Chapter 170: Etching and Charging

As the lowest-level monsters growing on the Aifala Continent, goblins and grey-skinned rats have many commonalities.

Both are individually weak and rely on group cooperation, using numerical superiority to submerge their opponents; both live in dark, damp, dirty undergrounds, and both let instinct drive their bodies, wantonly venting their desires.

To some extent, calling goblins "humanoid grey-skinned rats" or grey-skinned rats "rat goblins" seems to make sense.

And in actual combat, the experience both gave Xia Nan also had similarities.

Their fragile bodies were like tender green plants under the blade of a lawnmower; they couldn't even touch the hem of Xia Nan's clothes before turning into severed limbs and flesh flying away in the 【Tooth Hunt】 wolf howl, which was as biting as a blade.

The iron-grey decapitation longsword drew a perfect arc in the air; that was the enhanced version of 【Spinning Slash】 with the bonus of forward momentum.

The large circle of blood mist that exploded in front of him also once again proved that these rats, like goblins, had pathetic defensive capabilities.

And their massive numbers, which they were proud of and relied on to run rampant in the underground passages, and which made one's scalp tingle,

when faced with an opponent who possessed ultra-high mobility, added area-of-effect damage when moving, was extremely fast, and had abundant stamina,

also appeared so pale and ridiculous.

"Proficiency +1"

"【Tooth Hunt】 lv3: (27/100)"

Before his eyes, the all-too-familiar translucent characters flashed.

Since his promotion, the long-lost battle had allowed the proficiency of his combat techniques, which had been increasing increasingly slowly under daily training, to once again usher in high-speed growth.

The roaring wolf head, wrapped in blood and flesh, seemed able to absorb the life force of those weak individuals who died because of it, turning it into cold numbers on the attribute panel.

Muscles pulled and bulged, and blood surged throughout his body as his heart accelerated its pumping.

In the high-speed movement where even the air around him was vaguely blurred, the refreshing resistance of flesh being torn came from the edge of the blade, the painful wails constantly ringing in his ears, the severed limbs and flesh fragments lifted and rolled by the airflow...

It was still a grey-black rat swarm that almost filled every corner of his vision.

In Xia Nan's heart, however, there was no longer the previous resistance and disgust.

Like those goblins that had once left deep shadows in his mind and were now just tools for improving combat technique proficiency,

at this moment, these grey-skinned rats in his eyes also seemed to gradually detach from their status as monsters and become walking "experience packs."

Awoo—

The long, sharp wolf howl echoed continuously in the pipe gallery, and for a time, it actually seemed to overwhelm the massive squeaking noise made by countless grey-skinned rats in the air.

Looking at the ferocious wolf head made of blood and flesh, whistling and weaving through the rat swarm ahead,

"Gulp."

Eight-Fingers suddenly swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

His gaze couldn't help but look at Tie Tou, who was panting beside him and had just returned to his side, taking advantage of the gap when the rat swarm was attracted by the sudden strong enemy, and asked subconsciously:

"This... where did you invite him from?"

A professional!

Undoubtedly a professional!

As the boss of the Grey Badger Gang, Eight-Fingers had also been an adventurer for many years when he was young. Not to mention how rich his experience was, but he had seen no shortage of those well-equipped, deep-aura veterans.

He had even had relatively deep contact with some of them.

Therefore, he knew clearly what an exaggerated degree the gap between people would reach after obtaining a professional level.

Eight-Fingers didn't know the identity of the cold, sharp youth who used a grey longsword as a weapon and had a head of black, messy hair; even the other's professional type was difficult to distinguish because of his rare fighting style.

But what was certain was that this man, who fought alone and almost killed the entire rat swarm by himself, was definitely not a professional newcomer who had just obtained a professional level and had not yet fully understood his own power.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but turn his head again, moving his gaze away from the battlefield to look at Tie Tou, who hadn't even had time to catch his breath beside him, and asked in surprise:

"Didn't you go outside to collect money? How did you know we were in trouble here?"

Because of the relationship between Tie Tou and Xia Nan appearing one after another, Eight-Fingers subconsciously thought that this lackey he had sent out to collect protection fees had learned of the dangerous situation in the sewer and had specifically invited someone he knew to help.

If that were really the case, he was afraid he would have to raise Tie Tou's position in the gang in the future.

Thinking of this, Eight-Fingers couldn't help but curse in his heart.

