Gun Chapter 43: The Value of Knowledge (Patreon)

Also, learning a skill did not necessarily mean you would ultimately become a class-holder.

When you learned a corresponding skill—whether it was a combat technique, a mage skill, or something similar—you had only completed the first step toward becoming a class-holder: the most basic threshold. People generally referred to this stage as a class apprentice.

To become a true class-holder, the first requirement was to practice the skill you had chosen until you reached an extremely high degree of proficiency.

Exactly how proficient? There was no quantitative standard. It all came down to personal feeling.

After all, other people didn’t have a panel like Wakasha’s that could turn skill proficiency into levels and even grant extra improvements upon leveling up.

When a skill had been trained to the proper extent, one would begin to sense a mysterious guiding force in the surrounding world.

This guidance was called a class path.

A class path would condense an intangible existence inside the body: a rank.

The rank was the source of a class-holder’s power. Even to this day, people still couldn’t give it an exact definition.

The mainstream view was that it was a product of the world’s rules. As long as one stepped onto a class path and continued to humbly practice the abilities and responsibilities of that class, one could gradually grow stronger.

That was the theory.

But in practice, things were nowhere near that simple.

To train a skill to the stage where it could trigger guidance required a tremendous amount of time. Many people spent their entire lives without ever achieving it.

That was where a great teacher became necessary. For those lacking talent and opportunity, it could take years—or even decades—to master a single skill to the required degree.

And even after reaching that point and entering the guidance stage, there were still more difficulties.

The class path would gradually reshape the body of the aspiring class-holder. Some people simply couldn’t adapt to those changes, and in such cases, they needed potions, reagents, job-change rituals, or special treasures to assist them. The exact method of aided advancement varied depending on the class and the individual’s body.

Only when the rank had fully condensed did a person truly become a Level 1 class-holder.

So under normal circumstances, becoming a class-holder could take as little as one or two years—or as long as several decades.

Those who had gone through systematic training or received guidance from predecessors, however, had a far greater chance of becoming class-holders, and they did so much faster.

That was why truly powerful class-holders were always a minority.

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At this moment, Wakasha—who was in the process of condensing his rank—didn’t know that if he had access to the right supplements, herbs, or alchemical tonics, they could have accelerated the process and potentially improved the results even further.

Many spellcaster apprentices, if they had the means, would prepare such things in advance before condensing their rank.

It wasn’t that they were absolutely necessary.

Rather, rank condensation was a process—a transitional phase that others called the receiving of guidance.

During this process, the world’s will would bestow a gift upon every apprentice who was about to rise into a class-holder, helping improve their physical constitution and ultimately condensing within them the rank that would serve as the source of their power, officially pushing them past the threshold.

If one lacked targeted supplements, however, the process would be relatively slow. The body’s physical qualities would grow gradually and subtly over a period of time. It might be fast, it might be slow, and there was even a certain chance of failure.

That was the limitation of ordinary people: knowledge that nobles or others might take for granted could remain precious information they would never learn in their entire lives.

But Wakasha wasn’t the type to complain about fate.

At this moment, he felt his condition become strangely unusual. His mind had turned abnormally active, as if it had been refreshed.

Every instant, countless new thoughts surfaced in his head, as though he were a child standing before a brand-new world, brimming with endless ideas.

And before his consciousness, his personal panel appeared, with prompts flashing and refreshing rapidly across it.

“Condensing rank...”

“Intelligence increasing slightly...”

“Constitution increasing slightly...”

“Spell · Solar Sphere gaining EXP... unable to increase... converting... increasing potential...”

“Spell · Mage Servant gaining EXP... unable to increase... converting... increasing potential...”

“Spell-like Ability · Concept Armament · Deathbird gaining EXP. EXP +1000.”

White breath escaped Wakasha’s mouth.

A mysterious force, like an invisible giant hand, was constantly reshaping both his body and spirit!

Then an overwhelming sensation surged from his stomach through his entire body—and even into his soul.

So hungry!

Hungry! Hungry! Hungry! Hungry!

Wakasha had originally thought that becoming a class-holder would simply happen once the requirements were met, and that it would end quickly.

He hadn’t expected something like this at all.

He got up, pulled out some water and food from his bag, and started stuffing them into his mouth.

So hungry! So hungry!

Wakasha felt as though a savage hunger was about to devour him alive!

If there were a piece of meat in front of him right now, he felt like he could pick it up and gnaw on it raw.

Little by little, all the food he had brought was eaten up.

“So hungry!”

It felt as though his stomach acid was about to digest him from the inside out.

He started frantically searching for something—anything—he could eat.

Then his gaze locked onto the extractor filled with purified slime gel.

As he stared at the slime gel inside, saliva began pouring uncontrollably into his mouth.

His instinct told him that slime gel could be eaten—and that it was highly nutritious.

But his reason told him that this was not normal food.

For once, however, instinct was right.

Purified slime gel actually could be consumed—but only when it had been refined, and only by a class-holder, since ordinary people lacked the ability to digest it.

Normally, slime gel was used as an alchemical or potion ingredient, and only after secondary or even multiple rounds of processing would adventurers make use of or consume it.

Eating it raw like this was extremely rare.

But Wakasha didn’t know any of that right now.

All he knew was that his reason was being torn apart by hunger. To avoid starving to death, he chose to trust his instinct.

He raised the extractor to his mouth, closed his eyes, and squeezed out one portion of purified slime gel.

The compressed drop of slime gel—normally about the size of a regular egg—slid with gravity into his mouth, then down his throat...

Boom!

Wakasha felt like a dying flame that had suddenly been fed with rich fuel. The terrifying hunger eased slightly, enough for his reason to regain some control over his body.

But the hunger still hadn’t disappeared. It continued urging him to eat more.

Eat? Then eat!

As long as it didn’t kill him, fine!

At this point, Wakasha had basically stopped caring. Slime gel was slime gel. Even if it was...

Well, if it could save his life...

Sorry, but that was still something he absolutely couldn’t eat.