Universal System Hack! Becoming The Ultimate Cheat In A World Filled With Cheat Systems

The weird young girl eagerly opened the tab named Ability Storage. "Here you go. You'll be using this section a lot," she claimed.

"So, what does it exactly do?" Grigio inquired.

"This sub-menu will allow you access to all the abilities you've managed to acquire using your Active Skill."

"I also have an Active Skill?" Grigio exclaimed in surprise.

The girl nodded enthusiastically. "Uh-huh. It's your only Active Skill right now. It's called Ability Crack. It can be used to copy the Abilities of the Systems registered in the Hacking Tool. It only has a few drawbacks right now; it's completely random, it can only be used for a certain number of tries in a week and you can only store up to three Abilities using the Trial Version of the Tool," she further explained.

"The levels of the copied Abilities are concurrent with those of the originals. If the levels of the originals are raised by the host User, the copies will match them. You can also freely delete and replace copied Abilities if you're not satisfied with your set-up. Just remember that Ability Crack is completely random as of the moment, so you'll never know if what you'd get would be better or worse than what you currently have on hand," the girl finished.

"Hm. Well that does sound useful if my luck holds out," Grigio said.

"Well then, let's move on to the practical trials." The girl waved her hand once more and the scenery changed again – this time, to an outdoor basketball court. A tall black guy who looked like he'd be right at home in the NBA now stood in front of the two.

"What we have here right now is a simulation bot," the girl introduced. "You can try out the effects of the Hacking Tool first-hand by using it on him. First, let's have him display his skills in basketball without the mods."

The girl snapped her fingers. The black guy started showing off his ball-handling skills right after. He looked quite professional to Grigio's untrained eye. He ran around the court animatedly while showcasing his techniques.

"Well?" the girl urged.

"He was pretty good," Grigio blandly replied.

The girl grinned mischievously after hearing Grigio's response. "Now try modding his Ability levels to the maximum settings," she instructed. Grigio did as she told. The girl snapped her fingers once more, and what followed made Grigio's jaw drop in shock.

The bot executed countless fancy moves with pinpoint precision at a blindingly fast speed. Heck, his eyes even flashed with occasional bolts of thunder. Kagami Taiga would be proud! He then moved further back to a box containing several spare basketballs and started tossing them randomly up in the air like crazy. All the balls landed squarely in the middle of the hoop without fail. Nothing but net!

When he got to the last ball, the bot threw it straight towards the backboard. The ball shot forth like a cannonball. When it hit the board, the entire ring nearly toppled over. The ball bounced back in an upward arc. The bot, which suddenly appeared above the ring in the blink of an eye, caught it in mid-air and dunked it down with earth-shattering force. The ring couldn't take the punishment and got totally wrecked as a result.

"Holy crap!" Grigio exclaimed. "That's no black guy! He's The Flash! No, he's a super saiyaan!"

The girl smugly snorted after seeing Grigio's surprise. "You ain't seen nothing yet," she taunted. "Now go ahead and use Ability Crack on the bot. Feel the power User!"

Grigio tried it right away. He got the Dribbling, Shooting and Passing Abilities. When he toggled them on, he felt a sudden fundamental change happen inside of him. He tested things out and found that he managed to move as smoothly as flowing water. It was as if he'd known how to do all of these fancy maneuvers all along. Things were even more telling because Grigio was a total basketball noob.

"How's that, User? Pretty swell huh?" the girl egged on.

"It did feel pretty awesome." Grigio agreed. "But, well… This is quite amazing and all. But are you sure I can really put this Hacking Tool thing to use back in the real world. Are there truly a lot of System Users in this dimension?"

"Oh, there definitely are. But a majority of them have already affiliated themselves with those opposing factions I mentioned earlier. Once an independent User manages to get their support, they're basically guaranteed to shoot up in levels easily. Those factions have been influencing the development of this planet's civilization for quite some time now after all. They practically hold the entire world within their grasp. Some Users align themselves with them voluntarily and some get forcefully recruited through less civil methods. For an organization of their size, things like these are as easy as snapping ones fingers."

"The U.W.G. huh?" Grigio wasn't all that surprised with the girl's revelation. When he first learned about this world's peculiar history, he already had a sneaking suspicion that something went on behind the scenes. The seemingly miraculous rise of the Unified World Government was plenty suspect to begin with. He didn't pay attention to these details in the past because he felt he didn't have anything to do with them. But now it seemed he would be involved in them regardless. That thought made him a bit uneasy about the future.

"So it seems the Unified World Government isn't so 'unified' after all huh?"

