"Call for reporters. Right now. I am going to make an announcement."
The chairwoman told her secretary, and he sighed. He knew how stubborn the chairwoman was. She was not going to listen to a word he said.
And since he was just a secretary, he had no choice but to do as he was told.
"Of course, miss. Should I ask our in-house reporters to write articles as well regarding this issue?"
He asked, and she nodded.
"Yes, do that. Make an announcement on the forums as well that player Cane was not found to be cheating and his account is fine. He just… got extremely lucky with a secret class, is all."
She told her secretary, and he sighed. He understood the angle Reeze was going for.
Since there seemed to be nothing they could do about Cane anyway, they decided to throw their weight behind him instead.
Not only that, but Reeze also had a feeling that Cane was their key to finding out about the secrets of this game and what mysteries it hid. She was getting excited just thinking about it now.
Within the next hour, the news spread that there were no cheats being used, and everyone became interested in Cane and his achievements.
Within a single hour, he went from three million followers to four million. But he had no time to celebrate because he was busy planning out his next stream and studying the game even more.
He wanted to see what other things he could do so far, but he had not found much. However, he had made one huge discovery — he was incredibly hard to kill.
How did he know? Well, it was simple — he had been ambushed by a bunch of players as soon as he logged in.
Cane had saved his game in the safe zone, but as soon as he exited, a group of players spotted him.
They noticed his "kill-on-sight" modifier and went after him.
He was merely level 30, while his opponents were all level 60+. It was an unfair fight, but he refused to go down without one.
He managed to take down one firmly when another decided to rush at him, and then a third. He was running out of stamina when one of them managed to gut him.
The pain felt real, and Cane collapsed. His opponents relaxed once they were sure he was down.
"Phew, finally, he's down. Why was he so hard to take down? Isn't he level 30?... Wait—! Why is he not dead yet?"
Someone questioned, and as soon as he got close enough, Cane shot at him point blank.
The bullet pierced Cane's opponent, causing him to die instead.
[You have killed a level 65 opponent. Exp gained—]
Cane had no time to look at that screen when the other two let out a scream and came at him. But because of his healing passive, he was fine within a minute and took off running.
He hid around until the two players separated, then picked them off one by one. The level disadvantage was overcome by their difference in skill.
But the important point was — he had not died when he surely should have. It had happened twice now.
"Is this… another glitch of the system?"
That seemed to be the only answer. Somehow, his HP was not hitting zero, even when he took a lethal blow. And he wanted to test his theory out.
"But first, I need to do something about this pain. I might not die, but the pain will surely make me pass out before I can do anything."
Cane had no idea why he was feeling all these sensations from the game so vividly. He had made sure to turn down the sensation overflow in his VR system.
At this point, even a glitch should not have gotten past it.
"I need a pain-numbing ability… but I don't see it in the list of regular skills. Then, what about additional skills? Maybe they might have something?"
Additional skills were, just as the name suggested, extra abilities that added nothing major to the gameplay. They had been added to Clash Online mostly as jokes and included being able to jump one foot higher, run one percent faster, etc.
Those were the skills that were hard to get but served no real purpose.
Among them, Cane also recalled there being a pain-numbing skill that had been made fun of.
After all, the VR set already allowed players to turn down the pain setting, so why did that skill even exist? Especially since it was so bothersome to get.
However, that ability suddenly felt like the perfect solution to Cane and his current situation. He could not help but feel like the whole thing was a joke.
"Let's see… those skill quests come and go at random. When would the next quest be…"
Cane asked himself, but the system suddenly opened in front of him. The screen looked blank, but Cane's sharp eyes spotted a small change in the interface.
There was suddenly a magnifying glass on the screen. He clicked it, and it opened a search tab for him.
[Please type your question here]
That text looked back at Cane, and he suddenly felt like this was a trap. Surely, trying to find an answer could not be this easy?
But since it was right in front of him, he decided to give it a go.
[What is the location of the next Additional Skill quest?]
The buffering icon appeared before the system displayed a whole wall of text in front of Cane. There were locations for a lot of Additional Skill quests and timelines for when they would appear.
Since Clash Online had a lot of players, it made sense why there were so many quests as well.
And among them, Cane chose the one that would give him the best chance of winning — mainly because he was sure that no one else would even know about that quest.