Thug and Idol: 10X Rewards Second Identity System

Back at his home office, Tristan checked his system status.

[======]

[Tristan Gemello (Tristan Hayes)]

[Current identity: Pop-star. Second identity: Criminal.]

[Pop-star rank: On The Olympus.]

[Criminal rank: King Lion.]

[Pop-star Points: 2]

[Criminal Points: 9000]

[===Attributes===]

~~~Pop-star~~~

[Appearance: 570 (Top Model)]

[Charisma: 1059 (The Beguiler)]

[Dexterity: 600 (Gymnast)]n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

[Imagination: 600 (Visionary)]

~~~Criminal~~~

[Fearsomeness: 1077 (Dark God)]

[Strength: 679 (Weightlifter)]

[Toughness: 800 (Bones of steel)]

[Intelligence: 553 (Mastermind)]

[===Skills===]

~~~Pop-star~~~

[Vocals: 6000 (Impossible!!)]

[String instruments: 6000 (Impossible!!)]

[Percussion instruments: 0 (Nobody)]

[Wind instruments: 1 (Nobody)]

[Electronic instruments: 0 (Nobody)]

[Keyboard instruments: 801 (Professional Amateur)]

[Exotic instruments: 0 (Nobody)]

[Songwriting: 5000 (Impossible!!)]

[Dancing: 6000 (Impossible!!)]

[Acting: 5000 (Impossible!!)]

[Production: 6000 (Impossible!!)]

[Style: 6000 (Impossible!!)]

~~~Criminal~~~

[Stealth: 6844 (Impossible!!)]

[Melee combat: 5224 (Impossible!!)]

[Ranged combat: 4836 (Impossible!)]

[Observation: 5076 (Impossible!!)]

[Driving: 2618 (Racer)]

[Athletics: 2419 (Coach Physical Instrument)]

[Medicine: 5203 (Impossible!!)]

[Interfacing: 6003 (Impossible!!)]

[Sleight of hand: 533 (Light Fingers)]

[Tactics: 505 (Good)]

[*Strategy*: 5000 (Impossible!!)]

[Hacking: 6431 (Data Demon)]

[===Talents===]

[Clark Kent Effect] [Sleepless] [Clean Hands] [Bullet Time] [Hypnotic Voice] [Sight Awareness] [Electronic Sight Awareness] [Ambidextrous] [Bilingual (Spanish)] [Freezing Glare] [String Theory] [Copycat] [Detective] [Blind Shot] [Quick Fingers] [Explosive Awareness] [Heat Vision]

[===Tasks===]

~~~Pop-star~~~

Enjoy new chapters from empire

[Discover the mastermind behind the Los Angeles terrorist attack. Value: 1000.]

[Bring down Gospel's inflammatory posts and their copies. Value: 1000.]

~~~Criminal~~~

[Make the next leader of Cuatro Angulos your puppet. Value: 1000.]

[Destroy the mastermind behind the Los Angeles terrorist attack. Value: 1000.]

[Gain access to Gospel's account. Value: 1000.]

[======]

With 9000 Criminal Points and 6431 in hacking skill, Tristan could've brought this skill to 10000 points and had something to spare. With other skills, it was the limit of spending points. The ascension.

However, even at over six thousand points, the hacking skill still had a "Data Demon" rank.

'Hm, I suppose I have no choice but to put points into it and see what happens. I should bring the hacking skill up to "Impossible!!" rank, at least, then maybe put the spare points into intelligence if I have anything left. I can still put 50-100 extra points into it without unbalancing my attributes.'

[Hacking skill increased from 6431 to 7431.]

[Your hacking rank has changed from Data Demon to Data Deity.]

[Hacking skill increased from 7431 to 8431.]

[Your hacking rank has changed from Data Deity to Impossible!.]

[Hacking skill increased from 8431 to 9431.]

[Hacking skill increased from 9431 to 10431.]

[Your hacking rank has changed from Impossible! to Impossible!!]

Tristan whistled quietly. It was a very melodic sound.

'Finally! So it cost twice as much to reach the two exclamation marks than for other skills. I still have 5000 Criminal Points left. Well, I can't put them all into intelligence, so…'

[Hacking skill increased from 10431 to 15000.]

[Your hacking rank has changed from Impossible!! to Impossible!!!]

Tristan shook his head.

'Too bad I can't reach the ascension limit yet.'

He put the remaining points into intelligence, evening it out better with his imagination.

[Intelligence attribute increased from 553 to 596.]

As always, spending his points was a special feeling. Hours upon hours of learning and achieving were compressed into a second of dizziness, upon which Tristan would either jump to his feet with renewed energy or feel bursting to the brim with fresh ideas.

