Chapter 14: Rich Man’s Bank

[CURSE OF FRAILTY [UNIQUE (ORIGIN)

FOR YOU WHO TILTED THE BALANCE, THE ’ORIGIN WILL’ GIFTS A UNIQUE CURSE.

EFFECT 1: IMPOSSIBLE TO INCREASE PHYSIQUE STAT.

EFFECT 2: PRONE TO RANDOM LOSS OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

EFFECT 2: PRONE TO RANDOM FULL-BODY OR PARTIAL PARALYSIS.]

Damon felt as if he had been struck across the face with what he was seeing. Not only was he already physically weaker than most; apparently, now he couldn’t even increase the physique stat he’d heard others talk about.

Additionally, this curse would also randomly paralyze him or cause him to faint. He felt it was simply ridiculous, thinking, what sort of balance did he even tilt for this thing called the ’origin will’ to take such cruel measures against him?

Recollection of some things that transpired in the awakening space unfurled in his mind, and he could only blame his terrible luck. His chances of survival in this trial were looking more hopeless than ever.

The curse placed on him now made it clear why he didn’t feel any improvement in his physical strength when he had learned that all those who had awakened would get a certain boost to their physique.

Another concerning factor was the fact that there appeared to be a lot of his stats that he couldn’t make out. First was his mentality stat, which, as he’d heard, along with the physique stat, is one of the two stats that can be raised using Origin crystals. Seeing the value of his physique stat, there was no doubt in Damon’s mind that it was probably one of the weakest values, and he couldn’t increase it.

Since the curse did not mention his mentality stat, he hoped he could increase that at least. But would that even work when he couldn’t even see the value? He saw someone comment that the mentality stat is responsible for powering class skills, so it was an equally important stat as well.

Then there was his class, which had a unique type of naming he hadn’t seen anywhere else. It was labeled as Unique and hidden, and Damon wasn’t sure what that meant since he’d only heard about unique classes once or twice on the chat channels. And why could he not see what grade his class was?

The most concerning part was the skill he had awakened under his class. The name of this skill did not look promising at all. What use was a bank in a world teetering on the brink?. It wasn’t an active skill, and it was clearly non-combative. It was just one bad thing after the other.

From his understanding, everyone awakens a single skill under their designated classes; the path to unlocking those other locked skills was still unknown.

Now Damon had his last bet on his class skill; he dearly hoped there was some potent utility to it, and not an actual bank that stores money. What use was money right now? Damon was literally the richest on the planet, and yet he was almost clawed to death a while ago. In just a few hours, the status of everyone on the planet has been made equal— except for the newly awakened, who could formerly have been poor or rich. The system clearly doesn’t discriminate.

At the moment, Damon could only hope that after being so heavily disadvantaged for no apparent reason, he would at least gain a half-useful skill. Holding his breath, just like he had done with the last portion of his status, Damon impressed his will on his class skill, and instead of some detailed write-up, the use of this skill sank directly into his mind, and instinctively, he could make out all its use—or rather, uses. There were five in total. And Damon was progressively flabbergasted by their function.

The first was ~ ONE DAY FIXED DEPOSIT.

Rather than what Damon was imagining, this bank of his does not deal in the local currency... but origin crystals. Channelling this function would allow him to lock up his origin crystals for one full day in the rich man’s bank.

During this time, he would not be able to access those funds no matter what happens. However, after the one day is over, he receives back not just the origin crystals deposited, but a hundred percent return on his investment.

The same was true for three other functions, which were the ~ ONE WEEK FIXED DEPOSIT, ~ ONE MONTH FIXED DEPOSIT, and finally, ~ ONE YEAR FIXED DEPOSIT; with ROI’s at 700%, 3000%, and 36500% respectively.

It was simply insane.

Damon could only marvel at how this was even possible, and whether this skill would actually work when used. The probability of gaining a single origin crystal was incredibly low. Less than one in every five hunted mutants. Yet this potentially promises to return to him thirty-six thousand five hundred origin crystals in a year if he deposits a single one.

There were just two caveats to this. And that was that there couldn’t be concurrent deposits for the same time period, and any deposit made would be locked and couldn’t be altered till the time period concluded. Meaning, Damon had to be very careful when he used this function. Still, he wasn’t feeling so helpless anymore—

This doesn’t make him immediately powerful enough to protect himself, but if what he’s heard of the Origin store was true..... This power of his was beyond useful. And the best part, this was only one of two utilities his Rich man’s bank skill affords.

While the first allowed Damon to receive massive ROI’s, the second was called ~ BANK VAULT.

Damon had never heard of a class skill having more than one function; but considering the trial had just begun, he wasn’t in any position to speak in this.

In a way, the second aspect of this class skill was more outrageous than the first, and the interesting part was, it seemed to be a growth-type aspect.

Damon could subconsciously feel a connection to a source that felt of similar nature to a power he had been exposed to before; however, the more he tried to recall that feeling, the more he forgot, and the more groggy he became. Damon was no longer even sure what he was trying to recall, so his focus was ultimately returned to the second aspect of his skill...

~ BANK VAULT—

A liminal, independent, impenetrable, ever-expanding Subspace....

A space that apparently held the potential to one day allow the containment of even organic lifeforms.

"Is... is this for real ?"