Finally!
Li Wei felt a surge of joy. After about a week, he had finally completed the first stage of the Path of the Knight.
Just now... Had the system said something about a job change?
He glanced at Don Quixote, who was standing nearby and mumbling some kind of incantation, then opened the quest panel with a thought.
Sure enough, two completely different paths of knighthood had appeared on the system panel:
[Job Change Triggered!!!] [Knight Squire Li Wei, you now meet all the requirements to become a knight. You have good physical fitness and possess the virtues expected of a knight. Now it is time to choose your path.] [Path Choice 1: Lord Knight] [As a Lord Knight, you will no longer receive attribute bonuses. Instead, you will receive more rewards in the form of gold. You will have your own territory and ensure that the people in your fief enjoy a prosperous life. Job Change Reward: 100 gold coins, unlock the Lord's skill tree.] [Path Choice 2: Hero Knight] [As a Hero Knight, you will no longer receive rewards in the form of gold. Instead, you will receive more attribute bonuses. You will strive to climb ever higher peaks and become a legend. Job Change Rewards: +0.2 to all four attributes, unlock the Knight skill tree, gain Knight's Body.]
Li Wei stood where he was, hesitating for a moment, unsure which path to choose.
Both paths seemed to lead straight to the heavens.
The Lord Knight's path seemed like it could make him fabulously rich and let him build an unrivaled commercial empire.
The Hero Knight's path seemed to take his personal strength to the extreme. Maybe one day, he could really become a superhuman.
He decided to head back first and think it over once he was in the basement and had calmed down.
The closer he came to a crossroads in life, the more important it was to keep calm.
Meanwhile, Don Quixote's knighting ceremony had also officially come to an end.
"...By the authority of the Duke, I hereby declare you no longer a squire," Don Quixote said after finishing the incantation, patting Li Wei on the shoulder. "You are now an honorable knight."
"Do I still have to call you Sir Knight?" Li Wei asked with a joking smile as he came back to himself. "We're equals now, aren't we?"
Don Quixote paused. His sleepwalking mind seemed to consider the question seriously.
"For now, yes," he said. "But once we've driven out the witch together, His Grace will promote me."
"All right, all right." Li Wei shrugged. "Then can we go back now?"
Don Quixote glanced at the boundary stone, which they had moved to the side of the road. He nodded, and the two of them retraced their steps back to the basement.
As Don Quixote's snores filled the basement, Li Wei made his decision:
He planned to give up the Lord Knight path and choose the Hero Knight path instead, developing his personal strength to the utmost.
The Lord Knight path was quite good, and it would immediately give him 100 gold coins as seed money.
But Li Wei firmly believed in one thing:
While my neighbors stockpile grain, I stockpile guns. My neighbors become my granary.
As long as he could really become a superman—no, even just a Homelander—he would be able to dominate this world.
My whole life has been like walking on thin ice; everything I have is thanks to my own hard work! System, give me my points!
Li Wei carefully checked the choice over and over, more than ten times in all. Once he was sure, he took a deep breath, focused his thoughts, and slammed them into the page representing [Hero Knight].
[You have chosen your job: Hero Knight]
The system page turned into specks of light in an instant and entered his body.
A force more than twice as immense as the one that had flooded into him when he gained 0.3 attribute points at once poured into his body in the form of glowing specks.
This time, it didn't feel like a "warm current," or a "river."
It was a raging tide.
It felt as if molten iron were being poured straight into his marrow, or as if a pair of invisible giant hands were tearing apart every bone, nerve, and bundle of muscle fibers in his body, crushing them, then reforging and reassembling them from some denser, inconceivable material.
"Urgh..." Li Wei clenched his teeth. "This feels a little different from last time..."
He could clearly hear the cracking sounds coming from inside him, as if his bones were growing denser by the second. His spine was like a great dragon awakening, making the skin along his back rise and fall violently. Each vertebra shifted into place, growing thicker and harder.
A century passed—or perhaps only an instant.
Li Wei slowly climbed up from the mattress. Sweat had soaked him through, and faint, dark-red grime was even oozing from his pores.
[Strength 1.2]--[Strength 1.4] [Constitution 1.2]--[Constitution 1.4] [Agility 1.2]--[Agility 1.4] [Spirit 1.3]--[Spirit 1.5] [Obtained Knight: Bronze Body] [Clumsy Eloquence]--[Eloquent Speaker] [Eloquent Speaker: Once per day, directly persuade someone with weak willpower; against someone with strong willpower, there is a 50% chance of success.] [Berserk] upgraded, duration extended. [Berserk: Once per day, for 60 seconds, double the results of Strength, Constitution, and Agility checks.]
There were so many system messages that Li Wei felt a little dizzy, so he opened his status panel directly:
[Name: Li Wei] [Age: 17] [Class: Knight: Bronze Body (Extraordinary)] [Strength: 1.4] [Spirit: 1.5] [Agility: 1.4] [Constitution: 1.4] [Skills: Eloquent Speaker, Berserk] [Equipment: None]
A new class, Li Wei thought to himself. But what was this Bronze Body?
With a thought, another page appeared, offering a detailed explanation of the Bronze Body:
[Knight: Bronze Body (Extraordinary): This is your first step into the Extraordinary. Your body is gradually evolving in an inconceivable direction. You now have a special power surrounding your entire body, which you can activate or deactivate at will.] [When activated, it slightly enhances your body's resistance to impact and provides good protection against weapons, disease, and plague.]
After reading all that, including the skill descriptions, Li Wei stood in the washroom and couldn't help laughing out loud.
This time, he had really made out like a bandit.
The 0.8 attribute points had greatly improved his physical fitness. It was no exaggeration to say that in any individual aspect, his physical abilities were now on the level of an international athlete or a super-soldier.
Perhaps because his Spirit had increased, both of his skills had leveled up as well.
His persuasion skill had evolved, and the duration of [Berserk] had doubled.
But what interested him most was the newly acquired [Bronze Body (Extraordinary)].
He could feel a substance that only he could see surrounding his entire body, opening and closing at his will like a passive skill.
"Provides good protection against weapons..."
Li Wei looked at the manual razor on the washbasin.
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