Mana Awakening

Body Reformation

Circuit Expansion

Mana Core Formation

Aura Manifestation

Soul Bonding

Law Perception

Law Mastery

Inner World

Transcendent

Early | Middle | Late | Peak

Favourability Stages

0— Stranger

1–20 — Familiar

21–40 — Interested

41–60 — Crush

61–80 — Affection

81–99 — Deeply In Love

100 — Fated

Luck Grades

Doomed → Common → Rare → Super Rare → Epic → Legendary → Mythic → Divine

Physique/Technique/Weapon/Item Grades

Common → Rare → Super Rare → Epic → Legendary → Mythic → Divine

...

"Ugh, I seriously have to stop reading novels before I sleep. That's why I keep having these stupid dreams."

Dante groggily opened his eyes and let out an annoyed groan. He was still exhausted, so he shut them again and tried to drift back to sleep.

Dreams were always a gamble.

Sometimes they were nice, and sometimes they were so bad you wished you never fell asleep in the first place. The one he just had was definitely the second kind.

'Of all the characters, why that guy?' he thought bitterly. 'Is it just because we have the same name? Because besides that, we have nothing in common.'

The scenes from the dream kept playing in his head. The more he thought about them, the more pissed off he got.

Who had it the worst in any novel?

Some would say the villains with tragic pasts.

Others would say the side characters who showed up just to die and be forgotten.

But Dante had a different answer. It was the people closest to the protagonist.

Villains and side characters at least got some pity from readers.

The protagonist's companions just suffered and nobody even cared.

Their whole purpose was to be tools for the protagonist to use, targets for the enemies he provoked, and eventually corpses that fueled his next power boost.

Honestly, they were the most pathetic group of all.

"Ah, for fuck's sake," Dante groaned. "I can barely sleep as it is after busting my ass at a garbage job that pays me nothing. And now on top of that, I have to dream about being the protagonist's obedient little lapdog who watches his childhood crush get snatched away. That was really the cherry on top."

He kept muttering complaints as he pulled himself upright and stretched his arms out wide, yawning wide enough to crack his jaw. His head was still foggy and his thoughts felt like they were moving through mud.

That was when he noticed the tent pitched in his pants.

A small grin appeared on his face. "Good morning, little buddy."

It bobbed back at him in greeting.

"Alright, let me handle this real quick," Dante said, grabbing his phone.

He was about to pull up Cornhub and get down to business when he caught a glimpse of his reflection on the dark phone screen.

Something was wrong.

He looked like himself, but also not quite like himself.

What really threw him off were his eyes.

They were a deep crimson red.

"What the fuck?" Dante went stiff. "Did I awaken the Sharin-Gone or something?"

The second he said that, all his drowsiness was gone.

He rubbed his eyes again and again, convinced he was imagining things, but the color didn't change.

Only then did he look around the room properly, and that made things even more confusing.

The room around him was one he had never seen before. It looked nothing like where he had fallen asleep. It was easily four times the size, filled with furniture that probably cost more than his yearly salary, and the whole place reeked of money.

"Hold on, why does this feel so familiar?" he whispered to himself. "Black hair, red eyes…"

Before the thought even finished forming, the pieces fell into place.

He ran to the nearest mirror.

The second he saw his reflection, Dante froze. He slowly brought a hand up to his face, gave his cheek a hard pinch, and then jabbed a finger into his eye. The stinging pain made him wince.

"Shit… these are not contacts," he blurted out.

Part of him really wanted to believe somebody was playing a prank on him. He wanted to believe some jackass was just messing with his head.

But reality was never that kind.

"Did I…" He gulped. "Did I actually transmigrate?"

He scanned the room one more time, and his voice was starting to shake.

Then, like the universe decided to confirm it for him, a sharp pain ripped through his head out of nowhere. His vision went white, and a flood of memories that weren't his started pouring into his head.

A long time later, Dante finally came to and dragged himself off the floor.

He had no clue how much time had passed while he was out cold, but after absorbing all the foreign memories that had been shoved into his head, one thing was for sure.

He had been thrown into the novel he read the night before.

He was now Dante Ackerman, the same bastard he was bitching about after that stupid dream, except now the dream had somehow become his real life.

"Sigh… I'm never touching a novel again where a character has my name," he grumbled.

He took a long breath and made himself calm down.

"Not that any of that matters now."

It all happened so fast that it barely felt real, but there was nothing he could do except deal with it.

And honestly, it was not like anyone was missing him back on Earth.

There was also nothing worth going back to when his life was just a cycle of waking up, dragging himself to a garbage job that paid nothing, and doing it all over again.

