Who Says I'm Not a Proper Adventurer?
Chapter 3: Half a Month Is Worth a Year of Effort

Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Half a Month Is Worth a Year of Effort

[Talent: Ouroboros Ring (Red)]

Description: Ouroboros, the great serpent of Legend that bites its own tail, symbolizing the eternal cycle and immortality.

Effect: You have one opportunity for a perfect resurrection each day. No matter the degree of physical destruction, even if your body is completely obliterated, you will reform your body and resurrect perfectly upon death.

Additional: Upon resurrection, all negative statuses will be automatically purged, and all abilities on cooldown will be reset.

Lance, who had been lying in bed about to fall asleep, suddenly shot his eyes wide open.

He stared intently at the translucent, pale blue panel glowing before him, his mind a torrent of unspoken curses.

’The risqué game I played in bed is actually following me?!’

Endless stamina, plus the ability to be revived at full health on the spot even when caught deep in a Xiuluo Scene involving multiple women.

These two great Talents combined to form the perfect template for a protagonist.

Lance could clearly feel that the short-circuiting sensation from the panel, like the flicker of faulty wiring, had completely disappeared.

This meant the system had stabilized.

His personal cheat ability had, at last, truly finished loading.

However, looking at this deluxe configuration, Lance’s expression showed little joy, instead revealing a hint of internal conflict.

This Talent was like a devil with a seductive figure, madly tempting him to step into that unknown, dangerous world.

Lance sighed, got out of bed, took out a pen and paper from his drawer, and began to run the numbers.

According to his original plan, as a senior Copyist, his daily wage was 50 Copper Coins.

After subtracting his carefully budgeted 8 Copper Coins for daily living expenses, he saved a net of 42 Copper Coins each day.

Adding the side jobs Nia helped him find, he wrote five family letters a week, earning another 5 Copper Coins per letter.

At this rate...

He would only need to tough it out for another six years to save up the massive sum of 10 Gold Coins needed to travel to Ostrara.

He would only be twenty-four years old by then.

In that city, the most prosperous commercial hub on the continent, he was confident he could quickly establish himself with a mind ahead of its time, and then marry a gentle young lady from an Alien Race.

But that was the path of an ordinary person.

’But what if I changed my Profession to Adventurer?’

Even the lowest-ranked Adventurers only needed to kill eight Goblins a day.

According to the going rate, one Goblin ear could be exchanged for 20 Copper Coins. If you accepted a subjugation quest and turned in ten sets of ears at once, the Guild would grant an additional reward of 1 Silver Coin.

Deducting expenses for food, daily weapon maintenance, and other supplies would come to about 40 Copper Coins.

It would only take a little over two years to save up 10 Gold Coins.

And this was just the efficiency of an Ordinary Adventurer.

Lance’s gaze fell upon the red entry for [Hevagmir’s Boiling].

An ordinary person would be exhausted after killing eight. ’And me?’

’Thirty a day? Fifty?’

’As long as my Spirit can hold up, killing even a hundred wouldn’t be difficult.’

Lance shook his head hard, trying to banish such an unhinged thought from his mind.

’A man can’t be too greedy.’

’Even if I play it safe and only kill eighteen a day...’

’...it would still only take a year to achieve the first major goal of my life.’

’And by then, I’d have only just turned nineteen.’

The five-year difference in his youth was an offer Lance simply couldn’t refuse.

"System! This is all your fault!"

Lance covered his face in anguish, letting out a heavy sigh.

"The hardest thing in life is stepping out of your comfort zone!"

Though he complained, Lance didn’t hesitate to act.

The very next morning, he submitted a leave request to his direct supervisor, Grayson.

The Adventurer’s Guild was a massive organization. Lance’s document recording team belonged to the administrative department, and he wasn’t the only Copyist.

Grayson himself was a veteran. For the sake of Lance’s late father—and because Copyists were entitled to vacation days, though the overachieving Lance had never bothered to take any—he approved the leave without a second thought.

Since he had decided on this path, he had to follow the rules.

There was one strict requirement to register as an Adventurer: one had to possess a Combat Skill at the "Skilled" level.

