Chapter 563: Skill Proficiency

Finally, he arrived at the place!

Nie Yan followed the source of the singing and made his way towards Benita.

After a while, he reached the eastern beach and saw a figure from behind, facing the ocean. She looked no different from an ordinary human girl, wearing a white gauze dress that danced gently in the wind, with golden hair cascading down in curly waves.

According to the records, Benita, the dragon girl, was a peerless beauty. Although she had lived for a thousand years, time had left no trace on her face. She could freely transform her body, appearing either as a dragon or a human.

The dragon race had always been a mysterious presence. Although many dragons still appeared across the continent, they had long lost the glory they once held a thousand years ago. Dragon creatures, when encountered, were either hunted down by imperial guards or enslaved by humans. Benita was an exception because of her connection with the Ten Holy Knights, which spared her from harassment by the guards of the Grendale Empire.

Nie Yan put on the medal of the Ten Holy Knights and walked toward Benita.

“Greetings, Lady Benita,” Nie Yan said, addressing her.

Benita turned her head and looked at Nie Yan blankly.

Seeing Benita’s face, Nie Yan was momentarily stunned. Benita was a textbook example of a golden-haired, blue-eyed beauty, like a goddess from Greek mythology.

Her gaze fell upon the medal of the Ten Holy Knights on Nie Yan’s chest, and her eyes sparkled with a sudden gleam.

“Mr. Nieyan, hello. May I ask you a question? Where did you get this medal?” Benita asked.

Nie Yan explained how he had obtained the medal, including how he helped Kawana enter Heaven and was pursued by Bruin.

When Nie Yan told her he had escaped Bruin’s pursuit, Benita showed a hint of surprise.

“Mr. Kawana was a good man. I had once made a pact with Jobiah of the human empire, that unless humans attacked me first, I would not attack humans first. Otherwise, I would have killed that damned Bruin!” Benita said angrily.

“Ms. Benita, may I ask if you know where the other eight Princes are being held?” Nie Yan asked. This was part of the quest; he needed to find out where the eight Holy Knights were imprisoned to rescue them.

“Yes,” Benita nodded, looking at Nie Yan. After a moment of contemplation, she continued, “I can tell you where they are being held, but they are guarded by hellhounds. With your current strength, you won’t be able to rescue them.”

“I will strive to become stronger, until the day I can rescue them,” Nie Yan said firmly, inwardly feeling a bit embarrassed. He had to put on a convincing act to obtain the quest clue.

Benita stared at Nie Yan, who met her gaze without fear. Her eyes were like sapphires—crystal clear and flawless.

“Young man, I admire your determination. I have something to give you; I hope it will be useful to you,” Benita said, her eyes shimmering with a strange light, as if a voice were calling out to Nie Yan. Her gaze was like a magnet, pulling him in irresistibly.

Nie Yan felt a wave of drowsiness wash over him. His eyelids drooped, and he struggled desperately to keep them open.

It was mind control!

System: Do you choose to accept Benita’s trial?

It was probably part of the quest. The war between the Bull Tribe and the Mage Alliance was still ongoing. If he entered the quest, would it affect anything? Nie Yan weighed his options. Within the Bull Tribe, he mostly played the role of a spiritual leader and behind-the-scenes planner, while the actual command of the troops was handled by Guo Huai, Cui Can Daoguang, and others. Therefore, even if he wasn’t present, they could still maintain control. If he refused Benita’s quest, he didn’t know if he’d ever get another chance. The Ten Holy Knights legend was an extremely high-level quest. Once the Bull Tribe players reached level 100, they could clear out the hellhounds and rescue the eight Holy Knights, after which Kars would become Nie Yan’s servant. This would be of great significance to the entire Bull Tribe, even more important than the outcome of this war.

Kars was a legendary mage!

After considering all this, Nie Yan clicked confirm.

After clicking confirm, Nie Yan drifted into a drowsy sleep.

How long had passed, he didn’t know. His hands gradually regained sensation, and a cool breeze blew across his face. Slowly opening his eyes, he found himself lying on a grassland. The tall, thick grass reached up to his knees.

Nie Yan stood up and checked the map. The name of this map was somewhat peculiar.

Benita’s Illusion Realm: Special Map.

Map Properties: Each time a skill is used here, it gains fifty times the normal skill proficiency.

The exit of this map opens once every two days. If you leave the map, it will disappear forever and can never be entered again.

