Choice and Sale

Wang Changle touched the blood seeping from his brow and slumped to the ground in dejection.

He had expected to lose, but he hadn't expected to lose so quickly, or so miserably!

He had used all three of the Life Apostle's abilities, yet he had been defeated in a single exchange.

"Your fundamentals are worse than I anticipated. Your attacks lack method, your body mechanics are non-standard, and you have no basic understanding of your weapon. That's the first point."

"Your perception is decent, and the timing of your ninjutsu is good, but your control over ninjutsu is insufficient. That's the second point."

As Kakashi spoke, he put his kunai back into its pouch, leaped onto a tree branch, and lay down.

"Then what should I do? Train my fundamentals? Or learn more skills?"

He quickly accepted the reality of his crushing defeat. There was no shame in it; after all, shame could spur one to greater efforts.

"That's something you need to ask yourself, how to find the combat style that suits you best. Everyone has their own path. If you can't figure this out, I don't think I have anything else to teach you."

Kakashi Hatake slowly covered his face with "Icha Icha Paradise," looking like he was about to take a nap and didn't want to be disturbed.

"But I have a question. How did you dodge my inescapable skill?"

"Inescapable? No ninjutsu is inescapable. Even dojutsu can be dodged."

"All ninjutsu have prerequisites and energy trajectories for activation. Ninjutsu is merely a tool to aid combat; whether you can fight well depends on your understanding of ninjutsu."

Hearing Kakashi's words, Wang Changle fell into deep thought. His gaze flickered to the battle axe lying not far away and the skills in his status panel.

In reality, a choice lay before him: to choose technique or magic!

As time passed, he made up his mind and gained a clear understanding of his next goal. He chose magic!

He had never possessed strong combat aptitude, nor did he have an innate sensitivity to most weapons. He certainly didn't have combat experience like 'Ye Zhongming' or martial arts foundation like 'Mo Ye.'

Regarding magic, although Kakashi hadn't explicitly stated it, he clearly had a slight inclination in this area, such as in perception and timing!

After the recent battle and Kakashi's words, he had gained some insights and ideas. If skills weren't just skills, could they be like ninjutsu?

The flow of energy and the control of magic both required Mental Power.

Therefore, he could use Mental Power to influence and control skills!

With his decision and ideas in place, Wang Changle felt his mind clear.

His skills had finished cooling down. With his imagination and thoughts ignited, Wang Changle felt as if he had unlocked a brand new world, and now he needed to verify his hypothesis!

"Root Entanglement."

Vines descended from the void, coiling towards Kakashi. Kakashi suddenly sidestepped, only to see the descending vines accelerate and converge on him from different directions.

Kakashi's eyes lit up. He dodged with a Shunshin, appearing on the ground.

Four or five vines suddenly transformed into serpents, turning sharply downwards, but then dissipated in an instant.

Wang Changle grunted and knelt on the ground. Although he had only consumed 25 points of magic, his brain felt oxygen-deprived, and he gasped for air.

"Good comprehension. Then we can continue with the lesson."

Kakashi said, putting away "Icha Icha Paradise" and beginning to seriously guide Wang Changle in the application and control of energy, explaining the manipulation of Mental Power.

Wang Changle, like a sponge, frantically absorbed all sorts of theoretical knowledge, then continuously bombarded Kakashi with questions about his hypotheses regarding spellcasting.

An hour later, Kakashi disappeared among the trees and grass, while Wang Changle remained seated on the ground, still digesting all the knowledge he had just acquired.

He stood up and chose not to summon again, but instead returned to his private space immediately.

Since returning from the Derivative World, strengthening his attributes, and undergoing trial teaching, he hadn't rested properly. The nearly hour-long study of energy manipulation had left him utterly exhausted.

Physically and mentally drained, he was unable to concentrate, which was also detrimental to learning.

He lay down on the ground and, in the comfortable environment provided by his private space, Wang Changle soon fell asleep.

He slept for over ten hours straight. Upon waking, Wang Changle felt completely refreshed!

Seeing that he still had 2 days left in the Cycle Paradise, Wang Changle took out the Class Advancement Scroll.

He decisively chose to unlock new abilities. With his new insights into skills, he had a new understanding of them.

He had many hypotheses and ideas in his mind regarding skill control, Mental Power attachment, and energy linkage.

