Theo apologized and backed down because it was simply the most logical move on the board.
His new Minor Purity Water Body made him feel refreshed, hydrated, and surprisingly agile, but it certainly didn’t magically turn his skin into iron.
A hit from that cane would still break a rib and leave him bleeding in the dirt.
He had time. He had all the time in the world to grow much stronger by investing in the girl sitting right next to him.
Trying to act like a fearless hero right now without any actual combat skills was just asking for an early grave.
"Move out!" Vane shouted, climbing onto the front seat of the wagon.
The driver beside him cracked a whip, shouting at the horses.
Theo sat on the floorboards at the rear of the cart, his legs dangling over the edge.
The Reborn Empress had her eyes closed, her face calm, seemingly ignoring the world and the humiliating chains.
Even so, Theo could tell her breathing was much steadier now.
He leaned his head back against the railing and closed his eyes, pretending to rest in the afternoon heat.
He needed to figure out what was going on with this system, because the pieces weren’t fitting together in his head.
He started breaking down the events step by step.
First, the voice had announced a ranking function.
It explicitly said it would encompass all talented martial artists of the same generation within a designated region, and it would rank them once every single month.
It meant he wasn’t just surviving against nature or guards; the system was going to compare him to the geniuses of this world on a regular schedule.
Second, it gave him a gacha wheel. He remembered the glowing wheel with all those flashing colors, offering him a free roll.
Third, the 10x Savior Attributes trait.
Fourth, the Investment skill. This was the one he had just used.
He identified a high-value target, gave Liana a mouthful of water, and the system rewarded him instantly.
However, the more he thought about the 10x Savior Attributes trait, the more a strange knot formed in his stomach.
’Every time the host rescues a Reborn Empress from a life-threatening or dire situation, the host will receive a staggering 10x multiplier...’
Wait a minute.
Theo opened his eyes.
Rescues.
The system explicitly used the word rescue. Did giving someone a sip of water from a bamboo flask count as a rescue? No, of course it didn’t. She was still a slave.
She was still chained to a greedy merchant’s wagon, covered in dark bruises, and crippled from whatever happened in her past life.
She wasn’t free... she wasn’t saved from the dire situation at all; she was literally just slightly less thirsty!
If giving her water didn’t trigger the rescue condition... then the ten-times multiplier had never actually activated.
He had just assumed the reward was so huge because of the multiplier, but he was wrong.
That meant the Minor Purity Water Body... was just the standard, base reward for a normal, everyday investment.
"You have got to be kidding me..." Theo muttered under his breath, his eyes wide.
If a simple, un-multiplied investment gave him a literal martial constitution that changed his physical structure and made him understand the flow of water, what in the world was the 10x reward going to look like?!
If he actually managed to break her heavy chains, fight off the armed guards, and free her from this miserable slavery... the resulting multiplied reward would probably be enough to shatter the heavens themselves.
Though, this realization also meant the system was a lot more complex and demanding than he initially thought.
It had a monthly competitive ranking, a luck-based gacha, a targeted investment skill, and a conditional multiplier all rolled into one package.
Clearly, the system had a lot of different types of functions and rules.
He took a deep breath.
Stats.
Instantly, an interface snapped into existence right in front of his eyes. It was much larger and more detailed than the Destiny’s Eye panel he had seen earlier.
[Host: Theo]
[Age: 16]
[Realm: Mortal (Minor Purity Water Body)]
[Condition: Healthy / Suppressed by Bronze Collar]
[Available Free Gacha Rolls: 1]
[Innate Traits:]
[- 10x Savior Attributes (Inactive. Awaiting a true rescue scenario.)]
[Skills:]
[- Destiny’s Eye (Level 1)]
[- Target Investment (Level 1)]
Theo nodded slowly as he read through the glowing lines of text.
The system was finally organizing his scattered abilities into a clean format.
His theory was right; the 10x multiplier was marked as inactive.
But as his eyes scrolled down to the very bottom of the panel, they locked onto a final category.
[System Designation Class:]
Theo squinted, leaning forward slightly as if getting closer to the text would make it easier to understand.
He had played enough games and read enough novels in his past.
Warrior, Mage, Assassin, Support, Alchemist... those were the usual paths.
But the word next to his own category classification changed his understanding.
[System Designation Class: ’Parasite’]