"Damn, knowing such a ruthless character, why come here to be a thug?"

"I'll let you sit in the position of the boss of this Grey Badger Gang!"

Not knowing Eight-Fingers' thoughts, Tie Tou, who had run all the way and finally managed to rush back, looked at the destructive scene on the field and couldn't stop feeling lucky in his heart.

Fortunately, he had some discernment and didn't offend the other party, otherwise... he was afraid that maggots would have already grown on his body.

At the same time, he was also pondering that in the future, he would let the brothers responsible for Yujin Street be careful, especially toward that tailor shop; he must pay more attention and not let ignorant people go over to cause trouble.

"No, no." Tie Tou answered, panting, "Those two came looking for you, Boss."

Hearing this, Eight-Fingers' heart tightened immediately.

His brain began to frantically recall whether he had offended the two, and whether the things he had done recently might involve them.

For a moment, he even thought about the escape route, thinking about whether he should just slip away.

But the next second, when Eight-Fingers saw with his own eyes that the ferocious wolf head in the rat swarm ahead shuttled from one end of the pipe gallery to the other in the blink of an eye, he gave up the idea in his heart.

After pondering for a moment, he gritted his teeth and casually summoned a lackey:

"You, yes, you, come here!"

"Go move the box under my bed, the small one hidden in the very back, hurry!"

"Hum... Boom!"

The ochre-red light, like some constantly changing rune, was condensed on the iron-grey sword body.

Xia Nan could feel in the dark some invisible connection between himself and the red light.

The body moving at high speed under the wolf howl's wrapping stopped abruptly, and the longsword stabbed straight out.

Without aiming deliberately, the sword body inlaid with red light pierced into the body of a certain unlucky grey-skinned rat, which squeaked and struggled in pain.

And at the same time, the ochre-red light that condensed on the sword body in some peculiar way, flowing and emitting a dangerous aura in its instability, did not explode because of the violent stimulation of this sword.

Instead, it obediently waited for Xia Nan's heart to move slightly before it suddenly bloomed like an explosion.

It turned into a miniature ochre-red firework, instantly swallowing the grey-skinned rat pierced by the blade, along with parts of the bodies of three or four of its kin beside it.

"Proficiency +1"

"【Gravity Etching】 lv1: (62/100)"

Whoosh—

His attention was slightly distracted by the translucent text appearing before his eyes, and his body, which had paused slightly due to the use of the combat technique, had already moved again under the wrapping of the wolf head.

Unlike 【Tooth Hunt】, which had already completed the qualitative change from lv2 to lv3 and entered the "proficient" level.

【Gravity Etching】, as the professional companion combat technique of 【Meteor Blade Safari】, had only been obtained for a little over a month.

The "lv1" proficiency level, which had just started, allowed its proficiency to have a relatively fast improvement speed.

Right now, it had already been practiced by Xia Nan to more than sixty points.

And the training process, in his view, was also obviously much simpler than other combat techniques.

Not to mention 【Gravity Control】, which had only a pitiful "3" points of proficiency until now, just take 【Tooth Hunt】 as an example.

In daily situations without actual combat, even if he spent the entire afternoon training 【Tooth Hunt】,

this advancement-type combat technique, which had already reached lv3, might not necessarily gain even a single point of proficiency, and progress was slow.

But 【Gravity Etching】 was different.

Its inherently low proficiency level was one aspect.

On the other hand, it was also because of its "3/3 (can be used three times consecutively in daily state)" consumption-type usage method, and the cooling CD of recharging once every six hours.

This meant that when Xia Nan trained this combat technique.

Under the premise of retaining two usage opportunities in a normal state to deal with battles that might suddenly arrive at any time.

If he wanted to not waste any opportunity and let the combat technique itself be fully exercised.

He had to stick to its "recharge once every six hours" time point.

Whenever the 6-hour cooling CD passed and the number of uses returned to "3/3," Xia Nan needed to use this opportunity anytime, anywhere, to maximize the rate of acquiring proficiency.

After exploring during these days, he even flexibly combined the time waiting for the skill to cool down with his own daily routine.

Practice once before going to bed; the six hours of sleep time just happened to complete the recharge, and he could practice once more after getting up.

Then wash up, do daily morning exercises until noon; the six hours were recharged again, and he practiced once.

