novelraw Chapter 202: Level 6 Warrior, Level 8 Mage!
Chapter 202: Level 6 Warrior, Level 8 Mage!
Chapter 202: Level 6 Warrior, Level 8 Mage!The first things to learn were naturally the physical profession skills with relatively low learning difficulty. For Lin Mo, these skills were basically all things he could pick up after only a short look.
The warrior skills Jumping Slash and Whip Kick, the assassin skill Poison Coating, the knight skill Shield Riposte, plus the ranger skills Eagle Eye, Spiral Arrow, and Returning Arrow — Lin Mo finished all of them in just over ten minutes.
"Learned skill Jumping Slash, gained attribute point Strength +1!"
"Learned skill Whip Kick, gained attribute points Strength +1, Agility +1!"
"Learned skill Poison Coating, gained attribute points Agility +2, Spirit +1!"
"Oh?"
Whip Kick itself, besides Strength, places a lot of emphasis on speed, so it wasn’t surprising that Whip Kick increased both Strength and Agility.
What surprised Lin Mo a bit was that Poison Coating increased Spirit in addition to the assassin's main attribute, Agility.
Sure enough, anything related to research has an inextricable link to Spirit.
Take alchemists, who are hailed as one of the most profitable professions on the continent—the attribute they need most is Spirit, even more than Mana in many cases.Research topics related to magic, secret realms, magical beasts, and most profession-related studies are usually handled by mages or alchemists.
Increasing the Spirit attribute not only raises mental load capacity and the number of spells that can be cast, it also enhances insight, focus, and even thinking ability—traits essential for research work.
These skill effects were basically literal;
there was nothing more to say.
"Learned skill Shield Riposte, gained attribute points Constitution +2!"
Shield Riposte: Infuse qi and blood into the shield to block part of incoming damage and perform a rapid counterattack.
This skill is one of the better-known knight abilities. As everyone knows, knights generally have low Agility, so their attacks tend to be slower and clumsier;
it’s especially hard for them to hit agile professions.
Shield Riposte can ease that problem to some extent.
The counterattack speed of Shield Riposte far exceeds a knight's normal attack speed, but the skill requires precise timing.
Because the skill consumes a fair amount and lasts only a short while, you must seize the fleeting opportunity to trigger it successfully.
If you manage to land a Shield Riposte, the typically fragile Constitution and defenses of Agility-based professions will absolutely pay the price.
"Learned skill Eagle Eye, gained attribute points Agility +1, Spirit +1!"
Eagle Eye enhances sight range and accuracy and grants some night vision. It’s not surprising that this type of skill relates to Spirit.
"Learned skill Spiral Arrow, gained attribute points Strength +1, Agility +1!"
"Learned skill Returning Arrow, gained attribute points Agility +2!"
There’s nothing special to say about these two skills either. Firing a Spiral Arrow requires a degree of Strength, while Returning Arrow relies more on technique.
He also borrowed Bella’s Pounce skill and learned a bit.
"Learned skill Pounce, gained attribute points Strength +2!"
A string of skill learnings made Ellie’s base attributes rise correspondingly.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t been paying attention to those things, but he took advantage of the momentum and immediately moved on to learning magic skills.
Compared to physical skills, magic skills are much easier to learn. Whether priest skills or mage skills, they require analyzing and attempting mana circuit operations, but as you master more spells the operations grow simpler, and Ellie was becoming increasingly familiar with the process.
White common-grade spells like Earth Spike and Water Orb could be handled from circuit activation to circuit combination in about five minutes.
"Learned skill Water Orb, gained attribute point Mana +1!"
"Learned skill Earth Spike, gained attribute point Mana +1!"
These two are the most basic spells, just like Fireball.
Next were the slightly more difficult green excellent-grade priest skills: Sustained Healing and Light’s Inspiration.
Because Lin Mo didn’t have as much familiarity with priest-related mana circuit research, he spent a bit more time—roughly half an hour in total—to master the two skills.
"Learned skill Sustained Healing, gained attribute points Mana +2!"
Sustained Healing: Condense light-element Mana and apply a "healing" mark to the designated target that provides continuous minor healing (about one-fifteenth of a standard Healing Art) for 60 seconds.