This world was nothing like Earth.

On the surface, it looked like a regular modern city. But underneath all of that, awakeners and powerful organisations existed in the shadows.

Normal people walked around every day with no clue any of it was real.

"Now that I think about it, Dante's master, or well, my master now, is an awakener herself. Even though she could hardly be called one.…" He trailed off, and he felt a bit of relief that he had at least read the novel up to the end.

The plot was pretty straightforward.

Ryan Raven, the main character, fell off a cliff, went missing for three years, and came back as a total monster.

Once he returned, he hunted down everyone who had wronged him. And while he was at it, he also won over the seven female students who studied under his mother.

Dante Ackerman happened to be the eighth student.

He knew that knowing the whole plot gave him a huge edge. If he played it safe, he could dodge every major threat and probably make it to the very end alive.

But he had zero interest in doing that.

He was annoyed at how spineless the original Dante had been, especially when it came to letting his childhood crush get taken from him. But he also got the guy's position.

Seriously, what was a regular person supposed to do against someone who could literally transform into a dragon?

On top of that, Dante knew one thing for sure.

Just playing it safe would not save him. He would still end up with the same miserable ending.

"But it is not like fighting an awakener is something I can just wing," he muttered. "So what the hell do I even do?"

Even if he paid other awakeners to go kill the guy, they would probably just become free experience points for him.

Leave the protagonist alone for five minutes and he would trip over some legendary treasure, break through to the next realm, and somehow get stronger even while taking a shit.

The more Dante thought about it, the more absurd it all felt.

He sorted through his new memories and figured out that there was still a bit of time left before Ryan Raven made his return.

"But there is no way I can just become an awakener right now and get strong enough to beat his ass by the time he shows up," he said under his breath.

"And warning other people would be just as useless. Normal methods do not work against that ridiculously overpowered son of a…"

He stopped mid-sentence, because a crazy but strangely exciting idea just entered his mind.

The more he tried to brush it off as stupid, the more he found himself actually thinking it through. He knew that trying to beat the protagonist while being noble and playing fair was a dead end.

After all, protagonists like Ryan did not actually have real morals either.

They were just self-righteous pricks who put on a good act while manipulating everyone around them.

Natasha Raven.

Ryan's mother, and also his master.

As soon as that name crossed his mind, the image of a stunning woman with black hair and golden amber eyes popped into his head. Dante felt his throat go dry as his insane plan began to come together.

"If I need a way to keep Ryan in check, who better than his own mother?" he said quietly.

And when he thought back to how the original Dante ended up, he only got more determined.

"I am not going to die like a dog and get cucked by that pretentious piece of shit."

After his memories merged with the original Dante's, he had also picked up some of the feelings the guy had for Emma Evans, his childhood friend.

Even though he knew those feelings were not really his, he still could not stand the idea of Emma being with someone else.

"If the protagonist can turn into a dragon…" Dante said with a scheming grin on his face. "I will turn into his dad!"

His grin got even wider.

"Ryan, by the time you get back, your mother will be mine, and I will be your daddy."

The very second he finished that sentence, a flat mechanical voice echoed through his mind.

[The destiny of a villain has been detected.]

[Analyzing the host's mentality and desire to determine a suitable system.]

[You have awakened the System Distributor.]

...

"Huh? A system? I just randomly got a… system?"

Dante stared at the half-transparent blue screen hovering right in front of him.

He was stunned, and honestly, a little excited.

At the same time, he couldn't shake the feeling that the timing was way too perfect.

He reached out to touch it, but his hand went straight through.

"You… were you just sitting there watching me lose my shit this entire time?"

[Ding! The host has misunderstood me. I am simply a tool designed for those with a villain's destiny to defeat the protagonist.]

[I appeared because I sensed the awakening of a villain's fate.]

After hearing that, Dante looked thoughtful for a moment, but he wasn't dumb enough to waste time picking a fight over something that small.

'Even if I'm not completely sure this system is actually on my side, I don't really have the luxury of saying no,' he thought.

After a short pause, he spoke again.

"System, tell me exactly what you do."

[As the name suggests, you can give systems to other people. You can issue missions, set conditions, put time limits, and choose the rewards.]

Dante went still after hearing all of that.

'What? That sounds way too good to be real.'

For a second, a completely stupid thought crossed his mind.

'If this actually works, I could just hand Ryan Raven a system and tell him to go kill himself.' But the more he sat with that idea, the more something felt off about it.

"System, there's no way that's all there is to it, right?" Dante asked with a slight smile.

Obviously, he wasn't about to trust such a vague explanation.

He knew nothing in life came free. More importantly, he wanted to find out if there was some way for him to get stronger too.

