Hidden Treasure Cave

There were not many haunted places in Amber City.

After making a few inquiries, Soren determined the approximate location of the Hidden Treasure Cave. About a kilometer north of the Agate River lay a Mass Grave, where people had seen signs of ghost activity more than once. This was one of the more obvious markers of a treasure cave. Liches always liked to place such caves closer to death.

"Ghosts?"

"Then I might need some Holy Water."

To ensure Vivian's safety, Soren was confident he could explore the treasure cave, but he was unsure how long it would take. So he planned to send her to the Dawn Temple and have Pastor Aniali look after her. She was the young priestess who had helped Soren before but always treated him coldly. There should be no problem if she watched over Vivian. Of course, the Dawn Temple would not take in a Little Girl for no reason, and Soren had already prepared a donation for the temple.

Dawn Temple.

Soren bowed slightly to Pastor Fer, who presided over the temple. When the man accepted the Money Bag Soren offered and heard the crisp, pleasant clinking of Silver Dalers inside, his face immediately broke into a warm smile. "No problem!"

"The Lord of Dawn blesses all believers who have faith in him. This Little Girl may stay at the temple for a while."

"Let her follow Acolyte Priestess Aniali."

This was a world that could not function without money.

Even priestesses with great power were no exception. They needed to expand the faith of the gods they served and recruit believers among the lower-class poor. All of that required money. Maintaining a temple required money, giving alms to believers required money, and holding sacred rituals required even more money. By now, even most temple priestesses openly sold Divine Healing, disease removal, injury recovery, and so on in exchange for enough wealth to maintain their temples and expand their faith. Taking in a Little Girl for a few days and selling a few gallons of Holy Water was nothing.

The Dawn Temple was not particularly powerful. In Amber City, it ranked below even the second tier.

That was why the nobles always had better choices when making offerings, making Soren's donation especially valuable.

There were sixty Silver Dalers in total.

That was equivalent to the offerings the Dawn Temple had received over the past half month. It was enough for Pastor Fer to replace one or two of the tools used for sacred rituals with silverware.

After all, these were silver coins minted by followers of the Goddess of Wealth. Twenty coins weighed a full pound!

"Thank you, Pastor Fer."

Soren thanked him politely, then smiled at Pastor Aniali beside him. "Vivian will be in your care for the next few days."

"Hmph."

The Young Priestess snorted softly but did not refuse. Though she still disliked Soren, she had taken a liking to the Little Girl at first sight. Aniali naturally knew that Soren's money had come from an unclean source. It had either been stolen or was connected to conflicts with gangs in the Slums. But Pastor Fer had been preparing for the sacred ritual to promote her to a formal priestess for a long time. Now that Soren was finally willing to donate such a sum, naturally they had to use it to prepare the sacred ritual that would grant her divine spells.

If they had two formal priestesses, the Dawn Temple should soon enter the upper ranks of Amber City's second tier!

"Vivian, stay with Sister Aniali for now."

Soren reached out and gently stroked the Little Girl's head, comforting her. "I'll come pick you up in a couple of days."

He had already explained it to her before they came.

Vivian had no objection at all to Soren's arrangement. She merely nodded obediently. "Mm."

"Don't worry about me."

"Vivian will be good. I definitely won't run around."

Soren bent down and kissed her forehead lightly, then picked up the Holy Water and headed out of the Dawn Temple.

Since the flaying incident had already happened, he needed to speed things up.

Before the gods were forced to walk the world as Saints, temples should have been among the safest places in Amber City. They were shrouded in divine power gathered through faith and guarded by temple defenders. Few evils dared set foot inside lightly. Even a second-rate temple like the Dawn Temple had six powerful Temple Guards in addition to a formal priestess.

They were all at least Tier 2 Professionals.

One of the Temple Guards even possessed Tier 3 strength. Conservatively speaking, he had a Class Template of 10 levels of Knight Aspirant/10 levels of Knight/5 levels of Temple Guardian, or 10 levels of Knight Aspirant/10 levels of Warrior/5 levels of Temple Guardian.

The first Professional Level represented one's foundational profession before changing classes.

For example, most native wizards possessed 10 Professional Levels of Scholar. That was because they needed to learn to read and acquire a certain foundation of knowledge before studying spells. Likewise, many Professionals who advanced into warriors had a prefix of 10 levels of Militiaman, representing the militia-level training they received before becoming formal warriors.

As for Soren's 10 levels of Commoner, that represented the lowest-level prerequisite profession.

As long as your innate attributes were sufficient!

Prerequisite professions generally did not grant many Attribute Points, though there were still differences based on their focus. For instance, the best prerequisite for melee classes was 10 levels of Knight Aspirant, which granted an additional Skill Point in Weapon Specialization. But that applied to the Professional templates possessed by players. If that template were applied to natives, it meant that Soren had been born a commoner and received a commoner's education from childhood. The growth of his attributes during his youth had depended entirely on fate. Whether he became a genius or a mediocrity had been impossible to predict until he advanced into a rogue.

That Tier 3 temple knight, on the other hand, had received Knight Aspirant training and education from childhood. He had already undergone combat training while young and possessed proficiency with most weapons, so some of his attributes had naturally been much higher than a commoner's, whether Strength, Constitution, or otherwise. This continued until he became a warrior or knight and began further increasing his power as a Professional.

Thus, in the past, players judged the base attributes of natives by looking at their prerequisite professions.