A healing skill that can be pre-cast and remain active during battle—quite useful. Its total healing equals about four times that of a single Healing Art, though still less than Greater Healing Art, which is also a green excellent-grade skill.
"Learned skill Light’s Inspiration, gained attribute points Mana +2!"
This skill helps restore stamina and boost morale. Exactly how much it restores isn't clear yet;
he’d know once he used it in practice.
In any case, Lin Mo himself likely wouldn't use this skill much—it's more for helping others.
After all, his character sheet was well-rounded;
his Constitution was not low. In the goblin siege earlier, both his Mana and Qi and Blood had been drained, yet he still had some stamina left.
That had a lot to do with Lin Mo's somewhat "extravagant" combat style. Normal professionals, except mages, usually don't go into a fight spamming skills right away.
They typically use ordinary attacks and techniques first, and only activate skills at critical moments.
Finally, there remained one blue exceptional-grade magic left — the highest level and the hardest to learn: Thunderfall.
The learning difficulty for exceptional-grade spells is much higher than excellent-grade ones;
Thunderfall required linking eight Mana circuits to cast.
Just learning this single spell took Lin Mo far longer than learning all the previous skills combined.
But that's just him;
for a normal person, even with a skill scroll and a master nearby, learning an exceptional-grade spell would take several days or even half a month.
Even a magic prodigy like Flora, given the same conditions, might need a day or two.
In any case, Lin Mo eventually mastered the spell.
"Learned skill Thunderfall, gained attribute points Mana +3!"
As the name implies, this is a pure-damage skill focused entirely on absolute output with no utility.
Thunderfall: Manipulate Mana to draw down thunder elements that crash from the sky, dealing massive thunder-element damage to the target!
With that, all the skills he had retrieved from the City Lord's Mansion were learned.
But Lin Mo still had other business to attend to: choosing evolution routes for the two exceptional-grade skills Poison Coating and Thunderfall.
First, Poison Coating.
Please choose evolution direction—
Evolution Route 1: Toxin Strengthening I: Poison Coating's toxin amplification increases to 25%!
Evolution Route 2: Rapid Coating I: Poison Coating speed increases by 50%!
Poison Coating originally increased toxin strength by 15%. Route 1, which raises it to 25%, seemed like a solid improvement.
Route 2, increasing the speed of poisoning... felt like filler. Lin Mo couldn't see a good reason to pick it.
Usually Poison Coating is done before battle;
who would apply poison mid-fight? Where exactly would quicker poisoning be useful—mass-producing poisoned weapons to sell?
That might work—you could earn more the faster you coat—but Lin Mo wasn't going to pick it.
He chose Route 1 without hesitation.
Next, Thunderfall.
Please choose evolution direction—
Evolution Route 1: Area Enhancement I: Thunderfall's area increases by 20%!
Evolution Route 2: Frenzied Thunder Power I: Skill cost increases by 30%, power increases by 15%!
One route increases the spell's area, but Thunderfall's base area is already small. Even a 20% increase wouldn't turn it into a true AOE.
The other route trades higher Mana consumption for greater power. A 30% cost increase for 15% more power seems like a poor trade, but compared to the previous spell evolution choices, this was actually rather useful.
Since Lin Mo's Mana attribute was fairly high now, and under normal circumstances Mana was sufficient except in extraordinary battles like a goblin siege, a slightly higher cost was acceptable.
So he picked Route 2.
After finishing all that, Lin Mo checked the notifications he had missed earlier.
From the attribute boosts gained by learning those skills, his base Strength reached 60 points and base Mana exceeded 80 points, which caused both professions to level up once more.
"Promotion conditions met: Warrior profession (lv5) promoted — current profession Warrior (lv6)."
"Profession attribute increase obtained: Strength +4, Constitution +4, Agility +3, Spirit +1!"
Going from level 5 to 6 is the crucial breakthrough from entry-level professional to veteran-level professional.
Just like when his mage profession broke through earlier, Lin Mo directly received a 12-point attribute increase—double the boost he got from level 4 to 5.
In addition, there was an upgrade to the profession-tier skill.
"Your warrior-tier skill — Warrior's Heart — has upgraded!"
Warrior's Heart Lv2: Having endured countless trials, you have grown into a powerful warrior. The will to fight burns in your heart, making you fearless and relentless!
