Chapter 244: Chapter 57 [Sage]!
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
After raising the Shadow Dancer’s profession level, Soran was still left with roughly 60,000 Slaughter EXP.
In a breath, he added the remaining Slaughter EXP into his Wizard profession level. He was planning to get more Attribute Points since this was his last chance to get Attribute Points in advance. Wizards starting from level 9 onwards would require double Slaughter EXP to raise their power. After their profession level had reached 15, Wizard’s raising their profession level would require Slaughter EXP that was way higher than any other professions. In the future, unless Soran was able to successfully kill a G.o.d, if not, the speed of acc.u.mulating Slaughter EXP would never be near enough.
“Wizard profession level raised to level 8.”
“You have acquired 25 ( Intelligence Points 20+ (Intelligence 20-10)*0.5) Skill Points. Hit Points raised by 10 points (Profession life force 4points+ (Const.i.tution 21-10)*0.5).”
“You have acquired a free Attribute point.”
“Wizard profession level raised to level 9.”
“You have acquired 25 (Intelligence points 20+ (Intelligence 20-10)*0.5) Skill Points. Hit Points raised by 10 points (Profession life force 4points+ (Const.i.tution 21-10)*0.5).”
“You have acquired an Ability Point.”
Two levels, one attribute point. Three levels, one ability point.
Soran added his attribute points into his Dexterity, raising his Dexterity points to 24 points. Acquiring an ability point to advance [Enhanced Dual-wielding] afterward. Although Soran felt like using the ability point to master the Wizard’s metamagic abilities, after much contemplation, he still felt it was better to add them to fighting skills. Wizard’s fighting abilities were strong, but they were a profession that consumed lots of time, money and energy. Soran did not have enough time to learn spells, conduct research, and train casting skills. Hence, his top fighting priority was still in the Rogue’s domain where he was more familiar with.
Wizard’s spells were only supplementary to his current fighting abilities!
“Greater Dual-wielding [Personal Ability]: With the increasing experience in fighting, your Dual-wielding is reaching perfection sooner. You are already a master of Dual-wielding, and there are not many people in the Underdark who are stronger than you. Among 1000 people who use Dual-wielding, you can even rank first. You have mastered and understood the advanced skills of Dual-wielding, There is no penalty if there was a mistake when you use Dual-wielding. [Number of attacks per round + 3, No Accuracy Punishment, Dexterity 18 points.]
I have finally acquired [Greater Dual-wielding].
Soran looked at his surroundings, then left for the edge of the boat. He held onto both his Curved Swords, then raised his feet to lift a wooden plank.
Ke-Qiang!
There were flashes of cold light.
Soran held a Curved Sword in both hands and unsheathed them at the same time. The wooden plank was shrouded with a blade’s flash in mid-air. When Soran finished a round of attacks and sheathed the swords, the wooden plank already became 12 pieces of fragmented wooden blocks and fell onto the ground. In total, he had just slashed it 8 times. His right hand slashed 5 times, his left slashed 3 times. Because he had not mastered [Legendary Dual-wielding] fighting ability, Soran still was not able to perfectly support the speed of his hands. Resulting in this being his limit now.
At the moment, the skill acc.u.mulation was still not enough. Soran in his peak was able to slash 18 times in a round. [Note: a round refers to the speed of slas.h.i.+ng in a second. Realistically, during an actual fight, it would be an unsustainable speed. Those interested could try it with a knife. An ordinary person could only achieve around two to three slashes in a second. Increasing that would have been very difficult. ]
He finished allocating the free attribute points and ability points.
Soran focused his attention on the skill points. He bitterly held back for so long, he had finally reached this day where he had the prerequisites to master the pa.s.sive ability [Sage].
G.o.d has spoken!