Commoner professions were generally balanced, Militiaman professions were slightly stronger, Knight Aspirants had higher overall attributes, and Scholars possessed an innate advantage in knowledge.

To sum it up.

Among Professionals of the same Tier 2, Temple Guards were far more difficult to deal with than self-taught warriors.

A self-taught warrior might have lower attributes and only know basic swordsmanship, while a Temple Guard would have somewhat higher attributes and master more than three advanced abilities.

The sword form—Cross Slash—after mastering Cross Swordplay had left a deep impression on Soren!

Mass Grave.

By the time Soren arrived, it was already afternoon. He had spent half a day before finally finding the cave entrance.

It was a simple concealment mechanism, more like a trap device.

When a rock near the Mass Grave was shifted ten centimeters, a pitch-black cave entrance appeared on a small hill not far away. Once Soren entered, the rock immediately returned to its original position, and the entrance vanished without a trace. As expected of a lich's handiwork. Even to Soren, once a legendary rogue, some of its arrangements were exceptionally ingenious.

Darkness.

Damaged torches lined both sides of the cave. An ordinary person would probably be unable to walk inside without lighting a torch, but as a Half-Elf with one-eighth elven blood, Soren possessed a certain degree of night vision. Therefore, he could roughly see everything within the cave without lighting a torch. That was the key reason he dared explore the Treasure Cave alone.

Stealth + night vision = silent movement.

Not needing lighting meant he would not alert the monsters inside the cave.

The safety factor increased tremendously!

Soren's figure gradually blended into the darkness. With the awakened class specialty of Shadow Mastery, he could already sense the existence of shadow power. It felt different from before. In the darkness, his figure gradually became hazy, as though he had vanished into the shadows. Only when he moved could one vaguely detect slight changes within the darkness.

His breathing, heartbeat, and scent were all concealed by the shadows!

"Creak."

Footsteps came from ahead. Soren quietly drew his dagger and hid in a corner of the cave, waiting.

The Treasure Cave was not small.

After all, a lich could not simply dig a pit underground and call it a day. There were many underground passages here, along with quite a few guarding monsters and traps the lich had set up long ago.

A skeleton appeared before Soren.

No soul-fire burned in its eyes, indicating that it was merely the lowest-grade Reanimated Skeleton. Perhaps because of the dense death energy here, it had unconsciously remained to guard this place. Such skeletons were relatively easy to deal with. Ordinary Professionals could handle one or two, but casually taking down a whole group was impossible. Their strength was roughly equal to that of properly trained militiamen, and they had no obvious fatal weaknesses. After all, skeletons were also a type of supernatural creature.

Even if it was the lowest-grade undead creature.

Soren quietly approached. The mindless skeleton noticed nothing. It held a rusty iron sword in its hand and seemed to have once been an adventurer who died while exploring this place. There were no fewer native adventurers in the story world than players. There were even quite a few evil factions that cooperated with players or ambushed and killed them from behind. Anyone who underestimated the world of War of the Gods would pay the price.

A cold flash burst through the darkness!

Soren emerged from the shadows and instantly thrust his dagger toward the skeleton's spine.

Shadow Hide successful!

Backstab activated!

Backstab *2 activated successfully, dealing 18 (+1) damage to the target!

Target severely injured!

This was the first time Soren had successfully landed a Backstab without instantly killing his enemy.

But he was not surprised. The dagger in his hand was ordinary, neither enchanted nor possessed of supernatural properties. It was difficult to achieve a one-hit kill against undead creatures, as undead also received the extra bonuses of supernatural creatures. Though a skeleton only had a challenge rating of 1, it possessed over 30 health points. Without flesh, it was actually tougher than an ordinary person.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The skeleton's combat instincts remained. Its first reaction after being attacked was to slash down with its sword, producing a sharp howl through the air. Soren raised his dagger to block the attack, and his body sank slightly under the force.

Its Strength is above 16.

Soren sidestepped the second attack, then flexed his slightly numb arm. It must have been an advanced warrior before death. Otherwise, it couldn't still have such high Strength after becoming undead.

Ten points of Strength was the standard for an ordinary person.

Twelve points of Strength was equivalent to the laborers who worked every day in the Dock District.

Fourteen points of Strength was considered quite strong among ordinary people.

Sixteen points of Strength roughly equaled a weightlifter from Soren's previous life.

Eighteen points of Strength was rather outrageous. People like that could wield a weapon weighing over a hundred pounds with one hand to hack at others, then keep going without even breathing hard.

Those who could generally reach 16 points or more were specialized melee Professionals.

Attribute Points were the hardest thing to increase. It took two Professional Levels to gain one free attribute point. Even after reaching level 20 and entering the legendary realm, one would have only ten free Attribute Points. This was where Soren's weakness was rather significant. His Strength was only 12 because he had not deliberately trained it during childhood, nor did he possess any bloodline of divine strength. His physical power was therefore only comparable to the laborers carrying crates in the Dock District.

As for 20 points of supernatural Strength, there was a simple example.

Hill Giant.

A colossal creature around five meters tall and nearly half a ton in weight, wielding a spiked club as thick as an adult's waist!

That was right.

That thing was the standard for 20 points of supernatural Strength!

Without innate divine strength, many warriors might advance all the way to Tier 2 Professionals and still not possess more than 20 points of supernatural Strength.