Chapter 92 Feats and Class Requirements

“Thud.”

The bugbear’s headless corpse toppled forward and slammed into the ground.

Xia Nan flicked the blood from his blade.

He looked at the dead creature without much emotion.

This bugbear had placed him under far less pressure than the one that had nearly wiped out the Small Fry party.

Part of that was because his own combat ability and experience had improved.

The other part was much simpler.

Forgan had already smashed one of the bugbear’s arms apart before Xia Nan fought it.

Its combat strength had plummeted.

And Forgan himself had stood nearby the entire time.

The pressure radiating from the barbarian was enough to make an ordinary goblin faint outright. With that aura bearing down on it, the bugbear had been weakened even further.

Naturally, Xia Nan had looked far more relaxed than he would have under normal circumstances.

That was exactly what he needed.

An enemy that was neither strong enough to kill him nor weak enough to be useless made for an excellent training partner.

The fight had lasted only a few exchanges.

Yet the improvement Xia Nan felt from those few exchanges exceeded what he could gain from swinging his sword at empty air for an entire day.

Once the battle ended, there was only one thing left to do.

Loot the place.

Unfortunately…

Goblin caves were poor.

Really poor.

Forget magical items with special effects.

There was barely even any decent common equipment he could sell to a general store or blacksmith for pocket money.

Including the fairly large greenskin nest they had cleared two days earlier, Xia Nan’s total haul amounted to six glittering stones of different sizes.

He did not even know how much they were worth.

Only now did he fully appreciate how absurdly lucky he had been to obtain the green-grade ring [Deathline] from a bugbear almost immediately after arriving in this world.

Xia Nan did not sheath his sword yet.

Instead, he rested the iron-gray blade across one shoulder, holding it by the hilt in a position that saved strength.

Forgan stood motionless in the corner of the cave.

Then cold wind suddenly gathered around him.

Ice crystals spiraled through the air.

Within them, a translucent winter wolf slowly took shape.

Its transparent paws touched the cave floor without sound.

The spirit wandered through the cavern, drifting from one place to another as if searching for something.

It found nothing.

A few seconds later, the winter wolf returned to Forgan’s side.

It rubbed its frost-covered forehead affectionately against the barbarian’s arm, then slowly dissolved into the air.

Xia Nan looked away.

He had already seen the same thing two days ago.

He was curious, of course.

But curiosity did not mean he had to ask.

Forgan had not come to Rivervale Town specifically to teach him.

That was only something the barbarian was doing along the way.

He clearly had another purpose in the Misty Forest.

Whatever Forgan was investigating had nothing to do with Xia Nan.

And if it involved the Transcendent Tier, then Xia Nan was even less interested in sticking his nose into it.

Some trouble was better admired from a great distance.

As the frost faded, the temperature inside the cave gradually returned to normal.

Xia Nan still did not leave.

Sword in hand, he walked among the goblins sprawled across the floor and began finishing them off one by one.

He could not bring the bodies back.

They would rot and stink long before he returned to town, especially since he expected to remain in the forest for many more days.

That meant no bounty money.

Still, he was already here.

There was no reason to let these greenskin bastards wake up again.

“Shk.”

The sword point pierced through the fragile skin of a goblin’s throat.

Its thin, twig-like neck was instantly penetrated.

The creature remained unconscious under the lingering mental pressure.

Even lethal pain could only make its body twitch weakly before it went still.

Xia Nan worked quickly.

One thrust.

One goblin.

It took only a few minutes to finish off nearly thirty of them.

Yet by the end, he felt strangely unsatisfied.

No screams.

No terrified eyes.

No desperate struggle.

He stabbed one.

It died.

He stabbed another.

It died too.

There was almost no feedback.

Something about it felt wrong.

For a moment, Xia Nan genuinely wondered whether his mentality had started drifting in a questionable direction.

[I wonder if this world has psychologists.]

[If not, maybe I should visit a church when I get back.]

The thought flashed through his head.

He pulled a piece of gauze from his clothes and wiped the blood from the sword.

Then, just as he was about to leave the cave, he glanced back at the bodies and felt a stab of reluctance.

More than twenty goblins.

One bugbear.

Even if none of them had dropped useful equipment, the combined bounties would still have been a respectable sum.

Unfortunately, he had no way to transport them.

Otherwise, his savings could have grown quite a bit.

