"Ding..."
The crisp sound of a chime, mingled with the creak of hinges as the wooden door closed, echoed through the street.
Through the narrowing gap of the closing shop door, he could faintly see the enthusiastic smile radiating from the "old yet young" face—characteristic of the dwarf race—of the general store owner, "Kukunur," behind the counter.
Standing at the doorway, Xia Nan could clearly notice that his backpack, which had previously been stuffed full, was now slightly deflated.
The crystals from the goblin nest and other miscellaneous small items had all been liquidated.
As expected, combined with the coins he had collected inside the nest, the total came to 36 gold, 5 silver, and 7 copper.
As a general store with a good reputation in town, Kukunur had offered him a fair price.
Seeing that the quote was within an acceptable range and having too many other matters to handle, Xia Nan didn't haggle much and completed the transaction quickly.
"Next... I have to head to the Green Grass Cauldron to see if I can deal with the loot materials from the Thorn Demon and the Carapace Lurker."
It was noon, and the summer sun was pouring its terrifying heat indiscriminately upon the earth.
Even though he wasn't wearing armor and was still clad in the dark shirt heavily damaged from battle due to the rush of time, he felt much cooler than usual.
Yet, after walking just a few steps down the street, sweat had already beaded on his forehead.
The flow of people on the street hadn't changed; it was still filled with all sorts of oddly shaped adventurers, as always.
The carefree mindset brought about by the immense pressure of their profession meant that most of these blood-licking adventurers didn't care about the gaze of outsiders, especially in a place for safe rest and recuperation between missions.
At the very least, as Xia Nan looked around, there were quite a few who were shirtless or bare-chested; some even wore only a piece of armor without any under-lining, for reasons unknown.
"Perhaps they want to flaunt their identity as adventurers?"
"Or is it the influence of a psychological disorder—feeling insecure without armor?"
Xia Nan speculated in his mind.
Advancing toward the herbalist shop, his thoughts gradually drifted as he watched the adventurers coming and going on the road ahead.
Currently, his professional level was lv2.
The skills he still had room to improve were [Gravity Etching], [Gravity Control], and [Ember Echo].
In terms of quantity alone, it seemed enough for him to raise [Meteor Blade Hunt] to lv5 and reach the bottleneck for sub-classing or class advancement.
But in reality, Xia Nan knew.
Trying to reach lv5 relying on these three combat skills... was almost an impossible task.
Setting aside [Gravity Etching], taking [Gravity Control] as an example: it had been a few hundred days since he acquired this skill, and how much proficiency had he gained in total?
15 points.
And that was at lv1, where the increase should have been the fastest.
This was even while he persisted in daily training, to the point where he wished he could use gravity instead of a spoon to stir his soup.
If he truly pinned his hopes of leveling up on this skill, then with the lifespan of the human race, he feared he wouldn't see the day he advanced to lv5 in his entire lifetime.
The progress of [Ember Echo] was slightly faster, but only marginally so—much slower than something like [Fang Hunt].
Given this premise, if he wanted to continue improving more efficiently, Xia Nan definitely had to find other types of combat skills to learn and train.
And that was the problem.
Which ones should he look for?
The path to learning combat skills was clear: he could go directly to the second floor of the Association and exchange points for them; if there were no suitable ones, he could even search the adventurer associations in other regions.
However, the system of professional advancement and class change was a relatively rigorous process that required careful planning.
For professionals born into great families with deep backgrounds, professional specialists would have formulated detailed and meticulous plans for them—deciding which skill to learn first and which direction to develop for future class changes—even before they had mastered their first skill.
Returning to Xia Nan, for a niche profession like [Meteor Blade Hunt]—so obscure that there might not be a second person in the entire world who possessed it—there were absolutely no reference paths for growth or class advancement.
When he had just stepped onto the second floor of the Association, he had tried searching for combat skills related to "Gravity," but the results were disappointing.
Yet, if he were to learn those common, widely applicable skills that were faster to level up but significantly weaker in strength, Xia Nan was unwilling to sacrifice his future ceiling.
