Scorn informed Seph that he would perform an impartment on him, to give him the prize skill of the tournament.

The Eye of the Veteran, it was a skill to identify information about your opponents mid battle, or outside of battle. It’s very helpful to avoid getting into fights with powerful individuals!

Not only that, the Eye of the Veteran was also a status screen skill, it would save a cultivator from needing a revealer to know his strengths, or bloodline, or his mastery over certain weapons.

It also allowed cultivators autonomy over their class choices, without any more need to use arcana halls to choose new classes. Those halls were rare after all. Each sect has only one hall, and big metropolises usually have one as well in certain army barracks.

He imprinted this skill into Seph’s right eye, thus making him unfit to gain any more sight skills, but he thought he wouldn’t need any new ones, anyway. He already covered appraising items and identifying opponents as well.

It didn’t take long at all. Seph opened his eye after feeling a searing pain in his eye that almost made him scream, but he grunted loudly instead to save face, since the other cultivators were still around.

Once he opened his eye, he circled his energy towards it, and used the skill. His eye lit up briefly in red and turned to its original color again.

“Now try to use it while focusing inward.”

Scorn told him, and Seph did just that, only to see a red status screen appear in his brain, same as the skill Eye of the Appraiser, but red color.

Name: Seph ???

Class: Water Carrier lvl 8 (New class available)

Cultivation stage: Body Dismantling (I)

Lifespan: 18/30 years

Strength: 18

Dexterity: 6

Intelligence: 7

Wisdom: 4

Constitution: 13

Perception: 15

Luck: 10

Bloodline: Heart Devourer (expand)

Martial Art: One Thousand Arms of the Undead Buddha (Expand)

Masteries: (Expand)

Artisan Jobs: (Expand)

First thing Seph noticed was his name followed by question marks. He didn’t know who his father was, and it seemed the skill was based on his knowledge, no magic mumbo jumbo to figure out the name of his father.

Or maybe I am the son of a virgin maiden?

Seph thought for a second, then said out loud, “Naah!”

Next thing Seph noticed was his class and the level of his class. People in his world gained classes based on their jobs. If they wanted to switch jobs and get more suitable gains for the new job, they would need to pay a hefty sum to someone who runs an arcana hall.

He didn’t need to worry about that anymore, as he now had his very own skill to do just that.

Imagine how much money I could have made if I can help people choose their class as well; too bad this skill is for my usage only!

Seph focused next on the available classes.

Available classes

Cannibal: lvl 1 (Uncommon) (3-4)

Scholar: lvl 3 (Uncommon) (3-4)

Undead Buddhist: lvl 3 (Rare) (5-6)

Gourd Master: lvl 3 (Uncommon) (3-4)

Palm Martial Artist: lvl 3 (Uncommon) (3-4)

Seph palmed at seeing the Cannibal class and thought this must have been because of the guys he bit to death at the start of this labyrinthine, and the few human hearts he had eaten.

Scholar level three made him nostalgic about his old life. It made him feel like his aspiration to be a scholar was always going to work out. The only issue is, he met a premature death, and became this…

He wasn’t sure he was happy with becoming an undead cultivator yet. He was more powerful, but he never wanted this life of power and danger.

Still, he was good at it. Maybe he should just continue grinding and becoming better.

Undead Buddhist was the most attractive class to him, but also the most risky. He didn’t know if he would ever find the rest of the one thousand arms of the undead buddha martial art style.

He also didn’t know if just having one part of the manual was enough.

While he found this manual easily, it was going to be extremely difficult to find another one!

Even the level ups of the martial art, he got two levels, and never got instruction on how to get the third level since then!

But it also had the most potential, a legendary martial art. How can he disregard such a tremendous opportunity?

Gourd Master and Palm Master seemed to only be classes that come from weapon masteries. He used both his palm and his gourd as weapons, and that’s why he was fit to get either class and become even better using either weapon.

But Palm Master is a martial art class. It probably has no magical properties like his One Thousand Arms of the Undead Buddha style.

He determined he wanted to be an undead Buddhist, and who knows, maybe there were class upgrades for it as well, if he could find more manuals and trained further in this art.

He resolved to pick the Undead Buddhist class.

You are now an Undead Buddhist

Attribute points gained

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+3 strength

+3 Intelligence

+3 wisdom

+6 free attribute points

He thought that means the class gives me five attribute points at each level, one point in strength, intelligence, and wisdom, and two free points to allocate as I please! I’ll save them for later though, when I figure out what I need to work on. I don’t know what cultivators use intelligence and wisdom for, but strength and dexterity were self-explanatory. Still, I’ll probably learn more when I am in the sect proper.

His cultivation stage seemed to be at the very first level, he knew how to circle his energy around his body, but he didn’t know which part to circle the energy in, or what was the target of the meditation to advance to the next level!

The lifespan freaked him out. It seemed when he became an undead cultivator, as in when he died…

His life span shortened by at least a half of the original number. People in his age didn’t live for long, because of the myriad illnesses and the rarity of talented doctors and medicine.

There was always the vitality grass, but there was only so much the grass could do to help a terminally ill person.

But they were called immortals! That hopefully meant when he could cultivate, his lifespan will rise with each new stage!

I am stronger now, nobody can kill me. I just need to get that manual, and even if I don’t get it, the sect will teach me what they know. Even if not a perfect cultivation, it’s still the best I can get if I don’t win.

He glossed over the attributes next. Some of them were self-explanatory, some weren’t, but he guessed he would eventually know. His mindset was that they were inconsequential for his fighting style now, or with the opponents he faced so far.

The bloodline’s name was ominous, but he had a good idea of what it might do for him already.

Heart Devourer

First, you vanquish their souls.

Then, it’s the manic pursuit for your prize.

At last, let the feast begin.

