Initial Planning

"I remember the later main storyline never revealed the exact cause of Viscount Kane's death either."

Having only just realized he had been reborn, Li Si Kane was already facing a death scenario. With a troubled expression, he reviewed the intelligence from his previous life, trying to help himself—the newly appointed Viscount Kane—avoid this plot-mandated death.

The story of the game "Divine Revelation" took place in a place called the Gaia Main World. Within the Astral Realm, countless otherworldly planes, God Kingdoms, and the Abyss and Hell—shrouded in darkness and blood as they slowly revolved beneath a sea of stars—surrounded the Gaia Main World.

Within the Gaia Main World were six continents: Fanor Continent, Ethan Continent, Ketan Continent, Tudosi Continent, Gena Continent, and Anola Continent. Each continent corresponded to a different regional server in the game, and the main storylines differed during the early stages of each server. Among them, Fanor Continent was the primary starting area for players from Hua Country.

In his previous life, Li Si had mainly operated within the Fies Kingdom on Fanor Continent during the early days of Divine Revelation, so he was fairly familiar with Fanor Continent's main storyline during Version 1.0.

Fanor Continent resembled an irregular rectangle and covered hundreds of millions of square kilometers. Several major human kingdoms were scattered across the vast, fertile plains in the continent's center and east. To the south lay the sprawling, dense Navia Forest, home to the Elf Kingdom. To the north stretched endless snowfields blanketed in ice and snow year-round, the homeland of all manner of magical beasts and nonhuman races. The majestic, sprawling Gano Mountains ran between the continent's central and western regions. Beyond them lay the uninhabited sands of the western desert.

The Fies Kingdom was established in the east of the continent. The Gedo River, which originated in the Gano Mountains, passed through the entirety of the Fies Kingdom before flowing into the Pearl Sea east of the continent. As a result, the Fies Kingdom possessed vast stretches of fertile land and convenient transportation, making it more prosperous and powerful than its neighboring countries.

October 10th of every year was the Sacred Festival of the Fies Kingdom. It was always the kingdom's liveliest and most joyous time of year. People decorated cities everywhere with lanterns and banners, celebrating and enjoying the harvest earned through a year of hard work while praying to the gods for favorable weather in the coming year.

The grandest and liveliest celebration was held at Triumphant Square in Can Guang City, the royal capital of the Fies Kingdom.

The Sacred Festival celebration at Triumphant Square in Can Guang City was hosted by the royal family. The king and every noble currently in Can Guang City attended, making it the most important occasion of the year for the capital.

At the Sacred Festival in the royal capital each year, the King of Fies sat upon the throne atop the ceremonial platform.

Numerous ministers and nobles rode on horseback around the throne, displaying their reverence and support for the king.

Meanwhile, under the guards' protection, the capital's citizens gathered around the square, enjoying free wine and food as they watched the Sacred Festival ceremony unfold.

This year, just as King Morton Fies was about to light the Sacred Flame Torch symbolizing the coming year's harvest, a Golden Assassin suddenly launched a surprise attack on the nobles surrounding the king. In full view of everyone present, several nobles had their throats cut by a blade and fell before the king and countless onlooking citizens.

Viscount Kane—now Li Si Kane—was the highest-ranking among those unfortunate nobles who were assassinated. To lessen the negative impact this vicious incident had on the kingdom, the assassination was officially designated the "Viscount Kane Assassination Case."

Nearly all players were belligerent and unstable elements. Li Si still remembered watching the cutscene in this main storyline, where Viscount Kane was killed by the assassin. As they watched the assassin publicly murder several nobles, then retreat unscathed even while facing the Golden Lion Knights and Court Mages, most players had been fired up, howling with excitement and wishing they could take his place.

Later, when the game's class statistics were compiled, the percentage of players choosing the assassin class in the Fies Kingdom exceeded that of several neighboring kingdoms by several points. That alone showed how great an impact this incident had had on the player base.

For the Fies Kingdom, it had also been a resounding slap in the face. Such an incident had occurred during the kingdom's most important festival, and several nobles had been killed. It was as if the entire royal family's dignity had been thrown to the ground and stomped on repeatedly.

This was also one of the triggers for the Fies Kingdom's later invasion of other countries during the Version 2.0 storyline.

Yet even after the Fies Kingdom ultimately won that war and gained countless benefits, the "Viscount Kane Assassination Case" never received any follow-up, as though everyone in the kingdom had forgotten it.

Even later, when lore-focused players researched and compiled the history books of Fanor Continent, they found no clues whatsoever. They merely recorded the incident as one of the causes of the Fanor Continent War.

"Damn it, what did Viscount Kane ever do wrong? Why did they have to treat him like this?!"

