Chapter 71: Improvement

The scent of sulfur became increasingly intense. Momon’s corpse, just like the corpses previously devoured by the [Demon Blood Dagger], withered and dried up before turning into flying ash.

[Will +0.1]

To Dean’s surprise, it was not [Perception] that received a bonus.

However, Dean quickly felt relieved. Given the opponent’s strength, if his [Perception] attribute had also reached the standard of his [Will], then even if he had hidden himself perfectly before, it would have been difficult to completely avoid the opponent’s [Perception] search—after all, a [Perception] of 10, even without any technique, was enough to ‘see’ everything within a hundred feet with absolute clarity.

[Three Flesh Absorptions completed, Devil’s Will activated…]

[Evaluation begins]

[2.1 (－0－0.1－0.2)－1.5＞0]

[Three Will judgments passed]

[Devil’s Will difficulty advanced—Slight to Minor]

…

After a string of prompts, the judgment for the entire [Devil’s Will] ended much more easily than Dean had imagined—there was no pain whatsoever, no discomfort in his body, and Dean didn’t even feel a trace of strangeness.

[Devil’s Will: Every three Flesh Absorptions completed, three Will judgments are required (Will related (－0－0.1－0.2)－2.0＞0); if one is failed, you will fall into a state of mental confusion beyond your control for two hours; if all three are failed, your Soul will be sacrificed to the Devil.]

If the judgment for [Devil’s Will] had not changed, and the note ‘Slight’ had not become ‘Minor’, and the count for [Flesh Absorption] had not changed from 3 to 0, it would have been as if nothing had happened at all.

However, Dean would absolutely not believe that nothing had happened.

He began to carefully examine his body, but just as he had felt before—there was nothing noteworthy.

But this made Dean even more vigilant.

After all, items of the Devil were always so silent and subtle in their influence.

However, he obviously could not leave this item behind now. After all, even if [Devil’s Will] reached the Minor level, he could still pass it once with his current [Will]. If he raised his professional level, he could pass it twice—of course, in Dean’s view, he needed to at least reach the baseline of passing all of them.

After all, the actions of that Tax Officer back then had truly been shocking to him.

He absolutely did not want such a thing to happen to him.

And this naturally required some thorough planning—the simplest was to raise his professional level before using it, and the slightly harder way was to find a Wizard like Momon to perform [Flesh Absorption].

However, regardless of which one, those were matters for later.

At least, before completing another three [Flesh Absorption] sessions, Dean did not need to worry about this.

As for now?

Dean’s gaze naturally fell on his character panel—

[XP: 126]

Although such XP was not enough to raise [Warrior Lv2] to [Warrior Lv3], it was enough for Dean to improve his skills once again.

And this was part of Dean’s plan to begin with.

[Basic Swordsmanship Lv2→Lv3]

[Military Swordsmanship Lv2→Lv3 (Emerald)]

The first skills to be upgraded were undoubtedly the two skills that complemented [Cold Weapon (Sword/Hammer/Spear): Lv3]; the former cost 20 XP, while the latter cost 40 XP.

The expenditure of 60 XP naturally brought about an exceptionally intuitive change—

[Basic Swordsmanship Lv3: Perhaps you have your own insights from it, but most of the time, it is just the basics; Effect: When using sword-type weapon s, gain a bonus of +7.5% to Damage, Hit, and Block.]

[Military Swordsmanship Lv3 (Emerald): You received the strictest training in the Military Camp, giving your swordsmanship the characteristics of this country; Effect: When attacked, you can gain an Agility +0.3 judgment; Duration: 3.2 (Constitution X2) seconds; Cooldown: 33 (50－Constitution X10) minutes.]

Feeling the changes in his body and technique, Dean drew his sword—

Whoosh!

A perfect semicircle flashed past Dean. The snow splashing before the blade undoubtedly showed that even without activating the state of [Military Swordsmanship Lv3 (Emerald)], Dean had already truly approached the Knight-rank; of course, only a Knight in a normal state.

As for those who had undergone Knight’s Baptism?

Clearly, he was still no match for them.

After the most emphasized skills were leveled up, Dean’s gaze fell on the remaining skills. Finally, he filtered out the vast majority of skills and placed his gaze on [Military Organization].

