It felt so good to be close to the witch!

As soon as he entered the courtyard, all the witches turned their gazes to him, and when they saw his blood-soaked left arm, they were all shocked.

"Lord Roy, what are you doing?" Shanika was the first to rush forward, her pale blue magic enveloping Roy's body as she began to heal him.

Lilia's gaze toward the guest room sharpened.

Seeing this, Roy quickly explained, "It's alright. Princess Fuma's pollution removal and talent evolution went very smoothly. My injury was caused by me accidentally during my own experiment. It has nothing to do with her."

Upon hearing this, the sharp look in Lilia's eyes slowly disappeared.

To her, even though Fuma was the Duke's daughter, she would never let her get away with harming Lord Roy.

Even at the greatest cost!

"Sanika, I'm currently working on perfecting my battle aura system, and I'll likely be getting injured a lot. I'll need your healing talent to help me."

"You really don't take good care of your health." Shanika's blue-gold eyes showed concern.

Roy shook his head and smiled, "Some things just have to be done."

He looked up at the gray sky and the constantly falling snowflakes, and sighed.

"Disaster is approaching, and time is running out."

-

(Dear readers, it's almost the end of the month! We're just over a hundred votes away from reaching 1000 monthly votes! I'm begging for your votes! If we reach 1,000 monthly votes, I'll add an extra 10,000-word chapter the next day! Please help!)

Chapter 161 A New Clue to the Prophecy, The Mechanical Witch's Trembling Feelings

Quiet, deep, as still as a dead lake.

Fuma felt herself falling into a viscous swamp, plummeting at a slow but unstoppable pace.

She didn't know how much time had passed when she felt her body lighten, and then a glimmer of starlight appeared before her eyes. The light grew brighter and brighter, piercing through the seemingly eternal darkness.

"here it is?"

Fuma stared wide-eyed at her surroundings, her eyes filled with shock.

A dazzling glow appeared in her eyes; it was a series of floating and rotating stars. The place where she stood was also a star, but its color was a deep red compared to the surrounding stars.

Upon closer observation, Fuma saw that among these countless rotating celestial bodies, there were fine silver threads connecting them, forming a network that stretched to the horizon.

As the silver light swirled, countless images appeared before Fuma's eyes, branching and evolving as they moved forward. After an unknown amount of time, they finally settled into a single, fixed image.

The next instant, a ball of light radiating a hazy starlight flew out of the painting and shot into Fuma's forehead.

……

The burning fireplace dispelled the chill of the harsh winter.

On the warm bed, the pale blue light on Roy's body receded and faded.

Shanica withdrew her hand, looked at Roy sitting cross-legged on the bed with his eyes closed, and felt a pang of heartache in her eyes.

For the past two days, she has needed to perform a deep "healing" on Roy almost every ten minutes. Such a high frequency of treatment has made her feel tired, even though she has reached the Grand rank. But more than her own fatigue, Shanica is worried about Roy's condition.

She wasn't sure what Roy meant by "perfecting the battle aura system," but even with her healing abilities, Roy's body wouldn't be left with any injuries, but every time he got hurt, his body would still hurt...

“Young Master Roy…” Shanika pursed her lips.

Her emotions made her want to persuade Roy to stop this self-harming behavior, but her reason told her that Roy must have his own reasons for doing so, and as the young master's "head maid," what she needed to do was to support him silently from behind.

Torn between her feelings, Shanika ultimately chose to remain silent.

On the other side, Roy, who had been sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed, slowly opened them.

He lowered his head and looked at his hands, and his senses, through his flesh and blood, "saw" the dazzling runes etched on his left arm.

"Finally, it worked!"

A strong feeling of joy welled up in my heart.

After more than two days and hundreds of minor adjustments, Roy finally succeeded in copying the "Charged Slash" rune with his battle aura and imprinted it on his left arm.

Taking a deep breath, he repeated the process, imprinting the same runes on his right arm, left leg, right leg, and heart.

The moment the five "Charged Slash" runes were engraved, a silent resonance was created.

Roy could feel a magical power swirling and flowing within his body.

—Low-level skill: Charged Slash, achieved!

He got up and rushed out of the room into the snow-covered courtyard. He drew a long sword from the weapon rack and slashed out quickly.

"Thorn-"

The air seemed to groan, and the fierce wind whipped up the snow that had accumulated on the ground in the courtyard.

It was just an ordinary vertical slash, yet it unleashed an astonishing destructive force.

With a single slash, Roy could feel the strange power flowing between the five runes within his body slow down and weaken, but it gradually grew stronger again over time.

One minute later, he was back to his peak condition.

"A charged attack once per minute?"

Roy muttered to himself, his eyes filled with joy.

On one hand, the effect of the low-level specialization, Charged Slash, surprised him. The Charged Slash, which could be used for free once a minute, increased his attack power by at least 30%.

On the other hand, the success of the charged slash demonstrates that the various specializations of the Demon Mark system, and indeed the Battle Aura system, can be acquired after modifications. With this successful experience, the time required to modify and adjust other specializations will only decrease.

