Just a single breath from the minor Ice Dragon managed to obliterate a whole swarm of demons. This made Han Mu extremely pleased with the effect of his skills. More importantly, he was able to test the strength of these demonic creatures. However, for now, he must not let down his guard in this world. So far, he has only confirmed the strength of the major players in this region and the Kingdom of Yeti. The Kingdom of Yeti, after all, survived in this continent which implies that the national strength does not vary too much among the surrounding countries. Even if there is a significant disparity in national power, the strength of the people themselves should not lag too far behind, otherwise, the weaker nations would have long been swallowed up and vanished.
Of course, his observations cannot rule out the presence of alliances or nations that uphold justice. Yet, even if there are alliances, they are hardly capable of preventing stronger countries from annexing the weaker ones. The existence of nations with justices can play a part, but this would inevitably lead to unequal trades. Unequal trades are indirect exploitation by stronger nations on the weaker ones, a tactic to flaunt power and undermine the national strength of the opponents. If a weak nation fails to handle the issue of unequal trade well, it can easily slide into chaos.
Next, the stronger nation does not need to deploy much force, but just under the pretext of protecting the public, they can legitimately take over the state, while killing the king and key royal family members, court nobles who "persecute" the public. The executioner pretends to be a hero.
From the history of his own world, he knew that there were countless examples of this. What’s more, a majority of the fooled public even applaud for the instigators, which is truly ironic. All of a sudden, Han Mu realizes that his thoughts have strayed towards a tangent, so he refocuses on the current situation.
From his understanding, the Kingdom of Yeti does not seem to suffer from trade pressure from other countries. This can be determined from the 'ground rat,' Finn. Black market merchants are the best indicators of inter-country trade. It can be said that apart from financial officers, those who care most about inter-country trade are these "ground rats". In other words, it can roughly be speculated that there were no justices, or perhaps the Kingdom of Yeti itself is the role of a justice country. If the Kingdom of Yeti is playing the role of a justice, then its national power should be among the strongest on this human-populated continent. For Han Mu, this could be the best scenario as he would then be able to gauge the general strength of this continent from the Kingdom of Yeti.
Of course, he refers to the apparent strength of mankind. Individual abnormal powerhouses and some strong foreign races may still be hiding in the shadows. He still cannot take this lightly. However, these issues are temporarily irrelevant to Han Mu. For now, the most important is Xiaoming!
He rents a room in the northern quarter where Xiaoming is. He leaps swiftly between rooftops, skipping from one block to another, casually taking out the occasional ignorant henchmen. A minotaur demon with bat wings saw Han Mu hopping between rooftops and charged towards him, squawking loudly. Currently, Han Mu has no extra energy to deal with such minions. "Magic Enhanced Flame Spear!" A flame spear was spontaneously generated and directed towards the minotaur. Han Mu didn’t bother following up on the outcome but continued his journey to the inn without any reduction in speed. The impulsive creature burst into pieces mid-air upon contact with the spear. After jumping over several buildings, he should arrive at his residential inn.
Fortunately, this area didn’t have many creatures. It seemed like the creatures were mainly concentrated together, systematically attacking the soldiers. Many civilian houses were not destroyed, in those houses hid civilians too frightened to run or too terrified to flee in front of the creatures. This fact made Han Mu feel a little relieved. However, he still saw some low-grade creatures along the way, like zombies and skeletons. Perhaps due to their low rank and intelligence, they couldn't execute commands well and so, deviated from the large team, acting on instincts alone. Or perhaps the demons deliberately made them act this way, making the public scared to stay at home, waiting to enjoy them after having taken care of all the soldiers.
Of course, there are other possibilities, but for now, I can only think of these two. Han Mu finally arrived at the front of the inn to find the door was open. This wasn't good news - doors and windows should logically be closed at this moment. He hurried inside while activating his ability.
"Life Detection"
The sign of life in his rented room gave Han Mu a sigh of relief, but what puzzled him was that there were two life signs. One of them should be Xiaoming, whom Han Mu was familiar with, but he didn't know who the other one was. Anyway, he would know when he got there. In the worst-case scenario, someone might mean harm to him or Xiaoming. If that were the case, he wouldn't mind solving this on his own. A cold killing intent flashed in Han Mu's eyes.
