Game Expert! We're Saved!

Game Expert: S-Rank Talent/Lv—, talent skill, active skill. As a game expert well-versed in countless video games, this was the tangible manifestation of your personal talent.

Whenever you entered an entirely new instance, the hall of thought built from vast stores of video game memories deep within your mind would automatically begin searching. Based on your current circumstances, it would randomly select a relatively suitable game character and temporarily load them onto you in the form of different "character templates," helping you clear the instance.

"Character templates" were like undispellable character status effects (BUFFs). They could be actively loaded or unloaded as needed, though both actions had cooldown periods. Under normal circumstances, character templates could stack perfectly with the player's current status.

Character templates could be divided into three major categories and three derivative forms—

"Protagonist Template," "Supporting Role Template," and "Antagonist Template"; "Original Type," "Reinforced Type," and "Perfect Type."

Protagonist Template: the core lead of the game's source material, the absolute protagonist.

Supporting Role Template: allies from the protagonist's faction, story NPCs, neutral units, and so on.

Antagonist Template: enemy-faction fodder, elites, BOSSes, and so on.

Original Type: highly faithful to the character's original design. While gaining the corresponding combat power, you would also inherit the corresponding weaknesses.

Reinforced Type: gained the corresponding combat power while discarding the original design's weaknesses.

Perfect Type: erased the original design's weaknesses while comprehensively enhancing every aspect.

Based on your current physical attributes, instance difficulty, and capacity limit, Game Expert would automatically match you with a suitable template and form.

Each instance source material could trigger the "Game Expert" effect only once. Upon entering an instance with entirely new source material, you could only use a new character template corresponding to that instance, and that character template could not be used outside its corresponding instance area.

If, while a character template was loaded, you cleared the current instance by fulfilling certain specific conditions or receiving a high completion rating, some abilities or traits from the temporary character template would become permanently fixed in the form of "additional skills," "special equipment," "equipped accessories," and so on. They could then be used normally in other areas.

Additional evaluation: Awesome! It's Game Expert! We're saved!

Just as Greenie left and Demon Village officially began spawning monsters, Cheng Tian's "Game Expert" talent effect was officially triggered.

From its enormous pool of available templates, Game Expert selected this Vampire Hunter, a man who could not coexist with evil and had been entangled with Count Dracula's lineage for generations.

The whip in Cheng Tian's hand, called Vampire Slayer, was the Belmont Family's sacred relic for banishing evil.

Cheng Tian naturally had no idea how to wield a weapon that could already be considered a surprise weapon. Yet the instant he gripped the long whip's handle, his body automatically gave him the answer.

Cheng Tian, who could easily whip himself even when swinging a belt, perfectly cracked the first whip of his life and snapped the neck of the zombie pouncing on One-Ear with a single strike.

If one looked at the zombie's severed neck then, one would find scorch marks as though it had been intensely burned.

This was the holy power attached to the body of the Vampire Slayer whip!

Not only that, starting from the wound at its neck, the holy power rapidly spread across the zombie's remains. Within only a few breaths, the zombie turned to ash and scattered away.

When Cheng Tian spun around and burst the Red-Eyed Raven with another crack of his whip, then turned his gaze back, he saw a small red heart drifting and swaying above One-Ear's chest, falling freely.

Both the whip in his hand and the little red heart drifting down were directly connected to the "Vampire Hunter" template he had currently loaded.

Vampire Hunter: Original Type Protagonist Template. The template source material was the first-generation protagonist of "Castlevania," Simon Belmont. The earliest member of the Belmont Family to enter players' view, he excelled at wielding the family's inherited sacred evil-banishing relic, Vampire Slayer, and devoted his entire life to eliminating evil led by Count Dracula.

When you chose to load the "Vampire Hunter" template—

You would simultaneously obtain the template-exclusive weapon, Magic-Breaking Vampire Killer Whip.

You would simultaneously obtain the template-exclusive skills: "Soul Salvation," "Relic Mastery," "Hit Evasion," and "Water Solubility."

Loading and unloading this character template both had a 15-minute cooldown.

Magic-Breaking Vampire Killer Whip: Long whip, template weapon. Equipment requirement: Vampire Hunter/Belmont Family bloodline. Weapon damage: 1–1. Durability: —/—.

The Belmont Family's sacred relic for banishing evil possessed the potential for further enhancement.

When attacking evil creatures or dark creatures, every effective hit dealt an additional 10 points of holy damage.

When attacking "Vampires," the added holy damage was doubled. Furthermore, when the target used any healing ability, its effect was reduced by 50% for 5 seconds. Effective hits could refresh the duration.

Template weapons could stack with equipment currently held by the player. The closer the equipment types were, the better the stacking effect.

Soul Salvation: Template skill, passive skill. While eliminating monsters, the Vampire Hunter would also purify the influence of evil and dark magic, thereby saving Innocent Souls. In turn, Innocent Souls would repay the favor by providing the Vampire Hunter with a certain degree of assistance.

When you killed any evil or dark monster, or destroyed candlesticks or torches, there was a high chance of dropping one heart-shaped "Small Innocent Soul (1 point)" or "Large Innocent Soul (5 points)."

"Innocent Souls" could replenish the remaining quantity of consumed throwing weapons, serve as casting materials for certain spells, or replace MP as spellcasting consumption.

Zombies themselves were naturally evil, but they had been resurrected under the Demon King's evil magic. Before death, most of them had merely been ordinary people who did not need to be judged as good or bad.

The entire Belmont Family indeed took a kill-without-mercy stance toward nearly all monsters, but that did not stop them from purifying monsters along the way and attempting to save Innocent Souls.

And the souls that had been saved would basically choose their own ways to help the Vampire Hunter. From another perspective, those souls were also taking revenge.

By helping Simon and the others kill monsters, the innocent could ascend to heaven in peace.

Only death was the sole salvation for evil monsters!

Cheng Tian strode forward in long, swift steps. A gust swept past One-Ear, blowing the zombie ash off him while also scooping up Cheng Tian's Innocent Soul.

Beside Cheng Tian's personal health and mana bars, a "01" indicator appeared, representing his stored Innocent Soul points.

One-Ear was still shaken, but the powerful tug at his wrist yanked him straight up from the ground.

"Still alive?"

Hearing the question, One-Ear instinctively shook his head. The pain from the side where his ear was missing made his body jerk.

"If you're not dead, keep chopping. Kill one and you break even. Kill two and it's pure profit."

The plain one-handed axe that had fallen to the ground was shoved back into One-Ear's hand.

Having done that, Cheng Tian twisted his hips and lashed out fiercely. The explosive crack of the whip rang out once more.

One-Ear's expression rapidly shifted from bewilderment and terror to realization and fury. Then, behind Cheng Tian's head came One-Ear's heartfelt roar, along with the sound of axe and blade hacking into zombies like chopping ribs.