The Ability Steal System

Starting The Accuracy Challenge

"I hired these two idiots to monitor him and I was told that he had a bookshop and his name was Felix.. yes, his name was Felix Argus" The middle-aged man replied.

'So they knew about me, the question is how much do they know?' Felix asked himself going into deep thought.

"What else do you know about this Felix?" Felix asked trying to seem unbothered by this revelation, while also trying to pry for information.

"That's all these fools told me, I hired them because knowing they were weak so they wouldn't raise much suspicion, I also knew that they would also be easy to control" The middle-aged man replied.

"How is he related to the light race?" Felix asked with a calm expression.

"I don't know how, his past is somehow fuzzy so we know very little about him" The middle-aged man replied, trying to remember something.

'Whew, that's good' Felix thought with a relieved expression.

"So where is he now?" Felix asked with a curious look.

"Well, unfortunately he's dead, his shop was found razed to the ground, most the things within the shop were destroyed, but fortunately these idiots managed to salvage something from the rubble, a weird crystal and an old book which wouldn't open no matter what, I was planning to hand it over to the Kreed to deliver it to my supervisors, my son must have taken it though" The middle-aged man replied sadly as he remembered his son whose cold body could be seen lying at the side.

'Hmm, so those things were actually in the shop when I burnt it down, why aren't they in my memories, never mind that, maybe I can find out something useful about my past through it, my trip here was fruitful and at the right time" Felix thought happily, he was truly fortunate to have chosen today, otherwise any other day wouldn't have been as fruitful as today.

"I will spare your life as I promised, if you answer this question, who do you think is behind all this?" Felix asked while placing his dagger away, he knew exactly what he had to do with the man.

"Thank you for your generosity" The middle-aged man thanked Felux happily before frowning while thinking.

"I think the Ale... Al...arrrg, my head, arrg, hellpp meee" The middle-aged man furrowed his brows, before speaking out, but before he could even spit it out, he suddenly started choking and immediately, Felix sensed a huge amount of energy gathering within him, survival instincts kicked in immediately in Felix who tensed up and moved like a spring.

He immediately grabbed the two fools who had been knocked out, and the kreed before shooting out of the mansion, immediately he got out of the mansion, he felt a huge wave of energy burst out from the mansion, shooting toward all directions, due to how close he was to the mansion, he was thrown backward by the force, which sent him crashing into a nearby stall.

After getting up weakly and popping his dislocated finger into place, he glanced at the mansion, and his eyes almost popped out of their sockets

The whole mansion had been leveled to the ground, this sight caused his legs to go cold as he imagined what would have happened if he had delayed for a second.

He was about to move into the mansion to find out what had happened when he suddenly felt several powerful auras approaching, he immediately abandoned all thoughts of scavenging, and immediately took off from the scene while storing the bodies in his dimension ring

Several seconds after he had left, 5 figures appeared clothed in thick and expensive armor, they stared at the mansion that was leveled to the ground with furrowed brows.

one of them suddenly turned toward the direction Felix had gone before turning into a streak of light that moved in that same direction, chasing after him.

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Meanwhile, Felix had already moved far away from the scene, he was already relaxed thinking he had gotten away, when he felt a powerful aura approaching him at an unusual speed. He launched his speed to the peak and tried to throw him off, but to no avail because instead of moving away, the aura was rapidly approaching, and this made him tense.

'Damn, why won't he just give up, why is he so adamant' Felix cursed in his heart wondering why the person following him didn't seem to want to give up, by now his energy was almost depleted.

"This is bad, I can't get caught now, I have to find a way to escape, hmm, maybe this can work, I don't have any choice, I have to risk it" Felix said to himself as he suddenly thought of a very risky plan.

After running for some time, he paused and stuck his body against the wall, then went into camouflage.

Almost immediately after, a figure appeared wearing armor who paused and looked around with furrowed brows, as if sensing something.

"The aura was just here some seconds ago so how could it just disappear, there is something strange about this, I need to investigate this properly" The figure muttered to himself while scrutinizing the surroundings cautiously like he was sure he would find something, when his eyes got to where Felix was hiding, it paused, this made Felix's heart to skip a beat, his heartbeat further increased when the armoured figure started approaching.

Felix held his breath, he tried his best to completely erase his presence, he could feel that he was definitely not the figure's match, because his aura was even stronger than the D+ rank Esper who had rescued him in the beast forest and it was only a little bit weaker than the city lord's.

As he watched the figure approaching him slowly, his heart jumped into his throat, he was starting to ponder on whether to use his bloodline skill, when the figure stopped only a few feet away from him and glanced in the opposite direction, then turned into a streak of light that shot towards that direction.