[You are correct.]

[You cannot distribute a system to the protagonist, as he is protected by the World's Will.]

[The only way to defeat the protagonist is by draining his luck.]

Dante's eyes sharpened a little.

"And how exactly do I do that?"

[You can chip away at his luck by messing with his mental state, taking his women, and snatching his opportunities before he gets to them.]

[Your plan to go after Ryan's mother is a method that covers all of these at once.]

"Ahem." Dante cleared his throat. "I already know I'm a genius. You don't have to spell it out for me."

He gave a satisfied nod, but deep down, he was genuinely surprised that his reckless plan was actually that powerful.

'I only wanted to go after my master so she'd protect me from her son,' Dante thought.

'But now that I really think about it… when Ryan finds out his own mother has been turned into my woman… he might completely lose his fucking mind.'

And honestly, that alone made it worth doing.

In the novel, Natasha basically existed to help her son win over her seven students.

She was the one who guided them, convinced them, and smoothed the path for him. Ryan expected her to stay faithful to his dead father for the rest of her life.

Even though he knew their marriage was never built on actual love, he still acted like no man was allowed to get anywhere near her.

In a way, he treated her like she was his property. Like she was some kind of harem manager who belonged to him.

Just thinking about it pissed Dante off.

This was exactly why being the protagonist's companion was so goddamn frustrating.

'Don't worry, Master,' Dante thought with a faint grin.

'I'll make sure you get to experience all the happiness your son took away from you.'

The more he pictured certain scenes in his head, the more worked up he got.

But he quickly forced himself to settle down.

Now wasn't the time to get lost in fantasies.

He needed to stay focused.

"System, keep going," he said.

Then, after thinking about it for a second, he added, "So besides Ryan, I can give systems to anyone? And how do I actually get stronger myself?"

[You cannot assign systems to just anyone.]

[There are specific conditions a target must meet before you can distribute a system to them.]

Dante's expression got a little tense.

"What conditions?" he asked, both curious and slightly nervous.

[First condition: The target must be female.]

Dante was caught completely off guard.

"…Huh?" He stared blankly at the screen.

"Are you serious? That's the first condition?"

This was barely something Dante would even consider a real condition. If anything, he was all for it.

In these kinds of harem novels, 90% of the characters were women anyway. The rest were just random old grandpas and villains lined up to get their faces slapped.

"What about the rest?" Dante asked, getting impatient. "Come on, just tell me already!"

[The second and final condition: The target must have a connection to the protagonist.]

Dante's face instantly went dark.

"System, what the hell do you think I am!?" he yelled, sounding deeply offended. "Just because I decided to go after my master doesn't mean I'm that kind of guy!"

He jabbed his finger at the screen like it had personally insulted him.

"I was forced into this!"

[For your information, this decision was based entirely on your 'inner desire' and 'mentality.']

[System Distributor was selected because it had the highest compatibility with you, as high as 99.9%.]

"..."

Dante went completely quiet. He had been called out so hard that he couldn't even come up with a single comeback. In the end, all he could do was accept it.

After a moment, he coughed and fixed his posture, trying to salvage whatever dignity he had left.

"System," he said in a serious tone, "I am a man of principles."

"I repay kindness tenfold…"

"And evil a hundredfold."

His eyes narrowed with intensity.

"If my fate is to get cucked and die a miserable death…"

"Then I'll cuck Ryan a hundred times over…"

"And die a happy man!"

[...]

This time, it was the system's turn to be speechless.

...

[You don't have to worry about dying at the hands of the protagonist. I am here to help you defeat him!]

After a short silence, the system finally answered with a weirdly upbeat message, like it had already gotten used to Dante's nonsense.

"It's good that you understand me so well," Dante said, feeling very pleased. "But you still haven't told me the important part. How do I actually get stronger?"

He scratched his head and kept going. "Sure, I'm confident in my ability to handle a few women in bed, but some of my seniors are awakeners, you know?"

If things went sideways and those beautiful women got too wild, he would end up being used like a human dildo and sucked dry until he turned into a mummy.

[Your worries are unnecessary. Villains who only scheme but have zero personal strength are just budget Ain't-zen.]

Dante nodded in agreement.

Then the system continued.

[For every reward your targets receive, you will obtain ten times that reward! No matter the reward, whether it is bloodlines, talents, techniques, or anything else, you are guaranteed to trigger 10x rewards.]

"Holy fuck!" Dante blurted out, completely thrilled. "Now that's what I'm talking about. Stealing the heroines while getting ten times the rewards? This is probably the best and juiciest deal anyone could ever ask for!"

