Chapter 242: Lurker

Lin Erer was troubled and annoyed.

His sister just said that different initial professions had varying power levels, but she didn’t tell him how to check their power levels.

Are you really my sister…

“In that case, I can only rely on my intuition.”

Lin Erer concluded, “She basically told me nothing.”

Luckily, after he tried the professions one by one, he could still feel the subtle difference in his physical body.

It seemed that after swapping around his profession several times, Lin Erer vaguely realized that the two most suitable professions seemed to be [Lurker] and [Wizard].

“Then, I shall pick the lurker class.” Lin Erer pondered for a long time and made up his mind.

Although wizard would never be the worst choice under any circumstances, he disliked fighting in the backline.

He also didn’t like assaulting the enemy in the frontline.

The professions he preferred were the type that allowed him to strike the enemies while they couldn’t. For example, mages focusing on crowd control or rogues proficient in stealth. These were his common professions in MMORPGs.

[Do you want to finalize your initial profession as a [Lurker]?]

“Yes.” Lin Erer answered affirmatively.

Immediately, everything in front of him disappeared, and a pure black standing mirror emerged.

A line appeared above:

[Please name your game character.]

[Warning: Once confirmed, this could no longer be changed!]

“Suuankou.” Lin Erer replied.

He thought the contract was just a prank at the start, so he only skimmed through it a little. Luckily, he roughly remembered the contents of the contract.

Lin Erer simplified it because his typically used Game ID was too long to remember.

Only the essential elements of the name “Brother Koutsu” were kept.

[TN: The Author refers to the Mahjong element in this part: Koutsu & Suuanko]

It was unexpectedly similar to Longjing Tea’s approach ​​in picking a name.

Another water ripple surfaced in the mirror, and then Suuankou’s initial attributes emerged.

[ID: Suuankou]

Human. Male. Level 5.

Health: 100%

Attributes: Strength 5, Agility 7, Constitution 5, Perception 5, Will 5

Available Attribute Points: 3

Shared Experience: 0

Profession Overview:

Lurker LV5: [Sneak LV1], [Skillful Hands LV1], [Backstab LV1]

Available Skill Points: 7

Since he was in the thief class category, he invested all his attribute points to Agility without a second thought.

—Soon, another thought emerged.

Considering that he might also need to shoulder the responsibility of detecting traps, he added 1 point into the Perception attribute. After discovering that he could revert his decision, he tried investing in all the attributes one by one.

“En, I can upgrade all my attributes except [Will] and [Constitution]?”

Suuankou murmured, “That means, Agility is the primary attribute for Lurkers. Strength and Perception are secondary attributes…”

He hesitated for a moment but still evenly distributed the 3 available attribute points on the plausible options.

Suuankou knew that if the distributed points couldn’t be reset, the strategy of even distribution might not be the most optimal approach. Still, it was better than investing everything in one basket and messing up entirely.

As for the following three skills—

Suuankou knew at a glance that the skills indicated the three major pathways of this profession.

Should I focus on stealth, tools, or assassination?

“…Huh, this is a difficult decision.” Suuankou frowned in thought.

He had 7 skill points available to him, indicating that his decision in distributing them would largely affect his profession’s pathway. But he couldn’t quit now and ask his sister how to choose. Obviously, he couldn’t check the strategy online either.

“I can only rely on my wisdom!” He gritted his teeth and took a deep breath, reading the 4 skills description.

[Sneak LV1: Blend into the environment, making yourself harder to be noticed. At the current level, if you move, it will disrupt the stealth effect applied.]

[Skillful Hands LV1: Lurkers have a pair of skillful hands, which can be used to create and use complex tools. Also, you’re armed with the skill to install or dismantle traps. At the current level, you can dismantle simple locks nimbly.]

[Backstab LV1: When attacking a target from behind, you may subconsciously hit the weak spot. At the current level, you need to observe the enemy for 5 seconds before you can activate the skill.]

After that, Suuankou added 1 skill point each for each skill and observed the changes in the description.

[Sneak LV2: Blend into the environment, making yourself harder to be noticed. At the current level, if you move, there is a high possibility that it will disrupt the stealth effect applied.]

