Chapter 193: A Leopard Doesn't Change Its Spots
Eternally Seventeen: My conscience was consumed long ago.
My True Form Is Cola: …please, seniors, don't bully the new member.
WolfKingOfQingQingGrasslands: Just got out of the Arena in time to grab a red packet — thank you boss, long live the boss, the boss is invincible!
I'm Rolling In It: 2 Points?? Why did I only get 2 Points??
Eternally Seventeen: Oh? It seems I'm not the most unfortunate one after all.
Eternally Seventeen: My mood has improved considerably!
RawrSoFierce: You only got 3 more than Tony.
Eternally Seventeen: 3 Points is still 3 Points! The average human lifespan is around 70 years, and 20 Points buys one Arena revival — so 3 Points is equivalent to 5 years of human life!
RawrSoFierce: What kind of logic is that.
RawrSoFierce: Are you a philosopher?!
"…"
Ryū's eye twitched. Yukari's reasoning was producing genuine headaches.
How had she calculated that 3 Points equalled 5 years of life? What was the methodology? Was there methodology?
And she was only 3 Points ahead of Tony Stark, which still made her catastrophically unlucky by any reasonable metric. The difference was that Yukari's baseline personality was simply built for this. She treated misfortune like weather — noted it, found an angle she liked, and moved on. It explained how someone whose luck had been targeted by the universe could continue behaving as though nothing was wrong.
If it had been Ryū in her position, he'd have retreated to a corner some time ago.
The Chat Group chimed.
Someone was tagging him. He checked.
Eriri.
He'd thought she was busy with the manga. Had she already plotted out the storyline, or had she run into a problem?
Street-Corner Illustrator: @RawrSoFierce @Eternally Seventeen @Kaguya-sama @My True Form Is Cola
Street-Corner Illustrator: Admin! Yukari-senpai! Kaguya-senpai! Umaru-chan!
Street-Corner Illustrator: I've finished drawing chapters 1 through 3! Do you want to take a look? I have two hundred percent confidence in this new series — I know it's going to be huge!
Kaguya-sama: HOLD ON!! You finished 3 chapters in just a few days?! Is this what people mean by "octopus hands"?!
My True Form Is Cola: 3 chapters in a week! Each one isn't just 10 pages, is it?
Street-Corner Illustrator: Hmph~ I do 24 pages per chapter, thank you. 3 chapters is 72 pages total. I'm not one of those 10-pages-and-done artists.
RawrSoFierce: That fast? Send it to me privately, let me look first.
Crazy Diamond: Shouldn't it go in the group files?
RawrSoFierce: Not until I've seen it. What if it's compromising material? Eriri does have a track record — she was drawing adult content at sixteen.
Street-Corner Illustrator: The content in this one is genuinely wholesome!
Street-Corner Illustrator: Admin, Yukari-senpai, Kaguya-senpai, Umaru-chan — I've sent all three chapters to each of you privately!
"…"
Sure enough, there was a file waiting in the private message window from Eriri.
The concern had been legitimate. Letting her post directly to group files before screening was asking for trouble. She had, after all, built her professional reputation on a very specific genre. The fact that she claimed to have reformed was worth verifying before trusting.
He opened the file.
The cover was coloured. She'd done the whole cover herself, with no assistants — plotted the story, drawn and inked every page, coloured the cover. Impressive output for a few days.
"…It really is a harem setup. One male lead, four female leads, right there on the cover."
He turned to chapter 1.
The art was solid. The plot was inoffensive. Chapter 1 passed.
He turned to chapter 2.
He got halfway through it.
His eyebrow twitched.
"I knew it. You can't take the street corner out of the illustrator. Chapter 2 and she's already slipping. Fan service pages. And the character based on Yukari is the one in the scene."
He paused.
"That old youkai's reaction when she reads this is going to be genuinely spectacular."
He quietly saved the file. This was absolutely going into cold storage as future leverage. You never knew when something like this would become useful.
RawrSoFierce: Chapter 1 is fine, but Eriri, when you're drawing you need to hold back that restless impulse of yours. Approach it with the mindset of making content for pure-hearted young readers.
RawrSoFierce: Otherwise this content level is going to get you delisted eventually.
Street-Corner Illustrator: But… this level of content is completely normal in Japan… plenty of published manga goes much further than this.
RawrSoFierce: What I mean is, consider Yukari-senpai's feelings.
RawrSoFierce: What do you think her reaction will be when she reads this?
Street-Corner Illustrator: …I see, I understand, Admin!
Street-Corner Illustrator: You're right that it's a bit much. Actually the original version I drew was even more — but I thought it was too far, so I toned it down to this. Would the Admin like to see the original draft?
RawrSoFierce: Sure, go ahead (?????)
Street-Corner Illustrator: [Image] [Image] [Image] [Image]… these are the original drafts.
RawrSoFierce: …Whatever you do, do not show those three the original drafts. You will not survive the consequences. Also — you appear to have sent the image of the character based on your own likeness as well.
Street-Corner Illustrator: Mrow??
Street-Corner Illustrator: WHAT!!
"…"
Looking at the original drafts Eriri had sent, Ryū felt his nutritional reserves taking a hit.
These weren't fan service. These were uncensored. No protective light beams, no careful framing. Everything that typically stayed offscreen was fully visible. Including the character she'd designed based on herself, which she'd also accidentally included in the batch.
So Ryū had now seen things he wasn't sure he was supposed to see.
Which was why he'd flagged it.
He exited the Chat Group quietly.
Continuing to engage with that line of conversation would have tested limits he wasn't interested in testing.
He looked at his familiar bedroom. Let out a slow breath.
Shook his head.
"No use overthinking any of that. The 11,000 Points from this quest — that can push me another step forward. But I can't dump everything into constitution."
He thought it through and allocated 6,000 Points to constitution upgrades.
The change that moved through his body was real — subtle, but measurable. A genuine improvement.
Just not as dramatic as it would have been earlier.
That was the nature of it. The further along you were, the more input was required for the same relative gain. A hundred experience points took you from Level 1 to Level 2. The same hundred points didn't move you from Level 20 to Level 21.
"And now there's the Arena eating Points on top of that. A quest with a five-digit total reward barely registers as a windfall anymore. There was a time when anything over 10,000 would have been genuinely exciting. Now it barely moves the needle."
He made a fist. Felt the density of what was there. Opened his hand.
Current balance: 6,170 Points. Of which 5,000 was quest surplus, 1,000 was the untouchable reserve, and the remaining 170 was red packet winnings.
After accounting for the reserve: 5,170 usable. Enough for roughly a month of Arena time, running aggressively.
He entered the Arena. Single mode — the setting that generated opponents calibrated specifically to his known weaknesses, at a difficulty marginally above his current ceiling.
The most efficient training environment available.
He'd never really imagined himself as someone who put in sustained dedicated training. And yet here he was.
Life was unpredictable like that.
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