《My Pick Up Artist System》40: Baby in burning building
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Two young men walked through New York City's bustling nighttime streets while discussing the intricacies of the modern dating scene.
Smells of cigarettes, street food, and perfumes of passing pedestrians blended together to form the city's natural fragrance--Eau de hot garbage.
"If dinner is a Sarlacc pit trap, then where would you take a girl?" Ben asked.
Antonio answered, "Pretend she broke her jaw gossipin' with her girlfriends and keep her on a liquid diet...Drinks are best. If they don't drink alcohol, then coffee. If nothin' else, you can go for a walk somewhere. Just don't let them stuff their face in front of you, especially on a first date. This ain't Pacman..."
Ben typed a note into his phone: 'Pacmaning...not...allowed."
Antonio continued. "Second issue, when's the last time you spoke with her?"
"…Last night. When we confirmed today's date."
Antonio shook his head with a helpless smile. "You're courting death..."
Ben's right eye twitched. Ever since he introduced his cousin to Asian web novels, he's been picking up random xianxia terms and using them in normal conversation.
Antonio explained. "Bro, you've gotta understand that most chicks have the attention spans of toddlers. If you don't wanna get flaked on, remember this word—confirmation! You need to get confirmation the day of the date, and more than one! It ain't as simple as it sounds. In general, textin' and callin' chicks is like playin' checkers; There are all kinds of errors you can make where any of them will queen her. That'll be game over for you.'
Ben released a stressful sigh. "...So is this lead dead?"
Antonio's face showed a smirk. "Maybe not...I'm gonna teach you how to beat any girl in checkers. You'll use a favored tactic of the greatest strategists of ancient history…" His smirk distorted into a scheming grin. "Cheat!"
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...
Some would frown upon that word but Ben wasn't one of them. He loved infinite gold hacks! This was a flavor that matched his appetite! He listened with more focus than in any class since he started college!
Ben's attitude satisfied Antonio, who believed future prospects with women would improve depending on two characteristics: how eager you were to learn, and how little shame you had! In these characteristics, Ben was a top prospect! Antonio needed to take proper care of this baby Yoda...
Antonio said, "If setting up dates is like a checkers game, then all you gotta do is...flip the board around!"
"I'm not following your metaphor."
Antonio chuckled. "Look, society expects guys to pursue chicks, not the other way around, right? In that scenario, she's the prize...That puts you at a natural disadvantage! As any good war game vet knows, the defender has the edge, so if you play by the rules, you'll always be fightin' an uphill battle. Lucky for us, this battlefield is one of perception; The roles of attacker and defender ain't set in stone. So all you gotta do is reverse the roles and...become the prize yourself!"
"So I should become a pinata?"
Antonio shrugged. "If you want…Now that I think about it, a pinata doesn't work a day in its life..."
"So I have to hang from a ceiling while a gang of children beat me into a hate crime victim?"
"...No? Then you can be the candy."
"I'll only end up in a chubster kid's stomach!"
"Shut up! You're ruinin' my metaphor! Look, my point is, you've gotta flip things around so it seems like you ain't the one chasin' her, even though you are. If you play it well, you can even make her chase you..."
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"Hmm..." Ben didn't know Antonio was so clever. While his ears filtered out the loud honking cars in the background, he pondered the concept.
Antonio stopped walking and turned to Ben. "She thinks she flaked on you, right? That is, if she even remembers you had a date. I'll show you a move as an example. Give me your phone…"
Ben handed Antonio his phone and Antonio typed a text message.
***
On the other side of town, Katie was at her hair salon getting a trim.
*Beep* Her phone emitted a new message alarm. She picked it up and saw the sender. 'Oh, it's that guy I talked to yesterday, Ben. Wait...didn't we have a date today? I totally forgot...Oh well, guess I flaked on him. Whatev.' Then she read the text.
"my bad I couldn't make it. hope u didn't wait there long. had emergency. baby in burning building"
…
Katie raised an eyebrow. 'Is he saying he saved a baby in a burning building?' She was confused…but intrigued. 'So he flaked on me?' Now she was even more intrigued. A guy has never flaked on her…
***
"Baby in burning building? What am I, Superman?!?" Ben yelled.
"Nah, that's ridiculous...Superman wouldn't care about a single baby. He's economical. If you ain't in a bus or plane, you're going in the river..." Antonio replied.
"You made me sound crazy!"
Antonio laughed. "It was a line that was both funny and interesting. More important is she won't know if were kidding or serious. Confusion is the name of the game. If you can keep a chick confused about you, she'll keep thinking about you, making you the prize. Trust me bro, it'll work. That'll hook her."
*Beep*
The two of them gazed at Ben's phone as it got an alert. It was a text message from Katie…
Ben glanced at Antonio who was still smirking, then he read the message.
"no probs. we can resched. tell me about this baby…"
Ben gasped, before shouting, "BABY IN BURNING BUILDING!" He believed he discovered a hack to the matrix!
"Shut up! You're scarin' away the customers!" The hot dog vendor at the side screamed at Ben.
