Villain: 10x Rewards Begins With The Protagonist's Mother

In the bedroom, Dante sat on the bed and began to check the system messages.

[Natasha has successfully completed the mission "Let Him Cook" and obtained Path of Recultivation (Super Rare)!]

[Triggering 10x rewards.....]

[Detecting the reward isn’t suited for your situation....]

[Path of Recultivation is designed for those who have lost their cultivation. Since your cultivation was never lost, the manual is incompatible.]

[Do you wish to convert the reward into equivalent value?]

"Of course!" Dante said without hesitation. The manual had zero use to him.

[Converting reward to equivalent value....]

[You have obtained a token to buy an Epic grade manual!]

’Claim.’ Dante collected the reward with a thought and a purple token appeared in his hand.

[Manual Token]

[Grade: Epic]

[Description: Usable only for manuals.]

After checking the token, he scrolled through the rest of the notifications while flipping it between his fingers.

[Natasha’s favourability has increased by 4.] 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

[Current Favourability: 45 (Crush)]

’Nice! Finally some real progress.’ He thought with a satisfied grin.

If the favourability kept going up by 1, Ryan would come back before it even crossed 60 and he could forget about ever becoming that bastard’s father.

Besides, he and Natasha weren’t the only ones living in this mansion.

Emma also lived with them, mostly because the Raven Group headquarters was near the mansion. She would be busy with work and wasn’t home half the time.

Even now, she was on a business trip outside the Allied States.

’Once Emma comes back, the difficulty is going to shoot up.’ Dante’s expression turned serious. ’I’ll need to focus on her too.’

Natasha knew that Emma liked him. She would definitely use that as an excuse to put distance between them again.

’In that case....’ A scheming grin formed on his face.

’I’ll make her do the opposite.’

Just as he was going through his future plans, his eyes landed on the villain points notifications.

[You touched Natasha inappropriately and gaslighted her into thinking it was normal.]

[+1,000 villain points!]

[You made Natasha think dirty and imagine herself getting spanked by you.]

[+1,500 villain points!]

[You tricked Natasha into sucking the life out of you and made fun of her!]

[+1,500 villain points!]

[Current balance: 12,000 villain points]

"....Can you phrase that last one properly?" Dante had a speechless look on his face.

Technically, Natasha did suck the life out of him. But if anyone read that out of context, they would think of something completely different.

Still, he was happy about the villain points finally crossing five digits. He needed to buy something for the next mission and it would prove very helpful down the line.

’But first, let’s buy a manual.’ Dante opened the villain store and went straight to the techniques section.

After browsing for a while, he finally found what he was looking for.

[Path of Awakeners]

[Grade: Epic]

[A manual written for those walking the path of awakeners. Contains detailed knowledge on mana cultivation and the awakener world. Includes a Super Rare mana cultivation technique and basic combat spells such as fireball, wind blade, and others.]

"It’s basically an all-in-one. And exactly what I needed!" Dante said with a smile. "Searching through hundreds of techniques was really worth the effort."

He could have just bought an Epic grade mana technique and called it a day, but for giving up one grade, the bargain he got was way too good to pass up.

Up until now, he had been going off the knowledge he had from the novel.

The author never went into deep detail about cultivation, so his understanding of mana and how it actually worked was seriously lacking.

To be honest, he had just been absorbing mana and hoping for a breakthrough. His recent one made him realize it wasn’t going to be that easy going forward.

"More importantly, I can’t just keep relying on items!" He wanted to learn some real techniques and build up his own strength.

Besides, an Epic grade mana technique wouldn’t help him much either.

What he really needed was a Divine grade technique.

Even a low-level Divine grade technique cost more than a million villain points. It would take him months to save up that much.

The only way to get them faster was by stacking favourability milestones.

But he had already reserved Natasha’s milestone rewards for a bloodline.

"Well, there is an easier way actually." He said with a grin. "Master did say she was planning to teach me. She’s really serious about making me the successor it seems."

The mana technique of Eden’s Gate, the oldest awakener organisation in the world, had to be a top-level Divine grade at the very least.

"But I also have another option." He added with a devious look. "If the mother is going to give me one, the son should too, right?"

After thinking it through, he used the token to buy the manual.

[You have successfully purchased "Path of Awakeners"!]

[Would you like to absorb it?]

"Yes." Dante nodded as he got into a meditation position and closed his eyes.

The next moment, a vast amount of knowledge poured into his mind. The origin of mana. How cultivation actually worked. What awakeners really were and how they came to be.

Things the novel barely touched on and things the author probably didn’t even know himself.

***

A few hours later, Dante slowly opened his eyes and held his head with a frown. "Ugh... Whoever wrote this wasn’t joking when they said detailed."

"My head is killing me. I probably would have fainted if I wasn’t an awakener." He rubbed his temples, but feeling the mana flowing through his body smoothly for the first time, a smile crept onto his face.

The mana technique he got from the manual was called the Flowing River Art. And it really lived up to its name.

The mana moved through his circuits like it finally had a road to follow instead of him just dumping it in and hoping for the best.

"A Super Rare technique is already this good?" He clenched his fist, feeling the difference in every fiber of his body.

"How broken would a Divine one be?"