Upgrade

Once he had chosen a class, leveling up no longer brought up the prompt "Please choose a starting class."

He pressed lightly with his finger, and his level changed from 0 to 1.

As he leveled up, several attributes on the stat chart flashed +1. It was not much, but Pan Long could clearly feel a slight increase in his strength.

He pressed four more times, raising his level to 5. Strength, constitution, and luck rose by 3; spirit and spirituality rose by 2; perception rose by 4; and reaction rose by 5. This time, the effect was much more obvious. He could feel that his body had grown considerably more agile, probably because his reaction attribute had increased by nearly a tenth.

A tenth did not sound like much, but for him, it would have taken at least several months of hard training. And that was while his strength was still growing rapidly. At his father Pan Lei's level, even several years might not have brought such an improvement.

Bottlenecks were real. He knew several people who had been stopped short of the Innate Realm, trapped at a bottleneck for more than a decade without breaking through.

By comparison, he had improved this much in a single day and night. If anyone found out, plenty of people would be so green with envy that their eyes would turn redder than a rabbit's.

And attributes were not the only things he could improve.

He slid his finger over to the skill panel.

Unlike before, when it had been completely empty, the skill panel now displayed a tree of several skills. All the icons were gray, indicating that he had not learned them. Only Dagger Mastery, at the bottom of the tree, bore a green "+" sign showing it could be upgraded.

At the bottom of the skill panel, it showed that he had 5 skill points. Just like in the game, he gained one for every level.

"Only five, huh? I'll have to use them sparingly..."

As he spoke, Pan Long tapped the Dagger Mastery icon.

[Dagger Mastery 1/5: A Thief trusts nothing except the dagger in his hand. (When using daggers or short blades, attack +2/+10, combat speed +1/+5, critical hit chance +2/+10)]

Memories of wielding daggers and short blades suddenly filled his mind. He pulled the dagger from his boot and instinctively held it in a reverse grip, poised to slash outward.

"Huh?!"

Surprised, he gave it a few casual swings. Every stroke went for a vital point on an imaginary enemy. Every stroke was meant to kill.

He was far from truly proficient, but... he had never trained with a dagger before!

To him, a dagger had only ever been a tool for cutting things.

Now, though, his dagger skills were at least good enough for a fight.

"Upgrading a skill has this benefit too?"

Dagger Mastery could be raised to level 5. He wanted to add a few more levels and see how far it would take him, but when he saw that he had only four skill points left, he shook his head.

"I'll upgrade something else."

With Dagger Mastery lit up, three more skills became available on the tree. He looked them over and upgraded Light on Your Feet.

[Light on Your Feet: Rogues do not wear armor. Their agility is the best armor they have. (When equipment weight is less than 50% of strength, movement speed +5, combat speed +2)]

The skill had only one level and was a prerequisite for every movement and footwork skill.

After upgrading it, he felt his body grow more agile again. He tried walking a few steps. Without deliberately creeping, his footsteps naturally became lighter, and his speed increased considerably.

"Interesting. Let's see what else there is."

He looked at the other side of the skill tree, where he found Lockpicking.

[Lockpicking: A Thief's most important ability. Without it, who would become a Thief? (Can open ordinary locks that have not been magically sealed)]

"Will upgrading this teach me how to pick locks outright?"

This skill also had only one level and no follow-up for now. Whether it gained one would depend on his class after his class advancement.

Once he upgraded it, a wealth of knowledge about opening all kinds of locks appeared in his mind, just as he had guessed. If he had possessed tools like the fine steel wire used for lockpicking, or even a lock to open, he would have tried it on the spot.

"Two points left... I'll upgrade a Thief's signature skill first!"

A Thief's signature skill was, of course, Stealth.

[Stealth: Hide in the darkness, approach silently like a ghost, and deliver a fatal blow. (When in darkness and out of an enemy's sight, you can enter Stealth. While in Stealth, movement speed -5 and critical hit chance +15. Attacking, being attacked, or coming into close contact with two enemies automatically ends Stealth. Can be detected by reconnaissance.)]

Like Lockpicking, it had only one level. Further skills would not appear until after his class advancement.

Upgrading it did not change his physical abilities, but it gave him a complete set of techniques for moving unseen.

He stepped into the guest room's shadows. His body naturally dipped slightly, and he vanished into the darkness.

Breathing and moving in a particular way, he slowly walked out of the shadows. He could clearly feel that he was now in a special state.

His footsteps made no sound. He really did move like a ghost. When he looked down, even his hands and legs seemed a little hazy. They were not transparent; he could plainly see them, yet his attention instinctively slid past them. Perhaps "a reduced sense of presence" was the best way to describe it.