Lance could only turn to the Veterans’ Guild.

As the saying goes, money makes the world go ’round.

After spending a little cash, he finally managed to dig up a perpetually drunk, retired veteran in a corner of the Guild.

This unassuming middle-aged man was an elite survivor of the famous "Bloody Iris Campaign," and his Castro Swordsmanship had reached the realm of a master.

The Veterans’ Guild was truly full of hidden masters; you never knew which old man sunning himself by a wall might be a retired Professional.

Out of consideration for Lance’s late father, the man gave him a steep discount.

He only charged 30 Silver Coins.

Watching his purse, which held 45 Silver Coins painstakingly saved over three months, instantly deflate made Lance’s heart ache so much it felt like it was twitching.

With the instructor taken care of, he still needed to find a venue.

Through Nia’s connections, Lance secretly found a young lady in the logistics department and secured the rights to use one of the Guild’s private training rooms.

However, it came with many restrictions: he could only use it for three hours each day after sunset, and he had to pay a 10-Copper-Coin wear-and-tear fee per hour.

This was already the at-cost price for internal staff.

"Praise be to Nia."

Lance silently made the sign of the cross in his heart.

The Guild actually had a free, open training ground, but he didn’t dare use it.

Lance, who was well-versed in the art of survival, understood the saying all too well: the tree that stands tallest in the forest is the first to be blown down by the wind.

If anyone saw him swinging a sword for hours on end without even breaking a sweat, he’d probably be snatched away by the next day, taken to a basement for research by some young sorceress from a Magic System Profession.

There was no need to attract that kind of attention.

And so, for the next half-month, Lance began a hellish training regimen.

Every day after work, he would dive straight into that enclosed private training room.

If an ordinary person were to undergo such high-intensity Swordsmanship training, they would be exhausted within an hour at most.

In a real battle to the death, stamina would be depleted in a matter of minutes.

But Lance was a complete anomaly.

Relying on his Talent’s Effect, every time his stamina hit rock bottom, he only needed to stop and take a few deep breaths for his depleted energy to come surging back like the tide.

To his pleasant surprise, the part of his Talent’s description that mentioned "reduced sensitivity to abnormal statuses" was also effective against mental fatigue.

This meant his mental Resilience was extremely high, allowing it to keep pace with his physical recovery.

As a direct result, the logistics department had recently become very puzzled as to why the rate of wear and tear on the Wooden Swords and training dummies in that particular room had suddenly skyrocketed.

There were even rumors that a certain Professional was holding secret training sessions there late every night.

In addition to equipment wear and tear, his appetite also increased dramatically.

Fortunately, the tavern where Amber worked was right next to the Guild.

Every day after training, Lance would drag his famished body over to the tavern.

His ravenous eating, as if he were a starving ghost reincarnated, didn’t frighten Amber, but the enormous expense made Lance’s wallet tremble with fear.

Fortunately, Amber was a kind-hearted girl.

She would always bring him a large plate of meat piled high like a small mountain. She’d claim nonchalantly that they were leftovers from the evening that had to be thrown out anyway. She had planned on feeding them to the stray dogs in the back alley, but since he was there, she figured she might as well give them to him.

"Praise be to Amber."

Lance mumbled his gratitude indistinctly while wolfing down the delicious roasted meat.

Relying on this high-intensity training, which was practically cheating, a notification popped up on his system panel on the fifth day.

[Castro Swordsmanship Skill Level: Level 1 → Level 2]

[Constitution +1]

「Late on the night of the sixteenth day.」

He had crossed a Swordsmanship threshold in half a month that took others a full year of training.

The panel flashed again.

Name: Lance

Profession: None

Power: 5

Agility: 6

Constitution: 5

Spirit: 7

Perception: 6

Talents: Hevagmir’s Boiling (Red), Ouroboros Ring (Red)

Skills: Castro Swordsmanship Level 3 (Skilled), Common Language Reading and Writing Level 3 (Skilled), Arithmetic Level 4 (Mastery)

This insane period of special training could finally come to an end.

Tomorrow, when he went to work, would be the day he officially registered as an Adventurer!