The Devil’s Cage

Character Limit? Main Attribute?

The sudden notification stunned Kieran.

Neither the LCD screen in his room nor the options in his visions had information about this Character Limit and Main Attribute.

[Detected Spirit has reached your character limit, do you want to set Spirit as your main attribute?]

That notification alone was enough to made Kieran frown uncontrollably.

His habitual vigilance kept him from doing anything rash. Even more so, the people around him and the ones he could trust might know such situation.

Kieran opened up his PM tab to Lawless and left his question there.

Then he turned his attention to his character stats window.

[Strength: A-; Agility: A-; Constitution: A+; Spirit: SSS+; Intuition: B+]

Spirit was much further ahead than the other stats.

Strength, Agility, and Constitution were balanced and only Intuition was on the weaker side when it was compared to his other stats.

A B+ Intuition was considered high even among the common veteran players.

Though after considering the upcoming battle, Kieran decided to increase it again.

His original plan was to highlight his powerful Spirit stat. He was trying to contend to be the absolute powerhouse that could suppress all the other Chosen Ones.

Yet accidents happened and it forced him to step down for the time being while seeking a secondary solution.

[Using Golden Attribute Points...]

[Intuition B+ → A-]

[Using Golden Attribute Points ...]

[Intuition A- → A]

...

Maybe it will affect [Tracking] by increasing Intuition in the future, but guessing that [Tracking] was a special rank skill and the uniqueness of leveling Musou to Transcendence, it made Kieran confident that the next time he leveled up [Tracking], Intuition will once again increase.

Then Kieran looked at his points and skill points tab.

[Points: 25,000; Skill Points: 40; Golden Skill Point: 0; Golden Skill Point: 0]

The remaining points and skill points allowed Kieran to upgrade one of the leftovers of the 2/5 skills that he had to choose before which was [Viper Kick], [Sword Skill, Dragon Force], and [Sword Skill, Tiger Stance].

Although [Viper Kick] could slightly affect Spirit and its authentication, the related attributes of [Viper Kick] were not Spirit but Strength, Agility, and Constitution.

Based on the previous encounter with Black Hell Banning, with his offensive style, Kieran would not be granted the time to charge his skills.

Therefore, [Sword Skill, Dragon Force] was ruled out. In the end, Kieran picked [Sword Skill, Tiger Stance], which was a great match with [Great Sword Blocking].

[Sword Skill, Tiger Stance, Master to Pro, cost 10,000 Points and 24 Skill Points. Yes/No?]

”Yes!”

[Name: Sword Skill, Tiger Stance (Pro)]

[Related Attributes: Strength, Constitution]

[Skill Type: Offense]

[Effect: Whenever you use a two-handed sword, battle mace, or battle ax and successfully block an enemy’s attack, counterattack +30% in Strength, +30% in Agility, consume extra Stamina when attacking]

[Special Effect: Power Focus (+10% Strength in counterattack)

[Consume: Stamina]

[Prerequisite: Sharp Weapon, Heavy Arms (Master), Strength B-]

[Remark: This is one of the secret esoteric sword skills of the Tiger Sect, it’s the first step in mastering two handed swords.]

...

When the knowledge transfer and synchronization process was over, Kieran took a deep breath and arranged his equipment and items.

After double checking everything, he stood up and headed out the door.

...

Outside at of 13th Wallway Street.

After the battle between Broker and the Blood Alliance was over, the street that was not prosperous to begin with turned silent and withered.

When the news on Black Hell Banning accepted the mission to kill Kieran, the place became a restricted area for the other players.

Other than some other newbies and rookies, everyone knew how cruel and merciless Banning was, the Supernova would not care about causing collateral damage to the innocent.

Once Kieran appeared, Banning will attack without concern about other player’s safety and with his specialty, the large area of effect attacks, who could dodge his attack?

So, when Kieran pushed open his door, he couldn’t spot a single player in his sight.

Not only players, even the urban animals that loomed over the city were nowhere in sight.

It was not a usual scene, if such changes occurred, something in the area must have caused it.

Without further hesitation, Kieran squinted his eyes and activated [Tracking].

Instantly, he spotted a translucent spirit before his eyes. At a farther spot, more translucent spirits were flying over, gathering before Kieran.

When he saw the spirits hurling themselves over, Kieran was not scared or panic, but instead grinned.

”As I expected! Although the moment the black veil was formed, it could spread over a hundred meters in diameters rapidly but before that, Banning must have some preparation time! The last encounter with the guy was in a narrow, crooked alley that was hard for us to perform a thorough search in a short time. He purposely picked that spot for his preparation! And now with the spirits popping up, it was to buy him time to charge his skill!”

Since the moment Kieran has decided to battle Banning once and for all, he analyzed the previous sudden encounter back and forth and more than a dozen times, not even letting the slightest details slip.

It was natural that Kieran noticed that Banning would not appear in the flesh during battle, other than that, he noticed another strange spot in the previous encounter.

Since Banning had decided to strike, why would he go the extra length and do so much before which seemed useless in Kieran’s point of view.

There was only one answer that Kieran could think of: it was not that he didn’t want to strike directly, but he couldn’t!

The charging or preparation for the area of effect attack was much more longer than they imagined during that encounter.

Just that when Banning’s black veil appeared above, it was already matured into form, plus the powerful attack and ridiculous wide range caught the attention of everyone present at that time, causing them to neglect the particular point.

Of course, not everyone was easily distracted, someone like Broker never would.

Kieran never underestimated the cunning merchant.

Kieran could notice a strange point based off a single encounter with Banning, it was impossible that Broker couldn’t notice it since he was much higher than a veteran.

So, Banning must have some other methods to compensate for his long preparation time, or in other words, his other trump card!

A trump card that could remove his preparation or charging time completely and Kieran wanted Banning to activate this card of his!

Only then would Banning’s emotions be truly affected and causing disruptions in his mental state.

Whether was it the rage that a seemingly newbie forced him to activate his trump card or the pride in killing an ant with extreme measures, or even some other negative emotions.

It was what Kieran really needed to determine Banning’s location.

Therefore, a moment later…

Whoosh!

Kieran fired a barrage of kicks, turning the surveillance spirits into ashes and he jumped up rapidly like a hare and vanished into the shadows aside.

At the same time above the area, the black veil had appeared, seemingly formed by mist or light somehow.

Aside from that, it seemed like a monster was stretching its body, ready to strike.

A thousand eyes were gazing at a single direction.

Everything was unfolding according to Kieran’s expectations.