Introspection & Talents

Tiredly falling flat on his bed and sprawling, Lenny let out a long and heavy sigh. Then, he faced up and raised his hand to the ceiling, scrutinizing them.

"They hurt. Most likely fractured," he muttered, enduring the searing pain.

The amount of confrontations and incidents he had experienced in just the past two days surprised him greatly. 

'...How did my life suddenly become so eventful?'

Letting the hand drop on his face, Lenny sighed once again, feeling extremely downtrodden.

"What's happening to me? I'm not usually like this..."

His deep frustration from Johan's girl's insults, the over-fixation on his incapability of completing the last task of yesterday, to the unleashing of his anger on the fat-tattooed man despite being told to just save the lady in distress, was quite unusual and unlike him.

He fell deep in thought, examining his actions.

'...I could always easily send these thoughts and emotions to the back of my mind and forget. But now, they spring up at the slightest correlation, reopening the wounds. Even worse, I remember the exact same anger, the exact same frustration, and the exact same embarrassment I felt at that time. And, remembering them all at once makes these emotions accumulate…'

He mouthed, "Could this be the performance flaw of the quickly maxed-out intelligence attribute?"

'...I am, in a sense, now more emotional. So, the pros of intelligence are: I don't forget, I quickly analyze, and I recall things easily. While the cons are practically the same thing, dammit.

'So the more dumb one is, the easier they forget sad events. Is this what happens with children? It checks out. The more dumb one is, the happier. The smarter, the sadder. The world, in general, is too grim for those who are smart enough to notice its great flaws. Ignorance truly is bliss…'

Lenny rolled into the bedsheet and sighed. "Just great, now I'm even more prone to depression. Fuck, couldn't the admins, at least, give pointers a heads up that the attributes will mess us up if not done properly?"

He hissed and took out his phone, muttering to himself, "Dammit. Now I have to settle for gradual attribute investment. Imagine if I maxed out my strength, my bones would probably break at every slight contraction of my muscles!"

But then, he paused.

'...Thinking about that though, endurance would offset that problem. Hmm, in the same way, intelligence offsets the problem of focus with my perception, they all seem to work hand in hand. There must be a proper sequence to follow when maxing out the attributes at once, otherwise, I can just stick to gradual investment…'

He grinned. "Sweet. This new level of intellect I have truly is a boon. I wonder, wouldn't it affect my agility too? I should be able to quickly think of maneuvers when I'm in tricky situation, and with sharper reflexes, perform them. With all these blessings, being smarter is not that much of a curse anymore…"

…

[Rule #11: Pointers are not allowed to communicate their given task in any way or form to anyone during its runtime. Violation of this rule shall be regarded as cheating.]

…

Lenny entered the Top Idol app and was greeted with a message.

> You have been rewarded (5) v-points for completing [Task #1: Save the lady in distress].

Glancing up at the top right corner of the screen, he saw that he currently had only 8 v-points in total. 

Then, he entered the Profile tab.

[Profile]

Name: Lennard Steven Park.

Alias: Pointer4879.

Class: Irregular.

Core Attribute: —

Core Ability: —

Unique Skill: —

Talents: [ ], [ ], [ ].

~

V-Score = [4/100,000].

Daily Tasks Completed = [1/4].

V-Points = 7.

Seeing his profile, Lenny sighed and lampooned inwardly, '...And how did my V-Score get to four? Could it be because of Mike's Livestream? That must be it, I need to start streaming too. But, I still don't have any talent…'

Quickly, he found his way to the Shop tab and set the item-type filter to 'Talent'. 

Having scrolled past numerous talents like parkour, drawing, painting, drumming, sculpting, singing, rapping, writing, directing, dancing, public speaking, voice imitation, boxing, and so on, he quickly noticed they were all tier-1 items, but frighteningly expensive with slight price differences. 

At their prices, Lenny's eyebrows twitched. "Could it be I don't actually need a talent as much as I thought…? Because these prices… these prices…"

From a business mind and his passions, he quickly sieved through the talents that weren't necessary for him at the moment and settled on two. 