Actually…

If he had thick enough skin, perhaps he could ask Forgan to freeze the valuable parts for him.

Then he could bring them all back when they eventually returned to town…

“No, no, no.”

Forgan’s perpetually frosty face appeared in Xia Nan’s mind.

He immediately shook his head.

“Forget it.”

Two days was nowhere near enough to understand a person’s temperament.

And his relationship with Forgan definitely had not reached the point where he could casually ask for extra favors.

He needed to keep his priorities straight.

Learning [Fang Hunt] was the reason he was here.

Everything else was secondary.

He could not lose sight of the main prize just to squeeze out a little more money.

Xia Nan sheathed his sword.

At the edge of his vision, something flashed.

A glimmer of ice.

He turned.

The bugbear’s severed head lay six or seven feet from its body.

At some point, a layer of frost had spread across it.

The left ear was especially obvious, almost completely sealed inside a small block of ice.

Xia Nan blinked in surprise.

Then Forgan’s rough, hoarse voice came from ahead.

“A hunter with blood on his blade doesn’t let himself go hungry.”

“That’s the law of the snowfields.”

…

Night fell.

Thick mist drifted quietly through the forest.

Firelight flickered beneath the trees.

Everything beyond the camp was still.

Xia Nan sat beside the flames with a roasted beast leg in one hand.

He had only just taken it from the fire.

Juice ran over the browned meat, and every bite was delicious enough to justify burning his tongue.

“Hss… hah…”

He blew rapidly over the next bite before trying again.

Forgan had brought no supplies when he left town.

At first, Xia Nan had wondered whether he should share some of his own food with him.

Then, on the way back to camp, Forgan had glanced once at a rustling patch of grass beside the path.

That was all.

A wild boar nearly half a person tall staggered out of the brush as if drunk.

It took a few crooked steps.

Then it collapsed directly in front of them.

Xia Nan had stared at it.

The whole thing looked less like hunting and more like someone had ordered dinner in advance and requested delivery to their exact location.

And he had to admit…

It tasted pretty good.

Water was even less of a problem.

Forgan barely had to move.

He would sit down, place his water kettle in front of him, and let freezing wind gather inside it.

The cold condensed into ice.

Then the fire melted it into clean water.

Simple.

Convenient.

Completely unreasonable.

Then again, anyone strong enough to reach Forgan’s level probably had to work very hard if they actually wanted to starve to death.

Watching him, Xia Nan could not help feeling envious.

When would he reach the point where his mere presence could terrify ordinary monsters into collapsing?

Unfortunately, the thought quickly led back to another problem.

[Spinning Slash] was already at max level.

And there was still a chance it would be completely useless for his future class.

If that happened, he might need to learn another two combat techniques before becoming a class holder.

Just thinking about it was irritating.

Then Xia Nan paused.

His eyes brightened.

He looked across the fire at Forgan.

“Do you think there’s a chance…”

Forgan looked back.

“That [Spinning Slash], [Fang Hunt], and whatever third combat technique I learn next could just happen to satisfy the advancement requirements for some class?”

If that worked, Xia Nan would save himself the trouble of hunting down yet another technique.

The moment he finished speaking, though, he felt ridiculous.

What were the odds?

There were countless combat techniques in this world.

Some obscure classes even required bizarre initiation rituals in addition to the proper techniques.

If Xia Nan somehow blindly stumbled into three perfectly compatible techniques in a row…

Then he might have to start wondering whether the Smiling Lady up in the divine realm had taken a sudden interest in him.

Better to hope that [Spinning Slash] secretly belonged to some branch of [Warrior].

That at least sounded slightly less absurd.

Xia Nan had already dismissed the idea when Forgan unexpectedly nodded.

Xia Nan straightened.

Wait.

There was actually a chance?

Forgan stared into the fire.

“On the day your combat technique reached Mastery, did you feel anything unusual?”

“Anything unusual?”

Xia Nan frowned and thought back.

“I got a little stronger. My body felt lighter too.”

Obviously, he could not tell Forgan that level five [Spinning Slash] had directly granted him one point of Strength and one point of Agility.

So he blurred the details.

But that part was hardly unusual anyway.

The half-elf and the others had already told him that when adventurers trained a combat technique to Mastery, their bodies often became stronger.

That was common knowledge.

So what was Forgan asking about?

