novelraw Chapter 3 : Half a Month Equals a Year of Effort
Chapter 3 : Half a Month Equals a Year of Effort
Chapter 3: Half a Month Equals a Year of Effort
【Talent: Ouroboros Ring (Red)】
Description: Ouroboros, the legendary serpent that bites its own tail, symbolizing eternal cycles and immortality.
Effect: You will have one perfect resurrection opportunity every day. No matter the extent of destruction your body suffers—even if it is completely obliterated—you will reconstruct your body and revive perfectly after death.
Additional: After resurrection, all negative states will be automatically purged, and all abilities in cooldown will be reset.
Lying in bed, just about to fall asleep, Lance suddenly widened his eyes.
He stared fixedly at the pale blue translucent panel glowing before him, as ten thousand alpacas galloped wildly through his mind.
That damned adult game was actually still clinging to him?!
Endless stamina, combined with the ability to instantly revive at full condition even in the middle of a chaotic multi-relationship scenario—
these two talents together perfectly formed the foundational template of a male protagonist in an adult game.
Lance could clearly feel that the faint sense of short-circuiting, as if from poor electrical contact, had completely disappeared from the panel.
This meant that the system had stabilized.
His cheat ability had, at last, fully loaded.
However, looking at this luxurious setup, Lance’s expression showed little joy—rather, it was filled with hesitation.
This talent was like a seductive demon, enticing him to step into that unknown and dangerous world.
Lance sighed, got out of bed, took out paper and a pen from the drawer, and began calculating.
According to his original plan, as a senior Scribe, his daily wage was 50 copper coins.
After deducting his carefully budgeted daily expenses of 8 copper coins, he could save 42 copper coins per day.
In addition, with the private work introduced by Nia, he wrote five letters per week, earning 5 copper coins per letter.
At this rate…
he would only need to endure for another six years to save up the massive sum of 10 gold coins needed to travel to Ostera.
At that time, he would only be twenty-four years old.
In that most commercially prosperous Trade Capital on the continent, with his ahead-of-his-time mindset, he would surely establish himself quickly and then marry a gentle non-human young lady.
But that was the life of an ordinary person.
What if he became an Adventurer instead?
Even as the lowest-tier Adventurer, he would only need to kill 8 goblins a day.
At the current rate, one goblin ear could be exchanged for 20 copper coins. If he accepted a clearing quest and submitted 10 at once, the Guild would also give an additional reward of 1 silver coin.
After deducting food expenses, daily weapon maintenance, and logistics costs of about 40 copper coins—
he would only need a little over two years to save up 10 gold coins.
And that was just the efficiency of an ordinary Adventurer.
Lance’s gaze fell on the red entry: 【Hvergelmir’s Surge】.
Ordinary people would be exhausted after killing 8, but what about him?
30 a day? 50?
As long as his mind could endure it, even killing 100 wouldn’t be impossible.
Lance shook his head vigorously, trying to cast away this almost insane thought.
One shouldn’t be too greedy.
Even if he played it safe and only killed eighteen per day—
he would only need one year to achieve his first life goal.
And at that time, he would have just turned nineteen.
A full five years of youth separated these two paths, making it impossible for Lance to refuse.
“System! This is all your fault!”
Lance covered his face in pain and let out a mournful sigh.
“There’s nothing harder in life than stepping out of your comfort zone!”
Though he complained, his actions were anything but hesitant.
Early the next morning, he submitted a leave request to his direct supervisor, Grayson.
The Adventurers’ Guild was a massive organization. Lance’s clerical records group belonged to the administrative department, and he was not the only Scribe.
Grayson, also a former soldier, approved the leave without hesitation for the sake of Lance’s late father—combined with the fact that Scribes did have leave days, though Lance, a workaholic, had never taken them before.
Since he had decided to walk this path, he would follow the proper procedures.
To register as an Adventurer, there was a hard requirement: one must possess at least one combat skill at the “Proficient” level.
Lance could only turn his attention to the Veterans’ Guild.
As the saying went, money could make even ghosts push the mill.
After spending a bit of money, he finally dug up a perpetually drunken retired veteran in a corner of the Guild.
This unremarkable-looking middle-aged man was an elite survivor of the famous “Battle of the Bloodstained Iris,” and his Castro Swordsmanship had reached the Master level.
Sure enough, hidden talents lurked everywhere in the Veterans’ Guild—any old man basking in the sun by the wall might be a retired professional.
For the sake of Lance’s deceased father, the man gave him a heavily discounted price.
Only 30 silver coins.
Watching the 45 silver coins he had painstakingly saved over three months shrink instantly, Lance’s heart ached.
With the instructor settled, he still needed a training venue.
Through Nia’s connections, Lance secretly contacted a staff member from the logistics department and obtained access to a private training room within the Guild.
However, there were many restrictions: he could only use it for three hours after sunset each day, and each hour required a maintenance fee of 10 copper coins.
This was already the internal cost price.
“Praise Nia.”
Lance silently made a cross over his chest.
The Guild did have a free open training ground, but he didn’t dare to use it.
Deeply understanding the principle of “the taller the tree, the stronger the wind against it,” Lance knew better than to stand out.
If others saw him swinging a sword for hours without even panting, he’d probably be dragged into a basement by some spellcaster lady for research the next day.
There was no need to attract that kind of attention.
And so, over the next half month, Lance entered a hellish training mode.
Every day after work, he would dive straight into that enclosed private training room.
For an ordinary person, such high-intensity sword training would lead to exhaustion within an hour at most.
In real combat, stamina would be consumed in mere minutes.
But Lance was completely different.
Relying on his talent, every time his stamina bottomed out, he only needed to stop and take a few deep breaths, and his depleted strength would instantly surge back like a tide.
What delighted him even more was that the “reduced sensitivity to abnormal states” described in his talent also applied to mental fatigue.
This meant his mental resilience was extremely strong, fully keeping up with his body’s recovery speed.
This directly led to confusion in the logistics department recently, as the consumption of wooden swords and training dummies in that room had suddenly skyrocketed.
There were even rumors that some professional was secretly training there every night.
Along with equipment wear came a dramatic increase in appetite.
Fortunately, the tavern where Amber worked was right next to the Guild.
After training each day, Lance would drag his starving body there.
His eating habits—like that of a reincarnated hungry ghost—did not scare Amber, but the massive expense made Lance’s wallet tremble.
Luckily, Amber was kind-hearted.
She would always bring out a large plate piled high like a mountain with meat, casually saying it was leftover from the night and had to be dealt with anyway—originally meant for the stray dogs in the alley, so she might as well give it to him.
“Praise Amber.”
Lance mumbled his gratitude while devouring the delicious roasted meat.
Thanks to this near-cheating level of high-intensity training—
on the fifth day, the system panel popped up a notification.
【Castro Swordsmanship Proficiency LV1→2】
【Constitution +1】
And on the sixteenth night—
a swordsmanship threshold that would normally take others a year to reach was crossed by him in just half a month.
The panel flashed again.
Name: Lance
Class: None
Strength: 5
Agility: 6
Constitution: 5
Spirit: 7
Perception: 6
Talents: Hvergelmir’s Surge (Red), Ouroboros Ring (Red)
Skills: Castro Swordsmanship LV3 (Proficient), Common Language Reading and Writing LV3 (Proficient), Arithmetic LV4 (Mastery)
This period of intense training had finally come to an end.
Tomorrow, when he went to work—
would be the day he officially registered as an Adventurer!