Passive skills
The main storyline quest requires reaching level ten, so Su Mu bid farewell to the Guard Captain. After completing the White Wolf Pup quest, he also obtained a weapon.
[Guard Captain's Longsword (E-grade): Attack +10, Strength +5, Required Level: 4]
"This weapon is amazing!" Taking into account the strength bonus, this weapon could increase his attack power by 20 points, making it an excellent leveling artifact. Although there weren't many people who could reach level four in melee combat at the moment, the value of this weapon should not be underestimated.
"What should be the selling price?" Su Mu pondered. After thinking for a moment, he opened the auction house and set a starting bid of 10 gold coins.
After completing these tasks, he began exploring the village. The newbie village was quite large, but the number of NPCs was limited.
"Dear adventurer, if you can provide me with some Wild Boar Fangs, I can reward you generously!" As he walked to the armor shop, the shopkeeper's head once again displayed a quest completion symbol.
Su Mu handed over the fifty Wild Boar Fangs he had obtained and exchanged them for a decent piece of equipment.
[Rhino-hide Leggings (E-grade): +5 Intelligence, +5 Spirit, Required Level: 5]
"This equipment is pretty good!" Su Mu didn't hesitate and chose to wear the E-grade equipment, which increased his intelligence and spirit.
"Let's go to the class instructor!" Immediately after, Su Mu headed straight to the room of the Mage Class Instructor.
"Hello, I would like to learn some skills."
"As you wish!" The elderly instructor was very kind.
As he spoke, a skill appeared before Su Mu's eyes. According to the information manual, players can learn a basic skill every two levels before reaching level ten. After that, they would only gain a new basic skill every five levels in the town, while other skills would need to be acquired by defeating monsters or completing quests.
[Mage Apprentice's Wisdom: Increases base Intelligence by 10 (0/5)]
"A passive skill?" Su Mu's eyes lit up upon seeing this skill. This passive skill arrived just in time!
[You have learned Mage Apprentice's Wisdom, consuming 5 gold coins!]
Even though learning this skill required spending five gold coins, Su Mu didn't even blink an eye. While ten points of intelligence couldn't be considered high, the crucial point was that this skill could be upgraded!
After leaving the room, Su Mu stood in a deserted corner and pressed the "+" button behind this skill.
[Mage Apprentice's Wisdom successfully upgraded.]
[Mage Apprentice's Wisdom: Increases base Intelligence by 12 (1/5)]
"An increase of 2 points of intelligence per level?"
"This is something!" Without hesitation, Su Mu continued to upgrade this passive skill.
[Mage Apprentice's Wisdom successfully upgraded!]
[Mage Apprentice's Wisdom upgraded to Mage Apprentice's Wisdom (E-grade)]
[Mage Apprentice's Wisdom (E-grade): Increases Intelligence by 20 (0/5)]
"I will continue to upgrade!"
[Mage Apprentice's Wisdom (E-grade) upgraded to Mage Apprentice's Wisdom (D-grade)]
[Mage Apprentice's Wisdom (D-grade) upgraded to Mage Apprentice's Wisdom (C-grade)]
...
[Mage Apprentice's Wisdom (A-grade) upgraded to Mage's Wisdom (S-grade)]
[Mage's Wisdom (S-grade): Increases base Intelligence by 200]
"This is a true upgrade!" With the continuous upgrading of this skill, the increased base intelligence kept growing until it reached a whopping 200 points! The bonus provided by this skill was equivalent to having eight elite magic staves!
"As expected, passive skills are the most suitable for me!" Su Mu couldn't help but laugh. The value in the spell attack category had reached 580 points! This meant that the damage from his Fireball spell had skyrocketed to 2320 points.
"With just two skills, I can take down that elite monster!" At this moment, the Wild Boarman Elite's 3000 HP was completely insignificant in Su Mu's eyes.
"At level 6, I can learn passive skills. If that's the case, other professions should also have passive skills to learn. That means I can skyrocket my attributes!"
After completing his own profession's skills, Su Mu thought about other professions. Whatever passive skills they had, he would learn them without hesitation!
