Rebirth of the God Hunter Legend

Chapter 38 There's no limit to how despicable things can get.
A three-S-rank skill, the highest-ranking skill known in the Divine Revelation Continent. In his previous life, he had only seen it once, during the large-scale dungeon raid in the third year of the Lunar New Year. Looking back now, who would have thought that such a skill was hidden in the starting village? And look at this skill status, the words "[Can be upgraded]" are etched into his heart like an inscription. What does it mean? Does it mean that there is an even higher rank than SSS-rank?

Upon realizing this, Ling Chuan couldn't help but glance at Zhang Meng a few more times, then felt a pang of shame. Was this the huge reaction generated by the Favorability System? What a miscalculation!

In his past life, when he was tackling the beginner village quests, he had just entered the Chonghuang realm. He was someone who dared to take risks and had plenty of time, but was quite naive in social interactions. Although this improved significantly with age and maturity, the psychological pressure from FNC syndrome forced him to prioritize results in everything. He needed achievements, he needed the capital to prove himself. As for the process, as long as the result was the same, the simpler and more direct the better. This is why, in his past life, he wasn't interested in social systems like affection or mentorship; in fact, he would completely ignore them unless absolutely necessary. After all, no one expresses emotions towards a bunch of data.

This continued until the mid-game, when a main storyline advancement occurred and a battle broke out. The sudden death of an NPC he frequently interacted with brought him an unprecedented emotional shock and took away something unknown that was deeply hidden in his heart. It was at that moment that he realized that even an inanimate object in life can allow you to store your emotions. So how could an NPC, which was carefully created by the designer and endowed with emotions and intelligence, be more unbearable than an inanimate object?
From that moment on, Ling Chuan changed his previous decisive approach and began to study the charm of rhetoric and language. He no longer treated NPCs and hostile monsters as just a bunch of data, but consciously gave them a 'vivid' definition. He didn't care about the strange feeling his rich rhetoric created when navigating quests, nor did he care about the complexity and tedium of completing a quest. On the contrary, in his various conversations with NPCs, he saw something deeper and more profound than ordinary players—the culmination of the painstaking efforts of a top-tier global game development team. And it was from this moment that the ultimate artifact drew him in, until he came into contact with it, and then regretfully retreated into seclusion.

"Brother?"

Seeing that Ling Chuan hadn't moved for a while, the hunter Zhang Meng called out to him in a very humane way.

Ling Chuan snapped out of his reverie, suddenly realizing he had unknowingly drifted back into the past. He gave an awkward smile, wanting to explain, but saw that Hunter Zhang Meng had once again returned to standby mode.

The so-called standby state refers to the fixed state that the NPC is in when you use the NPC's functions, such as learning skills or buying items. Generally speaking, there is no interaction in this state, and only at this moment will the NPC of Divine Revelation show its data side.

Removing his finger from the Hunter God's bloodline, Ling Chuan touched the radiant golden icon again, and was moved once more.

【Mother and Child Soul Chaser LV-1】(SS Rank)
Skill effect: After activation, normal attacks will have a split effect, dealing 100% physical damage to the first target and 10% physical damage to all targets within 5 meters of the first target. If there are no additional targets within 5 meters of the first target, the damage dealt to the first target will be increased by 50%. There is no cooldown.

Note: Skill effects increase with skill level, maximum level 10, current proficiency (0/100).

Status: God-Hunter Skill, can only be used when the God-Hunter Bloodline is activated. This skill is deadly and ignores evasion.

Tuition fee: 3 gold coins.

……

After reviewing the attributes, Ling Chuan was shocked. Double S skills, while not as rare and prestigious as the Triple S Hunter God Bloodline, were truly a golden brand, standard equipment for top-tier players. Throughout the entire Divine Revelation Continent, almost every top player who stood out from the crowd possessed at least one double S skill. This was not only because double S skills were of a higher grade and more prestigious, but also because double S skills had a potential several times stronger than ordinary skills!