It was only after he was sure that the figure had truly left, that he finally let out a sigh of relief, he had been this close to getting caught, the opponent this time was someone who had very high perception, if he had taken one more step, he would hace been forced to use his bloodline skill on him.

That would have led them into a battle which he couldn't even predict the outcome, thinking up till this point, he didn't waste any time before rushing away.

After some minutes, the figure returned to the mansion empty-handed, and headed toward the others who were discussing something.

"What happened? Did you lose him?" A second figure asked with surprise.

"Yes, I chased him for some time but as I was about to catch him, the aura suddenly disappeared into thin air, I searched all around but didn't find anything, what about you?" The first figure replied before asking them.

"We found several bodies in the rubble, some were killed with a stab wound and others were killed by fire, the only D-rank Esper was also killed, he must have been the source of the explosion because his body was all mashed up, all the E ranks sustained heavy injuries from the blast but they may have a slight chance of surviving" The second figure replied.

"This is the third one this week, do you think it's the same people who are doing this?" A third figure asked in a worried tone.

"No and yes, no because I think it's only one person who did all these, and yes because it's the same person, in the second case, they were all killed by a stab wound to their vital part and only one by a wind blade and in this case, most were killed by stab wounds to their vital parts and some others were also killed by fire" The last figure who seemed to be the leader gave his findings, this made the others nod.

If Felix were here to hear this, he would be shocked silly by how accurate his deductions were, the deductions were on point.

"Do you think it's a kreed?" The first figure asked.

"No, I think it's a dual-ability Esper at least D ranked" The leader replied after thinking for some time.

"A dual-ability Esper?" The second figure asked in shock. A dual-ability Esper was a very rare existence that only appeared once in a blue moon, the probability of finding a dual-ability Esper was 1 in 100,000.

"Yes, a dual-ability Esper, and if that's true then it means that his full strength can rival ours, the only clue we have is this card" The leader once again replied before showing the others the black card with one word on it.

"Shadow, this is the second one we've recorded, we have to report this to the city lord, the matter is well beyond our reach" The third figure said with alarm and fear before they all moved away.

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At this moment, Felix, the cause of all this confusion was already at an inn in the city, he decided to not return to Connor's mansion and instead checked himself into a different inn, he had a lot of things that needed to be done in secret.

"What a close call, I need to be careful next time" Felix said with a frown, remembering how he had almost been caught, he later burst into a hearty laugh.

He shook his head and smiled thinking of the gains of his trip, he let out a sigh of relief since he was safe now, after taking in some food and meditating for some time, he lay on his bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

The next morning, Felix woke up feeling sore all over his body, but he still exercised for two hours before taking a bath and having breakfast.

He had already sorted out his plans the previous night, today he was going to the training facility to practice for the White Jade Seal Tournament which was coming up in one month.

He walked through the streets which were bustling with people. As he walked, he noticed that the people stared at him weirdly, he wondered the reason why until he followed their gaze to his clothes, which had been torn and destroyed in several places due to the battle the previous day.

Due to this, he had to make a detour to the clothing shop to buy some new clothes, luckily he didn't go through the same drama he went through back at the weapons shop, so within a few minutes, he was dobe with his shopping, after which he before moving to the training facility

He stared at the sign that read "Scarlet Panther Training Facility", he could sense the intent contained within, and as he was observing it, he heard a voice behind him.

"This training facility is the oldest in the city, it was built by the great "Scarlet Panther" when he was still a youth, in his later years, he proceeded to become the faster Esper who had ever lived on this continent, the intent contained within those letters are very profound" Felix turned around to see a silver-haired youth with plain clothes around his age who gave off a sense of mysteriousness.

"Who are you?" Felix asked coldly glancing at the youth as if trying to pry open his cloak of mysteriousness.

"Hi, my name is James, nice to meet you" The youth replied with a smile that looked pleasing to the eye.

"Hmm, nice to meet you" Felix said indifferently as he walked into the facility ignoring the youth, he didn't have time to waste on making friends, he had realized how weak he was from what happened the previous day, and he hated the feeling of being weak so he was determined to get stronger.

He looked around and spotted a tall muscular man exuding a vicious aura walking towards him.

"You here to train? The admission fee is 10 E rank beast cores, pay up" The tall muscular man said as he sized Felix up and down, he had already deduced that Felix was

"What?, 10 E rank beast cores?" Felix asked in shock after hearing the prize.

"Hmmp, if it's too expensive for you then get out" The tall muscular man shouted as veins bulged on his body causing people to stare at them.

"Who do you think you are to talk to me like that?" Felix coldly glared at the tall muscular man, just an E+ rank, and he dared to speak to him like that, what audacity, he was thinking of teaching the man a lesson when a familiar calm voice sounded behind him.