Practice or rest in the afternoon depending on the situation, use it once before dinner, and then it was the last time before going to bed late at night.

Perhaps it was precisely because of the limitation on the number of uses of this combat technique that its training efficiency was high, and it improved almost every day.

And it didn't need the boring and continuous long-term grinding like other combat techniques.

He just needed to wait for it to finish recharging and practice that one time.

In just a few dozen days, the proficiency progress bar was already more than halfway through.

It could be called completely relaxed.

But on the other hand, its fixed recharge time also locked the upper limit of the training speed.

Anyway, it was once every six hours; you couldn't work hard even if you wanted to.

It was fine now that the level was low, and the proficiency rose quite fast.

But if he waited until the later lv3 or lv4, I'm afraid the training speed of 【Gravity Etching】 would drop significantly.

Xia Nan only hoped that with the improvement of the combat technique level in the future, the number of uses or the recharge time of 【Gravity Etching】 could also have corresponding changes and upgrades.

The battle did not last too long.

Just like the commonality of some group-fighting creatures, when the grey-skinned rats turned into pieces of broken corpse meat in the wolf howl, and the number that originally covered the ground decreased rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye, while the enemy did not show a hint of decline.

These rats living in the sewer finally, under the action of the instinct to survive, suppressed the manic, bloodthirsty mental consciousness caused by the imminent "Moon Feast."

From the first two or three, to the whole patch later, they dragged their long tails and fled in a panic toward the exit holes hidden in the darkness around the pipe gallery.

The dark and complex terrain, combined with the scattered formation of the rats when they fled, dispelled Xia Nan's idea of pursuing.

He just gripped his longsword again and used 【Tooth Hunt】 to sweep through the dense areas of the rat swarm twice.

On the field, there were no more grey-skinned rats that dared to launch an attack on him again.

A figure flashed in the corner of his eye.

Accompanied by the approaching footsteps, Wood's figure, dressed in black leather armor, appeared before Xia Nan's eyes.

The surface of the two daggers in his hand was stained with some blood, there were no obvious holes in his clothes, and there were indeed a few beads of sweat on his forehead.

Of course, he also participated in the battle against the rat swarm.

It was just that the 【Rogue】 profession itself, and the combat techniques mastered, seemed to be biased toward one-on-one individual combat.

For these hundreds or thousands of rats, there was no good solution.

And because the trip was rushed, throwing-type props like "fire oil bombs" were not brought on his body.

He could only wander on the edge of the battlefield, checking for omissions for Xia Nan, or focusing on solving a few larger grey-skinned rats.

His own fighting style was like this, and he was still willing to take the time to help himself complete the mission; Xia Nan certainly wouldn't have any thoughts about this.

Seeing the other party walk over, he nodded in greeting.

On the contrary, Wood's gaze toward Xia Nan became strange again, just like when they met in the tavern just now and discovered that the other party had already obtained a professional level.

Obviously, Xia Nan's performance in the battle had exceeded his cognition of an ordinary newly promoted professional.

If he didn't know that Fugang had already left River Valley Town and shouldn't have any plans to take an apprentice in the short term, he even suspected whether the other party had handed over the tribe's bottom-of-the-box inheritance secret technique to this young man in front of him.

Frowning, he picked off a few rat hairs stuck to the surface of the decapitation longsword.

Putting the sword into the sheath, Xia Nan stood in place, his gaze sweeping over the scattered rat corpses around him, his expression faintly revealing a hint of regret.

Unlike those high-level monsters, whose organ materials alone could be sold for high prices in relevant shops.

For bottom-level monsters with massive numbers like goblins and grey-skinned rats, their bodies had no value for recycling at all.

The former was still okay; maybe he could find some broken equipment, mineral crystals, etc., from the goblin lair.

The latter wouldn't even leave a single bone.

The only value might be to take away some of the relatively complete corpses and see if any restaurants in the city were willing to accept them.

"I don't know how much money it can sell for; if I could have a gold coin, that would be great."

"But with so many, can I really transport them out by myself?"

The habit formed by months of adventuring life made Xia Nan always want to search for some spoils of war after the battle ended.

But these dirty, long-haired rats in front of him really didn't seem to have anything of value.

He pondered in his heart.

On the other side, the rescued members of the Grey Badger Gang had already walked toward Xia Nan under the leadership of the gang boss "Eight-Fingers."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 171 =====