Time flew by, and two more months passed in the blink of an eye.
[Soul Power: Level 15 (149/4000)]
Even while constantly moving and completing missions in the Soul Hunting Forest, Zhao Liuyun, thanks to the care of his companions, never interrupted his daily meditation. His Soul Power naturally broke through to Level 15.
During this period, he kept traveling back and forth between the mercenary group and his Uncle-Master's pharmacy.
The pharmacy was his place of residence.
The medicinal liquid for his medicated baths also had to be prepared by his Uncle-Master, Huang Xin.
When he wasn't on a mission, helping to prepare medicine could also earn him a decent amount of money, and assisting with diagnoses helped him accumulate some professional experience for the [Physician] class.
Going to the mercenary group meant joining them for mercenary missions.
Mercenary missions were mainly divided into three categories: Soul Hunting, Gathering, and Transportation.
Soul Hunting was self-explanatory. Gathering mainly involved medicinal herbs, and sometimes fruits.
The Spirit Hall had its own herb gatherers, so these types of gathering missions were usually issued by outsiders, specifying particular medicinal materials.
This was the same route Zhao Liuyun had considered taking when he was initially looking for medicinal ingredients.
However, now that he had joined the mercenary group, he could gather items himself in the Soul Hunting Forest and even use Tian Wenlong's connections to purchase the corresponding medicinal herbs and poisonous grasses at a lower price.
His original plan was naturally abandoned.
Transportation was hard labor—carrying the corpses of dead Soul Beasts out of the Soul Hunting Forest.
There were dedicated guards, so he didn't have to face the Soul Beasts directly, but the forest paths were rugged and difficult to navigate. Only Soul Masters with no particular specialty and those whose first Soul Ring was a white one were willing to expend a huge amount of effort to earn this money.
The Long-Tusk Elephant Mercenary Group mainly focused on Soul Hunting.
Most of their missions were high-quality hunts for hundred-year-old Soul Beasts, with occasional group missions for ten-year-old Soul Beasts involving ten or more people.
The number of Soul Masters was limited, so there weren't as many Soul Hunting missions as Zhao Liuyun had initially thought.
However, each trip to the Soul Hunting Forest lasted several days. Combined with the 50% boost from [Concentration], the professional experience for the [Mercenary] class accumulated the fastest, with each mission yielding about 150 to 180 points.
In just two short months, Zhao Liuyun participated in six missions. After the last mission concluded, his experience points had just reached the 1,000 points required for class advancement.
[You have met the experience requirement for the [Mercenary] class. Do you wish to advance?]
As was his custom, Zhao Liuyun didn't rashly advance the class immediately. Instead, after the mission ended and he bid farewell to everyone, he returned alone to the pharmacy and went to his own room.
After two months of hard work, he had been looking forward to this day for a long time.
A class trait related to the body!
He suppressed his excitement, his eyes blazing with anticipation, and silently chanted in his heart, "Advance!"
The panel quietly changed, and at the same time, his Physique, which had rapidly increased to 7 points through medicated baths and training, also changed.
On the panel, [Physique] flickered non-stop, the value soaring upwards like a streak of light.
Before Zhao Liuyun could dwell on it, an intense surge of hunger washed over him.
It was even more ferocious than the Dragon Blood Tree medicated bath!
In an instant, he was so hungry that he felt dizzy and faint.
"I must quickly replenish energy!" Only this one thought remained in Zhao Liuyun's mind.
He tremblingly took out the dried Soul Beast meat, which he always kept on hand after training, from a wooden box, stuffed it into his mouth, and chewed forcefully.
The chewy texture that usually tasted quite flavorful now seemed hideous and terrifying, as dry and hard as wood chips.
Why couldn't he chew it down?
Zhao Liuyun's eyes flashed with fierce resolve, but his body lacked energy and felt weak and powerless, making chewing extremely difficult.
Emotional venting was useless; what couldn't be chewed remained stubbornly intact.
Fortunately, there were still some pastries to fill his stomach.
A portion that usually required five or six careful bites was now swallowed whole in just two bites.
After two pounds of pastries, the hunger finally eased considerably.
His Physique surged by 5 points, finally stabilizing at 12 points.
The numerical display seemed somewhat illusory; it was evident that the panel value was only virtually boosted to 12 points, and his body hadn't substantially reached the requirement yet.
Indeed, Zhao Liuyun could still feel the echoes of hunger signals within his body.