Purity: Common Blood.

Rarity: Super Rare.

Consuming hearts increases your regeneration by 100%

“Heart Devourer! Super rare…” Seph whispered absentmindedly, only for Scorn to intervene in his musings by saying, “The lowest rarity of a bloodline is rare, super rare is the next rarity, yours is a good bloodline, there are better ones, there are worse.”

“What rarities are better than super rare, by the way? I never asked.”

“There is Unique, Epic, Legendary, and Mythical, in this order, Mythical are usually one of a kind in the entire world, Legendary also shares in that advantage sometimes, but there are some legendary items or skills that aren’t one of a kind, what level of purity is your bloodline?”

“It says it’s common.”

“Ah, the lowest purity, you will need very expensive items that are usually not even sold to increase it, but the gains all of you got so far in my labyrinthine, are significant enough, to make your adventuring lives much easier in the outside world, just don’t expect to find items as rare this easily.”

Seph contemplated his words for a second, and concluded that the trials so far have truly been easy, especially the ones where he had to fight other new yin cultivators such as himself.

He expanded the martial art screen next.

One Thousand Arms of the Undead Buddha

We perceive the world’s lamentations, but we lend them no ear.

We see the world’s suffering, but we will increase it a thousandfold.

Shattered to a thousand pieces, the world shall be unborn by his will.

Level: 2/9 (I)

1: Arms overreaching

2: Arms overbearing (Beat an opponent that weighs 10 times the same as you: Completed)

Wow, everything about this martial art is so ominous. It’s like a perversion of everything holy about the bodhisattva. Also, if each manual is 9 levels, and there are 9 manuals, that means there are 81 levels in total to this martial art style. I wonder what’s stopping the third mantra from appearing, though. The writing after arms overbearing means I needed to reach an achievement, so beating that golem revealed the new mantra. What do I need to do next to reveal the next one?

Lost deeply in his thoughts was Seph. And the contestants hadn’t left the arena yet, as they couldn’t find the door to leave.

Seph lastly expanded the masteries and artisans next.

Masteries

Palm Mastery: level 3

Gourd Mastery: level 3

Death Element: level 2

Artisan Jobs

Herbology: Level 1

Mining: Level 1

There must be a passive leveling up for every weapon I use, Death element sounds like magic, must be the lumps of pestilence, and the gathering of the herbs, and the mining, made me become level 1 artisan, but that probably happens just by doing the act, not by being good at it, I don’t think

I’ll be doing a lot of gathering or mining in the future though.

“Scorn, you never told me, what rarity is Eye of the Veteran, by the way?!”

“It’s the same as the Eye of the Appraiser, Epic rarity, so it has 10 progression levels.”

“What if you have unique skills or super rare skills?”

“They have 7 levels and 5 levels respectively, but it’s not as you imagine at all, the lower rarity doesn’t make a skill automatically bad, it just means that it’s progress will halt earlier than your skill, but it could have all the same features your skill will get as it levels up, yours even come with a downside, that it’s harder to finish quests a super rare appraising skill would probably need to identify 15 items for the first level, while yours need 25, a mythical appraising skill, would probably ask you to identify 10 legendary items, or 3 mythical items, which is prohibitively much harder to achieve, but when you reach those higher unattainable levels for everyone else, you get something no one can even dream of being able to do.”

“That seems like it’s impossible to achieve for a newbie like me, but maybe they are for established cultivators only, who probably have items like that lying around their immortal caves or whatever, anyway I’ll check what the eye of the veteran quest requires of me.”

Quest

Eye of the Veteran lvl 2: Identify 15 unique cultivators

Progress: 0/15

Seph’s eyes went wide upon seeing that, then he shouted! “Hey Scorn, can I identify the contestants before they leave the room?”

“Why else do you think I kept them around for this long after the contest was over? The first level isn’t substantial, anyway. That’s why I thought it would be a good idea to get it out of the way early!”

Seph used the eye on Kafka and this is what he saw;

Name: Kafka

Class: Cat Spiritualist.

That’s all the info it will give me?! That’s super annoying, epic skill, my ass!

He then checked Divinity, Gabalawi, and Al-H’awi.

Name: Divinity

Class: Hammer Warrioress.

Name: Gabalawi

Class: Titan Trainee.

Name: Al-H’awi

Class: Snake Charmer.

Those were all interesting and unique it seemed, noticing that Gabalawi’s class tied to his items as well, he then used it on Qui Ma, Brother Liu, and Brother Huang, and they all had a martial artist class tying to their weapons, of finger, staff, Nunchucks, while Lao Wencheng was a rogue class, Oh! He did seem to specialize in throwing weapons so far. Seph was thinking.

Rong Sha was a fire elementalist, even though his fire skills came from his rings and robes.

Esme and Glenda were both manipulators of hair and blood, respectively.

Feral Xu was a berserker, as expected.

Huang Chun were a Neutralist, even though the skills of their counterparts were advanced enough to warrant different classes for each.

Finally, Dahlia was a flower mistress, and Black Crow…

Black Crow was an insect horror.

The skill was really limited; it didn’t even show Seph the rarity of his class, but he finished the quest for now. He used it one more time on Black Crow.

Name: Black Crow

Class: Insect horror. (Super Rare)

Cultivation stage: Body Dismantling (III)

Seph’s eyes went wide at the new information revealed by his upgraded Eye of the Veteran skill!

Well now, I have a way to check if my opponent is way stronger than me, so that I can avoid fighting them! Also, it seems Black Crow had already started his cultivation. Maybe that was a factor in why he was so strong.

This was the first step on the way to possible greatness for Seph, he was taking it one step at a time, but Scorn was thinking of pushing him further, possibly even trying to do such a thing outside of the Sect, but how was he going to do that? Was still a work in progress.