Before he could celebrate any further, the system made sure to kill his excitement.

[But there's a catch.]

"Sigh, fine," Dante said with a look that showed he had fully expected this. He already knew something had to stop him from just spamming it endlessly. "Tell me. What is it?"

[The system slots are limited, but they can be increased by taking down targets. Rewards are based on the difficulty of the missions, and missions scale with favourability.]

[Assigning extreme missions too early might make the target suspicious.]

[You can currently release up to two systems. Once bound to a target, they cannot be taken back. It is advised to use them wisely.]

"…Fair enough," Dante muttered. "I guess those are the real conditions."

Only now did he realize that the earlier conditions weren't actually restrictions at all. They were basically advantages in disguise. It made sense when he thought about it.

Things would have been much simpler without these limitations, but rushing through everything might not even be a smart move.

If he captured all the heroines before Ryan came back, he would miss his chance to properly screw with Ryan's head.

And since there were three ways to drain the protagonist's luck, Dante had a feeling there was probably a cap on how much could be taken just through stealing women alone.

Personally, Dante liked to take things slow.

If he was going to steal all the heroines, then he was going to do it the right way. He would win over both their hearts and their bodies.

He wanted to hand Ryan his "surprises" one at a time, slowly driving him out of his mind.

"Before we get down to business, I want to ask you something else," Dante said after remembering something important. "Can I see my status panel? What about other people, especially Ryan?"

[Of course, you can view the status panel of everyone. You can do that by saying it out loud or simply thinking about it in your mind, but…]

"But what?" Dante's eyes narrowed. "Why are you pausing like that? It's not like I can hit you or anything."

[I haven't finished yet. There is another catch.]

Dante's eye twitched.

"You know what? Since you love catching so much, catch these hands, you motherfucker!" He finally snapped and started throwing punches at the screen.

Of course, he couldn't actually touch the blue screen, let alone land a hit, but right now he just needed to let it out.

[Wait! Let me finish!]

"Fuck you, Ding Dong! Why the hell are you dodging?" Dante yelled, still swinging like an idiot.

The system was seriously yanking his emotions back and forth, and it was getting impossible to tell whether the thing was actually trying to help him.

A few minutes later, Dante was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed, breathing hard.

"Damn it, why the hell is this body so weak?" He pushed his hair back, feeling even more frustrated than before.

"It seems like I only kept some of my old features. My face still looks pretty similar to before and…" He paused, pulling his waistband forward for a quick peek before continuing with a look of relief. "Phew… my Excalibur is still the same."

More than his face, Dante was proudest of the monster hiding in his pants.

"System, what are you waiting for? Just explain everything properly already!" he barked, forcing himself to cool off.

[I will make sure to explain everything clearly. You can increase your luck by stealing the protagonist's luck, and on top of that, you will earn villain points.]

[Using villain points, you can buy anything you want from the villain store.]

[You can even buy items that give you extra system slots!]

As the system kept talking, a strange expression slowly crept onto Dante's face.

[You can raise your realm, improve your talent rank, and much more with villain points. They are even more useful than the protagonist's luck.]

"Is that it?" Dante asked, veins bulging on his forehead. "Is that what you meant by another catch?"

[I promise!]

'Ah… since when did systems start ragebaiting people?' Dante thought, not knowing where to put his face. 'And I actually fell for it from a fucking clanker?'

If this were a novel, the readers would probably be dying of laughter right now.

To take his mind somewhere else, Dante pulled up the status panel in his head.

[Status Panel]

[Name: Dante Ackerman]

[Loading….]

...

[Name: Dante Ackerman]

[Realm: None]

[Bloodline: Broken Mana Circuits]

[Talents: Foresight(EX), Scheming Mind(S), Two-Faced(C), Business Sense(D)]

[Luck: Doomed]

[Villain Value: None]

[System Slots: 2/2]

[Bound Targets: None]

[Techniques: None]

[Inventory: None]

[Villain Store: Open]

Looking at his terrible stats, lines formed across Dante's forehead, and three things grabbed his attention right away.

'Doomed Luck? That's probably because I'm a villain, right?' he thought, and it actually made some sense. 'And as for the talents… Scheming Mind, Two-Faced, and Foresight are probably mine, while Business Sense must have come from the original Dante, but…'

He stopped as his eyes landed on his bloodline.

"What the fuck is this?" Dante muttered. "Why can't I remember Dante having this bloodline? First of all, can you even call this a bloodline?"

"There was nothing about this in the novel."

He was genuinely stunned.

Having read enough novels in his life, he knew exactly what "Broken Mana Circuits" meant.