This time was the second. The incredible insight and experience of the advanced hacking skill, spiced with a dash of extra intelligence, made Tristan's brain work on overdrive. Immediately, solutions to walls and security measures that blocked his hacking attempts earlier began popping into Tristan's head.

He made sure no one would interrupt him without a really dire need, got himself snacks, and went to work with a smile.

***

16 hours later.

Tristan pressed the button to confirm his input.

The page loaded for a while, as if unsure what to do about it, despite Tristan's lightning-fast Internet connection.

When it finally loaded, Tristan beamed from ear to ear.

[Task complete: gain access to Gospel's account. Reward: your PP increased by 10000!]

Tristan was looking at Gospel's profile page while being logged as an administrator of the website. That meant Tristan not only could look through his entire message history, Gospel won't even know anyone hacked his account.

Because they didn't. Tristan hacked an admin account. It had the same level of defense but a higher level of privileges.

(Privileges that were probably illegal. Tristan wasn't sure if the social network had the right to read people's private messages. But it clearly could.)

'My presence will be noticed eventually, and the hole I used will be patched. I better hurry.'

This would've had a lower chance of happening if Tristan hacked Gospel's account directly, but there were other downsides. He had decided they weren't worth it.

Right now, Tristan went directly to Gospel's personal information and messages.

With administrator's rights, Tristan could access more detailed information about Gospel's Internet connection, location and IP address, but he was still using a proxy server, so this was useless. There wasn't any personal data provided either, even data listed privately.

Direct messages were more fruitful.

There weren't many of them, but what Tristan saw quickly made his eyes gleam with agitation.

[We will meet in flesh and you will become my apostles who will spread my teachings. Your spirit will fill with my wisdom and you will ascend above the unenlightened. Soon.]

First, there was this promise of a meeting. But quickly enough there appeared a date and a place.

In five days, in some obscure basement, Gospel was going to choose his disciples in flesh. Twelve of them, like he really considered himself a deity.

Tristan tried to find more about the disciples themselves, too. Gospel didn't chat with them much besides giving lectures on his ideology of destroying "false" and "frivolous" idols.

These lectures were just as compelling as Gospel's "psychic nuke" post. Reading through one of them put a slight headache in Tristan's head. Reading through another one promised to be outright dangerous.

'This is just a drop of water, but drop by drop water erodes mountains… I should just skim through it.'

That was what Tristan did.

Besides that, there wasn't much about the disciples in the conversations—they used codenames and acted like they were members of a prosecuted cult.

'Although, why "like"? They ARE fucking cultists! And I'm going to prosecute the hell out of them.'

Tristan's admin rights let him check out the accounts of the cultists, too. They were all throwaway pages with no info filled whatsoever and most conversations happening being between them and Gospel.

The only exceptions were inflammatory Internet posts, of which these disciples were full of.

However…

Not all of them were smart enough to use a proxy server.

With a bit of finessing—which Tristan could do as easily as breathing with his current access level and his current skill—Tristan pulled out the IP address of one of the disciples.

'You will be my unknowing Judas. Heh,' Tristan thought, smirking.

Unsurprisingly, the disciple had another account registered with the same IP. When Tristan got it, he got the man's entire online life and history on the palm of his hand.

Frederic Sieven, codename "Faith". A man who lived with his mother until he turned 41, and judging by his online activity, spent all his free time whining on the Internet.

'No,' Tristan corrected himself, looking through the man's likes closer. 'He also seems to like fantasy stories… But only as long as they are "traditional" enough. What does that even mean here?'

Looking at this all made Tristan want to laugh. If those were Gospel's closest subordinates, how pathetic the man himself had to be?

He knew he shouldn't underestimate him—not after everything Gospel did already—but Tristan didn't stop himself from having a laugh.

Tristan had gathered all the important information he could and saved it to his own storage. An hour later, he flexed his fingers and began preparing his grand exit.

First, he left a backdoor for himself to make hacking this website easier in the future.

Second, he began methodically deleting every instance of Gospel's original inflammatory post. Behind he left only administrative messages that this post was deleted because it went against the website rules—but not specifying anything.

Then he banned Gospel's account for good measure, as well as accounts of anyone who copied his post.

'Good. Actual moderators of the site should've done this long ago. People would've complained much louder if they weren't so ill.'

Finally, to make things harder for the actual administration of the website to fix, Tristan deleted the removed posts from the databases, so they would be impossible to restore. And then deleted Gospel's account in the same manner.

[Task complete: bring down Gospel's inflammatory posts and their copies. Reward: your CP increased by 10000!]

Tristan grinned at the beautiful result of his actions.

Of course, the actual administration could still un-ban people who reposted Gospel's preachings. Gospel himself could create a new account.

But as long as people thought that removal of the posts was the actual policy of the platform, they won't repeat it.

'All that's left is to get to Gospel himself.'