Thus, he was awkwardly stuck.
[Ember Echo] might seem completely incompatible with [Meteor Blade Run]...
But its strength was high!
For a state-type ability that could be called "second-stage," let alone Xia Nan, any "Transcendent" or even "Legendary" powerhouse, if given the chance to learn and master it, would be disrespecting the blood and sweat of their own journey if they hesitated for more than half a second.
It was impossible not to learn it!
But because of this, so-called professional planning became empty talk.
Scattered, unrelated combat skills of different types, no matter how high their individual strength, would remain mere empty talk with no possibility of ascent if they didn't form a system or find a direction for advancement among the hundreds of millions of professions in this world.
Fortunately, Xia Nan possessed the "cheat" of an attribute panel. Referring to his experience when advancing from lv1, if he truly had the chance to collect five lv5 combat skills in the future, it might provide some help.
And in the worst-case scenario, if the skills he had couldn't form a system, he still had a margin for error.
During the lv6—lv10 stage, he could simply find another lv5 profession with a clear path of ascent.
With no experience from predecessors to reference, every step had to be groped out slowly by himself.
He could only take it one step at a time.
Fortunately, at least his strength was high enough. Even if his professional level appeared low and his leveling speed was slow, the actual growth of his combat capability was not slow.
So, there was really no need to be too pessimistic.
While considering his future direction, he had unconsciously arrived at the herbalist shop called "Green Grass Cauldron," which looked like the shrubs and thickets of the Misty Forest.
"Ding, ding."
The door chime rang crisply.
The moment he pushed open the door, an exceptionally refreshing fragrance wafted toward him.
It was like mint, but colder, flowing into his nasal cavity and down his throat, making the unbearable heat from the outdoors seem to diminish in that instant.
His gaze passed over the brown counter that split the shop in two and the shelves on either side, looking toward the innermost part of the room.
A plump woman with curly hair was focused, holding a long-handled ladle and stirring at a steady pace inside a cauldron before her.
The cool aura in the air was emanating from the translucent, pale blue viscous liquid inside the cauldron.
"One moment, almost done!"
Hearing the chime and looking up to see Xia Nan, Ms. Edwina greeted him with a hint of apology.
Having the patience and not wanting to rush her, seeing that she was at a critical moment of potion making, Xia Nan simply waved his hand without interrupting and turned to casually browse the goods on the nearby shelves.
After waiting for about five minutes.
He saw Edwina carefully pour the finished potion from the cauldron into a pre-prepared container on the other side to let it settle.
Only then did she let out a long sigh of relief, take a handkerchief from her pocket to wipe the fine sweat from her forehead, and use her knuckles to lightly push up the rimless glasses on the bridge of her nose, speaking proactively
"Sorry, sorry, I've been a bit busy lately; I can't keep up with the orders."
They were old acquaintances, so he naturally wouldn't get upset over such a small matter. With some curiosity, Xia Nan glanced toward the cauldron and asked
"The smell of this potion is quite pleasant. I haven't seen it before; is it a new product?"
"Hehe, very refreshing, isn't it?" The customer's approval of the potion made the eyes behind Edwina's lenses crinkle into a smile. "It is indeed a new potion I've made in my shop. The research is mostly complete; I plan to put it on the shelves in a couple of days."
"It doesn't have any special effects; it's just a simple mint potion used to relieve heat. I thought the season was about right and there should be a market for it, so I made a batch to test the waters."
"If you're interested, you can come back in a few days. I'll sell you a few bottles at cost, consider it a benefit for a regular customer."
"Sure, I'll visit again in a few days."
Xia Nan nodded slightly, ceased the small talk, and took out the loot materials already sorted in his backpack, placing them neatly on the counter.
"I harvested some things during this mission; see if these are worth any money."
"Alright." Nodding gently, Ms. Edwina first used both hands to carefully untie the bundle on the left side of the counter.
What came into view was a large bundle of black-brown bony spikes of varying lengths, tightly bound together with thin string;
And two reddish-brown hearts, about the size of a fist, which looked somewhat shriveled.