Skill effect: Stamina +20%, skill cost reduction -20%
Similar to the Mage Heart upgrade earlier, Warrior's Heart's effect rose from 10% to 20% after upgrading.
Next came an extra profession-tier insignia.
"Congratulations on becoming a Veteran-level Warrior. Your understanding of combat has deepened. Your profession rank has increased;
you have obtained the Profession Rank Insignia I — Veteran: increases Warrior skill cast speed and projectile speed by 10%!"
Like the mage profession’s insignia earlier, this is a functional improvement.
Faster skill cast speeds make Lin Mo's warrior skills trigger more quickly, and the projectile speed affects the travel speed of things like Sword Energy after release. Overall, a useful boost.
Then the mage profession also had a promotion.
"Promotion conditions met: Mage profession (lv7) promoted — current profession Mage (lv8)."
"Profession attribute increase obtained: Constitution +1, Agility +1, Spirit +2, Mana +4!"
The mage profession rising from level 7 to 8 gave an 8-point attribute increase, two points more than the increase from level 6 to 7.
From this, one could deduce the attribute increase rule for veteran-level professionals:
It seems that each level-up grants 2 more attribute points than the previous level did.
Lin Mo opened his status panel.
Name: Lin Mo
Professions: Warrior lv6, Knight lv3, Assassin lv5, Mage lv8, Priest lv5, Ranger lv5
Attributes: (numbers in parentheses are after profession boosts)
Strength: 60 (+30 = 90)
Agility: 58 (+49 = 107)
Constitution: 39 (+24 = 63)
Spirit: 23 (+29 = 52)
Mana: 82 (+39 = 121)
Fire Element Affinity: 26% + 13% = 35% (after decay)
Ice Element Affinity: 16% + 12.5% = 26.5% (after decay)
Thunder Element Affinity: 12.5%
Earth Element Affinity: 12.5%
Wind Element Affinity: 12.5%
Water Element Affinity: 12.5%
Light Element Affinity: 12.5%
Equipment: Frost Dragon Scale Sword, mithril gloves, Frost Chill Robe, Flame Ring, Calming Bracelet...
A remarkably luxurious panel—especially Agility and Mana both exceeding 100 points, and Mana over 120!
Constitution, once roughly on par with those two attributes, had fallen noticeably behind.
He was just one Constitution point short of leveling, which was a pity.
Also, he was only two Agility points away for Agility-related professions.
And the next Agility-level upgrade would also be the breakthrough from entry-level to veteran-level!
If earlier those two Agility points might have been hard to get, now… having just learned a batch of new skills, those skill-level ups should come relatively quickly.
He just needed to get a bow.
Lin Mo had always disliked bows;
compared to magic they require consuming arrows and their raw damage is clearly weaker. Bows had few advantages.
But to level skills and gain attribute points, he’d have to use one occasionally.
He also remembered he hadn’t yet advanced his priest profession.
Completely neglecting the ranger profession wouldn’t work—it would affect future breakthroughs.
Speaking of which, what were the exact conditions to reach veteran level?
Counting his old Healing Art and Greater Healing Art, Lin Mo had four priest skills now, but still hadn’t broken through—priest stayed stuck at level 5.
Did he need five skills, or did he need to learn an exceptional-grade skill?
Lin Mo thought it was probably the former, because there were some level-5 professionals who couldn’t obtain an exceptional-grade skill. If it were the latter, the condition would probably be widely known.
He’d explore that later...
Having finished dealing with everything, Lin Mo stood, stretched, and felt quite happy.
The rewards from the goblin siege had given his strength a significant boost.
Of course, that was mainly due to Lady Behira's generous gift;
normally it wouldn’t be so dramatic.
It was already afternoon and Lin Mo hadn’t even had lunch. Sherfilia saw him come out and immediately prepared to make a meal. But Lin Mo, thinking dinner would be in a few hours, declined and planned to have a good meal that evening to celebrate.
Lin Mo returned the skill scroll to Ellie. The little wolf girl was diligently studying.
He sat on the sofa, sipping tea and eating fruit fed to him by graceful fingers, enjoying a moment of leisure.
Sherfilia’s gaze stayed fixed on him. Her face was as calm as ever, but her thoughts had clearly drifted elsewhere.
She needed to remember all the things learned these past days—no forgetting during combat...
