**Chapter 17: Advanced Thief**
The bodies of Serpent Demons actually have considerable value. For example, their snake skin can be peeled off to make first-tier enchanted leather armor, their hearts are favorites among many spellcasters, and even their bl**d can be used as alchemical materials. However, there is a somewhat troublesome matter; demon-related items are very difficult to sell, at least in the southern cities.
In contrast, weapons are much easier to sell.
Moreover, Soren couldn’t take many things with him. Once the matter concerning the Serpent Demon is revealed, it is very likely to attract the investigation of the Church.
Summoning demons to the material plane is subject to judgment!
“Enhance Thief profession level.”
Soren bandaged his wound simply, then proceeded to upgrade his Thief profession level again.
He had no healing potions on him and could only rely on raising his profession level to recover his injuries. At the very least, he could reduce his injuries to a ‘light injury status’ through the increase in hit points.
A row of data appeared:
“Thief profession level increased to level 5.”
“Gained 24*0.5) skill points; hit points increased by 11*0.5).”
“Comprehended combat skill!”
“Thief profession level advanced to second tier!… Gained potential for a bloodline purification ritual!… Gained an additional profession specialty!”
………………
Soren took a glance and paid no heed to the rest.
The upgrade from first-tier professionist to second-tier professionist was quite noticeable. The former belonged to the small-time gangsters in the city, while the latter possessed the qualification to venture out of the city for adventures. Second-tier professionists could gain an additional specialty point, but it was limited to choices within the profession specialties. For instance, Soren’s profession is Thief, so he can gain an additional Thief profession specialty but cannot acquire other profession specialties or personal specialties.
All skill points were allocated to traps.
This treasure cave had not been fully explored, and Soren needed to enhance his trap detection abilities.
The second-tier Thief has three profession specialties to choose from.
They are:
“Blind Fighting: After long-term lurking in the shadows, the Thief has gradually become accustomed to fighting in the dark. His combat style is no longer limited to sight; hearing, intuition, smell, and so on have also become factors in his combat judgment. Even in complete darkness, the Thief can possess impressive combat power.”
“Military Weapon: After lengthy training, the professionist is now capable of using all military weapons, including but not limited to longswords, greatswords, curved blades, crossbows, two-handed greatswords, spears, chain flails, etc. When fighting with all military weapons, the professionist can use them skillfully, knowing how to maximize damage and how to hit enemies more easily.”
“Evasion: The Thief has learned how to utilize his agile body in long-term battles. He can perform many movements that ordinary people find difficult to avoid attacks.”
Without a doubt, he chose the military weapon specialty, the first one he had obtained.
This is a very important profession specialty.
The vast majority of melee professionists must master it because it means you can skillfully use most weapons to cope with unexpected events during adventures. Moreover, it is also a prerequisite for learning many basic combat skills, such as the combat skill that requires mastery of ‘Basic Swordsmanship’ needing this military weapon prerequisite.
This is the core specialty of Warriors.
Basically, it can be possessed after advancement, and Soren had no time for lengthy training; he could only acquire it through specialty points.
If it were normal training,
Acquiring this specialty would take one to two years to fully familiarize oneself with all military weapons, and with that time, he could do many things.
As for the last potential of bloodline purification, that is something only the wealthy can afford.
Simply put,
It is the potential to purify one’s own bloodline, recalculating life points according to the current constitution and cleansing impurities within the body.
For instance, if Soren’s current hit point is 52.
If he were to hold a bloodline purification ritual, his hit points would be—*5]*5+19 constitution+10 base life = 84 hit points.
That is equivalent to having the hit points of 3 profession levels more than now!
Very significant bloodline enhancement.
But it is also extremely expensive; the advancement ritual requires an expenditure of over 1000 Gind.
Such a ritual can be held once for each advancement.
The most substantial boost should come after entering the legendary profession level because the special talents gained after holding a bloodline purification ritual are important.
This is the key for many melee professionists to directly challenge adult giant dragons head-on!