After all, what Roy did was not to create a rune out of thin air, but to make minor adjustments to an existing rune.

With a casual toss, Roy precisely placed the standard-issue longsword in his hand into the weapon rack. Standing in the courtyard, he pondered, ignoring the snowflakes falling on him.

After acquiring the low-level skill "Charged Slash", Roy felt a "burden".

Although this "burden" was very small for him, it was real.

After thinking for a while, he understood the origin of this "burden".

Each feat, or rather the rune corresponding to a feat, will place a certain burden on the body when imprinted on it. This is why the Spell Mark system requires players to reach a certain level to acquire a feat.

Assuming the burden of each rune is 1, then the total burden on the human body from a charged slash consisting of five runes is 5. With each level up of "Star Paladin", the burden limit increases by 2. At level three, the total burden limit is 6, which is enough to support the existence of the "Charged Slash" feat.

Roy estimated that his maximum burden was around 78.

In other words, at the Bronze stage, the maximum burden increase per star level is 6, while at the final peak it is 2.

In the Silver stage, the maximum burden increase for each star level is 9, and the final peak is 3.

In the Gold stage, the burden cap for each star level increase is 12, with the final peak being 4.

This seems a bit difficult to calculate, but if we break down each rank of the knight into smaller parts, and each star level is considered as level 3, then three star levels would be level 9, and the final peak would be level 1. In this way, we can draw a parallel with the Demon Mark system, where each rank is exactly level 10.

For each level in the Bronze tier, the burden limit increases by 2 points; for Silver, it increases by 3 points; and for Gold, it increases by 4 points.

Roy, who cultivates the dual traits of [Explosive Flame] and [Extreme Bloom] in the Breath of Flame, has reached the level of the top inheritance of the Demon Mark system in terms of the increase in the burden limit.

Oh, it's worth mentioning that after practicing breathing techniques for a while, Roy's fighting spirit has reached the initial Gold Three-Star level.

In the "Seventh Realm of Original Sin: The Realm of Lust", the biggest difference between hidden professions and ordinary professions lies in the different increases in the burden limit with each level and the combination of feats.

Roy estimated that even for knights who practiced advanced breathing techniques, unless they reached the level of dual traits of Flame Breathing, the increase in the burden brought by the improvement of strength would probably only be 1 point per level for Bronze, 2 points per level for Silver, and 3 points per level for Gold.

As for those who practice advanced breathing techniques, the number is even lower.

It's not hard to understand why the dual-trait Flame Breath can be compared to top-tier hidden classes.

With witches as the highest tier, the Flame Breathing technique with triple traits can rival witches. The Flame Breathing technique with dual traits has combat power between knights who have practiced advanced breathing techniques and witches. As for the Demon Mark system, even the strongest Pure Saintess inheritance, without considering "extraordinary" factors such as faith power, still has lower combat power than witches at the same level, but is still stronger than the Flame Breathing technique with dual traits.

Where one excels is where their expertise comes in.

all in all.

The burden made Roy realize that expertise cannot be imprinted at will.

How to form a perfect specialty group within one's own capacity and maximize combat effectiveness is a profound subject.

"call……"

Roy took a deep breath and shook his head as he watched the heat quickly condense into ice mist upon exposure to the environment.

This awful weather, it's getting colder and colder...

He turned to look in the direction of Fuma's room and frowned slightly.

More than two days have passed since Fuma entered the talent evolution stage.

Before her, no witch had ever taken so long to evolve her talent.

If he hadn't confirmed that Fuma was in excellent condition, he would have thought something unexpected had happened.

With a sigh, Roy lifted his foot, preparing to return to his room to adjust his other specialties.

As a top-tier hidden class, the combination of various specializations for "Star Paladin" has been tested by pioneers with painstaking effort and has almost reached perfection. Roy does not need to make any changes for the time being.

But he had only taken a few steps when he stopped, his gaze returning to Fuma's room, a smile appearing on his face.

He stood in the courtyard waiting. A few seconds later, the door to the guest room creaked open, and a neatly dressed girl in crimson scale armor came out.

The close-fitting scale armor perfectly accentuated the girl's slender figure, and her bright eyes became even more profound and mysterious.

"Your Highness Fuma, congratulations."

Meeting Roy's smiling gaze, Fuma smiled back: "This is all thanks to your help, Lord Roy."

……

A few minutes later, in the lobby.

Roy and Fuma sat facing each other, with Ais and Lilia also sitting beside them.

"Your Highness Fuma, how is it? After your talent evolved, did you see any additional clues?"

Roy brewed a pot of hot black tea and handed it over, asking as he did so.

Fuma picked up her teacup, took a sip, exhaled softly, and nodded: "There is indeed a bit too much."

“I saw a large artificial magic pulsation point that we haven’t removed yet.”

“Large?” Roy noticed the unusual word in Fuma’s words.

“Yes, large.” Fuma said solemnly, “I removed two small artificial magic points a while ago. Compared to the small ones, the magic point I see is far superior to the small ones in terms of both the magic power it emits and its shape and size. Therefore, I chose to call it large.”