Drawing a God-Given Talent

On the way here, she had even considered waiting until Yu Xunhuan downloaded the game before knocking him out. That way, when he learned the significance of the game a year later, he would surely be heartbroken.

But she quickly snuffed out that thought. She did not dare take the risk.

What if she was two minutes too late and let him draw a talent?

Then she would be the one left heartbroken.

Yu Xunge planned to stand guard in Yu Xunhuan's room tonight.

2:22

The moment the time changed to those numbers, Yu Xunge immediately searched the app store for Calamity of Ten Thousand Races: Fear Rift. Seeing the red moon on the app icon, she felt only reassurance. This life would definitely be different.

Yu Xunge raced against every second. She did not know how many people would play this game tonight, nor how long those people who had soared to greatness by joining the beta early in her previous life had played. She only knew that every minute was precious now.

She skipped the opening animation and entered the character creation screen directly.

Perhaps due to the game's power, once she reached the face customization stage, the default character already looked eighty percent like Yu Xunge. She still had plans to cause trouble in the game—how could that do? She tapped randomize and stopped once she got a face that did not resemble her too much. As for the name, she casually entered [Gewuen].

The game world had a Western fantasy setting, with different races and factions. Yet no matter how hostile those races and factions were toward one another, they had all formed an alliance when invading Blue Star.

Humans naturally could not become other races, but Yu Xunge still carefully selected her character's race. Every race had racial talents, and she wanted to see whether, after choosing a race, she could steal that race's racial talent through her game character.

She had killed living beings from every race. Many of them gave her headaches, but the ones she least wanted to encounter were undoubtedly [Undead].

The Undead were one of the few races with two racial talents.

[Undead Will]

You have long been dead. The deeper you are driven into desperate straits, the stronger your will becomes. When HP falls below 5%, all attributes double. When HP falls below 1%, your current attributes [double] again.

[Feeding]

Consuming flesh and blood can restore your injuries.

The former was practically a divine skill for turning the tables. If someone reduced her HP below 5% but kept it above 1%, her attributes would double once. Then, if they knocked her below 1%, they would double again on top of that.

So when facing an Undead, if one could not bring their HP below 6% and swiftly burst them down in one wave, the worst-case scenario would be facing an enemy whose attributes had surged fourfold.

Meanwhile, [Feeding] would give her a way to restore HP by eating meat after all healing skills and potions had entered cooldown.

In her previous life, she had fallen into a weakened state countless times. It felt little different from quietly waiting to die.

If eating flesh and blood could restore HP, how much harder would she be to kill?

After selecting [Undead] as her race, her character's face visibly became paler and thinner.

A world with a mature combat system was invading Blue Star, so naturally heaven had given Blue Star a chance to survive.

On the day the game invaded, every human received one chance to draw a God-given talent. This was also something every other race possessed from the moment of birth. It now existed to maintain balance, and it was the key to Blue Star's rapid rise and resistance against the invasion.

Now that Yu Xunge had created a character, she naturally received one as well.

The moment character creation ended, the screen turned into a starry sky. It was clearly only a phone-screen-sized expanse of stars, yet Yu Xunge felt as though she stood beneath a vast cosmos, tiny before countless billions of stars.

She tapped one at random.

The star smashed toward her through the screen like a meteor, accompanied by the sound effect of shattering glass.

[Impersonation] (A-rank)

You can impersonate anyone. When you successfully make ten thousand people believe you are that person, kill them and absorb everything they have, they will become a character slot for you. You may switch to their life at any time. No item or skill can see through it. You may end the substitution state yourself, but after ending it three times, that character slot disappears.

[Skill 1] Life Is So Easy: You may store up to three substitute characters.

[Skill 2] I Am the Best Actress: You can imitate skills you have seen, but they will possess only 20% of the original power.

It was the God-given talent she had possessed in her previous life.

In her previous life, the Su Family, Han family, and House Liang had jointly hunted her because of this skill. It was also because of this skill that she had managed to remain on the run for so long under the pursuit of those three major factions.