But human attention is limited;
while reviewing some things in his head, other matters inevitably slipped.
Lin Mo watched as someone seemed about to cram a grape into his nostril and quickly dodged away.
"What's wrong? Is something on your mind?"
Indeed, Sherfilia's condition had been off the past few days.
Whether during earlier sparring or during her daily maid duties... she wouldn’t have made such slips before.
"Are you too tired? Why not try giving yourself two days off?"
Lin Mo felt a bit embarrassed. Thinking back, Sherfilia used to get breaks when Finnie went to the church and could relax a bit.
But now with him added to the household, Sherfilia had truly been working nonstop.
Sherfilia only shook her head: "Sorry, Master, I'm fine..."
Then she threw herself wholeheartedly into the present tasks.
That night, Lin Mo and Ellie first went to the church to fetch Finnie, then waited at the Adventurers' Association for Lena to finish work.
While sitting and waiting in the Association, Landon arrived with members of the Azure Orchid Team.
"You're here early?"
Lin Mo stood and greeted them one by one.
"Haha, Lin Mo said he wanted to treat everyone, so we have to give him face."
Huck, still the most talkative in the team, slapped Lin Mo's shoulder with familiarity.
Lin Mo exchanged pleasantries with them and kept glancing at the Association's entrance.
Tonight’s dinner attendees weren’t just these people.
"Ah—"
At dusk the association’s door opened again and a burly uncle in common clothes walked in with several young men.
Finally they had arrived.
Lin Mo smiled and stood to greet them.
"Uncle Alden, how have you been?"
"Haha, pretty good."
Alden bumped fists with him. "Haven't been doing many missions lately, but city policy’s been favorable. Occasionally heading out to slaughter goblins earns good money. I went to play around during the goblin siege a few days back, but can’t say I contributed as much as you did."
"Come, sit here."
Lin Mo led them to the table next to Azure Orchid's and introduced them: "These are also my friends, former teammates: this is Captain Alden, then Carson, Solan, Rick, and... uh, Alden's daughter Bella."
"Also my fiancée."
Solan grinned and scooted over, taking Bella’s hand.
Bella blushed and lowered her head shyly.
Alden's face darkened, but he only snorted without saying more.
"Nice to meet you."
Landon greeted them with a smile. "Since we're all friends of Lin Mo, we can consider ourselves friends."
"That's right!" Huck chimed in. "We should keep in touch—chat and drink together."
The Association was in a jovial mood and soon it was time for Lena to finish work.
A big group then marched toward Silverstream City's Richard Grand Hotel.
Lin Mo no longer lacked money for meals. With a wave of his hand he ordered the best dishes, including several made from magical beast meat.
Of course, only elite-grade monster meat was on the menu—lord-level meat is generally unavailable at hotels in a small city like Silverstream;
it's too costly and few can afford it.
Even so, those dishes were still expensive.
One meal cost Lin Mo forty or fifty gold coins.
But from the earlier siege mission he'd just earned 5,710 gold, so his wealth had exceeded 6,000 gold. Splurging on a meal now and then was no problem.
Since it was a celebratory banquet, they of course drank as well.
The men traded drinks energetically, and among the girls Ellie, Lena, and Bella drank a fair amount of fruit wine.
Only Finnie almost never drank;
she only sipped a bit and then stuck out her tongue, looking uncomfortable.
To Lin Mo's surprise, Sherfilia drank too—quite a lot, even if it was just fruit wine.
After they were full, everyone dispersed. Lin Mo and company escorted Finnie back to the City Lord's Mansion, then returned to the manor.
Everyone had drunk a fair amount, so they quickly retired to wash and sleep.
Ellie did not "raid" for the night—this promised to be a relatively calm evening.
Lin Mo towel-dried his hair, put on pajamas, and lay down to rest.
Just then, there was a knock at the door.
Still coming?
Lin Mo smiled helplessly: "Come in."
But didn’t she usually barge in? Why was she suddenly being polite after drinking?
He turned his head and saw Sherfilia in a maid outfit close the door behind her, then lock it. She walked slowly to the bedside.
Her expression was still impassive, but her eyes held a hint of eager anticipation.
Lin Mo swallowed, Qi and Blood unconsciously stirring;
his mind sharpened.
"Is there something you need?"