Chapter 8

Punk regretted it, truly regretted it. If time could flow back to yesterday, he would have never provoked that brother and sister, no matter what. Unfortunately, no amount of regret could stop the flow of his life.

Suddenly, Punk felt another pain as Raven viciously cut off his right index finger—this was the custom on the continent for dealing with thieves: the first offense, cut the right index finger; the second offense, chop off the right hand.

After Punk's body stopped convulsing, Raven gently laid down his massive body.

Raven's emotions were complex at this moment. Everything was so familiar, all the sensations and movements were almost identical to the 100% realistic "Aotu World" game.

In fact, this was his first true killing.

There was no fear, no discomfort, and no nausea as he had imagined. Instead, there was a sense of joy mixed with wild excitement.

Yes! He had done it himself, not just cold data, not a fake corpse that would disappear soon, but a real, living person.

Thinking of this, he felt an inexplicable sense of achievement.

Was it the residual assassin instinct from his past life influencing Raven's soul? Or had Raven truly integrated into this world?

Raven didn't know.

After the assassination, he habitually began to search the body. In the deepest pocket of Punk's, Raven unexpectedly found a piece of paper. The contents on it made Raven completely lose his composure.

It was his portrait, with his name and detailed background.

Drawing a sharp breath, Raven instantly realized that this was not a random incident caused by teasing a girl. This was a premeditated murder targeting him!

What shocked Raven even more was that this was not a portrait drawn by an artist, but a high-quality image directly imprinted using divination magic.

Who could be so extravagant!? To use divination magic to track someone and gather such clear information would cost no less than 10,000 gold coins!

What earth-shattering secret did he have that was worth such a high price? Raven repeatedly recalled the experiences of this body, which was just an ordinary peasant who lived by hunting and farming. He truly didn't understand why his head was so valuable.

Suddenly, Raven shivered. For some reason, he suddenly thought of the sharp, knife-like gazes of the forest goblins before entering the city. He thought to himself, "If there really is a mastermind using forest goblins and the Black Erosion Church to hunt me down in a series of attacks... that would be... too exaggerated, right?"

Which giant was behind this, targeting him!?

Or had he become involved in some plot from the game?

Raven was very troubled. There were certainly many major events in the early stages of the game. He could almost recite most of them, but the current situation was that Raven's information was severely insufficient, and he couldn't place himself in any known plot.

With a messy mind, Raven continued to search the body.

There was no other valuable information. Instead, this barbarian's poverty made Raven curse inwardly.

A core fanatic of the church, and he only had one silver coin on him. No wonder the Black Erosion cultists in his memory liked to rape peasant women... because they didn't cost money!

Additionally, the only gain was a plain iron axe and a plain iron dagger from a blacksmith's shop.

Raven threw the axe away; it wasn't worth much and had a mark on it.

Dagger attributes...

Damage: 1-3 points

Durability: 4/11

Seeing this dagger, Raven almost wanted to die.

Well, he could give it to Karin for self-defense, or at least use it as a throwing knife.

After searching the body, he left a bunch of short boot prints, erased all traces of himself from the scene, and left as quickly as possible.

In a safe place, Raven took deep breaths and examined his gains.

The system had already issued a notification, and Raven now had the time to look at it.

"Backstab activated."

"Backstab successful! Damage ×2. Hit the opponent's vital point. Backstab changed to a fatal attack. Dealt a total of 34 points of damage to the target."

"Target near death! Losing 20 points of life per minute due to bleeding."

...

"Target dead!"

"Extracting the target's soul energy! Due to the target's challenge level being 4, which is 3 levels higher than mine, an additional 200 killing experience is awarded... Total killing experience gained: 300 points."

If it weren't for that portrait, Raven would have laughed until his mouth was crooked at this notification.

Under normal circumstances, only a team could challenge an enemy more than two levels higher. Now, with the sneak attack and the Black Obsidian Dagger, he had accomplished a cross-level kill, and the reward was naturally very generous.

Moreover, killing experience, which could only be obtained through combat and killing, was the highest level of experience and could be allocated to all professions, part-time jobs, and class templates!

Considering the existence of a mastermind, Raven urgently needed to enhance his combat power, so he chose to immediately become an assassin.

In the Aotu World, becoming a profession was quite interesting. Each profession had different requirements. For example, paladins were devout warriors who, as long as their hearts were filled with justice and light, would receive the call of the benevolent gods. As long as they responded in their hearts, they would become paladins at that moment.

Joining a temple afterward was just a supplementary ceremony.

Becoming an official assassin usually required the recognition of an assassin guild.