This skill was only A-rank, but if used well, its effects rivaled an S-rank skill. It was especially valuable to the powerful and wealthy. What it meant to replace the head of a family—or even a city's administrator—went without saying.

But now that she had a chance to start over, she naturally wanted something better.

Yu Xunge immediately deleted the character and created a new one.

This was not a gamble. In her previous life, that shut-in man who had slaughtered his way across the world had said in an interview that, during the beta, he had disliked his talent and kept deleting and remaking characters until he got a good one. By the end, he barely had any game time left.

Compared to game time, the talent that determined one's fate was naturally more important.

Yu Xunge kept creating characters and drawing talents, deleting them whenever she was dissatisfied.

Several talents that tempted her appeared along the way.

[Broker] (A-rank)

After introducing a transaction between a buyer and seller, you may take a 5% commission from both parties.

[Skill 1] Free Things Cost the Most: If both parties barter goods, there is a 5% chance upon use to copy an item's skill and turn it into one of your character skills.

[Skill 2] Let's Be Friends: If the two trading parties attempt to bypass you and trade directly, after using the skill, the traded item belonging to the lower-value party will automatically appear in your hands.

[Ascension] (A-rank)

Use it to ascend an item, raising the rank of one item. Can be used once every 30 natural days.

[Sleight of Hand] (A-rank)

You can steal anything—items, attributes, even talents. However, you have only one chance to steal from each person, regardless of success or failure. The secret to not getting caught is to reject greed.

[Skill 1] This Looks Familiar: Upon use, there is a 10% chance to steal one item from the target, and a 5% chance to steal 1 point from one of the target's attributes at random.

[Skill 2] Defy Fate—As Long as I Don't Die After Succeeding, I Am the Thief God: Upon use, there is a 0.05% chance to steal the target's talent.

Yu Xunge lingered on Sleight of Hand the longest...

It was too tempting.

She hesitated not because she had any moral bottom line. After the game invaded, she had practically killed people every day. She had already killed people—what was theft compared to that?

This skill was truly incredible. The odds might be low, but she knew of quite a few items that could raise skill probabilities.

After weighing the pros and cons, Yu Xunge still gave it up. This skill was too dangerous and would easily provoke hostility from other players.

Besides, this God-given talent could not truly change her life.

After more than a dozen more rounds of deleting and rebuilding characters, she lit another point of light in the starry sky—and for the first time, she saw the moon rushing toward her!

A voice then rang directly in her mind: Greedy, restrained, skilled at disguise—you are qualified to walk the mortal world in place of the Thief God.

[Thief God] (S-rank)

You can steal everything in the world—items, attributes, talents, even life itself. Only thieves reject greed. The Thief God loves theft as dearly as life itself. If someone possesses something you absolutely must have, there is no reason for you to stop. You may repeatedly use skills on the same person, but beginning with the second time, every theft deducts 20% of your HP.

[Skill 1] I Want This, This, and This: Upon use, there is a 20% chance to steal one item or one unit of money from the target, and a 10% chance to steal 1 point from the target's highest attribute. (Cannot be used against beings of a lower life level than your own. The Thief God never bullies the weak.)

[Skill 2] The Thief God's Theft Can Also Be a Robber's Theft: Sorry, I stole your whole house. I apologize. In the name of the Thief God, steal the target's God-given talent. This skill may only be used once in the Thief God's lifetime. (If the stolen God-given talent is above S-rank, failure is possible.)

[Skill 3] Alias, Come!: Summon your alias. Upon use, you can temporarily alter your face, build, and scent. No item or skill can see through it. Disguise duration: 1 hour. Cooldown: 6 hours.

[Skill 4] Ah, Where Did That Go? (Passive): After a successful theft, the victim will temporarily forget that they ever possessed the item. They will remember having lost something one day later.

This time, Yu Xunge chose the talent without the slightest hesitation.

Five minutes earlier: Being a thief isn't good, right?

Five minutes later: I want it!!!