What unsettled Ling Chuan the most was that this skill not only possessed powerful effects and immunity to evasion, but was also an area-of-effect damage skill!
Area-of-effect damage! Keep in mind, the Hunter is designed to be the strongest single-target damage dealer, bar none! They don't rely on flashy moves; all attacks come from their heavy crossbow, and all skills appear to be simply enchanted versions of normal attacks. Compared to the dazzling sorcerer or the elegant archer, they're on a completely different level. Even the warrior class, with its sweeping, close-quarters combat, surpasses the Hunter in skill effects by a thousandfold. Imagine, in a virtual world where the class isn't cool, the skills aren't flashy, you can't show off, and you can't attract the opposite sex—what's the fun in that?

Therefore, to compensate for this, hunters' weapon attack power is inherently 20% higher than weapons of the same grade and level. However, to prevent this characteristic from affecting game balance, hunters lack any area-of-effect attack skills besides their unique trap assistance. This results in an extremely awkward position for hunters in large-scale open-world battles, large-scale event dungeons, and large-scale campaigns. After all, engineers are far more professional at setting traps; assassins can completely replace hunters in assassinating key targets. Therefore, hunters ultimately become relegated to scout roles, essentially living eyes, used to prevent assassins from sneaking up on people from behind.

Now, a groundbreaking skill has suddenly appeared before him—how could he not seize it! Especially since this skill is compatible with the Hunter God's bloodline!
Ling Chuan was thrilled. He glanced at the 14 gold coins lying in his inventory (10 gold coins for the first alchemy skill and the first job entry, 60 copper coins for a single Thorn Wolf, and 20 silver coins for the job entry quest, leaving him with over 80 silver coins). This was more than enough to learn all four skills, so without hesitation, he reached out to select the first skill, intending to learn them one by one. But just as he was about to click, a strong premonition rose from the depths of Ling Chuan's heart—the insight cultivated by years of experience.

Something's not right! He seemed to vaguely remember something Zhang Meng had just said. He glanced at the NPC's text records and frowned. "Remember, choose the best option."

This is a warning. Just as he said, divine revelation will not give you useless warnings for no reason. Once it does, you need to pay extra attention. He is 100% sure that if his relationship with Zhang Meng had not reached 100%, Zhang Meng would not have given him this reminder.

Staring at the two white skills, which were the two basic skills commonly used by hunters, [Charged Crossbow] and [Vine Trap], and then glancing at Hunter God's Bloodline and Mother-Child Soul Chaser, Ling Chuan slowly moved his finger to Hunter God's Bloodline and clicked to learn it.

[Ding] System notification: You have learned [Hunter God Bloodline LV-1].

There were no abnormalities. Except for the Hunter God Bloodline skill, which had gone black, the other three skills in the skill learning interface still radiated the brilliance of their respective grades.

He didn't let his guard down, skipping the two white skills and continuing to learn the Mother-Child Soul Chasing skill.

[Ding] System notification: You have learned [Mother and Child Soul Chaser LV-1].

brush!
Suddenly, two white skills, [Charged Crossbow] and [Vine Trap], disappeared from the skill list at the same time! Ling Chuan's pupils shrank, and a slight chill ran down his spine. Even though he had developed an almost immune resistance to the Divine Revelation Designer, he couldn't help but swear!
"Damn it! This is a multiple-choice question!"

No wonder Zhang Meng told him to choose the best. Unlike the normal way of learning skills, you can only choose two of these four skills to learn. Once you choose, the other two skills will disappear completely and there will be no possibility of learning them again...

How shameless! How despicable! Luckily it was him. If it were an ordinary player who triggered this opportunity but didn't have enough funds to learn more, they would have to settle for learning two ordinary skills to improve their combat power, planning to learn the rest later when they had enough funds. But after learning those two skills, they would suddenly find that the three-S and two-S skills had completely disappeared. Wouldn't they be furious?!

and!

Ling Chuan quickly closed the skill list and then clicked on Zhang Meng again to open the skill learning interface.

Sure enough, the two white skills that had just disappeared reappeared in the skill list, but they were currently grayed out, indicating that they could not be learned.

What does this mean? It means that the skill learning interface is independent and unique. In other words, if you learn skills randomly, you may lose the opportunity to learn the Hunter God Bloodline and Mother-Child Soul Chasing skills; but if you don't learn them and close the skill bar, it's equivalent to giving up the opportunity to learn the Hunter God Bloodline and Mother-Child Soul Chasing skills.

Seeing through this, Ling Chuan closed his eyes and sighed, saying, "As expected of the designer of Divine Revelation, there is no limit to how despicable he can be."

(End of this chapter)