In reality, as long as the requirements were met, one could become an assassin independently, but they would miss out on an agility-boosting assassin badge.

Considering that having an assassin badge would expose him to the priests of Cyric, Raven chose the independent route.

To become an assassin, one must meet several conditions: any evil alignment, Disguise level 4, Hide level 8, Stealth level 8, and the ability to kill solely to become an assassin.

The last point was a psychological judgment, and Raven, who had lived two lives, had no problem with it.

With a "ding," the (unassigned) on the system attribute panel disappeared.

He decisively allocated all the killing experience to the assassin profession, immediately raising his level to 3. If Raven were a basic Rogue, this experience would have been enough to reach levels 5 or 6. However, since he chose the Bronze-tier profession of Assassin, the experience penalty was quite severe.

With the level-up, Raven gained 1 free attribute point and 24 skill points. As an assassin, agility was the main attribute, and Raven didn't plan to allocate points to other attributes until he reached 20 agility and received the special attribute bonus.

Considering the possibility of being hunted, Raven allocated the skill points to Stealth and Hide. Additionally, due to successfully killing Punk, his Sneak Attack and Death Attack skills had slightly increased.

Thus, Raven's attributes became:

Name: Raven.

Race: Half-Elf/??.

Attributes: Strength 11, Agility 18, Constitution 12, Intelligence 18, Perception 15, Charisma 19.

Alignment: Lawful Evil.

Profession: 10th-level Commoner/3rd-level Assassin [Black Iron Tier].

Health: 33/33 (Healthy).

Experience: General 0. Killing Experience 30 (Unassigned).

Skill Points: None.

Attribute Points: None.

Status: Healthy.

Professional Skills—Stealth 40, Disguise 24, Hide 33, Bluff 12, Sneak Attack 11, Death Attack 13...

Legendary Skills—Fanaticism [Sealed].

Racial Skills—Darkvision.

Personal Feats—Stealth, Persuader, Scholar.

Personal Skills—Self-Stabilization [Legendary].

After allocating the points, Raven felt a newfound familiarity with the skills, and the increase in agility made him feel lighter.

Closing the attribute panel, a cold smile crept across Raven's lips.

Disguising himself as the middle-aged rogue again, Raven went to the Adventurer's Guild to turn in the quest.

The person responsible for verifying the quest was an old man.

Don't be fooled by his sleepy eyes; anyone in this position was either a main or part-time priest of Savras (the God of Divination), all of whom were skilled in divination magic.

Divination magic was a very annoying spell in the game. As long as you brought a clue to a priest of Savras, the priest could easily provide a clear direction or determine the truth of someone's words through divination. In the state of casting divine magic, what the priest said was absolutely true, making it a nearly god-like ability in many situations.

It was now March, and it was still two months before the priests of Savras would lose their divination abilities in the game's history. Due to the Year of Upheaval, the divination magic of Savras' priests was already a bit inaccurate, but the general direction was still reliable.

"I'm here to turn in task 9527," Raven said, handing over Punk's finger.

The old man glanced at Raven and then ignored him. Catching a thief was a low-level bounty, and only rookie rogues would take such a task.

Using Savras' divine magic to compare the information and the finger, the old man quickly got a positive response.

There was no way it could be wrong! The acid Raven used to pour on the wall was definitely from Punk.

"The person is correct. There's one more thing on the bounty. Did you find it?"

Raven grinned, "I wouldn't pass up gold coins."

To anyone, gold coins were always in demand. If a piece of broken glass could be exchanged for gold coins, Raven wouldn't mind returning it. Unfortunately, what he had was a god-tier dagger from the Black Iron Tier! In the game, 100 gold coins were already a rare find.

The old man was used to the greedy nature of rogues and didn't pry further, asking, "You didn't kill him, right?"

"At least when I cut off his finger, he was still struggling fiercely."

Yes, just about to die.

Raven once again passed the divination check.

There was a significant difference between a finger cut from a dead person and one cut from a living person, and the divine check would be different.

The old man's thinking was led astray by Raven.

Adventurers always put in eight-tenths of their effort for eight-tenths of the pay. If the bounty was for a head, the price would be different. No one would do more than necessary. If they accidentally killed the target, the adventurer would most likely choose to run away rather than calmly come to claim such a small bounty.

Moreover, adventurers were notorious for not caring about the aftermath. As long as the target wasn't killed on the spot, any death afterward was not their responsibility. After all, people died every day in the City of Wealth, and who would think that a mere thief was a precious fanatic of the Black Erosion Church?

Thus, Raven calmly left the Adventurer's Guild.

The fire! It has been ignited!

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**End of Chapter**