Ben didn't care. His heartbeat sped up as he repeated the line in his head. He knew what he needed to do now to be popular with women! It was obvious. Even a toddler would get it.
He'd become a superhero!
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Dungeon Core Chat Room.
This is a slower-paced "experiment and dungeon building" web novel that tries to use the idea of peer-to-peer communication with Dungeon Cores instead of Dungeon to slave monster communication to break up the detailed dungeon building. Rank 1 description: (minimum met for system initialization...detailed description as follows) Each race was given a system by the gods to make up for their shortcomings and balance their place in this world. Humans: Abysmally bad at understanding and using magic unable to use more than the lowest of magic were given the "Skill System" magic in the form of premade skills with use, study, and mastery tied to experience. Elves: Intuitively understand magic and have long lives leading to vast knowledge and skill in their chosen fields. However, as a species, they have nearly zero sex drive and less than low fertility, so they were gifted the "World Tree System" with experience gained through the care of natural areas – gifting the chance of children to increase their numbers without dirty copulation. All “natural” or “wild” monsters are given an "Evolution system" designed around killing and consuming as many creatures as possible, slowly increasing strength and, at thresholds, allowing mutations to alter them multiple times. Dungeon cores are different. Unlike humans, they can see, manipulate and live off mana. Unlike Elves, they naturally crystallize after extended periods of time in high mana level areas. However, they cannot easily move or communicate and typically go insane without companionship. As a species other than the odd eccentric they are unimaginative. Brute forcing solutions without the drive to truly innovate. Thus they have been gifted with the "Dungeon Connection System" a magical version of the internet accessible by their peers that allows them to barter and sell: bait, traps, monsters, and knowledge, as well as entertain each other with “adventure streams” using exciting recorded battles and humorous reels of arrogant chumps biting off more than they can chew to often fatal effects. This is the casual story of a dungeon unluckily spawned far from potential adventurers forced to innovate beyond its peers to find its place in this world. Rank 2 Description: Justification. I've been on a dungeon core kick for months and while I love the genre – it's sparse with entries. Often the forced conflict gets repetitive and frantic solving of threats "power levels" the protagonist to god levels to progress the plot – taking away the nice steady progression fantasy I'm looking for. (Progression in this story is linked to how strong of monsters/traps/whatever he can create not his "level"...this is demonstrated by some of his newer monsters beating his older monsters not with discrete "this monster has 10 attack this one has 40") Additionally, the focus on 3rd parties with their drama takes away from the reason I’m reading dungeon core novels in the first place – I'm looking for magical crafting, experimentation and kingdom building – not defence from higher and higher levelled enemies looking to steal/destroy/control the MC. This novel is kind of just me writing the story I wish I could read. I like thinking about the experimentation that can be done in fantasy settings using 'mana' as an excuse to make up rules and try to keep them internally consistent. IE once I define how a rule works, I'm going to commit to keeping it – no breaking hard truths I've given when it's convenient, even if it backs me into a corner. Hopefully, that should make the story interesting to read even if it's SOL and less action-oriented. There will be problems to solve and a clear progression in strength (of created monsters and knowledge) however due to not wanting to force conflict for the sake of conflict the general theme will be closer to slice of life with few action sequences and no overarching goal so please keep that in mind when picking this up as the genre is not for everyone. Finally, I have a clear goal of what I want from this story (not an endless romp but a series of arcs and then a conclusion that's a couple of dozen medium-sized chapters long) I want to commit to finishing it or at least bringing it to a point of rest. I hate all the engaging stories that stop with a “hiatus” indefinitely so in the event I lose motivation I'll work to end this even if the ending becomes rushed/unsatisfying just to give a sense of closure. I’m planning on including several polls in terms of direction and taking feedback heavily into account if I get enough readers (but may choose to ignore it if it deviates too far from the direction I want to take this as in feedback like: “The MC needs a cartoonishly evil arch-enemy that wants to enslave him and force the mc to pump out magic items” or “the MC needs to make a body and learn teleportation then live with humans” will get shot down without consideration.)
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The ancient's believed that a man's fate or destiny is written already, and that only God or maybe the Gods could change it. If they did change it, it was believed it was for a purpose unknown to that man or for maybe for the ammusement of those higher beings. However, whether that is true or not, one thing is for certain. Changing a man's fate will create a ripple of changes. Join our hero, who whether by luck, by some divine intervention, or by his own choice, separated from the fate that he shared with his fellow earthlings. Watch him struggle in his new world. Watch him grow. Watch him learn. Watch him walk a path oustside what destiny has for him. FYI: The magic concept in this story is high fantasy with involvement of polytheistic religions and demons. There will be a mix of GameLit style writing mixed with traditional magic novel style writing. The plot developement will be slow in the first volume, as I will focus on world building and character building. The main character will not be OP immediately and will develop into one in his own way over time. This series is built less like modern Japanese, Korean, and Chinese webnovels and more like the old school fanstasy novels like DND and Forgotten Realms.
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So try and love me while you can [Zacky Vengeance]
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