Aren returned to his small, cheap room, and the first thing he did was to search about the news of his death.
He opened article after article, learning about how his death was forged as an accident, a result of his drunk driving.
Even the investigation was ended on the same day, labeling his death as a simple case of rash driving, a false outcome thanks to the many connections of Neil Valcourt.
Aren then found a clip of Neil showing false sympathy over his death:
"This is really an unfortunate event. I'm still shocked by the death of Aren. He was the closest friend I had. We started together in this industry, having each other's back all this time. Now that he is gone, I feel as if I have lost a huge part of my existence. I will appreciate it if the media doesn't make this into a huge news and leave Aren's family in peace."
Aren felt nauseated after hearing his pretentious words, uttering through gritted teeth, "This bastard. Have fun while you can. I'll pay you back with interest."
He scrolled some more on the internet before finally calling it quits.
It was already night, so he decided to go to bed instead of getting frustrated over something he couldn't control; nor do anything about.
The next day, he was sitting at the chair and table in his room, a notebook, pen, and his smartphone resting on the table in front of him.
'Let's do this.'
He first went through his LinkChat history to find out about idol Aren's situation.
After yesterday's shoot, he suspected he might have made other deals to act with other productions; however, he soon turned out to be wrong.
After looking through his chat history, Aren found the following.
After Aren was let go by Blackshore Entertainment, disbanding Ventage, Aren had been constantly getting offers to act.
However, they all were either small roles or supporting characters in small budget dramas.
Since he was hated by fans of Ventage and his reputation was bad, no big productions wanted to do anything with him.
Having him in the cast would do them more bad than good.
Only small budget dramas wanted to take him into their drama to ride on his popularity.
Even if people hated Aren, his popularity was still quite high. If his name was attached to these small dramas, they would get free publicity by being the debut drama of a popular idol.
Some fans who hated Aren might even see the drama just to criticize him.
Original Aren had been rejecting all those offers, and instead, he was continuously asking for help from his friends.
Aren saw in his chat history that the previous Aren had messaged the other four members of Ventage along with some other recognizable names; however, no one replied back, as if avoiding him like a plague.
Still, from the tone of Aren's messages, he could understand that Aren had a friendly relation with all of them, nothing like the image portrayed by the articles and Blackshore Entertainment's statement.
'Maybe he was targeted by the other members of the group to wrongly frame him,' Aren guessed.
In the end, after the original Aren's money wasn't going to last long, he didn't have a choice but to accept one of the offers from the low budget dramas.
But it appeared that Aren still chose the better drama among the other options. The script of To Your Heart was much better, almost to the level of some mid to high tier dramas.
'Alright, now I have a better idea of my situation.'
He cracked his knuckles before summoning the status window.
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Name –> Aren Frost
Age –> 22
Appearance –> C–
Acting –> F+
Charm –> D
Fame –> E–
Athleticism –> D+
Reputation –> F
Hidden Stat (locked)
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He copied down the current stats on the notebook and then began to contemplate his plan of action.
'Among my stats, Fame and Reputation change by themselves; I have no control over them.'
'Acting ability is difficult to increase without the fame points. I should receive some fame points after my episode airs, right?'
'So that only leaves Appearance, Charm, Athleticism, and this hidden stat. If I exclude the hidden stat, that only leaves the former three.'
'Hmm, these three are a bit vague. I understand them crudely, but what does charm do exactly? And what about Athleticism? What does it cover?'
Deciding to get a better idea of his stats first, he asked the system to explain.
[Host, Let me explain them one by one.]
Aren paid attention to the text appearing and the voice speaking into his mind.
[Appearance is your outer appearance. From your face to your body. How attractive they look to others. This will help you conquer female fans easily, and maybe some males as well. This can become your lethal weapon once you max it out.]
[Acting stat is your ability to act. How well you can act out a scene, speak dialogues, convey emotions, improvise a scene, memorize dialogues, work with the camera, lights, and the crew. Once you max this stat, you will be able to snatch every award in the world.]
[Charm stat can be explained as how difficult it is to take eyes off of you. If your charm is high, everyone's attention will instantly focus on you whenever you are in a scene. You will be liked and admired. You will be alluring and attractive. With the charm stat at max, you can conquer the hearts of everyone.]
[The Fame stat represents the amount of positive fame you possess—how many people hold a good opinion of you. Even neutral opinions contribute to Fame; however, negative fame is not taken into account. This cannot be increased by the host and only increases according to the external factors.]
[Athleticism stat is your physique. How easily you can move your body. For doing action and fighting scenes, the Athleticism stat comes in handy; however, it's not simply for doing action. It also gives you an athlete-like body, increasing your strength, speed, recovery, endurance, stamina, and so on. If you max out this stat, you can become strong beyond reason.]
[Reputation...]