Chapter 174: Swordmaster

As agreed in advance, Jiu Er chose the only curse with the “self-harm” type attribute in her pursuit to advance into a Berserker.

Although she was informed of such a type of curse, the unusualness still caught her off guard.

After Jiu Er finished the selection, the red bubble flew out and swallowed the other two white bubbles consecutively.

Then it gradually became smaller and slowly darkened.

It flew over and stuck to Jiu Er’s lower abdomen.

Wherever it flowed, there was severe pain like corrosion, leaving a black scar visible to the naked eye. It looked a bit like an unknown bird with its wings spread. At the same time, the pattern appeared like having blood falling from a height, splashing out when it landed.

Afterward, new words appeared in front of Jiu Er’s eyes again:

[Blood Sustenance (Resolve Type): On the last day of each month, you must drink the uncoagulated blood of the “enemy you have killed.”]

[Blood Sustenance: Weapons stained with the user’s blood will cause greater damage to the enemy (the lower the user’s health, the greater the increase in damage); when weapons stained with the enemy’s blood attack the user, the user’s health recovery speed will be significantly increased in a short period (The lower the health, the faster the recovery speed).]

After Jiu Er’s curse was revealed, the spectators in the bullet text became rowdy:

“—So, you have become Olaf [1]?”

“—You have become a Berserker!”

“—Fuck, this is a bit overpowered.”

“—That’s normal. Jiu Er’s curse is the most demanding.”

“—Wait, I know how to activate the first effect. You just hurt yourself before the battle. But, how about the latter one?”

“—Are you stupid? The trigger conditions for both are the same. You just have to slash yourself first before slashing your enemy and then repeat it over again.”

“—Haha, that seems a bit comical.”

“—Wait, where am I now?”

Soon, Jiu Er passed out after reading the bullet texts.

When she woke up again, she found that her party member had already woken up one after another.

Until then, the glimmering score panel appeared in front of Jiu Er:

[Nightmare has been purified.]

[Purify the nightmare with a designated identity. Evaluation ratings increased.]

[“Arthur” was unharmed throughout the entire process. Evaluation ratings increased.]

[Killed Carney. The evaluation ratings increased significantly.]

[All party members survived. Evaluation ratings increased.]

[Comprehensive Evaluation—A]

[Obtained 30 points in Shared Experience. Perception+1.]

[Obtained dungeon instance clearance reward: Profession (Swordsman) rises by 1 level]

With that, Jiu Er’s profession description has also become like this:

Berserker LV11: [Basic Swordsmanship LV1, Parry LV1, Charge LV1, All-out Blow LV7, Death’s Embrace LV1]

Jiu Er ignored the first three skills for now and prioritized developing the latter three skills.

[All-out Blow LV7: Use all your power to launch a fierce attack. The Strength check of the next attack gains a 30% bonus and increases the typical stamina consumption by three folds. The cooldown time is 30 seconds.]

[Effect after acquiring LV4: Reduce the cooldown time to 18 seconds.]

[Effect after acquiring LV7: Reduce the cooldown time to 6 seconds.]

[Death’s Embrace LV1: The closer your state to death, the more resilient you are from dying. For every 10% drop in Health, there will be a temporary +1 attribution bonus on either Strength, Agility, or Constitution. If Health increases, the temporary attribute bonus will be gone. When your Health is lower than 40%, this buff takes effect; when Health is higher than 40%, this buff is calculated normally, but it will not take effect.]

[After this buff takes effect, when it returns to 100% Health again, the user will fall into a state of “exhaustion” that lasts for a day. Skills such as “Charge,” “All-out Blow,” “Power Attack,” and “Final Slash” cannot be used at this time.]

Oh, have I completed the advancement already? Jiu Er was still in a daze.

But Annan’s voice had already sounded beside her.

Annan was also a little confused, “Jiu Er, where is your curse?”

“My abdomen.” Jiu Er was silent for a while and replied in a soft but awkward voice.

Annan was also a little at a loss. What the hell?

For a moment, Annan remembered the joke he had made with Don Juan:

—Where do you keep your curse?

—You may not believe me, I have an iron crotch.

(TN: Back in Chapter 4 at Nightmare: Betrayer.)

Annan hesitated and gave Jiu Er a bronze necklace for the time being, “You can use it as a disguise for now. If you want to replace the curse vessel later, let me know.”

However, there was no need for the Bronze Rank’s vessel to be too close to the curse mark.

Unless it was to absorb the other’s curse.

In other cases, only when the Transcended power above Silver Rank was used would the curse vessel be necessary to activate the curse.

“Have you all upgraded your profession?”

Annan watched the four players equip their respective curse vessels and asked, “Is everything going well? What are your new Transcended abilities?”

“I successfully took the Swordmaster’s profession, feudal lord.”

Delicious Wind Goose was the first to speak.

He closed his eyes as if recollecting the feeling.

But Annan knew in his heart that Old Goose was staring at his attribute panel and began to think about how to use words that the NPC could understand, “The ‘Swordmaster’s’ ability can greatly increase my agility.”

En, ya, adding 2 points in Agility for each level upgrade. Annan understood Old Goose’s description and nodded.

But soon, Delicious Wind Goose began to feel a little troubled, stammering, “Well, it enables me to learn a couple of sword skills. En, it improves my basic swordsmanship too.”

Huh? Annan froze for a moment and couldn’t understand it.

Immediately Annan opened the Delicious Wind Goose’s panel directly from the backend interface and flipped through Old’s Goose skills.

…Oh, that seems tough to describe.

Swordmaster’s newly acquired profession ability was called “Multiple Swordsmanship Mastery.”

Old Goose was granted “Basic Swordsmanship slots.” When learning Basic Swordsmanship, its skill level would be upgraded by one level. However, each swordsmanship couldn’t exceed LV6.

In other words, the Delicious Wind Goose’s previous profession panel looked like this:

Swordsman LV10 (Max): [Basic Swordsmanship Lv4, Parry LV4, Charge LV1, All-out Blow LV1]

And it now became:

Swordmaster LV11: [Basic Swordsmanship LV4 (Parry, Charge, All-out Blow), Multiple Swordsmanship Mastery LV1 (Empty)]

Every time “Multiple Swordsmanship Mastery” was improved, Delicious Wind Goose could learn a new kind of swordsmanship.

—For example, military swordsmanship.

Or the bodyguard swordsmanship…

As for Frost Sword, the requirement was to master the frost element. Old Goose should not be able to learn it.

But when Old Goose was promoted to the Silver Rank, he had the option to master ten other swordsmanships and raise its accompanying skills to LV1. But this wasn’t quite worthwhile. After all, he would become a jack of all trades but master of none.

Annan took a rough guess. It would be most effective to master two or three complementary swordsmanships with different styles and upgrade them to LV4 for the attribute bonus.

So that’s the case. It’s a profession that relies on skill level.

Annan nodded, “I see…”

“Wait!”

Wandering Child, who had repeatedly looked at the panel several times, suddenly raised his voice, “Why isn’t yy profession Swordmaster?”

“En?” Annan was startled.