Fifty times the skill proficiency! Nie Yan was startled. For players, gaining skill proficiency was the most tedious task. For example, a common Backstab skill, if practiced nonstop, would take about a month to reach level 7 and about five months to reach level 10. Any skill reaching level 5 or above was considered powerful. If it could reach level 8 or above, even the most basic skill would become extremely powerful, making leveling up much easier. If it could reach level 10 or above, the skill would be incredibly powerful. The maximum level a skill could reach was level 16, and it would take at least two years of nonstop practice to reach that level.

Ordinary players wouldn’t spend one or two months continuously practicing a single skill’s proficiency. Skill proficiency was usually gained through regular combat, so the overall skill levels of players were generally not very high. Reaching level 5 in a skill was already considered quite good.

If he could bring several skills up to level 5, 6, or even higher in this map, it would be very beneficial for the future.

Once he left this map, it would disappear forever, which made Nie Yan feel a bit down. Right now was the critical moment in the battle between the Bull Tribe and the Mage Alliance. He didn’t seem to have much time to train his skills. He immediately contacted Guo Huai using an external communicator and explained the situation.

“It’s okay, you can focus on training your skills. I will periodically report the battlefield situation to you. With Daoguang, Shuise, and others in charge, there shouldn’t be any major issues. That knight kid is quite skilled in commanding battles,” Guo Huai said. In fact, in a battle involving hundreds of thousands of troops, Nie Yan’s impact on the overall situation was very limited. Ultimately, it all came down to how well the commanders performed. The most important thing in this battle was how effectively the Frost Iron Catapults could be utilized.

“Immediately inform me if anything happens,” Nie Yan said. With Daoguang, Shuise, and others around, he felt relatively at ease.

After giving some instructions, Nie Yan realized time was limited. He decided to quickly train several skills to gain the fiftyfold skill proficiency bonus. It would be a waste not to take advantage of it. He pulled up the skill list and looked through dozens of skills, which were dazzlingly numerous, making it hard to choose.

First, he would train a few free skills of a grand thief, Nie Yan thought. He hadn’t fully mastered the newly learned free skills yet, including Reverse Backstab, Shadow Phantom Strike, Counter, Instant Strike, and Spinal Sever. For an ordinary grand thief, five free skills were already quite a lot.

Reverse Backstab and Shadow Phantom Strike were learned earlier, and Nie Yan had already achieved about 70% proficiency in them. Counter, Instant Strike, and Spinal Sever were learned later, and he could only reach about 50% proficiency.

If he could fully master the techniques of these skills and bring them up to level 5, 6, or even higher, Nie Yan would have no problem fighting one-on-one against elite opponents of the same level, and might even challenge same-level bosses.

Nie Yan understood what powerful skills meant for a rogue.

He placed these five skills in the most convenient positions and walked towards the distance. On the vast grassland, there were humanoid creatures moving about—warriors wearing gray iron armor and red headscarves around their heads, wandering around. These warriors were about a head taller than Nie Yan, with very muscular bodies, wielding huge axes.

Nie Yan stealthily approached one of them and cast a scouting spell.

Bull Warrior: Level 100, HP 800,000.

Seeing the Bull Warrior’s HP, Nie Yan frowned slightly. These Bull Warriors were neither bosses nor elites, just regular monsters, yet their HP was excessively high.

A level 100 monster shouldn’t be this terrifying.

Nie Yan crept behind a Bull Warrior, staying about thirty yards away. Suddenly, he sprang into action and rushed toward the Bull Warrior.

Spinal Sever!

Nie Yan slashed at the Bull Warrior’s spine. With a dull thud, the Bull Warrior’s body froze momentarily, and a damage value of over 1,200 floated above his head.

Wow, high defense!

Looking at the system prompt.

System: Spinal Sever successfully executed, 52% completion rate, dealing 80% attack damage, gaining 50 skill proficiency points.

The skill proficiency of Spinal Sever immediately increased significantly. Great! Normally, it would take several hours to gain this much skill proficiency.

The Bull Warrior was temporarily disabled. Nie Yan immediately launched another Instant Strike.

The Bull Warrior slowly turned around and swung his axe horizontally. Nie Yan quickly took several steps back, dodging the Bull Warrior’s attack. He felt a surge of excitement as he noticed the Bull Warrior’s attack speed wasn’t fast. Such a creature was perfect for training his skills. With its slow attack speed, Nie Yan could easily dodge its attacks. Plus, its high HP meant he could practice all his skills on it. Each Bull Warrior would give him a good amount of training time.

Looking at the skill bar, he noticed that both Spinal Sever and Instant Strike had cooled down by a fifth. These free skills had quite long cooldowns, at least a couple of minutes or more. Why was the cooldown so short today?

Could it be that staying in this map shortened the cooldown of these skills? Thinking about this, Nie Yan couldn’t help but feel ecstatic. Training skills in this map was just too awesome!