………………
Soren temporarily didn’t consider the bloodline purification ritual because when to hold it doesn’t matter; it just recalculates hit points based on constitution and profession level. Such a ritual requires many rare materials, and it also needs basic skills that can be hard to meet in the early stages.
One must know that there had been a sorcerer teammate who wanted to advance to a dragon bl**d sorcerer, but it emptied everyone’s private stash.
1000 Gind is a conservative expenditure.
That amount is enough for Soren to fully equip himself, giving him more than double his combat power!
At this time,
Soren’s attributes after becoming a second-tier Thief changed to:
“Name: Soren.
Race: Half-Elf.
Attributes: Strength 12, Agility 20, Constitution 19, Intelligence 18, Perception 15, Charisma 16.
Faction: Lawful Evil.
Profession: Level 10 Civilian/Level 5 Thief.
Hit Points: 52/52.
Experience Points: 950, 0 points.
Skill Points: None.
Attribute Points: None.
Status: Normal.
Profession Skills—Stealth 102, Theft 35, Lock Picking 45, Traps 54.
Legendary Skill—Universal Skillful Hand.
Personal Specialties—Dexterous Left Hand, Photographic Memory, Resilient Strength.
Profession Specialties—Shadow Mastery, Military Weapon.
Combat Skill—Shadow Assassination.
………………”
Starting from the second-tier professionist, the experience points required for strengthening power began to increase significantly.
But at the same time, he mastered a powerful combat skill, which is the ability that Soren had been looking forward to.
“Shadow Assassination: The advanced Thief has gradually touched the power of the Shadow Plane. When he attacks an enemy, he can unleash a spell-like attack relying on his mastery over the power of shadows. Shadow Assassination can activate together with a backstab, dealing an additional 5 points of shadow damage that ignores physical defenses to the target.
This ability increases its damage by 1 point for every level of Thief profession, and increases the number of uses.”
…………
This is a very powerful ability.
With Soren’s current Thief profession level, he can use Shadow Assassination 5 times a day. As long as the opponent has no shadow resistance, it directly causes 5 points of shadow damage that ignores defenses.
For lower-tier professionists with relatively weak health in the early stages, this is a deadly threat!
The second tier is a watershed.
Wizards begin to master third-tier arcane, finally breaking free from the realm of low combat power. Warriors begin to master breath cutting, preparing for future advancements to Knights, Sword Saints, Weapon Masters, etc. Monks are also close to mastering Qi abilities; whether advancing to Ascetics or Masters of Fist in the future, they need to lay a solid foundation now.
Basically, all professionists see a significant improvement after reaching the second tier!
Thieves also begin to specialize here, whether it is the extraordinary stealth capabilities of a master thief, the amazing stealth enhancements of a stealth assassin, or the assassination techniques mastered by assassins.
All must now decide the future.
However, Soren had no plans for advancement at the moment. Not to mention the strict requirements for special profession advancements, just the 5000 points of killing experience required to advance to a special profession had already deterred him. The plot’s native residents require long training periods to advance to special professions, and while Soren skipped this step, he still needed to use killing experience as compensation.
Advancement isn’t necessarily a good thing.
The combat power of a master thief is low, a stealth assassin lacks explosive power, and although assassins have strong lethality, their overall abilities are lacking.
In terms of survival abilities, the basic Thief is still the strongest!
At least before possessing more than ten personal specialties, any advanced profession isn’t as effective as a basic profession.
Of course,
If you have mastered dozens of specialties, including but not limited to personal specialties, profession specialties, and talent specialties, then regardless of which profession you advance to, you will be very powerful. For instance, unarmed combat, inch power, blind fighting, super strong sixth sense, intuitive evasion, conditioned reflexes, etc. As long as you want, you could even run n*ked with your eyes closed and still take down an entire army alone.
After all, profession level is just one part of strength.
In life-and-d*ath combat, it is your overall strength that matters, competing not just profession level but also the strength added by attributes, the abilities brought by specialties, and the lowest part of the barrel.
That is the key to whether you can stand firm until the legendary domain!
………………