Inside Han Mu's rented room, Xiaoming now held two daggers and had fully revealed his werewolf characteristics instead of being cloaked as usual. In front of Xiaoming were two slow-moving human skeletons. One skeleton held a shabby wooden shield in its left hand but wielded no weapon in its right hand. The other held a rusty one-handed axe in its right hand. The two skeletons lunged at Xiaoming.
Werewolf children are trained to be warriors from a young age. Though Xiaoming was unique, he couldn't avoid this custom. His instructor was Wol. After dodging an axe blow, Xiaoming thrust his dagger into the hand bone of the skeleton wielding the axe. The strength of any werewolf, even young girls, was slightly higher than the average adult human male. Therefore, he successfully severed the low-level skeleton's hand bone, causing his axe to fall to the ground. The skeleton didn't feel pain or fear and immediately reached out to Xiaoming.
Seeing the largest threat gone, Xiaoming was much more at ease. Though he wished to put some distance between him and the skeletons, the room was too small. So, he counterattacked directly, using his dagger with impressive skill to shatter another skeleton's hand. Upon seeing the bone dust, he noticed that no marrow existed and gave up further observation. Clearly, these skeletons had been dead for a long time. After kicking down the skeleton a few times, he managed to scatter its bones.
Another skeleton lunged at Xiaoming. He jumped and sent the skeleton’s skull shattering with a left kick, then kicked the skull away with another strike. He ran his dagger from top to bottom and parted the skeleton. Without the sense of pain or fear, these low-level skeletons didn’t even think of using their shields. They were equipped with shields yet couldn't instinctively wield them for defense like humans would. If a skeleton managed to block a kick with a shield, Xiaoming might have needed more effort to take it down.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Xiaoming breathed a sigh of relief. His ears twitched as he heard familiar footsteps approaching. It was the footsteps of his brother Mu Mu. The sound stopped, and a man wearing black with a silver face appeared at the doorway.
"Brother Mu Mu?"
Xiaoming tilted his head; it didn't seem like a question, more of an inquiry. It was then that Han Mu realised he forgot to use his disguise due to worrying for Xiaoming's safety. From now on, he needed to be more composed. Apart from Xiaoming, Han Mu also noticed the two scattered low-level skeletons in the small room as well as one other living person. This person was someone Han Mu had seen before, the young receptionist from the inn.The older bank teller huddled in the corner of the room, trembling, looking defenseless. It suggests she must be highly intelligent to understand the formidable strength of a werewolf and seek refuge here. The two skeletons were dealt with by Xiaoming. This was somewhat unexpected for Han Mu, though he quickly reasoned that werewolves have innate battlefield prowess. In their village, the weakest adult werewolf had a Level 25 power rating, with the average adult werewolf falling between Levels 27-29. Comparatively, the average human soldier was at Level 15, indicating a significant disparity even on a surface level.
Han Mu ran an Ability Assessment on Xiaoming. The child was surprisingly at Level 26, which took Han Mu aback. However, he felt that Xiaoming's 26 levels were not entirely combat-based. Reflecting to the game Han Mu participated in,"Sword God Realm", levels were compounded in this game. If you were a Level 10 Paladin and a Level 10 Fighter, you'd be at Level 20. You could simultaneously train in up to twenty occupations. However, several occupations could not be pursued together due to conflicts, such as Necromancy and Paladin.
Typically, aside from hardcore players seeking PvP, no one opts to learn scope of twenty occupations as it makes dungeon raiding more difficult due to low-level occupational skills. Normal players specialized in 7-10 occupations to reach the max level. For example, Han Mu's character was a hidden occupation called Holy Dragon Knight. To achieve this, he had to have Level 20 Fighter (Max level), Level 20 Paladin (Max level) and Level 30 Dragon Knight (Max level) as pre-requisites, with Holy Dragon Knight's own Max level being Level 30. This meant only Level 100 remained distributable, requiring careful occupation combination.
Additionally, the higher your own level, the more level points available to distribute. Every gained level offers a point to distribute to your chosen occupation. The higher the job level, the stronger the skills, and more skills to learn.
By the same token, Han Mu recalled Xiaoming casting a werewolf-exclusive buff on him, implying Xiaoming might be an acolytic Priest or Shaman in the werewolf tribe. Her level may be a combination of combat and Priest occupations. Clerics can meditate or pray to gain experience in non-combat ways, though inefficiently, but could serve as a fast track in lower levels. With this understanding, Han Mu was at ease about Xiaoming's level.
