· Selecting a Profession

"Mage! Mage! Mage!"

Lu Qiming muttered incessantly. He hoped for a Mage class; after all, as an otaku who had consumed countless anime and novels, he had a natural affinity for the Mage class—a profession that was cool, flashy, and only required outputting damage from the backline.

It was absolutely not because he was a coward who didn't dare to charge the front lines. And it certainly wasn't because Mages had skills like Invisibility and he wanted to go sightseeing in the women's bathhouse!

Under Lu Qiming's constant chanting, the roulette wheel soon slowed to a stop, the golden pointer landing steadily on a black section of the wheel.

"Hiss! I'm done for!"

Before Lu Qiming could finish his lament, the system's voice arrived.

"Congratulations to the Host for obtaining the [Assassin] class inheritance. Exclusive class skill tree unlocked!"

Lu Qiming collapsed onto the ground in a despairing pose. How could he not be familiar with the 'Assassin' class? Having played so many games in the past, he knew Assassins were typically high-damage, high-mobility glass cannons. One careless move and they'd be wiped out by random AOE damage.

He had wanted a Mage, someone who could just layer a dozen magic shields and stand safely in the backline dealing damage, or even a Warrior would have been fine! At least they were tanky enough not to be one-shot by a random blade.

The system ignored Lu Qiming's rambling, its mechanical, cold-beauty voice sounding once more.

"Beginning class inheritance import. Congratulations to the Host for obtaining class attribute bonuses: Spirit +8, Strength +6, Agility +12, Constitution +6."

"Congratulations to the Host for unlocking the class skill tree."

Following the system prompt, a warm current surged from Lu Qiming's chest, slowly flowing through his entire body, bringing with it a strange sensation, much like the peak of a life-force exchange.

Refreshing, clear!

The warm current flowed through Lu Qiming's body for a few minutes before vanishing, replaced by a feeling of overflowing power. It felt as if a single light jump could launch him straight into the sky.

"System, are you sure this is an Assassin class inheritance?"

Lu Qiming raised his hands in astonishment, clenching his slender, fair fingers into a fist and smashing it into the air in front of him.

"Whoosh! Boom!"

In an instant, Lu Qiming's fist whistled through the air and slammed into the sewer wall before him. His fist sank deep into the masonry, with only half his arm remaining outside. The most miraculous part was that Lu Qiming felt absolutely no pain, as if he had punched through tofu.

He could now be certain that his strength was at least five times what it had been, and his agility at least ten times. The wings of the flies buzzing in the sewer appeared to him like slow-motion footage.

It seemed that the increase in agility didn't just improve his movement speed; his dynamic vision and reflexes had synchronized as well. It appeared the other attribute increases were exactly the same.

"Host, this is indeed the Assassin class inheritance. Please do not doubt the professionalism of this system! Additionally, please select your skill tree points."

"() Got it!"

Lu Qiming suppressed his inner excitement and looked at the pale blue light screen before him. Aside from his Agility, which was at twenty points, everything else was at fifteen. Most importantly, Lu Qiming had originally thought that every ten points of an attribute equaled the limit of an ordinary human.

But now it seemed that after ten points, every single point doubled his capability.

Lu Qiming gently tapped the very bottom of the light screen, and the class inheritance column, which had previously displayed 'None', now showed [Assassin].

The moment Lu Qiming's finger touched it, the page representing his attributes gradually faded, transforming into an inverted tree diagram.

Lu Qiming stifled his racing heart, his eyes locked onto it, and began to examine it carefully.

[Dual Sword Mastery], [Unrivaled], [Soul Blade], [Reflexive Speed], [Weakness Insight]

[Moon Arc], [Limit Pursuit], [Instant Shadow]

[Death God]

All skills were arranged like an inverted pyramid, with a total of nine skills clearly appearing before Lu Qiming's eyes. According to the system prompts, each tier of skills had to reach level three before the next tier could be unlocked.

However, all skills only had five levels, corresponding to Novice, Proficient, Mastery, Grandmaster, and Sovereign—five levels in total.

Right now, Lu Qiming only had five skill points. He could either push one first-tier skill directly to the max or light up all the first-tier skills.

"Well, of course, I'm choosing to light them all up!"

After all, he was currently pursuing rapid combat effectiveness, not foolishly putting all his chips into one skill. Developing in a balanced way was better in the early stages; otherwise, he wouldn't even know how he died if he encountered an emergency.

Lu Qiming swiped his finger across the five skills. As they lit up, a stream of information automatically appeared in his mind, and his muscles began to twitch slightly.

[Arc Flash], [Dual Blade Pierce], [Fatal Slash], [Whirlwind Dance], [Spiral Pierce], [Arc Flash Combo], [Thunder Blade Shadow], [Gale Dance], [Air Step], [Side Step], and a series of other techniques appeared in Lu Qiming's mind.

He also felt that his muscles had already formed muscle memory; as long as he willed it, he could execute these moves immediately. Furthermore, there was no such thing as a cooldown limit—as long as he had enough stamina and mana, he could spam ultimate moves indefinitely.

And this was only after lighting up the first tier of skills! Did that mean there were even more powerful ones later?

"System, you're pretty good!"

Lu Qiming looked at his fair hands in pleasant surprise. If someone gave him two short swords now, he had absolute confidence that he could slaughter his pre-inheritance self—even a hundred of them wouldn't matter.

Besides these techniques, he also discovered that of the five skills he had lit up, all except 'Unrivaled' were passive skills. Dual Sword Mastery was exactly as the name suggested, increasing his proficiency with dual swords. Even at level one, Lu Qiming felt he could shave hair with dual swords, and do it perfectly clean without a single scratch.

Soul Blade allowed his soul to bind a pair of dual swords, turning them into his Soul Blades. As he grew, the swords would grow with him, and even if destroyed, they would be reborn within his soul. There was no longer a need to frequently change weapons, and he didn't have to worry about them being stolen. After all, he could store them within his soul after binding.

As for Reflexive Speed, it further enhanced his neural reflexes and physical reaction speed, while Weakness Insight allowed him to easily perceive an enemy's fatal flaws.

The strongest was Unrivaled. Even at level one, once activated, all attributes increased by 300%. That meant once started, Lu Qiming's 20 Agility would instantly become 60, effectively a 40-fold increase in agility.

The only downside was the high mana consumption. Even after activating Unrivaled, his mana pool increased from 150 to 450, but he could only sustain it for 450 seconds—a mere seven minutes and thirty seconds.

However, even if it was only seven minutes and thirty seconds, Lu Qiming was very happy. Such a powerful skill was enough to turn the tide in that short time, and it was still more than twice as long as a three-minute Ultraman!

What else was there to be dissatisfied about?