The Righteous Player(s)

Chapter 243: I Shall Punish You All.jpg

“Is this the [Lurker] profession’s unique characteristic?”

Looking through Suuankou’s character attributes from the backend interface, Annan murmured.

The [Swordsman] profession’s unique characteristic was the system of skills that could be changed at any time with different types of “swordsmanship” as the core of the skill system. As long as you switch your swordsmanship, you can replace all swordsmanship skills with other skills.

For example, “Bodyguard Swordsmanship” and “Military swordsmanship”. The system acted like a pseudo skill reset, or rather the opportunity to “switch their talent”.

The [Hunter] profession’s uniqueness came from their ability to snatch others’ curses and store them, giving them the option to pick the curse they needed at any time, like changing equipment.

As for the unique feature of the [Lurker] profession, it was double the skill points.

For [Swordsman] and [Hunter], each level only provided 1 skill point. On the other hand, [Lurker] would acquire 2 skill points for every level up.

This ensured that those with the [Lurker] profession could easily reach the critical level at Level 4 or Level 7.

From the backend interface, Annan could see it more clearly.

The [Lurker] profession had an abundance of skills.

Based on quantity alone, the number of skills available to the [Lurker] profession was second only to the wizard’s spell list. It had more skills than a swordsman too.

The system assessed Lin Erer’s compatibility with the [Lurker] profession and assigned the three primary skill trees of “Sneak”, “Tools”, and “Assassination” to him during character creation. Even so, the skills included in those groups were less than two-thirds of the [Lurker] profession.

Apparently, the [Lurker] profession offered diverse advancement paths.

For the skills displayed on Annan’s control panel, there were a few more of them suitable for Lin Erer.

“The way he invested his skill points is quite smart,” Annan concluded.

This player seems like he is experienced in playing games.

For inexperienced rogue players, they will definitely invest everything on [Backstab], which is their damage output.

He seems to have some experience in dungeon raids since he prioritizes [Sneak] and [Skillful Hands], understanding that his primary role is to disarm traps and scout the path ahead. Currently, he isn’t required to assassinate anyone.

Also, not everyone has the chance of acquiring [Skillful Hands].

In fact, the only essential skill for [Lurker] was [Sneak].

For any additional skills, it depended on your luck…or, in other words, your talent.

Suuankou seemed to have struck the best approach in distributing his points in his attribute panel. The only room for improvement would be that particular 1 skill point wasted in promoting [Backstab] to Level 2. A better approach was to invest it into [Skillful Hands].

If Skillful Hands reached Level 5, Suuanko could craft simple traps. Take note, it was crafting, but not just “installing” a trap.

This improvement was at least much better than the [Backstab] skill.

But what Suuankou didn’t know was… Backstab’s special effect after attaining Level 4 was quite valuable.

[Backstab LV4: 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 1 second before you can activate the skill.]

[Effect after acquiring LV4: You may roughly sense the enemy’s location whose weaknesses have been identified within 3 seconds of them leaving your field of vision.]

In other words, the reason why Suuankou would want to have the [Backstab] skill wasn’t exactly for the “assassinate” component, but to “track” the target.

In general, his talent was still inclined to laying traps.

“…He was probably a Teemo or Shaco player.”

Annan thought for a while and arranged 2 stronger skills for Suuankou, which he could get at Level 7 and Level 10, respectively.

They were [Rapid ??Poison] and [Hidden Trap].

The former allowed Suuankou to gain a simple ability to touch venoms with his hands and make it all stick to a specific surface. This would allow Suuankou to poison weapons, throwing knives or traps swiftly.

If Suuankou maxed out the latter skill, he could have his traps also inherit his [Sneak] skill.

Since you want to be a Trap Rogue, I shall build a deck of skills accordingly for you.

What about the other side…

Dove’s situation troubled Annan a little.

He didn’t even know this fellow’s background.

The initial attribute of all human players was 30 attribute points. It was just that Annan assigned 5 points to all attributes by default so that their attribute distribution wouldn’t be too one-sided. Having 10 points invested in Agility was the most extreme case Annan faced for the beginning stage.

