Chapter 45: Chapter 45: Upgrading Master of Stealth
[Detected that the Host has come in contact with a Titan's fate. Beginning the absorption process…]
[Absorption complete.]
[+100 RP Points]
[RP Points = 1262.562]
Looking at the system notification that appeared as he absorbed the bear's fate, Lake felt slightly disappointed that he didn't get any additional skills from it like the time where he absorbed the Goblin King's fate.
However, when his eyes turned to his total amount of RP points, all of his past disappointment vanished into thin air.
Currently, Lake was resting as he sat under the shade of a destroyed building. The spiders had converted themselves to clean up mode after the battle had ended. They went around gathering the countless corpses that littered the battlefield and began to transport them back towards the nest under the leadership of the Spider Queens.
The corpse of the giant bear wasn't spared from this process either, as the spiders dug into its flesh that had turned weak after its death, ripping off parts of it before transporting it along with the rest of the corpses.
Lake could already predict that the spider kingdom was going to go through an explosive growth period after this battle by just glancing at the color of the fate above the spiders that had partially turned a light blue color. It seems that there will be more Soldier Spiders in the future.
The ash deer and the remainder of the Wolf King's army had already fled the moment Lake knocked down the bear. When Lake thought about this he felt a little reluctant at the strands of fate that had escaped his grasp but there was nothing he could do about it.
After glancing over the battlefield and making sure everything was fine, Lake summoned the system interface as he began to read through the vast amount of notifications that had piled up during the battle.
Most of the notifications that had stacked up were the ones from absorbing the fate of the creatures that had died on the battlefield but there were a few unique ones among them.
[Detected that host has successfully accumulated over a thousand RP Points. Initiating system upgrade…]
[Estimated time for the system upgrade to complete - three days, eleven hours, fifteen minutes.]
[All system functions prior to the update are still available for the host to use. In the meantime, the system highly recommends the host to continue roleplaying and faithfully play his roles!]
Looking at the set of notifications, Lake was slightly surprised by the sudden update but he didn't think too much about it. After all, it will be revealed in due time. Instead, he turned his gaze to his list of skills. Now that he had RP to spare, it was time to upgrade some of his skills.
[Skills]
Observer of Fate lv2 (10,000 RP to upgrade)
Writer of Fate lv1 (10,000 RP to upgrade)
Steel Body Martial Arts lv2 (1000 RP to upgrade)
Master of Stealth lv1 (300 RP to upgrade)
Parkour Master lv2 (2000 RP to upgrade)
Assassinate lv1 (500 RP to upgrade)
Weapon Master lv1 (300 RP to upgrade)
Sixth Sense lv1 (300 RP to upgrade).
Lake felt a headache when he looked at the cost of the Master of Fate skills. To save himself from any further pain he decisively chose to ignore the two skills, turning his attention to the remaining few. The Parkour Master skill was also included in this list of ignored skills since he also couldn't afford it.
His Steel Body was already at level two, only one away from the max. If he upgraded it, it would put his current strength at the peak of the Martial Apprentice Realm using only his physique. If Lake had that level of strength when he was fighting the giant bear before, he wouldn't have injured himself when he punched the bear and would have caused even more damage to the bear.
The Assassinate Skill is strong and can be helpful at times but its main purpose was still to just assassinate. If his opponent was stronger than him, it would have no effect even if it allowed him to spot their weaknesses.
Sixth Sense has always been extremely helpful in battle, allowing him to accurately predict danger ahead of time and maintain an absolute surveillance of his surroundings. It is thanks to this skill that Lake never had to worry about being ambushed or surrounded as he could always find the best way out of the situation using it. However, that was as far as it uses extended for now.
The Weapon Master skill is by far Lake's most used Skill beside the Observer of Fate skill. It was thanks to this skill that Lake had become so proficient in combat, able to use any weapon he could get his hands on and even combine some of the effects of his other skills to perform insanely strong attacks. If Lake were to upgrade this, it would be an insane leap in his combat strength, almost comparable to if he were to upgrade Steel Body.
When Lake's thoughts reached here, he began to ponder about his next course of actions. Right now, the Empress had slipped away to go follow the Wolf King into the rift. When the Empress had left the battlefield Lake had taken a glance at her Halo which had turned a deep shade of red.
When he observed it, he saw her engaged in combat against the Wolf King but since he was on the battlefield, he didn't get the chance to observe further.
"I don't know what they want inside the rift but if they're willing to go to war for it and fight each other like this, then it must be extremely valuable..."
When Lake thought about this, a light flashed in his eyes as he turned to look at the last skill on his list.
[Master of Stealth lv. 1 - As a master assassin, you have mastered the art of sneaking around and vanishing from your enemies sight. At the current level you can proficiently move around without being noticed.]