"Stealth really is amazing! If I'd had this skill earlier, I could've slipped into the army camp and set a few more fires..."

As he muttered to himself, he noticed that he had spent one point of mana.

Just like in the game, remaining in Stealth consumed mana.

He waited a while longer and estimated that it consumed one point every three minutes. With his current 21 mana, he could probably stay hidden for about an hour.

That was more than enough time. Besides, mana recovered fairly quickly. As long as he relaxed and rested, he would regain one point every ten minutes and recover it all in a little over three hours.

From experience, health should recover twice as fast as mana. In other words, as long as no one killed him outright, even if a beating left him with only a breath of life, a little over four hours of rest would restore all 53 of his health.

"So this is the legendary method of catching your breath to recover health? I never thought I'd get this benefit too!"

He spent his last skill point on the offensive skill Vital Strike.

As soon as he acquired it, he gained a great deal of knowledge about finding an enemy's vital points and striking them to inflict more serious injuries.

But honestly, it was nothing special.

Pan Long had already learned many moves aimed at vital points. Martial arts, especially unarmed fighting styles, placed great importance on striking an opponent's weak spots. The knowledge this skill gave him was no more profound than what he already knew.

The difference was simply that these were techniques for attacking vital points with daggers and short blades. Many of the finer details were tailored to those weapons. If he used them, his fighting ability would certainly rise again.

[Vital Strike 1/10: However small the weapon or weak the force, a stab to a vital point can still kill. (Launch one attack aimed at an enemy's vital point. Costs 5 MP. Critical hit chance +2/+20)]

Although the skill could reach level 10 and likely had room to grow stronger, Pan Long had already decided to move it down his list of priorities.

"With my Iron Palm, any hit I land on an enemy counts as a vital strike. Why would I need to go looking for a vital point?"

He had plenty of confidence in his family's martial art.

Still, the more skills he had, the better. Who knew whether he might one day need to kill an enemy with a dagger or short blade? His father was a perfect example. If Left-Hand Sword Jin Biao killed someone, what did that have to do with Pan Lei of the Iron Palm?

The thought made him laugh.

He opened his character panel again and studied his skills some more.

"A Thief's fighting style really does revolve around critical hits. Dagger Mastery, Stealth, even Vital Strike, which I don't plan to upgrade for now—not to mention Backstab and Shadow Kill, which I'll get later. They're all built around raising critical hit chance."

"According to the rules of the Heroes' Tale games, a critical hit deals double damage. Assassin classes even have skills specifically for enhancing critical hits: triple, quadruple, or quintuple damage; reducing the enemy's defense on a critical hit; instantly retreating after one; following up with another attack... It all revolves around critical hits."

"But... what would a critical hit actually look like? If I clipped one of an enemy's hairs with a tiny dagger, could that trigger a critical hit and kill him outright?"

Imagining that possibility, he could not help laughing.

If it really worked that way, it would be hilarious!

He looked again at the skill tree, only a small part of which he had lit up, and sighed.

"Not enough skill points!"

He gained only one skill point per level, yet there were so many skills to learn, and many could be upgraded further after he learned them. There were nowhere near enough points!

It was not just because he was only level 5. Even the characters he had once played who could advance to hidden classes and reach level 100 had still run short of skill points.

The game had plenty of ways to earn extra skill points, but not one of them would work in Luna Village. As for later... who knew whether he would ever open this world again?

According to his elders, the worlds opened by a Classic of Mountains and Seas Fragment were illusions, like bubbles on water that formed and burst in an instant. Even if two worlds looked identical, they were completely unrelated. But he did not think that was true.

From what he had seen and heard over the past two days, this world, at least, was far more real and complex than some of the worlds his father had described.

For one thing, his father had opened so many worlds, yet he had never obtained a system panel in any of them and gained a whole extra set of abilities.

His Left-Hand Sword had not come from leveling up. He had earned it through relentless training, hammering it into shape with time and sweat.

If the worlds his father opened had been like this one, he would have been far more than an Innate Realm master. He might have long since achieved Return to the Natural State and entered the True Person Realm, or even achieved immortality and joined the ranks of immortals and Buddhas!

The same went for the Pan Lineage's ancestors. They could never have opened a world this powerful. Otherwise, the Pan Lineage would never have remained a mere local power in one town. Even if they had not challenged the Di Lineage for dominion over the realm, they should at least have become an illustrious family of their age, one that heeded orders but refused summons.

What made the worlds I opened different from everyone else's?

Pan Long was still pondering the question when he fell asleep.

(The end of this chapter)