What baffled him the most was that her “Constitution” attribute was more than 5 points…

The energy consumed when creating a body for her was also lower than usual. That was why Annan slightly increased her pet’s attributes as compensation.

But ma’am, you have an excellent talent for archery and hunting, so why do you want to become a Beastmaster?

Annan even hesitated.

He wasn’t quite sure whether Dove wanted to follow the path of animal companion…or was she simply disdainful of the archery skills given at the beginning.

According to Dove’s talent, she would acquire [Vitality] at Level 7 and [Heart of the Wild] at Level 10.

For [Vitality], adding simply one level in would double her stamina recovery and speed. On the other hand, [Heart of the Wild] allowed her to intuitively lock on the target in the wild – a moderately practical skill.

It occurred to Annan that giving these skills to her would be a waste.

Annan thought for a moment, and then he gave her an elite skill.

He first replaced the unique skill given at Level 7 with [Hunter].

It was an upgraded version of [Heart of the Wild]. She could see the target’s track for those that she had injured.

The four players in this batch were all of high quality.

Except for the priest, whom Annan had no idea what kind of skills to give her, Annan had manipulated the data covertly and provided them with high-quality skills.

Indeed, it just so happened that these players were all in “new professions”.

Annan intended to turn these players into idols, making them the “leader” of future players in their profession choices.

As long as their overall character profile wasn’t skewed, the rest of the players could duplicate the same strategy.

It should be fine. I don’t think it will go wrong easily.

Unfortunately, Annan wasn’t quite confident with it.

“So be it.” Annan sighed and focused on the game-planning in the backend interface.

The remaining three players were more well-behaved — or rather, more cautious.

After character creation, they all chose to quit the game first and asked their “seniors” for strategies and information.

Of course, none of the info would be helpful.

Annan had already positioned them as “elite players”. It just so happened that there would be a long wait before the next dungeon instance spawn.

Annan simply gave each of them a customized set of beginner missions.

Unfortunately, that Suuankou is given me trouble.

Why does he head into the game directly?

Why are you so reckless like Yiyi?

I haven’t started crafting your beginner mission yet!

Annan pondered for a moment with his thoughts dashing in his mind. Finally, he dragged over the starting mission prepared for the Half-dead Enchantress previously and then edited it before delivering it to Suuankou.

“En, you shall spawn in the slums.

“You woke up from a… Well, since you’re a man, so no bed for you. Then, you shall wake up from the haystack and find that you’re in excruciating pain. Your equipment was stolen, but they spared your life. Then, first of all, you have to follow the clues to retrieve your equipment…”

As for the underground gang members that “robbed stray travelers,” they existed in Roseburg.

Since they robbed so many people, they probably wouldn’t remember if they had robbed Suuankou or not.

Huh, what an excellent opportunity to get these new players to eliminate the gang members in Roseburg.

Many of them were related to Roseburg’s viscount. They should be related to the Rotten Man Church too. I shall use them to craft a character plot for the players.

Annan had hidden five sets of equipment in different places in advance.

They were a couple of equipment sets to satisfy the players’ needs:

1. Short bow and dagger

2. Rifle

3. Dagger and poison

4. Mace

“I guess I’ll give you No. 4 equipment set. Dagger and poison… Tsk, I should have left a trap device there. Forget it. I’ll give it to Suuankou at his next mission.”

Annan murmured and re-planned the storyline mission for him, “Please don’t die, young man.

“According to the setting of the story, I can only give you the power to respawn after meeting me.”

Although it could be a little difficult for Suuankou, who is a rogue proficient in traps, it isn’t my problem!

This is the punishment for a youth addicted to online games!

You should have gone for your dinner… How dare you make me wake up in the middle of the night and work overtime!

As for the robbers…

Someone will come to take revenge anyway, and this is also the punishment for your past evil deeds!

What? You don’t know him? It’s fine. He doesn’t know you either…

I Shall Punish You All.jpg

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