A dialog box appeared on Fang Zhen's screen, displaying a wall of text.
"The abilities and traits you acquired in the 'Dark Path' are as follows:
Battle Rage (Allows you to unleash furious energy at critical moments, granting greater strength than usual while reducing pain and fear. However, you will be weakened by excessive emotional and physical exhaustion after the battle.)
Solidify: 30 Merit Points
Combat Intuition (A stroke of genius in battle. Your subconscious generates premonitions, predictions, and sudden flashes of combat inspiration.)
Solidify: 30 Merit Points
Combat Focus (Allows you to throw yourself into battle with single-minded focus, helping to improve your combat effectiveness and your ability to learn other skills.)
Solidify: 30 Merit Points
Basic Spearmanship (Thrust) (A basic spear technique that improves attack stability and slightly increases attack power.)
Solidify: 15 Merit Points
Stealth (Allows you to move lightly and discreetly, muffling your footsteps and reducing the attention you draw.)
Solidify: 15 Merit Points
Basic Bladework (Slash) (A basic blade technique that improves attack stability and slightly increases attack power.)
Solidify: 15 Merit Points"
The traits you acquired:
Courage (A mental trait that helps offset fear, allowing you to maintain your fighting spirit when facing enemies and challenges stronger than yourself.)
Solidify: 50 Merit Points
Goblin Star (Acquired from battling numerous goblins, this trait grants an instinctual understanding of their behavior patterns. You become calmer and more composed when facing them, naturally exuding an intimidating aura. Goblins can sense this and will be mentally suppressed and intimidated to a degree.)
Solidify: 50 Merit Points
"
Staring at the dialog box that filled the screen, Fang Zhen looked slightly surprised.
His eyes widened as he scanned the contents, reading every single word with meticulous care.
After a good seven or eight minutes, Fang Zhen let out a soft breath.
'Just a moment ago, I was thinking about how valuable Merit Points must be,' he thought. 'I cleared the instance and got a great performance review, but all that only got me 85 Merit Points. They must be really precious.'
'According to the help files, Merit Points can be used for a lot of things, but I never imagined they could be used to solidify the abilities and traits I learned in the instance.'
'This is incredible.'
Fang Zhen felt a surge of excitement.
Battle Rage, Combat Intuition, Combat Focus, Basic Spearmanship, Basic Bladework, Stealth, Courage, Goblin Star… He had felt and experienced every single one of these in the instance.
'Does this mean that only abilities I personally experienced and learned can be solidified on the results screen?'
Fang Zhen thought for a moment. 'That must be it.'
'Battle Rage must have come from that time in the goblin stronghold. I was almost stabbed, which sent me into a rage. I went berserk and wiped out every goblin there.'
'I can also recall when Combat Intuition kicked in—killing that goblin by the stream, and a few times after that, when I swung my spear with wide, powerful movements, taking out several goblins with pinpoint accuracy.'
'Combat Focus was like entering a flow state.'
'As for Basic Spearmanship, Basic Bladework, and Stealth, I must have learned those from fighting and pulling off those stealth kills in the instance.'
'It seems that any experience and insight gained inside an instance can be detected and quantified as a skill or ability.'
'And the two traits, Courage and Goblin Star, were the results of my mental and cognitive processes during battle.'
'I was brave enough to charge the goblin nest, and during the fight, I learned to recognize their skills and behaviors. That must be how I got those two traits.'
Thinking back, he realized he could trace every single skill, ability, and trait back to a specific experience inside the instance.
'Only abilities and traits learned in an instance seem to count; real-world ones apparently don't.'
'I have plenty of skills in real life—singing, dancing, rapping, basketball—but none of them showed up on this interface.'
Once he understood this, he didn't take the option to solidify abilities lightly in the slightest.
It seemed Fang Zhen had already learned all these abilities in the instance. But there was a huge difference between pulling something off once and being able to do it consistently and reliably every single time.
A one-time fluke is not the same as a genuine skill.
Fang Zhen knew that even a total amateur or a casual enthusiast could have a stunning performance once in a while.
Take ball sports, for example. A pool enthusiast might occasionally make an incredible shot. When they're in the zone and feeling lucky, they might sink four or five balls in a row, and some even manage to clear the table once in a blue moon.
Anyone who plays soccer often will eventually have a moment where they kick a perfect ball, a curving shot that lands right in the corner of the net.
And in basketball, there are times when your hands are hot, and every shot you take—whether it's a mid-range jumper or a three-pointer—just swishes through the net.
In those moments, when they're feeling it and luck is on their side, even a casual player can perform brilliantly.
However, that's a far cry from it becoming an actual skill.
'What is a skill?'
'A skill means your level of consistency and your baseline performance are far beyond those of a player who just gets lucky.'
'A player who relies on luck might have a sudden burst of greatness, but the next time they try to recapture that feeling, it's gone. They're right back to their usual self.'
A skilled player won't have that problem.
Developing a skill, especially a physical one, means the neural pathways in your brain have been reinforced. Your muscles develop memory, your performance becomes stable, and it becomes an ability you can rely on.
In other words, it's what you call being a "professional."
Fang Zhen had seen some entertainment shows where professionals would go up against the "kings of the street." The show would get pros, like professional table tennis or pool players, to dress up in disguise as amateurs and then challenge the best local non-professionals.
The result was always the same. Those so-called "kings of the street"—who were seen as gods and masters by ordinary people and were, admittedly, very good—were no better than total newbs in front of the professionals. They'd get absolutely decimated.
Watching that show made Fang Zhen understand: amateurs should never be compared to professionals.
They're not even in the same league.
From that day on, Fang Zhen had held a deep respect for true professionals.
This option to solidify abilities and traits, provided by the game, would probably be dismissed by anyone who didn't know better. 'I can already do it, so why would I need to solidify it?' they might think.
But they would have no idea just how valuable this option truly was.
As Fang Zhen saw it, solidifying an ability meant permanently acquiring it as a skill, locking in the peak performance he had experienced, and ensuring consistent, reliable output.
And it would never degrade!
This was tantamount to instantly turning Fang Zhen into a professional.
'If that's really the case, then this is a massive win!'
Having thought it through, Fang Zhen was suddenly buzzing with excitement.
Solidifying one skill was like saving himself countless years of painstaking work in the real world.
It meant skipping countless hours, days, nights, and years of arduous, even painful, training to become an instant master.
It also prevented skill degradation.
One of the most frustrating things about the real world was that if you didn't use a skill, it would fade.
Use it or lose it—that principle applied to everything.
Think about all those office workers ten or twenty years after their college entrance exams. If their jobs didn't require the knowledge they learned in school, hadn't they returned all that knowledge to their teachers?
He didn't know about others, but Fang Zhen himself had forgotten almost all of his math.
He guessed that if he used his Merit Points on these solidification options, the abilities would be locked in at their current level and would never degrade.
'Solidifying a skill is like a moment of enlightenment that's worth ten years of hard practice.'
He was visibly excited.
But he only had 85 Merit Points. To solidify all of the available abilities and traits, he would need a total of 235 Merit Points.
"I don't have enough Merit Points."
Fang Zhen shook his head slightly and let out a soft sigh.
'Being able to solidify abilities and traits is a wonderful thing. It lets you bypass all the hard work and keep what you've learned. It's a blessing.'
'But now, I have too many blessings to choose from. I'm being forced to pick and choose my happiness.'
Battle Rage, Combat Focus, Combat Intuition.
Stealth, Basic Spearmanship (Thrust), Basic Bladework (Slash).
Courage, Goblin Star.
"How in the world am I supposed to choose?" Fang Zhen mused, raising an eyebrow and stroking his chin.