Li Si Kane painfully knocked on his head, indignantly protesting on behalf of the unfortunate Viscount Kane—himself, now. He had enjoyed watching that cutscene in his previous life, but when he was the victim, it was a completely different matter.

In his previous life, some players had speculated that the assassination had been staged by the Fies Kingdom itself to create an excuse for the war it later launched. After all, the Fies Kingdom had long coveted the Bertich Kingdom's eastern seaport. However, there was no evidence, and the theory did not quite hold up logically. Later, too many major events occurred, and people gradually stopped mentioning the assassination.

"There's still too little information. Besides, the assassination is more than three months away. There's no way to figure out who wants to kill me."

Li Si muttered, pressing his right hand to his temple.

In the end, he was still too weak!

If he were a Legendary-level mage, why would he need to worry about being assassinated by a high-level assassin? One Legendary Spell, Meteor Burst, and he could send the bastard straight to hell.

So his most urgent task now was to raise his strength.

Li Si summoned the system panel again and carefully examined every piece of data.

He was currently a level 30 Novice Mage. As he recalled, level 30 seemed to have been the maximum level players could reach during Divine Revelation Version 1.0.

Most classes in Divine Revelation followed the same progression. Taking mages as an example, levels 0 to 50 were Bronze Mages, levels 51 to 100 were Silver Mages, levels 101 to 200 were Gold Mages, and anything above level 200 entered the Legendary Realm. As for whether there were even higher levels beyond that, no one knew. After all, Divine Revelation had not yet opened content beyond level 200 in his previous life.

Ordinary level, ordinary attributes. Even his one outstanding trait—his identity as a Court Viscount—could not directly increase his combat strength.

Li Si even vaguely felt that the main reason he had been assassinated was precisely because of his identity as a Court Viscount.

Then the thing most worthy of his efforts was...

Li Si looked toward the talent section of his information panel.

--
Talent: All-Rounder

Rank: Legendary-level

Effect: Your talent transcends limitations, allowing you to learn and master the specialties and skills of other classes. Furthermore, the more class skills you master, excluding your main class skills, the faster your growth will become. (Current bonus experience gain: 0%)
--

Li Si frowned. His right index finger tapped rhythmically against the bed beneath him as he sank into thought.

After the excitement of obtaining a Legendary-level talent had faded, Li Si also discovered certain limitations of this powerful talent.

Although the All-Rounder talent was indeed powerful and allowed Li Si to master specialties and skills across different classes, it also created a new problem for him.

That was skill level!

In Divine Revelation, learning and mastering a skill was not the end, but only the beginning. Only by continuously raising a skill's level could a class skill display its true power. While increasing skill damage, it also enhanced the priority of the skill's effects.

Take the thief skill Stealth, for example. If Stealth was only level one, any professional above the intermediate level could discover the hidden user through instinct alone.

Thus, raising skill levels was an extremely high priority, and doing so required consuming the game character's experience points.

For the core skills of certain classes, raising their levels was even more important than raising the character's level.

Therefore, if Li Si indiscriminately learned a whole pile of skills from other classes without having enough experience points to cover the cost of upgrading them, those skills would be useless in actual combat. They could only serve as material for stacking Li Si's talent.

Even if the All-Rounder talent could provide Li Si with bonus experience gain, it likely could not meet the upgrade requirements for every skill.

But!

The All-Rounder could do more than let Li Si master the skills of other classes—it could also let him master all kinds of specialties!

Simply put, specialties were passive effects applied to one's body that remained active at all times. They generally enhanced attributes, special effects, resistances, and many other aspects.

Unlike class skills, specialties did not need to be leveled up. They were more powerful, but also harder to obtain.

For example, the core effect of Magic Energy Thinking, Li Si's mage class specialty, was that his Intelligence attribute received double its modifier. This was an effect shared by all mage class specialties.

Every class had its own unique class specialties, and different class specialties largely determined one's future development path.

If Li Si was right, he could obtain the class specialties of other classes as well!

Never mind the other effects—merely gaining the corresponding attribute modifier from another class would already be absurdly overpowered.

If Li Si obtained any warrior class specialty, his Strength attribute would likewise receive a double attribute modifier.

What kind of nonsense was that?

Not only could I hit harder than you, I'd be tougher than you too!

Li Si felt that he had found the correct way to use his talent.

While selectively learning class skills, he would focus more of his efforts on acquiring the specialties of various classes.

Perfect!

Who am I, Li Si?

A top-tier Divine Revelation power-leveler from my previous life—and a reborn man!

The methods and channels for obtaining powerful skills and specialties from every class are all stored in my head.

Isn't this right back in my area of expertise?

So what was there to worry about?

Grind—that's all there was to it!