Annan didn’t know how long he had been unconscious, nor when he had woken up.
As he regained consciousness, a row of blood-red, somewhat sloppy characters still floated before his eyes:
[The Curse "The Great Hunt of Fate" has been Severed]
[You have completed the Ritual: "The Swifter Murder", and you’ve received the junior influence "One Step Ahead"]
[If not removed in time, you will fall into a random nightmare with the keyword "Blade" on either April 4th or June 6th (Difficulty: Hard)]
[You have completed a Ritual, your Will attribute +1]
[The Tragedian is very pleased with your ritual, you’ve received 1 Luminous Sigil from the Tragedian]
[Current total Sigils: 3 (Silver Baron) / 1 (Tragedian)]
After a brief pause, the formal notice of clearing the instance finally appeared before Annan:
[Ensure the survival of "Annan Winter", "Dmitry Winter", "Elizabeth Noah", and "Kafney Noah" (Completed)]
[Find and destroy the key Ritual (Completed)]
[Identity must not be revealed (Completed)]
[— Nightmare Purified]
[Purified the Nightmare with a designated identity, evaluation increased]
[Perfectly prevented the Ritual, evaluation greatly increased]
[Prevented the explosion, evaluation increased]
[Killed Philip Noah, evaluation greatly increased]
[Gained recognition from the "Tragedian", evaluation greatly increased]
[Completed collection of Memory Items, evaluation increased]
[Comprehensive evaluation—S]
[Received 3200 Public Experience points, Perception +1]
[Instance clearance reward: Randomly level up any profession by 3 levels]
[Hidden element decrypted: 100%]
[Instance decryption reward: Element (Radiance) awakening depth increased by 10%]
[Top rating reward: Random usable Spell (Disabling School)]
Indeed, he hadn’t been disappointed...
Or rather, it was all within Annan’s expectations.
Just as others perceived Annan—nothing more than a "lucky Berserker." A bit of courage, a bit of luck...
A wave of euphoria followed by excitement surged in Annan’s heart.
But after that intense pleasure, Annan felt somewhat empty...
Annan took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, trying to calm his wildly beating heart.
What he bet on wasn’t whether the goddess of luck was on his side.
This gamble had nothing to do with luck but with ability.
What he gambled on, what he believed in... was his own ability to understand and judge people.
It wasn’t that he had to trust the old Merlin because of an unexpected event; he proactively planned and entrusted the final victory to the old Merlin, who knew nothing of his plans.
Without a doubt, this confidence stemmed from Annan’s knowledge of Merlin Manning and his trust in his own ability and intuition.
Annan took a deep breath and slowly opened his eyes.
The sun was already high in the sky.
... It’s half-past seven already.
He glanced at the clock.
It seemed as if a long time had passed after he had fallen unconscious from the nightmare.
But that didn’t matter.
As long as he had won, that was all that was important.
Annan casually added all three free levels to the Wizard class and put the remaining experience into the Silver Knight.
As a result, Annan’s panel had become:
Attributes: Strength 11, Agility 10, Constitution 13, Perception 44, Willpower 15
Silver Knight LV13: [Winter Sword Technique LV5], [Frost Sword Technique LV9], [Cross-Weapon Mastery LV1], [Hand of Silver LV1]
Wizard (Disabling School) LV20 (eligible for advancement): [Instant Spell Level 4 (Cold Touch, Lazy Eye, none, none)], [Guided Spells Level 4 (Wall of Stagnation, Frost-covered Force Field, Thoughts as Rain, Repel Life)], [Chanting Spell Level 3 (Wheel of Frost, none, none)], [Ritual Spell Level 1 (none)]
Annan noticed that, starting from LV11, the Silver Knight would automatically add two points to Constitution and then randomly add one more point to either Strength, Constitution, or Agility.
That is to say, this was a class that could gain three attribute points per level!
It was even stronger than the Wizard class, which only gained two points!
...No wonder it was a whale class.
Of course, on the other hand... Annan had not obtained any new Divine Arts or abilities from the increased Silver Knight levels. Although he had received skill points as usual, he could only add them to his existing skills.
Its skill list... or rather, the list of Divine Arts, seemed to require purchasing directly from the Silver Baron using the Holy Light Imprint.
But the mere improvement in constitution had already brought about a significant change to Annan.
Annan now distinctly felt his body getting stronger. To put it in perspective... if he needed to sleep at least three hours a day to maintain energy the following day, Annan could now stay up all night!
However, the most pronounced change was in his Perception attribute.
The sudden addition of three wizard levels plus the reward for clearing the nightmare had boosted Annan’s Perception by seven levels. He felt a wave of dizziness... as if he was seeing the world through glasses that were too clear.
But Annan shook his head and reluctantly dispelled this feeling of discomfort.
It was thanks to the poison Rufus had once administered to Annan...
Had it not been for Annan’s previous experience with the higher level of perception and the resulting distortion in his perception of the world, he wouldn’t have adapted to this level of perception attribute so easily.
It might even have increased his erosion rate—according to Salvatore’s words, some wizards who had rapidly increased in strength after completing difficult nightmares were even at risk of being mentally eroded by the curse.
This situation could also occur in classes like "Berserker," which gained two points of strength per level. Berserkers could directly use this class up to the silver tier—and some powerful silver-tier berserkers might find their muscles highly activated upon awakening from nightmares, wriggling over their bodies like insects... and might even crawl away.
This phenomenon was referred to as "Sublimation."
If one couldn’t control these "muscle worms," there was no doubt... the strength would significantly drop.
In essence, this phenomenon would occur at the silver tier or when nearing it.
According to Annan’s calculations... practitioners of this level generally had around fifty points in their primary attribute.
When the attribute exceeds forty points, increasing strength would start to cause discomfort—because the absorbed curse was approaching the human body’s limit of endurance. There is a vague, person-specific threshold at fifty points; failing to cross it, one would directly fall back to forty points.
This could be called a heavy blow.
Because one of the requirements for advancing to Gold tier is "completing the Sublimation." That is to say, a primary attribute above fifty points is just a starting requirement for the Gold tier.
If one were to fail once... then apart from classes like Wizard, which have an easier time increasing their primary attribute, other classes might not be able to reach fifty points again even when maxed out at the silver tier, and would have to attempt a second "advancement."
That is to acquire a secondary profession and successfully advance.
According to Salvatore, this process appeared to be life-threatening... but Annan himself had successfully advanced and was not quite sure where the danger lay. However, just to be safe, he had temporarily locked the players’ secondary professions.
He would wait until he had clarified what the risk exactly was before reopening it for the players—lest they wreck their accounts.
"Next, it’s time for the draw..."
Annan’s expression became serious.
He wiped the sweat from his palm onto the blanket and then clicked on the notification for the [Highest Rating Reward].
As the notification gradually faded away, a new one emerged:
[Based on your characteristics and existing job levels, you have received the Order Spell: Winter’s Breath (Ritual)]