After enduring for so long, he finally reached the end. To achieve the prerequisites of mastering Sage, he did not even add much skill points in his Rogue’s basic abilities, which was his main profession. He only relied on his own fighting to acc.u.mulate bit by bit to advance, which was honestly, really quite slow. Currently, some of Soran’s Rogue basic abilities had not even reached 50 points. If it was not for mastering the pa.s.sive ability [Sage], he would have raised all his Rogue’s basic abilities to more than 100 points long ago.
With the allocation of skill points, Soran’s Literacy has finally reached 250 points.
A row of data emerged:
“Unique requisites triggered!…”
“Prerequisites of ability [Able Learner] achieved!… Prerequisites of 250 points in Literacy achieved!…”
“You have automatically acquired the pa.s.sive ability [Sage]!….”
The row of data alert that had just appeared and Soran could not wait to see his new pa.s.sive ability.
“Sage [Pa.s.sive Ability]: Your Literacy has become more and more amazing. You can almost comprehend any domain. With more knowledge, most of the things you do can be comprehended easily, and you can learn several times faster than others. It’s not just knowledge, even all kinds of fighting skills. You know how to calculate the central gravity of a weapon, how to calculate the time interval of casting and use it to maximize its power. Not only this but the acc.u.mulation of knowledge to your present level can already be directly transformed into real power! [Literacy + 10]
(Prerequisite: Acquired [Able Learner] ability, Literacy 250 points.)
(Unique ability [Great Learner] prerequisite.)
(Unique ability [Star Traveller] prerequisite.)
(Unique ability [Plane Explorer] prerequisite.)
“This is!?….”
In the past, there were no casting related sub-professions. Soran’s Literacy in the past was not very high and did not have the gifted ability [Able Learner].
That was why when he saw the row of triggered prerequisites alert at the back, Soran could not help but be surprised. Among them, it was needless to say that [Great Learner] belonged to the advanced ability of [Sage]. But the latter two alerts seemed to be a little bit overwhelming. One could feel that they were very powerful just by looking at the name, especially the [Star Traveler], which was a very famous pa.s.sive ability. Many legendary Wizards who were extremely powerful, all had the pa.s.sive ability [Star Traveler]. This belonged to a legendary level pa.s.sive ability.
As for the other [Plane Explorer], Soan was not familiar with it.
After finis.h.i.+ng the allocation of the Literacy ability, Soran still had 12 skill points left. In a breath, he added everything into Sneak. No Rogue would have ever complained about having their Sneak skill being too high.
At this time.
Soran’s overall attributes were vastly different from the past. He has finally entered the cla.s.s of powerful people.
“Name: Soran.
Race: Half-Elf [Son of Slaughter].
Attributes: Strength 14 (+2), Dexterity 24 (+1), Const.i.tution 21, Intelligence 20(+1), Wisdom 15, Charisma 18 (+2).
Alignment: Lawful Evil.
Profession: Level 10 Commoner/Level 7 Pirate (0/63500) / Level 3 Shadow Dancer (0/75500) / Level 9 Wizard (0/68500) [Grade Three].
Hit Points: 254/254.
Experience points: 3075 (Slaughter EXP), 545 points (Profession experience) [Not allocated yet]
Skill Points: None.
Attribute points: None.
Legend Rating: 21.
Divine points: 9.
Current state: Normal.
Basic Skills — Sneak 185, Literacy 250, Steal 45, Pick Lock 55, Snare 60, Concentration 30, Diplomacy 45, Appraise 30, Deception 18, Intimidation 42, Taunt 15, Performance 15, Listen 20, Evasion 85, Parry 25, Block 18, Heal 45, Search 20, Detect 25, Scribe Scroll 25, Spellcraft 20, Survival 15, Use Magic Device 20, Cooking 30, Alchemy 15.
Legendary Skills — Omnipotent Hands.
Unique Abilities — Blessings of the Maid of Fortune, Blessings of the Sea G.o.ddess, Murderous Heart, Slaughterer, the Ascetic, Sage.
