Grades, Explosives

Cern noticed some unfamiliar terms at this moment.

'System! What's the difference between techniques and skills?'

[Techniques are the bedrock of skills, whereas skills are obtained from techniques.]

There are two types of skills; innate and acquired. Innate skills are normally called 'talent', while acquired skills are gotten from training them through techniques.

'Damn! It's an advanced mental cultivation technique. Damnit! Is it possible to analyze his cultivation technique?'

[Host can analyze and obtain the necessary resources once the target utilizes them.]

'Shit!'

An advanced technique was capable of speeding up his cultivation by over hundreds of times. His reaction wasn't totally unreasonable.

As Cern stared at the list of techniques and skills that he had acquired, he couldn't help but drool inside. One must know that techniques were graded from inferior, elementary/low, intermediary, high and advanced.

These were the most common technique grades available to most villagers. Receiving an intermediary grade technique on its own was rare enough.

High grade techniques could hardly be found in villages, unless it was obtained using one's merits to the kingdom.

But those with merits would hardly move into a small village and could only be found in the major cities and capital of the kingdom.

Most warriors strengths were determined based on the grade of techniques they used; Novices made use of inferior and elementary

techniques, while Amateurs made use of high and advanced techniques.

Intermediary techniques were considered to be halfway between the two since the strength of the user depended on the strength of the intermediary technique.

Cern slowly pulled back from the hideout, walking away naturally from the assassin, as though he had just stopped by for a rest.

"What's wrong, Cern?"

Cern shook his head as though he was disappointed before shooting off into the forest.

"You didn't find it, huh?Have to let people know then."

Hot on his tail, Vinnie sped off following Cern.

Sprinting off into the forest, they headed for the orphanage. Mineru held his breath for a full 5 minutes more, before stealthily crawling out the grass.

He extended his energy into his surroundings, checking for any hidden assailants. After searching for a few minutes and finding no one, he sped off deeper into the forest.

A few minutes afterwards, Cern rushed right back into the clearing, keeping his energy within 5 feet of himself, he followed the tendrils of energy leading away from the clearing.

The assassin seemed to be suffering from a hidden ailment as his mental energy was leaking. Of course, considering the assassin wasn't aware of this, he assumed that he either didn't know, or he knew but didn't have the necessary resources to contain it.

Of course, he could also just be pretending not to notice, so Cern didn't dare to be certain of any of his options. He could be on his guard against any possible dangers.

Following the assassin for a while, he slowly approached a mountain base in the distance. Using his energy, he tracked the assassin into the mountain.

'A hidden cave. He's got quite a lot of hideouts.'

Using mental energy, he found the cave opening at the base of the mountain. It was a slope leaning almost 45 degrees into the ground, meaning he had to slide in, which meant he had to make noise.

Cern refused to take such blatant risks and instead circled the base of the mountain for a while. He found an opening further atop the mountain and climbed upwards to investigate.

At the ledge, he could see into the opening, which led to a small cave. The wind flowed both in and out of the cave, allowing Cern to discern that there was probably a cavern inside.

Slowly sliding down the opening, Cern was led into a small cave three times larger than his size. The cave was mostly occupied by plants and nothing of major importance could be found.

There wasn't any cavern of the sort in there too so Cern couldn't help but wonder if he had to take the risk of sliding down the cave opening at the base.

Soon enough, after walking around the cave for a while, he heard small sounds coming from a corner of the cave. After inspecting for a while, he discovered that the wall in that area was mostly sand and rock which had stuck to each other.

Scraping away at a corner, he managed to make a hole big enough for him to pass through. After crawling through it, he came out into a larger cavern.

Stalactites and stalagmites filled this cavern. In addition, there was the occasional dripping of water and some puddles around. It was like a mineral cave and some of the rocks even had shiny crystals embedded in them.

[Leonite ore:

Ore of a small, impure mineral. Processed in major cities, towns and kingdoms into Leonore, an explosive material.]

'So, similar to TNT then?'

[Yes]

It was a mine. A natural mine. These types of mines were usually high in demand by towns, cities and even kingdoms. If the capital knew of the mine in the mountain, they would've dispatched a team of soldiers and miners to claim the site.

Of course Cern wasn't going to alert them. He had no intention of drawing the attention of the imperial capital to such a small town.

Sure the reward was nice and would be greatly appreciated by the town, but the villagers themselves would be exploited by the soldiers.

It was an all too common trope in all the novels he'd read. The soldiers would harass the villagers and force them to work, at least until they all moved to the capital to serve in the war.

Besides, Cern couldn't even inform anyone about the mine. His dynamic was that of a child who couldn't speak. His entire identity would be blown if the soldiers were to come over.

He couldn't possibly cooperate with Gale and the others to lie to the soldiers as he couldn't even properly communicate with them in the first place.

His thoughts were interrupted by the wincing and groaning of the assassin. Following the sounds, he chanced upon a section of the cavern down below, where the sound came from.

The wall was blocked this time, and it wasn't fake, but a hole in the wall allowed for Cern to see right into his hideout.

Glancing round the room, Cern couldn't help but breathe in. The assassin seemed to know that he was suffering from something severe, as he rummaged through a large rucksack.

The cave was littered with books containing things, but Cern couldn't understand them. At a corner of the cave, the assassin and the rucksack were tussling, while at another corner were a bunch of other rucksacks, tied up and left aside. It seemed like the assassin was packing up for a trip.

Cern grit his teeth. He couldn't just let the fat sheep he'd found leave like that. His eyes darted around as came up with a plan of his own to obtain the sheep's techniques.