"Um, I'm not too sure about the details but that seems to be the case. You should just ask for more details when you manage to get in contact with either faction. One advocates the eventual independence of all conquered dimensions and the end of military expansion across the known multiverse while the other believes in prosperity through complete totalitarian rule under their empire's banner. Of course, things aren't as simple as that. But in the Developer's opinion, it doesn't matter which side wins out in the end. This long dragged-out conflict between the two of them simply must end in order to prevent further damage to the structure of the True Laws. Or else, there's a great risk of the entire multiverse collapsing. So just pick your poison User."

Grigio smiled bitterly and let out a dejected sigh. It seems he got involved in something quite grand – on a pan-cosmic scale at that. As a transmigrator, why couldn't he just be like Zhang Ye or Master Lin – spreading their awesomeness to the world and acting all smug about it? Becoming like those cookie-cutter MCs spending a grand time with their merry harems or pretty wives would be a pretty good alternative too. Instead, he ended up being commissioned as a hired soldier to fight in a secret war without his knowledge. He wasn't even soldier material to begin with. Oh joy…

"Well that about ends the Tutorial. I hope you managed to learn a lot from it User. Next up will be the real thing. I wish you the best of luck! Fight!" the girl cheered while making a cute guts pose.

"That's all I get huh? Very encouraging." Grigio quipped in a tone laced with a subtle hint of sarcasm. "Are there no start-up bonuses or something?"

"Unfortunately no." the girl replied apologetically. "You'll just have to make do with a cute little number like me cheering you on from the side-lines. I'm going to stick around by the way. In an unobtrusive form mind you. Just make sure not to talk to me out loud in public or people might think you've gone to the deep end. You're the only one who can interact with me after all."

"Right. Whatever, A.I. girl." Grigio replied blandly. "On that note, what exactly is your name anyway? You do have one right? I mean, you're in the form of a girl and all. You can just call me Grig by the way. User just sounds awkward."

The girl put a slender finger on top of her cherry-colored lips and slightly tilted her head to the side in a cutesy manner. "Hm. Technically I don't. But you're right. That does sound more convenient. Okay. Just call me REM then. Looking forward to working with ya Grig."

The girl who now named herself REM extended her dainty arm for a handshake. Grigio shrugged his shoulders and received the gesture with a wry and somewhat helpless-looking smile plastered on his face. The moment their hands separated, Grigio's body suddenly started disintegrating into tiny motes of golden light, startling him.

"Don't worry. You're just about to be disconnected from this virtual space. You'll wake up on top of your sofa like normal," REM reassured. Grigio nodded in understanding.

Soon his body fully disappeared from the virtual space and his consciousness was brought back to reality.

***

Grigio's eyes slowly fluttered open. The first thing that came into view was a familiar-looking ceiling. "So I'm finally back huh," he inwardly mused. He sat up from the sofa and massaged his temples. He unlocked his cellphone and found that time had barely passed. "Was all of that just a crazy dream?"

After a few moments spent hesitating, Grigio tried thinking about activating the Hacking Tool, half-expecting it to merely be a product of his overactive imagination which was stimulated by his middle-aged (and still single) lady-boss working him to the bone. A bright neon-blue holographic screen immediately popped out right in front of him. "Guess not," he dejectedly muttered as he planted his face on both palms – worrying about what the future could possibly hold for him now that he's gotten himself involved in such a mess.

[Hello. Testing 123. Can you hear me loud and clear Grig?]

A familiar sounding voice resounded within his head. "That you REM?" Grigio responded.

[Yup! Now we're officially live baby! Let me just do this and… Voila!]

A tiny figure suddenly materialized and floated beside the Hacking Tool window. It was REM. But she was mini-sized – super-deformed to be exact. She now looked like a Chibi-REM.

[Heya Grig! Now I've become your personal interactive Help menu. Cuteness and functionality all rolled into one sweet package. Thanks for having me!]

Grigio simply sighed in response to Chibi-REM's overly enthusiastic greeting.

[Hey! What's that sigh for?] Chibi-REM pouted. Grigio just brushed her off and proceeded to navigate the Hacking Tool. Chibi-REM flitted beside the Tool window and began to input Grigio's mental commands.

[What'cha up to Grig?]

"I don't like the idea of just waiting around for shit to happen. So I'm going to be a bit more proactive."

Grigio opened the Tool Optimization section and toggled the Detect System passive on.

A minimap with an overhead view of the whole Shangri-la Lane popped up on the upper right corner of his vision. Grigio couldn't help but raise an eyebrow when he saw the results of his search.

"Well, I'll be damned."