"Calm down, how much is the VIP token?" The calm voice of James sounded behind him as he appeared from behind Felix and asked the tall muscular man.

"Hahaha, the VIP token is not for poor little fries like you, do you think this is the slums?" The tall muscular man shouted in a loud voice to attract people's attention.

"Did you hear that?, that guy is asking about the VIP token, he must be sick" An E-rank Esper added with mockery, the VIP token was called the VIP token for a good reason, it wasn't something that a guy dressed like James could afford.

"Look at his ordinary clothes, does he think this place is somewhere he can talk nonsense, he must be stinking rich" Another F+ rank Esper also said sarcastically.

"Watch how he is going to be taught a lesson, hahaha, this is going to be fun" Another E+ rank Esper said chuckling at the misfortune about to befall them.

"What did you say?, I didn't hear you the first time, could you repeat that" James said seemingly unperturbed by the provocation.

"Are you deaf? I said.... " The tall muscular man was about to repeat his sentence when James stepped forward, once he took the first step, the man immediately fell to the ground, his eyes clouded with fear.

"What just happened? Did I see this right or are my eyes playing tricks on me?" The E+ rank Esper's eye opened wide when he saw what just unfolded before his eyes, all he saw was James take a single step forward, and the next second, the tall muscular man immediately fell to the ground, what was this?

While still wondering what had actually happened, he suddenly felt a sharp gaze lock onto him, he glanced up to see James staring at him.

He immediately felt like he had been stripped naked and placed in front of a terrifying beast, he was so scared that he didn't know when a stream of warm liquid flowed down his legs.

"Ugh, did you just piss yourself, you seriously need help" An E rank Esper beside him said in disgust after she detected the hideous scent coming from the E+ rank Esper who just stood there petrified, before running out of the training facility, usually he would have taught the E rank a lesson for his disrespect, but now all he cared about was getting far away from here, far away from the terrifying beast in human's clothing.

Meanwhile, Felix was also standing there in fear, the others didn't know what happened, but he did because he was standing right behind James.

He saw James take a step forward, and suddenly he felt a huge wave of killing intent erupt, like a slumbering beast that had awoken.

The aura of the seemingly simple youth in front of him had switched so fast that it was shocking, but the funny part was that he had a smile on his face when it happened and the aura wasn't even directed at him, it was directed toward the man so he could only wonder what he was experiencing.

"I will ask you again, how much is the VIP token?" James asked once again with a calm expression.

"It's just..50 E rank beasst...cores" The tall muscular man stammered. His eyes expressed the fear he felt as he stared at the man in front of him with pure terror, how stupid he was to provoke someone this strong, just that one step had scared his completely.

"Here's 100 E rank beast cores for the both of us, get us the tokens in 5 seconds" James said withdrawing his aura, he then threw a bag of beast cores towards the man.

"Okkaay" The tall muscular caught the bag with a relieved expression, but somehow had been unexpectedly forced back 5 steps, before he stabilized himself. With a shocked expression, he ran to get the VIP tokens like there was a vicious beast chasing him.

He got back quickly and handed them to James who received it with a smile, and even thanked him again like nothing had happened.

"Here, this one is yours" James handed a VIP token to Felix with an innocent expression.

'So he is a D-rank Esper, but his aura is stronger than Damien's, who is he?' Felix thought while guessing what James had said.

"Hello, anybody home" James said as he waved his hands in front of Felix's eyes which made him snap out of his daze.

"Thanks, what did you say your name was again?" Felix asked after receiving the VIP token, without realizing, his attitude toward James had changed.

"I'm James, I didn't quite get your name" James answered with a grin as if expecting the question.

"Felix, thank you for the token" Felix replied with a similar smile, he was too surprised to notice that this youth had just taken out 100 E-rank beast cores like it was nothing.

"My pleasure, I won't waste much of your time, I can see that you are anxious to practice for the White Jade Seal Tournament, I know that our paths will surely cross again sooner or later, until then use your talent properly, it answers to you now" James answered with a mysterious smile as he left.

"Whew, so powerful yet so young, system what do you think about him?" Felix let out a sigh of relief as he asked the system.

"System? Are you there" Felix asked when he received no response from the system.

"What the hell is wrong with the system?, never mind that, I need to practice" Felix said before walking towards the stairs leading to the second floor leaving behind the stunned crowd of onlookers.

Felix was stunned by what he met on that second floor, several doors extended backwards into a wide doorway, the doors were divided into several sections, this described what aspect they trained.

