahjong with her sisters, Rita glanced at the sky and decided to find Rick.
She had to prepare for next month’s trip to the tower. If she really ended up staying there for 300 years, she worried that her hatred might dull over time…
She could reconcile with The White Family for the sake of profit. For one, Jameson’s offer was lucrative enough.
Secondly, she had already returned the pain Sanchez inflicted on her tenfold. In her previous life, while she had suffered, at least her body had remained intact.
Thirdly, Sanchez’s abilities and personality were a nightmare as an enemy but a priceless asset as an ally. If she kept her as a trump card, Sanchez could serve as her own SSR-tier card.
If, darkly speaking, The White Family ever lost their value, she could always arrange a mission to send them to their deaths. After all, Jameson had left her a backdoor just for this purpose. Without it, she wouldn’t have agreed in the first place.
But Rick? No one could offer enough to make her let him go—not even upgrading her SS-tier talent to SSS-tier.
Flying through the sky, Rita thought about Miyaas.
Rather than assuming he orchestrated everything to secure the Divine Gift, she believed he must have been gravely injured or trapped in an inescapable crisis. Perhaps he had been on the brink of death, forcing him into a last-ditch effort to survive. Maybe heading to Dragon Island was initially a way to evade his pursuers, and stealing the dragon scales to descend early to Blue Star allowed him to both escape danger and prepare for the Divine Gift upgrade.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense for him to gamble everything on a mere "possibility."
If it were her, she would never willingly put herself in such a passive position unless absolutely necessary.
Under those circumstances, Miyaas "saw" the ending and meticulously prepared in advance, yet still ended up dying from the very Moment of Reversal he feared most. Ironically, his Soul Catcher ability played a critical role in his demise.
Looking back, Rita found it strange that she had been compelled to use her skill crystal to glimpse Rick’s future. But she did, and it set a preconception in her mind: Rick would survive long enough to steal Aaron’s talent.
She glanced at her personal status panel, specifically her Luck stat: 9 (Base [1] - Recovering: 21:36:17).
She had killed Miyaas on the 9th. That night, she used [Renovation], and her Luck immediately dropped to 9. A 168-hour countdown timer had appeared afterward.
If she couldn’t truly kill Rick before the timer ran out, could she at least steal his Luck now? [I Just Want to Improve So Badly] no longer had a restriction against targeting weaker individuals. And her current Luck wasn’t even at its max…
If her theory was correct, Rick really was blessed.
Rita, now transformed into an owl, stopped outside a villa courtyard. She spotted someone leaving—Zoey? Judging by how familiar she was with the guards, this wasn’t her first visit. Was she here to mess with Rick too?
Once Zoey’s car disappeared from view, Rita dove into the courtyard, picked up a random brick, and smashed it against Rick’s head with all her might. The brick shattered into powder, leaving Rick unconscious with his HP dropping to 37%.
She grabbed him, tossed 50 gold coins at the bewildered Black Jade, and said, "Borrowing your pet for a bit. I’ll return him before dawn."
Black Jade glanced at the coins and covered them with his tail tip.
He had always thought he wasn’t interested in money. But ever since acquiring over 80,000 gold, he realized money was quite fascinating… These days, he counted it several times daily. It turned out his "disinterest" was just the protective mask of poverty.
This chapt𝓮r is updat𝒆d by ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom.
With a nod, he generously replied, "Go ahead. Just don’t kill him."
Rita had already vanished with Rick. Eclipse Vanguard watched briefly but didn’t pursue. If Black Jade approved, there was no point in chasing. Besides, as long as Rick didn’t die in the Special Affairs Bureau’s hands, they’d have an excuse to deal with Black Jade if anything happened.
Rita zigzagged through various paths, regretting selling her apartment dungeon. Now she had nowhere to conduct her shady activities!
Finally, she dove into an underwater dungeon, found a secluded spot, and locked it down after killing a local alien.
She started examining Rick’s stats.
Not much had changed since the last time. His Charm and Luck were still at 10, though his Trust in her had dropped to 89. Understandable, given her position at the top of the leaderboard but her lack of tangible support for him.
First, she reduced Rick’s Luck to 1. Then she poured a sleeping potion down his throat. Once he fell into a deep sleep, she activated [One-Person Party]!
Rita declared, "Players under the status of Lowest-tier Snake Servant and Unknown Curse Level II are prohibited from receiving gifted gold coins. Otherwise, when they are targeted by theft-type skills, their Luck value will be ignored, and they will be the top priority target."
The rule took effect, and a 4-minute countdown appeared above Rick’s head.
That was plenty of time to test if she could steal his Luck.
