After Annan confirmed his advancement, his job list looked :
Silver Knight LV11: [Winter Sword Technique LV5], [Frost Sword Technique LV7], [Cross-Weapon Mastery LV1], [Hand of Silver LV1]
Wizard (Disabling School) LV13: [Instant Spell LV3 (Cold Touch, Lazy Eye, none for now)], [Guided Spells LV2 (Wall of Stagnation, Frost Nova, Thoughts as Rain)], [Chanting Spell LV1 (Wheel of Frost)]
Cleric (Silver Baron, 0 imprints): Resonating Object, Sharp Object, Eternal Youth.
The special characteristics of the Silver Knight weren’t apparent to Annan just yet...
After all, it didn’t carry the "Swordsman" suffix, so it was understandable that it didn’t receive a new "some sort of Sword Technique." Perhaps it would need to level up even more to reveal its special traits.
The only difference so far was that Annan’s last unused Holy Light imprint, which belonged to the Silver Baron, combined with his existing "Disarm LV1," transformed into a new ability, [Hand of Silver].
Concentrating as he had felt while adding points before, Annan focused on his own abilities. The general descriptions of the "Silver Knight" class abilities slowly emerged before his eyes:
[Winter Sword Technique LV5: Sword Technique from the Winter Principality style. Less likely to be parried or blocked when fighting enemies slower than yourself.]
[At LV4: If the opponent’s speed is significantly lower than your own, slightly reduces the chance of your attacks being parried or blocked.]
[Frost Sword Technique LV7: An advanced Sword Technique infused with the element of frost, usable only by Frostborn. Draw the frost element from one’s own bloodline, bestowing the "Frostblood" state, which allows for dealing significant frost elemental damage for a short period (Rank: Enemies below Transcendent cannot resist elemental damage). Use again to unleash a sword energy, immediately ending this state.]
[At LV4: Each time "Frostblood" state ends, temporarily increases all frost damage by 7% (based on the current Frost Sword Technique level) and decreases one’s frost resistance by 7%, stacking up to 12 layers.]
[At LV7: The "Will" attribute can further increase the damage of Frost Sword Technique.]
[Warning: This Sword Technique requires at least the "Rank: Gold" to use, otherwise it will consume a certain percentage of max health each time it is used and cause a strong negative emotion until the "Frostblood" state ends.]
[Cross-Weapon Mastery LV1: You are proficient with weapons other than swords and can use them to perform Sword Techniques. Currently, you can use light one-handed hammers, light clubs, and long daggers.]
[Hand of Silver LV1: The unique Transcendent ability of a Silver Knight. Sacrifice a certain amount of silver coins to temporarily strengthen a weapon or shield. The more silver coins consumed, the greater the enhancement.]
Annan almost couldn’t help but let out a curse.
This so-called "Silver Knight" is basically a pay-to-win knight, right?
He had an ominous feeling...
This couldn’t mean that the abilities gained upon leveling up as a Silver Knight were all pay-to-win, could it...?
Now that he thought about it, the Silver Baron was the god of trade, wasn’t he?
This advancement to "Silver Knight" required owning a level of the Divine Arts in the domain of the Silver Baron. This meant that it could be considered the Holy Temple Knight of the Silver Baron... or something along those lines.
A Holy Temple Knight from the Trade God’s family being a pay-to-win big shot—
That sounded pretty reasonable.
"...No, I still need to ask Darry Garden about this."
Annan had a toothache.
He actually had an inkling of this earlier, but the thought had not fully formed yet.
An all-around class that can tank, deal damage, and heal—this means it would have very balanced growth.
A balanced growth means having to spend several times the resources and effort of other professions to bridge the gap with extreme professions.
As for the upper limit of the strength of pay-to-win professions, Annan wasn’t too worried...
Having confirmed the possibility of it being a pure pay-to-win profession, Annan looked back at its professional positioning. After seeing the keywords "resilient" and "stamina," he knew for sure he wouldn’t be weak.
The most important thing about a pay-to-win profession is to be tough enough. It would be meaningless if one could be killed by a critical-hit glass cannon.
Secondly, there wouldn’t be any obvious weaknesses. After all, if you balance your attributes, the weaknesses can’t be more numerous than those of a class focused on extreme attribute allocations.
"...Forget it, I’m kind of a faction leader after all,"
With this shift in thinking, Annan felt that this profession seemed kind of appealing.
If prioritizing survival... indeed, the Silver Knight was a pretty good class.
After all, Annan wasn’t really short of money.
If he was willing to swallow his pride and act as a middleman—like using Tan Juan or his own identity to buy high-end items that players couldn’t access and then selling them off after taking a cut—the situation would undoubtedly result in a win-win scenario.
Once the players became Transcendents, Annan planned to spread them out.
After all, Frostwater Harbor couldn’t afford to sustain so many Transcendents... Keeping them all in such a small place was also a bit of a waste.
With the players’ capabilities, coupled with their lack of scruples, they could easily make a lot of money. By simply using goodwill to sell for money... Annan would have enough silver coins in a short time to handle any emergency.
Although, when putting it this way, it always felt a bit odd...
It’s like seeking a sugar mommy or daddy.
"...Forget it, I mostly use the Wizard class anyway."
Annan hesitated for a moment but eventually chose the tempting option.
Before the baby’s birth day, Annan could still go through two more nightmares.
One was Justin’s nightmare, and the other was the gallery nightmare three days later.
If the "traitor" could really reload and go through it once more... then Annan could raise three more levels total. Even if not, he could still securely gain two levels.
He decided to allocate these levels to the Silver Knight.
The Disability Wizard had entered a slow development phase.
Salvatore wasn’t familiar with the bronze-tier Spells of Disabling, and Annan didn’t currently have time to flip through the Decree School textbook that Joseph had given him—he had to prioritize reading the book from the rotting husband.
If he couldn’t learn new spells, then the Wizard’s level increase wouldn’t immediately translate to combat power.
After all, leveling up a combat profession grants ability points, whereas leveling up as a Wizard only grants spell slots.
In the end, both need to level up to the silver tier anyway.
It doesn’t really matter which one he levels up first...
However, even if Annan himself had no issues, he still needed to worry about the players’ advancement.
Fortunately, Annan had cleared the nightmare very quickly. It took him just over twenty minutes to speed run through the second floor of the gallery once.
Carrying the book from the rotting husband, he got onto the carriage. By the time he arrived at Roth Fort, Bishop Daryl had just finished lunch not long ago.
He was obviously surprised to hear that "Tan Juan Geraint" wanted to visit him, as Annan had said that he would not return for another five days...
His first reaction upon seeing Annan was one of shock:
"—Why did you switch to being a Silver Knight?"
...This reaction was all too familiar to Annan.
When he used to watch his boss play games, he would often be shocked as well: "How did you manage to V15 again!?"
It seemed to be a form of admiration for the paying giants...