"These are... Thorn Demon?"
Before Xia Nan could introduce them, this gentle lady, who had operated a shop in the adventurer hub for many years, had already recognized the source of the materials.
"Two in total," Xia Nan nodded lightly in response. "I originally thought about cutting off their wings and bringing them back, but they were too heavy. Human strength is limited, so I only kept the bone spikes from their spines and tails, and their hearts."
Even with Margaret and the dwarf, there were only three of them in total. They had to carry many camping and supply items and lacked transport tools. Two pairs of giant bat wings were too heavy and took up too much space; carrying them in the forest would have greatly reduced their return speed and increased danger, so they had to be abandoned.
Xia Nan had once killed a heavily injured Thorn Demon, and it was precisely through that battle that he had entered the threshold of [Fang Hunt].
However, at that time, due to concerns about spore erosion and not knowing which specific parts were valuable, he hadn't collected the relevant loot materials.
After returning to River Valley Town, he had urgently studied the relevant knowledge for this purpose, which happened to come in handy during this mission.
He had directly harvested the most valuable bone spikes and hearts from the Thorn Demon as loot.
"Hmm... these bone spikes look like they're of good quality, all above average. Once ground into powder, they'll be sufficient for use in potions."
Edwina examined the materials carefully, explaining to Xia Nan as she thought.
"It's just that the quality of these two hearts is a bit lacking; the price might drop significantly."
He had expected as much.
These two hearts dug from the Thorn Demons didn't even need a professional appraisal; any farm woman with slaughtering experience could tell from their shriveled, wrinkled appearance that the quality was poor.
Before setting out, he had thought it was just an ordinary goblin extermination mission. Xia Nan couldn't have predicted he would encounter several demons from hell, so he naturally hadn't brought corresponding loot storage items.
After several days of travel, no matter how carefully they were preserved, while the bone spikes were fine, it was inevitable that fleshy materials like hearts would suffer in quality.
He had already prepared himself for Edwina's assessment before coming.
"How about 60 gold for all of these combined?"
After thinking it over, Edwina gave Xia Nan a quote.
Having previously learned the market circulation price of the items and knowing the offer wasn't low—even generous—Xia Nan didn't raise the price and nodded in agreement.
Then he pointed to a larger bundle on the other side of the counter.
If he had a decent understanding of the Thorn Demon's bodily materials...
Regarding the unlucky Carapace Lurker that had bumped into him, Xia Nan was almost completely in the dark about which parts were valuable or which had the highest cost-performance ratio to bring back.
Even after asking Margaret and the other, they had no relevant knowledge.
So in the end, the group could only rely on their experience as adventurers to harvest some materials that looked "likely" or "roughly" valuable to bring back to River Valley Town.
"Carapace Lurker?"
After hearing Xia Nan's introduction, a look of slight surprise appeared on Edwina's face.
"This kind of monster isn't common in the Misty Forest. Hmm... if there are truly high-quality materials, I can give a slightly higher price."
As she spoke, she untied the bundle with both hands.
Before she could observe closely, an extremely pungent, fishy stench surged upward from within.
Yet, this gentle lady didn't even frown at such a sudden attack; instead, with a hint of pleasure, she began to inspect these rare monster materials.
"A few bundles of intact nerve fibers; medicinal value is average, but they should be good as connecting parts in equipment or as bowstrings."
"The carapace from the lower abdomen—you certainly know how to pick your spots. This is almost the hardest part of a Carapace Lurker's body. Grind it into powder; it's a great construction additive."
"Oh, there's an eyeball too? After processing, it can be used as the main ingredient for 'Underwater Breathing Potions'."
Halfway through, Edwina suddenly frowned.
"Where are the plume-gills? You didn't bring back the most valuable part?"
Plume-gills?
Xia Nan was momentarily stunned, and his mind immediately recalled the gill-like organ with fine, feather-like plates that had been crushed by the force field energy of his [Gravity Etching] during the battle.
"Uh... these plume-gills, how valuable are they?"
He asked subconsciously.
"If you take everything on the counter and double the price, it should barely make up for it."