Chương 17: The Novice’s Hoard

The midnight moon hung high over the valley of Hazor, silvering the edges of the limestone ravine. Ethan did not stop swinging. Thrum-thrum-snap. The final scavenger jackal fell with a heavy, dust-kicking thud against the base of the stepped cliff. The digital carcass dissolved into clean white code lines, leaving behind a pristine heap of hides, fangs, and three small scraps of unrefined bronze wire. A sharp, low-frequency hum vibrated through the frame of Ethan's refurbished visor.

[System Alert: Character Milestone Completed!] Novice Level Cap Shattered: Level 3 Achieved. Militia Rank Eligibility Triggered: Rank 1 (Levy). Warning: Your character remains UNASSIGNED. Class selection menu is active. Please select a specialization or suffer a 5% penalty to statutory experience scaling. Ethan closed the blinking class menu immediately, completely ignoring the flashing Outlaw Shepherd prompt he had uncovered in the cave.

A permanent class choice this early meant locking his attribute points into specialized combat tracks, which would kill his flexibility for industrial trading. He needed to stay fluid. He needed to build his capital before buying into a role. He lowered the sling, the coarse hemp fibers stained dark from three hours of friction. He did not check his stats. His eyes went straight to his inventory matrix. Forty-eight beast fangs, twenty-four coarse hides, and the metal scrap weight.

Total projected liquidation value: nearly twelve Silver Shekels. He had established a perfect, hyper-efficient economic rhythm. By cycling through his three core exploits—gleaning raw wayside materials under Leket protection, refining scrap metallurgy via the carbon reduction loophole, and trapping stationary monsters using raw kinetic physics—he had created a flawless loop. His stamina remained fully subsidised by Bochim's Arayut contract, ensuring his daily maintenance overhead was locked at exactly zero dollars.

Ethan leaned back against the cool foundation wall, calculating the options branching in his mind. On one hand sat the Outlaw Shepherd track. It was the ultimate F2P dream: zero weapon procurement costs, high stealth metrics, and infinite ammunition lying across the valley floor. It was safe. It was steady. It kept his overhead non-existent. But on the other hand lay the flashy, locked Chariot Commander (Sar Rechev) track at the military academy barracks.

That was the elite class the corporate syndicates from Marina Bay actively hired for massive, real-world Singapore Dollar contracts. To secure the Chariot track, he needed fifty silver shekels just to clear the enlistment bond. The overhead was terrifying, but the payout ceiling was astronomical. It was the only class with a high enough velocity to wipe out his forty-thousand-dollar university debt and fund Grandma's physiotherapy permanently.

I don't choose the safe path, Ethan thought, his jaw tightening as he stared at the two digital choices. I choose the path with the highest financial yield. I'll keep grinding the novice loops until my shekel balance hits fifty. Then I buy the Chariot class and extract their corporate wealth from the inside. He scooped the newly harvested beast parts into his leather pouch until the drawstring groaned.

He left the shadows of the culvert behind, marching along the base of the massive mud-brick walls toward the Western Gate of the city. The Western Gate was a colossal structural nexus of timber beams and rough limestone blocks, lit by flickering bronze olive-oil lamps. Ethan stepped onto the clean stone threshold, bypassing the younger garrison guards, and marched directly toward the secondary trade stalls behind the cattle pens where the independent NPC leatherworkers operated outside the palace tax lines.

He dropped his entire heavy bag of raw jackal hides onto a wooden table.

"Twenty-four raw pelts," Ethan said to the apprentice tanner, keeping his voice low and clinical.

"Cleaned. Stored before the midnight dew could rot the grain. I don't want store credits. Weigh the Hacksilber scrap." The apprentice tanner squinted through the smoke of his tallow candle, counting the thick pelts with a gnarled thumb before sliding a small, iron balance scale across the rough wood. Clink. [Trade Finalized] You have liquidated: [Coarse Jackal Hide x24], [Beast Fang x48]. You have received: [Hacksilber Scrap — Weight: 18 Grams]. Current Wallet Balance: 15. 40 Silver Shekels.

Ethan gripped the cold, jagged pieces of scrap silver inside his pouch. Fifteen shekels. He had started his day with zero assets. By systematically running his exploits for zero input cost, he had built a larger private cash pool than most secondary-year corporate trainees cleared in a week. He turned back toward the city gates, his mind already calculating the remaining thirty-five shekels needed to trigger his entry into the elite barracks track. The hoard was growing, and he was completely on track.