This was a sign of severe energy depletion.
However, with the initial replenishment, he would no longer faint from hunger. Continuous subsequent eating would gradually fill the gap.
Struggling to chew the dried meat, Zhao Liuyun finally had the presence of mind to observe the changes on his panel.
New Class [Mercenary Lv1], New Trait [Robust Physique], New Skill [Battle Instinct].
His luck was good; he gambled on a physical trait!
[Robust Physique (Mercenaries have sturdy bodies, abundant vitality, and great strength)]
Unlike [Agility], which bestowed muscle extensibility upon Zhao Liuyun's naturally flexible young body, forcefully elevating the numerical value required more energy and nutritional supplementation.
He subconsciously squeezed his bicep. The muscle he had painstakingly trained over two months was already taking shape.
Although it felt soft due to the current lack of energy, and rubbing it caused a faint prickling pain and itchiness, this was a sign of rapid physical growth.
Gaining a physical trait saved him an unknown amount of hard work.
A trait was the talent bestowed by a class, ensuring that his body would no longer be a weakness, thus addressing the final shortcoming of a Spirit-type Soul Master.
One trait might not be enough, so he would just find more classes in the future!
Zhao Liuyun walked toward the kitchen while continuing to eat.
It wasn't yet mealtime, but he had to cook some meat.
His body was crying out for sustenance, in extreme nutritional deficit, and he couldn't ignore it.
Finding a small stool to sit on, Zhao Liuyun continued to study the skill.
[Class Skill: Battle Instinct (Mercenaries possess powerful battle intuition, enabling quick judgment based on instinct)]
Intuition...
The mysterious sixth sense?
He tried to activate the skill.
There seemed to be no change whatsoever.
A question mark floated skeptically in his mind, and Zhao Liuyun simply let it go.
He would wait and see the consumption.
[Battle Instinct] should primarily consume spiritual power, an area where he happened to excel.
Dipping a large piece of plain-boiled Soul Beast meat into sauce, Zhao Liuyun finished it without detecting even the slightest hint of sluggishness in his thinking.
The consumption was extremely low, barely noticeable.
Since it was [Battle Instinct], emphasizing the word "battle," perhaps its true power could only be demonstrated in actual combat.
A flash of inspiration crossed Zhao Liuyun's mind—
If that was the case, why not keep it activated all the time?
This way, he could be constantly on guard against sudden attacks.
To turn [Class Skill: Battle Instinct] into a [Class "Trait": Battle Instinct].
This was a constructive idea, and upon careful consideration, it was the only skill suitable for continuous activation.
Other skills either consumed too much or had specialized uses, making them unsuitable for being constantly maintained.
Only [Battle Instinct] remained in a low-consumption standby state when no combat was occurring.
After a trip to the restroom to empty his bowels, Zhao Liuyun returned and continued to eat voraciously.
His Uncle-Master Huang Xin couldn't help but come over to ask, worried that he had suffered some kind of emotional shock.
But he only received the reply, "I'm hungry."
His real goal was to quickly replenish his energy and make the 12 points of Physique on his panel transition from virtual to real.
A deeper reason?
There was no reason!
It was a secret, and asking further would be impolite.
Huang Xin, having navigated the Soul Master world for many years, knew that many things should not be probed too deeply, so he said no more.
Zhao Liuyun took five days off from the mercenary group leader, during which he ate and drank heavily, consuming about fifty gold Soul Coins' worth of Soul Beast meat. Finally, the 12 points of Physique settled into reality.
Zhao Liuyun's body underwent a complete transformation.
It was like absorbing a Soul Ring.
His shoulders were broad, his collarbones clearly visible, his arm muscles were full, showing a taut curve even when relaxed, and his abs also had defined lines.
10 points of Physique corresponded to the level of a normal adult male. Zhao Liuyun's height was only about 1.4 meters due to his age, so the 12 points were mostly added to his muscles, making them compact and powerful.
"If I maintain the medicated baths and training, absorbing the second Soul Ring when I reach Level 20 shouldn't be a problem."
On the sixth day, the members of the mercenary group had just finished their last mission and did not yet have a new commission.
Zhao Liuyun was helping out at the pharmacy, flipping through medical books to gain general experience.
It was at this moment that a boy who walked into the store made his pupils contract.
He was wearing a simple, pale-blue uniform, and a belt inlaid with twenty-four jade stones wrapped around his waist.
"Tang San?"
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