[Songwriting]

Type: Talent.

Tier: I.

Description: Just beat it! Gain the innate ability to turn your ideas, emotions, and inspirations into songs.

Price: 100 VP.

Despite almost coughing out blood at the outrageous price, Lenny chose [Songwriting] over [Singing], [Music Composition], and [Music Production] frankly due to the versatility it harbored. 

[Singing] didn't determine his capability of making hit music that could top the charts. He would only be able to hit high notes. 

[Music Composition] mostly dealt with the creation of orchestra music and film scores, lacking the need for lyrics. It wasn't bad, per se, as great music helped bring movies to life, but it just wasn't what he needed at the moment—which was something that had the chance to quickly pull him out of his massive debt.

As for [Music Production], it mainly dealt with the technicality of music and the ability to make amazing beats. Talented producers often needed to take a song to the next level, but what would be the point if the song itself wasn't already great?

All in all, they were smart options too, but Lenny needed a talent that could fit his current situation and have the highest potential return financially. 

With the [Songwriting] talent, he would be able to make catchy melodies that could be used as TinkTonk sounds, which could earn him the attention of top-industry agencies. 

He was starting from the absolute bottom and there were hardly any opportunities present to make big cash without delving into a life of crime. Therefore, he needed to utilize any and every method out there to be recognized.

[Acting]

Type: Talent.

Tier: I.

Description: Ashley, look-at-me! Gain the innate ability to perform any given role.

Price: 150 VP.

The second talent, [Acting], that Lenny had his eyes on, was one of personal conviction. He had always wanted to be an actor but lacked the background to chase such a profession and the opportunity to learn the skill. 

He needed some financial stability in his life, first. Therefore, he had settled for a degree in business, which in the end, went up in smoke.

Another talent he contemplated deeply but decided against was [Writing]. He feared he might be able to write, but due to the saturation of the profession, wouldn't be lucky enough to have his months of hard work published. 

And without it being published, he wouldn't be able to use the [Trend Now] app utility. Despite having a talent for it, he could be caught in a conundrum of unpublished works for years. And years, he didn't have. 

However, the major factor that made him decide against it was the fact that he could train himself to write. Spending v-points on such an easy skill to learn would be sort of like a waste.

With the merging of social media and the music industry, Lenny saw a jackpot hiding within. And with the [Go Viral!] app utility and [Songwriting] talent, it was only now a matter of hard work and dedication before he became a household name in the industry.

So now, he just needed to acquire the needed v-points to purchase the talent.

He caressed his chin. 'I will start saving most of the v-points from tasks I manage to complete. I'll still need to gradually max out all my attributes though, and buy consumables from time to time in unexpected situations. I also haven't even tested out those collectible item packets in the shop tab…' 

Lenny acknowledged it might take a while for his plans to be actualized, considering his issues with Boss Falcone. However, he couldn't let that stop him from chasing success. 

The money to pay off the heavy debt wasn't going to fall from the sky, neither would any sort of normal job help him pay it off without him dedicating his entire life. Coupled with that, he still had no academic degree, and to acquire one, he would still need to sink into more debt and invest nothing less than three years. He doubted Boss Falcone had that sort of patience. 

Moreover, if he wasn't able to attain first or second place on the leaderboard by the end of the month, he would at least have something to fall back on. 

Having this Plan B was more necessary now that he found out he was currently ranked only second place.

Lenny sighed, left Top Idol, and went over to WiTube Shorts to check on the clips he boosted.

The captioned cat video had garnered a total of 65,980 views, 8,090 likes, and 910 comments. While the other non-captioned cat video only acquired a little over 31,409 views, 3,284 likes, and 307 comments.

Lenny nodded, "The Go Viral app utility is very potent, indeed. It affects both videos. The sum total of views is roughly up to 100k, so it must be safe to say one v-point is equivalent to 100,000 views…"