[Military Organization Lv1: Through learning, you understand general troop deployment. At the very least, you know how to use formations to make your soldiers stand more neatly; Effect: When commanding soldiers belonging to you, you will grant your soldiers an additional 5 Morale (Combat Power increased by 5%) and, on top of the original XP, gain an XP bonus of 5% for each enemy killed by your soldiers.]

Undoubtedly, [Military Organization Lv1] was a group combat skill. If combined with the Title [Ferrchelen Knight Order Regiment Commander], it could immediately grant a 10% bonus to the strength of one’s own soldiers, and allow oneself to gain 15% of the XP from enemies killed by these soldiers; perhaps it was not obvious at the start.

But as the level of [Military Organization] increased, this skill would inevitably become more and more important.

Especially in a war, hundreds or thousands of enemies were all too frequent. Even just 15% of that was an enormous amount.

Moreover, this was just the beginning.

Of course, more importantly, he was no longer bound by the Title [Lone Wolf of Hagaslo]. Such group combat would undoubtedly allow him to grow faster.

Therefore, Dean began another allocation of XP—

[Military Organization Lv1→Lv2→Lv3]

[Military Organization Lv3: Through learning, you understand general troop deployment. At the very least, you know how to use formations to make your soldiers stand more neatly, and with a certain efficiency; Effect: When commanding soldiers belonging to you, you will grant your soldiers an additional 15 Morale (Combat Power increased by 15%) and, on top of the original XP, gain an XP bonus of 15% for each enemy killed by your soldiers.]

After the allocation of 30 XP, [Military Organization] reached the limit level of the current professional level +1.

As for the remaining 36 XP, Dean obviously did not plan to use them all.

After all, the remaining skills were not what he needed urgently at the moment; or there were other plans to raise their levels.

For example: skills like Swimming.

After doing all this, Dean’s gaze fell on the scroll in his hand—this scroll that could Intimidation and command the Wolf Pack was undoubtedly one of his biggest gains from this trip.

However, to truly turn this gain into reality, some other operations were needed.

The most immediate matter, that Alpha Wolf of the Wolf Pack had to be eliminated!

Before, Dean witnessed everything—he could be certain that the Alpha Wolf was not affected by the Intimidation and command of this scroll.

As for why?

It was simple: this Alpha Wolf was not of the bloodline of this Wolf Pack originally. It was an Outsider that had used force to rule the entire Wolf Pack.

Therefore, the scroll that relied on bloodline power to bind the Wolf Pack did not work at all.

Dean, who was quite familiar with ‘decrees’ in Wolf Packs and Spells, deduced this result almost immediately.

So, Dean wanted to do it.

To rely on the power of this scroll to master the previous Wolf Pack, it was necessary to get rid of that Alpha Wolf.

But for Dean at this moment, this was obviously somewhat impossible.

The agility and speed displayed by that Alpha Wolf were enough to show that the opponent was a Fierce Beast close to the Silver Knight level, and the opponent’s cunning left a deep impression on Dean.

Without absolute certainty, Dean would absolutely not provoke such an existence.

Therefore, when Dean returned once more, he was very careful—the previous Wolf Pack was attracted by the ‘digging noise’ of that Goth Grand Knight, but this did not mean that only ‘digging noise’ counted.

So, Dean not only walked lightly, but also applied some potion to mask his scent again.

When Dean appeared once again in the rocky clearing, apart from the bloodstains on the ground and scattered weapons, everything was as if nothing had happened.

There were no corpses of Goths, and no corpses of wolves.

Dean was not surprised by this.

After all, most of the time, corpses were just food for the Hagaslo Wolf Pack.

And these wolves, who had undergone Alchemy and were infinitely close to Hagaslo Wolves, obviously had similar habits.

Ignoring the bloodstains and weapons on the ground, Dean carefully snuck into the pit smashed out by that Goth Grand Knight and began to search and tap carefully.

Just as the Old Knight who had saved him said—

‘Patience and calmness are what a true Knight must possess. Although most Knights nowadays are more willing to believe in Strength rather than brains, once the brain is filled with muscles, then he is not far from death. At the very least, he will become a chess piece to be discarded at will!’

Dean agreed very much with such words.

Therefore, facing such a situation, he would absolutely not act recklessly like that Goth Grand Knight.

After all, he had undergone quite professional Thief training.

At the very least, Dean was no stranger to jobs like finding the entrance to a tomb or traps.