Felix first of all took his time to examine the structure of the walls and doors, they seemed to be made of a special material. The mana concentration was also leaps and bounds better then that of the first floor, this made it worthy of being the 'VIP room'.

He read the sighs on the doors until he arrived at one which had a sign that read 'Accuracy Challenge'. He then smiled choosing this room and proceeded to enter.

After entering, Felix found himself in a huge room whose appearance didn't match the way it looked from the outside, it was like the size had been somehow increased. The room was empty, apart from platform in the center, and the board which seemed like a ranking list, there was nothing else within the room, but Felix suspected that there was more to it than meets the eye, he wasn't really worried about that though, he came for a purpose.

So after completing his survey of the room, he moved his eyes onto the board where several names could be seen. The most eye-catching was the first name on the board which read "Scarlet Panther"

"Hmm, isn't that the name of the founder of the training facility, Rank B: Level 10: score: 100,500" Felix remembered what James had told him while he read the information beside the name.

"Well, let's see what I end up with" Felix said with a smile before walking onto the platform which glowed as if sensing his arrival.

"Input name:.." A voice said from the platform after he stepped into it.

"Hmm, how about Shadow Walker" Felix thought for some time then chose that particular name, he wouldn't be foolish enough to input his name, this eould have to be his alias for the time being.

On the ranking board, the name 'Shadow Walker' appeared just as he was suddenly transported into a huge plain that looked like it had no end.

"Rank F: Level 1, hit the bullseye for 100 points and any other part of the target hit will reduce by 20, score above 99 points to pass the challenge" Felix heard a voice sound in his ear.

"Do you wish to select a weapon?" The voice asked sounding directly in his mind.

"No" Felix replied taking out his lightning bow, he preferred to use his weapon, that wouod guarentee a better success rate since he was used to it.

"You have 1 minute to pass the challenge, good luck" The voice sounded in his head as 5 targets appeared 10 meters away from him, the targets looked strikingly similar to the ones on earth, this similarity once again made him wonder the similarity that Earth shared with Zenith.

"Hmm this can't be that bad" Felix grinned and nocked an arrow then aimed at the target, this seemed too easy to him.

He aimed at the first target for 30 seconds, staying still like a mountain without making any movement, he released the arrow which turned into a bolt of lightning that flew forward and struck the bullseye causing the target to disappear.

"So that's it, this is too easy, I guess I'll just gain more points" Felix scoffed at the challenge, he could ace it with his eyes closed, he nocked 4 more arrows and aimed at the bullseyes which had appeared, before releasing them, each of them struck the bullseye gaining 400 points more for him.

"You have passed the first level and gained 500 points, remaining time converted into 170 points, do you wish to advance to the next level or rest for some time?" The voice asked again in his mind.

"Advance to the next level" Felix answered calmly as 5 more targets appeared further away from him, the voice sounded and asked him the same questions which he answered with the same answers.

"Rank F: Level 2, hit the bullseye for 200 points and any other part of the target hit will reduce by 30, score above 200 points to pass the challenge" Felix heard a voice sound in his ear.

"You have 1 minute to pass the challenge, good luck" The voice sounded again.

"Hmm, this doesn't seem too hard, I wonder when the real challenge starts" Felix said to himself nocking 5 arrows before releasing them in an instant, the arrows shot towards each of the targets, hitting the bullseye.

"You have passed the second level and gained 1000 points, remaining time converted into 370 points, do you wish to advance to the next level or rest for some time?" The voice asked in his mind.

"Advance to the next level, this is too easy" Felix answered with a smile as he moved to the next level.

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Meanwhile, outside the challenge, unbeknownst to him, his speed at which he cleared the challenge had caused people to gather around the ranking board on the first floor.

"He used 30 seconds to move to the 2nd level and 15 seconds to move to the 3rd level, who is this Shadow Walker?" A shocked Esper commented as he stared at the rankings.

"What! He has moved to the next level already, it has only been 10 seconds, this speed is just too fast" Another Esper added in shock as under their gazes, Felix once again moved to the 4th level.

"If he continues like this then he will most likely reach the..." Another Esper was in the middle of speech when Felix ascended to the next level, to the ones watching, it took less time for him to clear each further challenge, it was like it was easier the further he progressed.

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While he was causing an uproar outside, Felix was busy completing the 5th level, he felt like all the challenges he had faced were still not enough to be called a challenge.

"You have passed the fifth level and gained 5000 points, remaining time converted into 500 points" The voice said in his mind.

"Congratulations, you have passed the F rank with a perfect score and gained an F rank reward" The voice sounded in his mind.

"Do you wish to claim the reward?" The voice asked in his mind.

"Yes" Felix answered as his sight became filled with a golden light.