He quickly made his way to the Priest Class Instructor.
Soon, a benevolent-looking Priest Instructor appeared before him. "Hello adventurer, how can I assist you?"
"Hello, I want to learn skills!" If it were any other mage, the Priest Instructor would probably not pay attention, but when Su Mu spoke, the instructor smiled.
"I'm happy to help you!" The next moment, a passive skill appeared before Su Mu's eyes.
[Priest Apprentice's Spirit: Increases base Spirit by 10 (0/5)]
Without a moment's hesitation upon seeing this skill, Su Mu made a decision.
[You have learned Priest Apprentice's Spirit, spending 5 gold coins]
After bidding farewell to the Priest Instructor, Su Mu headed towards the Assassin Class Instructor while calculating his skills.
[Priest Apprentice's Spirit upgraded to Priest Apprentice's Spirit (E-grade)]
[Priest Apprentice's Spirit (E-grade) upgraded to Priest Apprentice's Spirit (D-grade)]
[Priest Apprentice's Spirit (D-grade) upgraded to Priest Apprentice's Spirit (C-grade)]
...
[Priest Apprentice's Spirit (A-grade) upgraded to Priest's Spirit (S-grade)]
[Priest's Spirit (S-grade): Increases base Spirit by 200]
"Passive skills are truly amazing!"
Su Mu felt like he was soaring into the sky with the addition of 200 Spirit points! He looked at his attribute panel:
Player: Su Mu
Class: Mage
Level: 6 (0/3000)
Health: 130
Mana: 8800
Attack: 36
Spell Attack: 580
Physical Defense: 15
Spell Defense: 220
Attributes: Strength 8, Constitution 8 (+5), Agility 8, Spirit 210 (+10), Intelligence 260 (+30)
Equipment: Elite Magic Staff, Wolfhide Robe, Rhinohide Leggings
"My mana pool has exploded!" With the support of the Mental Fortitude and Priest's Spirit skills, his mana had reached over 8000 points, and his mana regeneration speed had increased exponentially.
"I wonder what the passive skills of the other three professions are!" Su Mu, full of anticipation, headed towards the location of the Assassin Class Instructor.
...
In the World Channel, the weapon Su Mu put up for consignment caused a huge uproar.
"Who's so extravagant that they're even selling E-grade weapons?"
"The Captain of the Guards' Longsword? The one from the novice village's guard captain? Is it a quest? How do you complete it?"
"Could the expert who completed the quest please share the strategy? Why does the guard captain ignore me when I approach him?"
"To be honest, the attributes of these quest reward weapons are good, but there's no need to buy them!"
"No need to buy? It's already bid up to 30 gold coins!"
"Wow, we have so many local tyrants in our country. I heard that a gold coin is worth at least 10 million now, so 30 gold coins would be 300 million!"
"From my perspective, it'll take at least 1 billion to stop bidding."
...
Village 8621, the Novice Village.
"Principal, that weapon has been bid up to 30 gold coins, but we can't come up with that much money." One person looked at the warrior next to him, who was killing monsters, with a slightly changed expression.
"Forget it, send a private message to the seller and ask for the strategy for that sword. Let them know that we can offer 20 gold coins!" The principal finished off a wild boar with a single strike and turned around.
Even though he was wealthy, in this vast nation, both publicly and privately, there were countless families with far more wealth than him.
"That person seems to have enabled message blocking, none of the messages were replied to!" After waiting for a while, his subordinate spoke up.
"Forget it, let's figure it out ourselves!" The principal sighed and suddenly thought of something. He asked, "By the way, any news about that Su Mu you were supposed to find?"
"There are too many people with the same name and surname, it's like finding a needle in a haystack!" The subordinate shook his head helplessly.
The principal fell silent, his expression tinged with bitterness.
In other novice villages, many aristocratic youths were also attempting to contact Su Mu.
Without exception, all the messages they sent seemed to vanish into thin air.
At this moment, these normally aloof and flattered young masters were overwhelmed by a sense of frustration.
They realized a harsh reality:
In the world of Shentu, having money doesn't mean you can have everything!