After thinking for a while Lake eventually decided to upgrade this skill first.
Lake knew that he couldn't fight against neither the Wolf King nor the Spider Empress if he were to engage in close combat, even if he were to upgrade his other skills. That's why he decided to upgrade the Master of Stealth Skill instead.
In the vision of the Empress' future, the Empress and the Wolf King had seemed to be fighting for a long time. If he managed to sneak in while they were fighting and snatch whatever it is there after, wouldn't that be great?
Although the risk is still great, he felt that the estimated rewards were even greater and still chose to go.
Before he chose to upgrade his skill however, he got up from the rubble he was sitting on. Looking at his dislocated arm, Lake grabbed it with his other hand before decisively popping it back into place.
*Pop!*
With a soft pop, Lake felt his arm go back into place, accompanied by a searing pain that caused him to grit his teeth. In the knowledge he had acquired from the Steel Body Martial Arts, he had learned how to relocate his limbs if it ever got dislocated. The reason why such knowledge was included in the martial art was due to the dislocation of joints being a common injury when practicing the skills.
Fortunately, he never had to use it before as with the knowledge already in his head, he never messed up the forms of the martial art bad enough to dislocate any of his bones while practicing.
After the pain left his body, Lake found a secure and safe location within a building so that he wouldn't be disturbed while the upgrade was in progress.
Once he secured the entrance and used his sixth sense to make sure there was no one nearby, Lake sat down on the floor and began the upgrade process.
[-300 RP points]
[Beginning the upgrade process…]
With the familiar notification, Lake watched as his vision went black and he lost all senses in his body. This time, various information began to pour into Lake's mind like a raging river as he comprehended several techniques and concepts every passing second.
Soon the upgrade processes ended as Lake felt himself regain his senses with a sigh.
To Lake, it felt like an eternity had just passed but in reality it was only a few minutes. After taking a few more minutes to digest the information he had just received, Lake opened his eyes to look at the upgraded skill.
[Master of Stealth lv. 2 - As a master assassin, you have mastered the art of sneaking around and vanishing from your enemies sight. At the current level you can proficiently move around without being noticed and perfectly conceal yourself from external detection.]
There were only a few extra words at the end of the skill description but those words had added far too many things.
External Detection. This may be a vague term but Lake believed that it accurately described what he had just comprehended. With the upgrade of this skill, Lake had learned several techniques that allowed him to hide himself from the prying eyes of external entities and devices such as cameras, thermal vision and even sonar.
To put it simply, so long as no one was looking directly at Lake, they wouldn't be able to sense him using any other form of detection as he has perfectly concealed himself from the world. The only thing that he couldn't hide was his body, which was why people could still find him if they were to look directly at him.
Although it wasn't perfect concealment, Lake was already more than satisfied with it as he could proceed with his following plans using the upgrade to the stealth skill.
After resting for a bit, he got up and made his way back to the subway station that led underground. He was fully prepared to perform a high risk robbery!
…
A few hours after the battle between the two forces had ended.
A man covered in debris and dust slowly emerged from the rubble of a collapsed building.
"Hah… Hah, F*ck. Just what is my luck for that f*cking bear to crash into the building I was standing on." Leon gasped as he crawled out of the rubble.
When the giant bear had come crashing down onto the building from Lake's punch, Leon was hiding behind the stone wall so he didn't see Lake at all. He only heard a loud boom before he felt the entire building shake and in the next second he was freefalling through the sky.
After Leon got up, he dusted off the rubble on his shoulder and hair as he wiped the blood and sweat off his face. When the building fell, he was hit on his head by some of the falling debris and lost consciousness. Luckily he had landed in a safe area thanks to him jumping off the leaning building to separate himself further from the giant bear and most of the rubble.
Otherwise, if it wasn't for his Mid Tier Martial Apprentice level strength and his quick reactions, Leon felt he would have been crushed under the weight of the bear and the rubble of the building.
After releasing a sigh of relief, Leon turned his gaze to the broken camera in his arms. When he was falling, he managed to grab onto the falling camera and secured it tightly in his arms. Unfortunately it was also because of this action that the falling debris was able to hit him in the head.
Looking at the broken camera, Leon quickly began to dismantle it with expert proficiency as he pulled out a thin cartridge. Seeing that the cartridge was still unharmed, Leon released a sigh of relief as excitement washed over him.
This small cartridge contained the recording of the entire battle that had just happened. Leon knows if he uploaded this he was going to become famous overnight.
After further securing the cartridge, Leon swiftly chose to flee the area, wanting to return to the Hunter's Camp before returning to the city as he couldn't wait to start editing the recording before posting it.
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