[Skillful Hands LV2: Lurkers have a pair of skillful hands, which can be used to create and use complex tools. Also, you’re armed with the skill to install or dismantle traps. At the current level, you can dismantle simple locks nimbly. At the same time, you have a high possibility of thievery on a target human whose Perception is < 5="" (-="" 3="" from="" your="">

[Backstab LV2: When attacking a target from the blind spot, you may hit the weak spot with higher precision. At the current level, you need to observe the enemy for 4 seconds before you can activate the skill.]

Suuankou’s pupils lit up slightly.

He soon understood his situation.

Although he didn’t know what would be the correct approach in investing those skill points, he knew that the “skill points efficacy” of different skills would be different.

According to the skills description, he could only move freely in stealth when the skill reached Level 4.

Backstab required LV6 to allow immediate activation without any delay of observing the target.

Until then, it didn’t make much difference whether to observe the target for 5 seconds or 4.

Unfortunately, Lurkers couldn’t invest their attribute points into [Constitution]. Hence, it was quite a physically weak profession. If he couldn’t escape, he could only resort to dealing a devastating blow before anything else.

In this case, it wasn’t quite necessary to invest skill points into [Backstab].

Judging from how the profession was explained, he was like the player approaching the enemy and pressing F for an aerial assassination. If the enemy wasn’t deaf or blind, he must sneak over.

Hence, [Sneak] was the essential requirement for movement. While he was approaching the target, the condition to activate [Backstab] was already fulfilled.

To be cautious, Suuankou still added skill points one level at one time.

When he promoted [Sneak] to LV4, its description suddenly changed.

[Sneak LV4: Blend into the environment, making yourself harder to be noticed. At the current level, slow movements won’t disrupt the stealth effect applied.]

[Effect after acquiring LV4: After the enemy loses vision of you for 3 seconds, you may try to sneak again.]

This is what I was looking for! Suuankou’s eyes lit up.

Sure enough, unique properties were introduced after the skill was upgraded to a certain level.

Based on the usual standard, the next unique property would either come at Lv6 or LV7.

He had a total of 7 skill points. After consuming 5 of them, he only had 2 left.

Hence, even if he invested everything in [Sneak], he wouldn’t be able to trigger the next unique property.

In this case, there was no doubt that he should go for [Skillful Hands]!

After disregarding the necessity of the skill [Sneak], the skill that experienced exponential growth for each level of upgrade would be [Skillful Hands].

It was given that he should learn how to install and dismantle traps.

For the 2 remaining skill points, he should also be able to increase this skill to Level 4 and acquire its unique properties.

Soon, Suuankou promoted [Skillful Hands] to Level 4.

[Skillful Hands LV4: Lurkers have a pair of skillful hands, which can be used to create and use complex tools. Also, you’re armed with the skill to install or dismantle traps. At the current level, you can dismantle complex locks nimbly. At the same time, you have a high possibility of thievery on a target human whose Perception is < 6="" (-="" 2="" from="" your="" perception);="" you="" may="" install="" and="" dismantle="" easy="">

[Effect after acquiring LV4: Equivalent to having “Dagger Proficiency LV1”, “Throwing Proficiency Lv1”, and “Firearms Proficiency LV1”]

“Great, perfect!” Suuankou applauded himself.

As expected, the [Backstab] skill wasn’t quite needed in the early stage. [Sneak] alone was enough for the time being. Also, he didn’t expect to be able to run in stealth, so the cost-effectiveness was relatively low.

The [Skillful Hands] skill was the skill with the best utility!

“It’s only me who realizes this…” Suuankou smiled with satisfaction.

He didn’t put much effort into character customization.

He only removed his short-sightedness which filled the beautification effect up to the limit. He took into account that a rogue obviously couldn’t afford to be shortsighted. Also, there were no spectacles in this era.

It would be funny if he killed the wrong person because of short-sightedness.

Though, it’s a pleasant surprise that the game could eliminate my short-sightedness…

Then, two lines of words appeared in front of him.

[Returning to the material world.]

[Entering the Mist Continent.]

“Wow, I can finally start playing the game!” Suuankou cheered loudly.

He chose the second option without hesitation.

…But, it feels like I’ve forgotten something.

Hmm, it shouldn’t be a big deal. The game is more important.

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Credits to MindMatrix for editing this chapter and improving the readability.