Skill Attempts

The next day, Mel Carlo asked Anke if he could take the day off.

Anke readily agreed and gave all the children the day off as well. Mel Carlo wanted to test out his skills.

After completing ten Back Hops, he obtained the skill [Back Hop].

"Back Hop: Jump backward to evade attacks. I remember this skill having a two-second cooldown. It's a Warrior class skill, but in the game, it could be used by every class to avoid certain attacks."

He continued trying it. The skill consumed almost no mana, but the fatigue in his body was real. Constantly hopping backward left his legs aching.

Next, he tried [Mighty Slash] barehanded. He made a two-handed sword-gripping motion and delivered a heavy slash forward. He failed after fifty attempts, and still failed after persisting to a hundred. Maybe it was because he had no weapon in his hands.

Perhaps he could find a wooden stick to replace a sword-type weapon. Warriors could use staff-type weapons too.

Just as he was about to look for one, Akai and Lily came to invite him out to play. They did not need to keep begging today, and everyone was happy. Days with this kind of freedom were rare for them.

"Mel, aren't you coming out to play with us?"

"No need. I'm playing right now, and it's pretty fun." Mel Carlo found a long stick and declined their kind offer.

He agreed. To him, there was nothing more interesting than this right now. Like playing a game for the first time, he could not hide the excitement in his eyes.

This could completely be treated as a hardcore version of "Kandewen Continent." There was no one-click Skill Tree, no damage indicators, and perhaps no resurrection either. Just thinking about it made him a little excited. It had been a long time since he had played such an interesting game.

Once a hobby became work, even the games one loved most would inevitably become dull at times.

After ten slashes while holding the wooden stick, he successfully obtained the [Mighty Slash] skill. Current proficiency: 1/10000.

"Mighty Slash is done. With the six points from yesterday's Steal, one point from Back Hop, and one point from Mighty Slash, that only makes eight points. If I practice a couple more times, I should be able to draw a prize."

But he would not stop now. [Staff Strike] seemed to require a staff-type weapon—simply bringing the staff down in a smashing motion. He tried using the wooden stick twenty times but still failed, so he could only set it aside. As for [Fireball], he had no idea how to cast it. In the game, he could release it with one click after learning it, but now, no matter what motions he made with his hands or how he imagined it, he could not stir any magic at all. He gave up after twenty tries.

"Maybe mages are a very high-end class in this world."

The thief skills Flying Blade and Cut both required daggers or short swords to learn. He asked Anke for a dagger, then began trying. After ten attempts, he successfully obtained both [Flying Blade] and [Cut].

Anke found Mel Carlo's strange movements early in the morning odd, but he did not ask much. He could tell that Mel seemed to be trying out some skills, though they looked somewhat childish. Without anyone to teach him, it would probably be hard for him to master them on his own.

"I know Flying Blade. If you need it, I can teach you."

"Thanks, but I don't need it for now." Mel shook his head.

If being taught could speed up proficiency gain, that meant the points earned through effort might decrease. For now, he did not need instruction, because his experiments were not over yet.

He also tried the priest skills Grapple Throw and Empty Strike, but he never grasped the techniques for these throwing skills and Super Armor-type skills. Even following the motions from his memories, he failed to learn them.

He had to temporarily give up on the knight's Shield Bash because he could not get a shield. The lancer's skills required a spear, but it seemed he could learn them with a long stick. In the end, he obtained [Thrust] and [Rising Uppercut], though his current physical condition was still too weak and the strength he could exert was extremely limited.

It was like his game character's basic attribute template was incredibly low. Yet all these skills needed basic attributes to amplify them. He had already learned one archer skill, [Dagger Attack], but there did not seem to be any bows within the gang. Mel Carlo also did not like owing too many favors, so he chose to set aside matters that were not urgent.

He also failed to master the fighter's skills. He did not know what the problem was. As far as the movements went, they should have been standard enough, but there was no support system here and skills could not be released with one click.

"Warrior's Mighty Slash and Back Hop; thief's Flying Blade, Cut, and Steal; lancer's Thrust and Rising Uppercut; archer's Dagger Attack. Eight skills total. There are too few skills available at level one."

He looked over the skills. They were all level-one skills, and they appeared in the level-one skill slots. Whether there was a Skill Tree or not would only be known once he reached level five.

Mel Carlo had already tried learning some more advanced or universal skills, but no matter how he tried, he could never trigger a successful learning result. Even in the game, those skills had to be learned from NPCs. Perhaps this world was the same.

This was a world both familiar and unfamiliar to him. It somewhat resembled the game world he knew well, yet it had many differences.

Attack Skills: [Mighty Slash], [Flying Blade], [Cut], [Thrust], [Rising Uppercut]

Passive Skills: [Dagger Attack]

Utility Skills: [Steal]

Evasion Skills: [Back Hop]

It was impossible to train every skill to the limit right now. Neither his time nor energy allowed it. If he wanted to gain some ability to protect himself in a short period, it would be best to focus on [Cut], [Flying Blade], [Back Hop], and [Steal]. [Cut] and [Flying Blade] seemed able to trigger [Dagger Attack], so training one was equivalent to training two. He could gain double the proficiency benefits with almost no energy consumption, though he still needed to watch out for physical fatigue.

[Back Hop] was the only evasion and movement skill he had in the short term, so he had to learn it.

[Steal] was a skill that could be trained over the long term. In the game, it was very enjoyable to use after learning it for certain entertainment builds. With an almost one-hundred-percent theft success rate and accuracy, he could truly roam the world as a master thief.

He did not know whether this world had class advancement, but given his current environment and physical condition, he could probably only follow the thief path for now. After all, the returns were higher that way.

He did not think this was exactly like a game world. Here, if a dagger slit his throat, it might not be just a point of damage.

If he viewed this world entirely through the lens of a game, he would sooner or later suffer greatly. From the moment he arrived in this world, Mel Carlo had understood that. He had abandoned his original name and chosen to integrate into this world.

Can't find the book by its title? Try searching for the author instead—maybe it was just renamed!