By the time the pleasant dinner concluded and Henry had bid the Sinclair family farewell, it was already past 8:30 PM. He walked the few hundred meters back to his own house.
It was another two-story Victorian-style wooden home, with over two hundred square meters on each floor.
The ground floor consisted of a living room, a study, a pantry, a kitchen, and a training room.
The second floor had three bedrooms, a washroom, and a storage closet.
The training room was equipped with punching bags, boxing gloves, and two rapiers hanging on the wall.
Although Henry was sticky with the sweat and grime of the day, he didn't rush to wash up.
He focused his mind, calling forth the panel in his vision.
Name: Henry Bruce (Zhang Tianyuan)
Level: 2
Health: 100%
Constitution: LV 2
Skills: Rifle Mastery LV 4; Handgun Mastery LV 3; Horsemanship LV 4; Lariat Arts LV 4; Boxing LV 1; Fencing LV 1; Swimming LV 1; Billiards LV 1; Skiing LV 1
The progress bar was 6.6% lit. He would need another 934 grey pearls to fill it and advance to Level 3.
Below it were his defensive husks: 5 grey, 3 white, and 2 green.
His remaining pearls numbered 66 grey, 10 white, and 1 green. Six of the white pearls, and the single green one, pulsed with that now-familiar, profound energy indicating they held skills.
Good, he thought. As soon as his total pearl count had surpassed the equivalent of 100 grey pearls, the panel had automatically updated him to Level 2.
He shifted his focus to the dark golden sphere. The storage space had expanded. Its radius was now two meters, giving it a volume of over thirty-three cubic meters.
Next, he focused on his "Constitution." The feedback was immediate: it would take 400 grey pearls to advance to LV 3. His current collection was equivalent to 126 grey pearls. He was a long way off.
He then examined his skills. LV 4 was a master-tier ability, a level of skill that was one in ten thousand. LV 1 was merely an entry-level proficiency, equivalent to what an ordinary person might achieve after three years of diligent practice.
Upgrading from LV 4 to LV 5 would require a thousand grey pearls, so that was off the table for now. Upgrading a skill from LV 1 to LV 2, however, only required ten.
Henry locked the front door, walked upstairs to the storage room, and locked that door as well. He sat on a wooden stool, took out his Patek Philippe, and placed it beside him. The time was 8:46 PM.
He focused his mind on the white and green pearls. Use all of them, he commanded.
Once again, the warm current enveloped him. A flood of new memories crashed into his mind—a life defined by an incredibly keen perception, an almost supernatural intuition that allowed him to sense danger before it arrived.
This was followed by years of experience in tracking and counter-tracking.
Then came an onslaught of other skills: the delicate art of lockpicking; the deadly arc of a thrown knife; the precise science of using black powder and dynamite for demolition; the thunderous calculations of firing cannons and howitzers; and finally, the theory and practiced grace of playing a piano.
The infusion lasted a long while. When it stopped, the skills were etched into his very soul, as real and instinctive as if he had spent a lifetime mastering them himself.
Just as he'd expected, seven minutes had passed. He turned his attention back to the panel.
Skills: Rifle Mastery LV 4; Handgun Mastery LV 3; Horsemanship LV 4; Lariat Arts LV 4; Throwing Knives LV 3; Demolitions LV 3; Artillery LV 3; Tracking LV 3; Lockpicking LV 4; Piano LV 4; Boxing LV 1; Fencing LV 1; Swimming LV 1; Billiards LV 1; Skiing LV 1
The Piano LV 4 skill felt jarringly out of place, like a wild duck in a flock of swans. Of the six new skills he had absorbed, only Piano and Lockpicking were at the master level.
An instinctive understanding followed: he couldn't overwrite an existing skill unless the new source was at least three levels higher than his own. However, any skill he could absorb at all was guaranteed to be at least LV 3—the level of a true professional. The chances of an enemy dropping a skill pearl were incredibly low. The outlaws he had killed must have been the elite of the elite to have survived so long.
This meant that to quickly advance his five LV 1 skills, he would have to hope he got lucky and absorbed a LV 4 or higher version in the future. Otherwise, he'd have to level them through practice or by spending pearls.
Considering the incredible power of Bryan's LV 4 Rifle Mastery, he knew how difficult it was to reach that level. A person without talent could practice for a lifetime and never get there. As for LV 5... he could only imagine how powerful that would be, once he'd saved up a thousand pearls to try it.
Now, his LV 1 skills were blinking on the panel. The energy he'd just absorbed from the ten white pearls and one green pearl was equivalent to sixty grey pearls—enough to upgrade them to LV 2.
He focused on his sixty-six loose grey pearls and thought, Use forty.
Instantly, forty of them turned into dim husks. At the same time, his LV 3 skills began to blink. It took one hundred grey pearls' worth of energy to upgrade a skill from LV 3 to LV 4.
He chose Throwing Knives.
The panel stopped blinking. The warm current washed over him again, and his mind was flooded with a lifetime of experience with throwing knives.
One minute later, the upgrade was complete.
There were no silenced pistols in this era, at least not for the common man. A masterfully thrown knife would be an invaluable tool. He had a feeling he'd be needing it very soon.
With a thought, he retrieved two sets of throwing knives from his storage space. Each steel knife was 15cm long and weighed about 40 grams, with a sharpened tip. They came in sets of six in a leather sheath. He had looted ten sets in total. He took all sixty knives out of their sheaths and put them back into the space for instant access.
He had also found a simple set of lockpicks—a combination of steel wires, hooks, and tension wrenches, the 19th-century version of a bump key. The full, professional kit was likely still on one of the bodies from the ambush. He'd check for it at the Sheriff's office tomorrow.
As for that strange premonition of danger he'd felt during the infusion, Henry was sure it was a new talent, one that the Level 2 panel couldn't display yet. Perhaps at Level 3.
He now had 45 grey husks, 13 white, and 3 green. He had only 26 grey pearls left. He decided to save them in case he was wounded, poisoned, or fell gravely ill.
Huh?
As his attention lingered on the husks, he received a final piece of information. When he was on a vehicle, the defensive shield would expand to cover a sphere with a radius in meters equal to his panel level, but the cost would be doubled.
He was Level 2, so the shield would now be a two-meter sphere centered on his torso. If he was on horseback, it would completely envelop the horse as well. He wouldn't have to worry about his mount being shot out from under him. He could also mentally suppress this effect if he chose. Of course, a larger shield meant a higher chance of being hit and a faster drain on his husks.
But it was worth it.
His upgrades were complete for now. Satisfied, Henry went downstairs, slipped out the front door, and used the deep shadows of the night to sneak toward Ronald McKinley's house, four hundred meters away.