“No.”

The barbarian held his obsidian handaxe in one hand.

The black, polished surface reflected his rough, cold features.

“Something else.”

“Talent. Artistry. Covenant blessings. Awakened marks…”

“People use many names.”

“They all describe the same kind of thing.”

“A focused enhancement related to combat, magic, survival instinct, or class traits.”

Forgan paused.

“It can also be understood as your past experience taking tangible form.”

Xia Nan’s eyes sharpened.

[Feats]?!

The connection was immediate.

His first feat in this world, [Slashing Expert], had appeared right after [Spinning Slash] reached max level.

“But what does that have to do with getting a class level?”

Cold wind swept through the warm camp.

Ice crystals formed visibly in the air.

They gathered around the obsidian handaxe and began circling it in a miniature snowstorm.

Tiny grains of ice scraped against the axe head.

A dense series of crisp sounds filled the night.

The edge, already sharp, gleamed colder and brighter beneath the constant scouring.

Forgan was sharpening his weapon.

“This kind of ability isn’t as obvious as becoming physically stronger,” he said. “It’s like ice buried under deep snow. Some people live their entire lives without realizing they have talent in a certain area.”

“Unless it comes from a bloodline or some rare experience, most people can only increase their chances of gaining such an ability through years of hard training.”

“Training a combat technique to Mastery is one of the most reliable ways.”

Xia Nan listened carefully.

The explanation that followed was simple enough once Forgan found the right comparison.

A class could be imagined as the necklace hanging from the barbarian’s chest.

The three combat techniques required to obtain a class level were the chain itself.

Link after link.

Connected from beginning to end.

A feat was different.

A feat was a pendant hanging from that chain.

Most of the time, a necklace did not actually need any pendants.

A plain chain might be ugly, but it was still complete.

In other words…

A class did not require feats.

The reverse was also true.

A handful of beautiful pendants without a chain could not be called a necklace.

Feats were not prerequisites for obtaining a class level.

That much was simple.

The complicated part came when someone tried to combine three combat techniques from completely different branches and force them into a new class that did not naturally belong to any of them.

That was like tearing apart three necklaces and fastening unrelated sections of chain together.

Different materials.

Different thicknesses.

Different link sizes.

Even if the pieces could be hooked together, the joints would be crooked and unstable.

And when the invisible force known as the rules examined such a malformed structure…

It would tear the chain apart.

Unless…

The person happened to have the right pendants.

A few well-placed feats could cover those ugly joints.

They could stabilize the mismatched connections and hide the places where the structure should not have worked.

Then it did not matter if half the necklace was gold, the other half was bone, and someone had hung a leaf in the middle.

As long as the result no longer had an obvious flaw, the rules would leave it alone.

The conclusion was straightforward.

“Feats can greatly increase your chance of obtaining a class level.”

Forgan’s voice remained calm.

“But if you force unrelated combat techniques together, the class you obtain…”

His ice-blue gaze lifted.

“Depends on your feats.”

Xia Nan sat beside the fire, silent.

The roasted meat in his hand had already gone cold beneath the freezing air.

His mind raced through the implications.

For the people of this world, feats were vague.

Hidden.

Some might possess one and never know it.

Xia Nan was different.

He had a system panel.

He could see his attributes.

He could see his skills.

And because of several unusual encounters, he had already accumulated multiple feats.

If Forgan was right, and feats not only increased the chance of class advancement but could also influence what kind of class emerged…

That made things complicated.

[Slashing Expert] was fine.

It was a perfectly normal melee feat.

At worst, it would probably pull him toward a base class like [Warrior].

[Light-Bathed One] was more troublesome.

Radiant damage reduction was at least vaguely related to physical resistance, so perhaps it would not be too strange.

But what if the feat followed the path of the being mentioned in its note and shoved him toward some obscure evil-aligned class with bizarre advancement requirements?

That would be a disaster.

And then there was…

[Bronze Sinews and Iron Bones].

Xia Nan’s expression became even stranger.

That feat clearly came from another world.

As far as he knew, it had never appeared here at all.

If something that fundamentally did not belong to this world’s system became part of his class formation…

And then mixed with [Slashing Expert], [Light-Bathed One], [Spinning Slash], and [Fang Hunt]…

Xia Nan stared into the flames.

He genuinely could not imagine what kind of class that combination would produce.