Personal Ability — Nimble Left Hand, Eidetic Memory, Firm Power, Able Learner, Reflex Evasion, Mobile Movement, Evade Sight, Dark Vision, Spell Control, Empower Spell, Lesser Cold Resistance, Greater Dual-wielding, Rebirth [Middle Level].
Profession Ability — Grasp of Shadows, Martial Weapon [Proficiency], Curved Sword [Master]
Combat Ability — Conjure Shadows, Fear Gaze (Divine), Fear (Divine), Shadow Strike, Shadow Jump, Counterspell, Sword Form [Heavy Hack], Sword Form [Behead].”
Combat power comprised of three parts.
The first was ability points: personal attributes were the most direct combat power. People with high Strength were able to destroy things easily, and so on.
The second was basic abilities. Under different circ.u.mstances, this was what mattered. It was the most obvious way to find out your deficiencies. If your parry or block was insufficient, you would not be able to fight a hard battle. If your evasion was too low, if met with arrows, you would be dead. It would be devastating if your Detect, Listen, Survival did not amount to much. Any person would be able to Sneak Attack on you. If your Detect was too low, you might not even be able to find your rewards. As for the others like Performance, Deception, Intimidation, they were very useful basic abilities. If you were met with any dangerous situation, you would really require Diplomacy, Appraise and Heal as well. These seemingly unimportant basic abilities, at many times, were the deciding factor of your fate!
The last was abilities! This was the most time-consuming, hard to train and master, but also compromised a huge part of your combat power.
Logically speaking, a large part of why a high-grade profession would be able to skip levels to fight stronger enemies was mainly because their skills had obvious advantages. The power of these three parts combined would be your overall combat ability. When against your enemies, if any part was able to give you an advantage, the chances of you winning would be raised significantly.
Soran always liked to calculate his chances of winning every time he moved!
At many times, in his heart, he had already calculated his chances of winning based on these three conditions. If he did not have an obvious chance of winning, he would give up fighting in the end.
Time pa.s.sed bit by bit.
Sailing on the seas was a huge waste of time. Moreover, it was extremely boring most of the time.
Soran had expended most of the Slaughter EXP in a breath and then began to train his combat abilities. Earning Slaughter EXP was only a part of improving one’s strength. It was also very important to sharpen one’s fighting skills and master one’s abilities. Adele-Isabella was still Soran’s training partner, but this time Soran increased the difficulty. He directly covered his eyes with a black cloth. [Blind-Fight] ability was a very important unique ability. It would prove to be useful in many times. Soran must master it in advance.
Dang dang dang!
Two people started to probe each other’s skills during the exchange.
Since Soran had covered his eyes, most of the time he was defensive and was disadvantaged during the exchange with Adele-Isabella. But he did not show signs of losing. As the number of fights increased, it was the opposite. He was slowly able to remain undefeated. He didn’t know if it was his own misconceptions, but after he had mastered the [Sage] ability, it seemed like his entire mind had been clearer. During the fights, he was able to sum up Adele-Isabella’s attack style, the pattern of her attack skills, and subconsciously, her next direction of attack and more.
He was even able to summarize the ‘Position Perception through Wind’ ability in his memories, including which sounds equating to which movement.
This was not just an increase in Intelligence!
In Soran’s view, it might have been that his ability to compute and summarize had been further strengthened. It was like his knowledge had been acc.u.mulated to a certain critical point and suddenly began to comprehend it completely.
In his head, he was even able to predict Adele’s next attack and its direction!
This feeling was a little like [Danger Sense].
Dang dang dang!
After a series of battles rang, Soran gradually started to feel in his own element. Sometimes, based on the skills of Blind-Fight, he was even able to counter-attack against the red-haired female pirate.
Adele-Isabella felt that the fights were getting harder and harder. She panted, while raising her hand to lift her long red hair, and looked at Soran with awe and disbelief. It was like looking at a monster. She had never seen a guy with such amazing talent and fast learning ability. But this level of learning and mastering abilities of Soran’s, she had never heard of it before. In the beginning, just to master the [Blind-fight] skill, she spent nearly a year or two just training for it.