Whether these ideas and hypotheses could become reality required verification.

However, verification required skills as a medium, and with one skill having a 9-hour cooldown and another a 27-minute cooldown, it was impossible to complete numerous verifications within an hour.

To speed up verification, he needed more skills, and skills with lower cooldowns as experimental material. The scroll in his hand was exactly what he needed to unlock a professional skill.

[You have obtained the skill Life Force]

Life Force. Level 1, Active Skill.

Usage Condition: Consume 100 points of Life Force (100/100).

Skill Effect: Strengthen your next life-element skill by 100%, reduce its cooldown by 50%. When casting a professional skill, it will receive a secondary enhancement. No cooldown.

Note: Life Force cannot regenerate automatically. Absorbing items containing life essence can restore Life Force. (Within Paradise, 5000 Paradise Coins can be spent to replenish 100 points of Life Force.)

Undoubtedly, this was an explosive skill, an incredibly powerful burst skill.

The most crucial part is that this skill has no cooldown, meaning as long as his Life Force is sufficient, he can unleash it continuously.

If his Life Force is sufficient, this is absolutely a core burst skill!

However, after seeing that it costs 5,000 Paradise Coins to replenish just 100 points of Life Force, Wang Changle knew this ability could only be a trump card for now.

Although he gained a powerful burst skill, it couldn't be used routinely and offered no substantial help to his current need for conjecture and verification.

Therefore, to verify his conjecture, he now needed a skill that consumed little, had a short cooldown, and was exclusively of the Nature element.

With this thought in mind, Wang Changle pushed open the door again, and the noisy calls of vendors immediately flooded his ears.

"Selling the latest Pirate intel and strategies, DM if interested."

"Boss, give me a discount on this, 500 flat, and I'll take it!"

"Get lost, you beggar, don't interrupt my business, old man!"

Wang Changle weaved through the crowd. The contractors setting up stalls around him hawked their goods, making him feel like he was in Panjiayuan.

After a brief look around out of curiosity, he headed towards the trading plaza, where there were more people, mostly Staff Members, and fairer prices.

After passing through a large area of buildings, Wang Changle arrived at the trading plaza.

At a glance, it was a throng of people. Everyone behind the stalls was seated, and a large number of transactions were being completed continuously.

There were also some stalls with no one behind them; instead, various options floated above the stalls.

This was the unattended selling function enabled by Paradise. Paradise would automatically deduct 5% of the transaction price as a handling fee.

Despite the 5% fee, because Contractors only had 3 days to stay in Paradise, many Contractors returning to the real world still chose this method to increase their chances of selling, as it allowed for more efficient use of time.

After wandering around for over an hour, Wang Changle had looked at nearly a thousand stalls.

Due to being a Life Apostle, he could only learn Nature element spells within the magic system. Nature element spells were mostly known for their life recovery or control abilities.

Finding a Nature element spell that wasn't primarily focused on control and met his requirements was even more difficult.

Either the abilities were too gimmicky, had prerequisites for use, or came with exorbitant prices!

Or rather, all mage skills were expensive. The terror of mages was well-known throughout Paradise, so under the relationship of supply and demand, prices naturally soared.

Among them, he quite fancied a spell called "Call of Nature," but the price set by the seller was 30,000 Paradise Coins.

It was also an unattended sale, so he didn't even have the chance to haggle.

It had to be said that in Paradise, pure summoning spell skills, although classified as spellcaster skills, were categorized under summoners, which was why they had such low prices!

He had only 6,040 Paradise Coins left in his inventory, and he still needed to set aside at least 2,000 for summoning Kakashi, leaving him with a deficit of at least 26,000.

So, he decided to exchange everything he could for Paradise Coins. These included the "Summoning Horn" and the "Steel-hardened Battle Axe."

Since he had already chosen the path of magic, the battle axe, though very useful, was no longer of much use to him. It was more practical to convert it into Paradise Coins.

He approached a stall, spent 10 Paradise Coins for the usage fee, and began to fill in the selling price for his items.

Although the battle axe was only a White Grade Weapon, its attributes were extremely high-quality, comparable to some Green Grade equipment.

Therefore, he set the price for the "Summoning Horn" at 30,000 Paradise Coins, and the "Steel-hardened Battle Axe" at 5,000.

He also gave his small stall a name: "Blue Top-tier Rare."