Ch. 19
Chapter 19: 【Fire Thief】
For this kind of special class, ordinary attribute stacking and skill training were far from enough to meet the requirements for advancement.
Its only mandatory condition was that the candidate must accomplish a certain achievement in this world.
Just as its name implied, it was a great deed in which mortals reached toward myth.
The most typical example was the widely known Legacy Class in history—【Fire Thief】.
To take this class, the challenger had to successfully steal a top-level core secret or knowledge from a massive organization possessing absolute authority.
And then make it public.
But that alone was not enough.
After exposing the secret, the challenger could not flee and had to remain in place, calmly waiting.
Only by surviving the most severe retaliation from that organization would the “great deed” be considered complete, thus granting the qualification to take the class.
Although Gideon did not know what specific great deed the Rosenthal family was required to accomplish,
it was common knowledge that to inherit that ultimate Legacy Class, the heir’s initial class must be a rare class—this was a rigid prerequisite.
This was why the path of common classes was completely unworkable for Cecilia.
Within Violet Academy’s current class library, those rare magic classes imposed too many restrictions on a Half-Elf like her.
Thinking of this, Gideon fell into deep contemplation.
If he kept her at Violet Academy for selfish reasons, it would only waste a talent with Legendary potential.
After all, during the era of the Hero, only those legendary companions who stood beside the Hero possessed talents of this level.
The office fell into silence.
Seeing the professor’s tightly furrowed brows, Cecilia lowered her head.
She felt deeply guilty for causing him such trouble.
Gideon finally let out a long sigh.
As a mentor, he could not delay this girl’s future for the sake of the academy’s reputation.
He made his decision.
He intended to write her a letter of recommendation and send her to study under those old rivals in the Southern Mage Alliance.
This would undoubtedly be a great loss for Violet Academy.
With a pained expression, Gideon pulled open the drawer, preparing to take out a quill pen.
However, his gaze fell upon the half-written letter inside the drawer.
The reply he had originally intended to use to mock his old friend from Graystone Town now seemed to glow faintly.
A sudden flash of inspiration struck his mind.
“Cecilia.”
He suddenly raised his voice, startling the girl who was still immersed in guilt.
“I’m here!”
Cecilia quickly straightened her posture and responded.
Gideon looked at her, a smile returning to his eyes.
“Next, Violet Academy will establish an off-campus internship collaboration with the Adventurers’ Guild of Graystone Town.”
“In the hands of that branch president in Graystone Town, there may happen to be a clue to a rare Mage class that is completely unrestricted by race.”
Gideon clasped his hands under his chin, his tone serious.
“I can recommend you into this internship team.”
“If you can achieve an Excellent evaluation in the internship assessment, you will obtain the class advancement information for that class.”
“Do you have confidence in facing this challenge?”
This was truly a sudden turn of events.
Cecilia’s previously dim eyes instantly lit up, her face filled with undisguised joy.
She immediately stood up from her chair and bowed deeply to Gideon.
When she raised her head again, a bright smile spread across her face, revealing neat white teeth—less composed, yet more lively, fitting her age.
“Thank you, Professor! I will definitely achieve an excellent result!”
Seeing his student regain her vitality, Gideon smiled in satisfaction.
“However, this internship will take place two weeks from now.”
“Go back and prepare well, especially focusing on the wilderness survival content in the Adventurer Handbook.”
“You may go.”
Cecilia thanked him once more and left the office with light, cheerful steps, even her footsteps carrying a sense of joy.
As the door closed—
Inside the office.
Professor Gideon, who had been smiling just moments ago, instantly collapsed into a bitter expression.
With a long face, he slowly took out the letter from the drawer.
Mana surged at his fingertips.
The harsh, mocking words that had originally filled the page—meant to ridicule his old friend’s predicament—were erased bit by bit under the influence of magic.
Gideon took a deep breath and picked up his pen, rewriting the opening line on the paper:
“My dear old brother, Necros…”
……
Seven days later.
Morning, Graystone Town, Adventurers’ Guild.
Lance sat behind the guild counter, mechanically sorting through this week’s mission receipts, while his thoughts reviewed his recent gains.
This week had been fulfilling and tightly packed.
He had made two more trips to Copper Creek Forest, deliberately choosing less-traveled routes, and finally gathered enough Coagulation Moss.
According to the system’s progress bar, once he completed the final drying process tonight, the research task for the improved 【Hemostatic Ointment】 formula would be fully completed.
This gave him a bit more confidence.
But alongside these gains came a growing sense of unease.
During these outings, Lance had continuously kept the system entry that monitored the environment active.
What he observed made his mood heavy.
The green indicator representing the region’s state still displayed “Agitated,” but the annotation behind it had undergone a worrying change.
【The fluctuation range of Environmental Stability in this area has been adjusted to 8%】
Just a week ago, this number had been 5%.
This additional 3% meant that the instability within the forest was intensifying.
The steadily increasing casualty reports in the guild further confirmed this.
This sense of urgency left Lance no room to relax.
Over the past week, he had forced himself into intense extra training.
Aside from his unwavering daily sword practice, he also compelled himself to spend a full hour in the training room practicing archery every day.
Lance summoned his system panel, his gaze sweeping over the two lines in the Skill Panel.
【Castro Swordsmanship LV3 (176/250)】
After this period of intense training, this military sword technique was already on the verge of breaking through to Proficiency Level (LV4).
And beneath it, a new line of text had appeared.
Inspired by the botany books he had read previously, this time he did not seek out a teacher but instead spent 6 silver coins to purchase archery manuals.
Sure enough, this also allowed a skill to be generated in the Skill Panel—last time, paying someone to teach him had been a loss.
Though that person had been from the Veterans’ Guild, so the connection might still be useful in the future.
【Levin Archery LV2 (42/240)】
However, the difference revealed a pattern to him.
At the same level, the experience required for upgrading archery skills was far higher than that for swordsmanship.
Moreover, the attribute feedback they provided was completely different.
From beginner to now, swordsmanship had cumulatively granted him about 3 points of base attributes.
But archery, even after leveling up once, had not provided any attribute increase.
“It seems that the harder a skill is to train, the greater the improvement is not necessarily.”