But Soran had only used how many days now?
Only three days had pa.s.sed.
At this rate, it would not even be half a month, his Blind-fight ability would have already leveled. (Acquire three information alerts.)
An afternoon’s training pa.s.sed by quickly.
After Soran ended today’s training, he had already received the second ordinary skill’s information:
“Fighting experience!”
“After successive fights on the sea, your fighting abilities on the sea has risen. The ability to balance and resist against the s.h.i.+p’s turbulence has risen.”
“You have acquired part of the information on [Sea Combat].”
It might have been because the acc.u.mulation was not enough.
For now, Soran had only received information on [Sea Combat]. The other skills required more acc.u.mulation training.
Two days pa.s.sed quickly.
As the fleet headed to the Overseas Islands, the number of encounters with sea creatures had gradually increased. They saw a school of Swordfish, which numbered over tens of thousands, and even a large group of flying fish that glimmered with the sea, along with countless sorts of different fishes in huge groups. As the deep-sea regions had many dangerous sea creatures, many fishermen would enter them as these fishes moved in groups that numbered from thousands to ten thousand and even millions.
Last afternoon, Soran even saw the sea turned red!
He thought that they had encountered some sort of monster, and was even a little frightened inside. Then, he realized that it was just numerous lobsters. These lobsters were only about three fingers wide. Its size was quite common in the current sea area. It was hard to say how many lobsters there were. In any case, when a sailor threw the fis.h.i.+ng net down, he managed to catch hundreds of red sh.e.l.led lobsters. The taste was nothing special. It was not that different from the lobster he had eaten before in his previous life.
However, their claws were stronger and bigger than the ones in his previous life.
If one came across a larger lobster, it could even cut off a person’s finger directly. There was an unlucky sailor who almost had his finger cut off by a lobster.
In the evening.
Soran sat on the deck and cut the lobster with a dagger. Most of the lobsters were two fingers thick, some of which were bigger and could even reach the size of human hands. The other pirates below fished up more than ten lobsters and sent someone to please Soran. Then Soran turned around and made a roasted lobster. Now he was feeding a greasy mouthed Vivian.
The little girl ate happily today.
Because it was made by her older brother, and also because her older brother made it nice!
Soran was richer.
Naturally, he could also afford those expensive seasonings. The key to cooking was nothing more than just these three points, ingredients, seasonings and cooking skills.
Soran now had good ingredients, expensive spices, and good cooking skills.
Naturally, the food would not taste bad!
The little girl ate two lobsters in a row, only then was she satisfied rubbing her belly. But at this time, a lookout on the side of a s.h.i.+p made a distress call, shouting: “Sea monster!… There’s a sea monster!”
A commotion broke out.
Afterward, in the distance, a large shadow appeared. The shadow lurked in the depths of the sea and looked like a huge cuttlefish that was over 50 meters.
It was a sea monster!
The surroundings resounded, then numerous people nervously looked towards Soran.
“Calm down!”
Soran stood at the helm of the s.h.i.+p and said: “We’ll move past it like that. n.o.body moves.”
That sea monster was a big cuttlefish that was around 60 meters long. Its big figure was quite intimidating. It had noticed the fleet in front of it and had circled halfway around Soran. Then it seemed to have felt something and avoided the fleet. It swam roughly 100 meters away from them.
There were no accidents, and no fights broke out.
The two parties just crossed each other like that!
Soran kept watching the sea monster leave, in his heart he thought: “Seems like the Blessing of the Sea G.o.ddess was quite effective!”
In the next two days, they encountered another two sea monsters. But the targets had not attacked them. Until the fifth day of the voyage, they were finally close to their destination, and Soran began to see scattered islands.
They were reaching the Overseas Islands!