It meant he couldn't get stronger no matter what he did.

"System, show me the bloodline description," he said, wanting to make sure his gut feeling was right.

[Broken Mana Circuits: Mana Circuits are completely severed, leaving mana with nowhere to flow. No matter how much mana is absorbed, it just leaks out like water through cracks. The path of mana cultivation becomes a joke.]

[A bloodline so legendary that the only thing breaking through is the disappointment.]

Dante's eyebrows twitched as he read the description. "…Just as I thought."

He stared at the screen for a long time before muttering, "Great. So I'm stuck in a fantasy world, but my body is basically telling me to go fuck myself."

Honestly, Dante wasn't all that worried.

He wanted to complain about this cliché setup he had seen in a thousand other novels, but since the system said he could buy anything with villain points, there had to be something in the store that could fix his condition.

The real problem was something else entirely.

Even with Foresight(EX), which was basically full knowledge of the entire novel, he had never once seen anything about Dante Ackerman having a physique like this.

'No… that can't be right. I should have read something about it,' he thought, forcing himself to concentrate and dig through his memories.

He went over everything again and again, but he still couldn't find a single mention of it anywhere.

"Wait," Dante muttered, narrowing his eyes. "Could it be that the author actually planned this… but just forgot about it?"

The more he considered it, the more believable it sounded.

Authors forgetting their own details was basically a tradition at this point.

Besides, Dante's role in the story was simple.

He was just the protagonist's loyal dog, someone who helped Ryan deal with his enemies, stood by helplessly while Emma was stolen from him, and then died a pathetic death.

'Now that I think about it, most of the story took place in the normal world,' he thought as things slowly started clicking together. 'The awakeners and mana cultivation stuff only became important later on.'

'And Dante died before that part of the story even began… so it never got revealed.'

Then his eyes suddenly lit up.

'Actually… someone does know.'

A grin gradually spread across his face.

'Master…'

Back when he was reading the novel, one thing that always bugged him was how Dante even ended up becoming Natasha Raven's student in the first place.

He was nothing compared to her other students. Every single one of them was outstanding in some way, and even the heroines who weren't awakeners turned out to have terrifying talent later on.

But now, he finally got it.

'My master must have taken me in because she felt sorry for me,' he thought.

'Because both of us had similar… conditions?' His train of thought paused as a brilliant idea suddenly popped into his head.

The reason his master ended up as a cripple was because of Ryan's father, Victor Kingsley.

He was a fucking bastard, and that was putting it nicely.

Back when Natasha Raven was rising through the world of awakeners, known as a beautiful woman with terrifying talent, she caught the attention of Victor.

Not only was she stunning and gifted, she was also the successor of Eden's Gate, one of the Awakeners' organizations.

To someone like Victor, that was the ultimate prize.

So he went after her.

Victor was confident because he was the leader of the Kingsley Family, the family of dragons.

He tried every trick in the book, and when none of the normal approaches got him what he wanted… He forced her into marriage by threatening her until she had no way out.

Ryan Raven was the product of that hateful union.

Natasha fought back with everything she had, but in the end, all she could do was endure. She kept her head low, buried her hatred deep, and quietly started building up her strength in the shadows.

And when the moment finally came, she declared war on the Kingsley Family.

In the end, she killed Victor.

But it cost her dearly.

The battle left her body severely damaged, and to win, she had been forced to burn through her own powers completely.

Her mana circuits collapsed entirely. Her realm still existed in name, but inside her body, the path of mana cultivation had been destroyed beyond repair.

"Damn it, just thinking about it makes my blood boil!"

Dante couldn't help getting angry. "Even after knowing all of this, that selfish piece of shit still wanted her to stay loyal to his monster of a father!"

To make sure Natasha stayed alone for the rest of her life, when he helped treat her condition, he even lied to her that she had to follow the ruthless path and cut off all of her emotions.

"That fucking asshole…!" Dante clenched his jaw. "He just wanted her to be some emotionless machine who manages his harem."

The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that choosing to become a villain was the right call.

At the same time, he couldn't help but feel for his master.

After all, the two of them shared the same fate of being somebody's pawn.

Realizing he was getting too emotional, Dante took a deep breath. Then he let out a small smile and said, "I was already planning to give the first system to my master. This just makes it final."

"Even though my Broken Mana Circuits is worse than her condition, with ten times the rewards, I should be able to fix this body of mine," he muttered, running through the possibilities in his head.

He stood up straight.

"System, let's do this."

As he got to his feet, he raised a hand to block the sunlight flooding in through the tall window.

[Ding! Do you want to release a system to Natasha Raven?]

"Yes."