[Talent: Heart of Legend, triggered.]
[Triggered Legendary Path: The End of a Deathmatch (A)]
[Obtained F-rank Class: Hyena.]
[Gained Class Bonus: Highest value among the Five Attributes (Strength) increased by one rank, slightly reduced combat skill learning speed.]
[Description: Seven-faced headless, ghost Buddha white snake, war of ten thousand armies, legendary king, or high god of the firmament? Once you step onto this path, there is no turning back.]
[Path: Achieve victory in a life-and-death battle, and continue to gain the next victory. After the first class promotion, you will receive the next-tier new E-rank Class: Novice Warrior (1/2), and Class-specific specialties.]
[You have taken another step on the path of legend!]
[Current Legendary Paths: 3/4.] (Viewable)
As the dice landed steadily, the new path triggered by defeating the enemy granted Su Ya the class of [Hyena]. Unlike the first class he obtained, [Barefoot Doctor], this class granted more direct abilities.
Su Ya felt a sudden warmth in his body, and a peculiar energy surged outwards from deep within his spinal cord. Immediately after, a cracking sound, originating from inside his body and audible only to Su Ya, spread and erupted! It was somewhat like getting a professional back massage at a spa, with a skilled masseuse pressing against his spine.
Crack!
"Ahh..."
The sensation of comfort made Su Ya exhale a long breath. The stale air expelled from between his teeth formed a long, straight, white plume. Su Ya clenched his fists, feeling an almost inexhaustible power exploding from within. His eyes widened involuntarily.
"Hiss… This surging power, I feel like I could punch a cow to death right now!"
However, this illusion soon faded. Su Ya picked up the sword from the ground and lifted it, feeling the actual increase in his body's strength, or rather, this attribute called [Strength]. There was an improvement, but not a significant one. It was still within human limits, roughly equivalent to going from someone who rarely exercised to someone who regularly did strength training.
[Strength increased from Unranked to F-.]
[One of the Five Attributes has met the criteria. You can now open your panel to view your Five Attributes.]
Text appeared, and with a thought, a simple panel quickly materialized before Su Ya's eyes.
[True Name: Su Ya.]
[Talents: Heart of Legend, Insight.]
[Main Class: Unassigned.]
[Path Classes: Hyena (F), Novice Barefoot Doctor (F), Fate's Forgery (Ex)]
[Strength: F-, Agility: -, Magic: -, Endurance: -, Noble Phantasm: -]
After a quick review, Su Ya had a general understanding of his cheat. This was probably a Fate-esque Servant template that started from scratch? With his current abilities, he could trigger a maximum of four legendary paths simultaneously. Each path offered a progression route. As his class level increased, he could gain peculiar abilities, specialties, or even Noble Phantasms from the path progression?
However, the [Main Class] was likely the transcendent path in this world, requiring him to explore and improve it himself. Currently, the most practical class he'd gained was [Hyena], which directly boosted his basic physical abilities. The other two triggered classes were less straightforward: one required him to literally heal people to death to level up, while the other showed nothing but its name, leaving Su Ya completely clueless as to what it even was. Yet, its rank was absurdly high.
[Fate's Forgery (Ex)]
Seeing the "Noble Phantasm" attribute, Su Ya guessed that the combat style of this world might be very similar to Fate? From the lowest F, E, D, C, B, A, all the way to the unquantifiable Ex. If E was calculated as 10 base attributes, then C would be 30, B would be 40, A would be 50. Ex meant an attribute so high it couldn't be quantified, exceeding 100, often seen in anti-army or anti-city level Noble Phantasms.
Translated to a person, it was probably like an Arthurian character sheet template with full stats, full Noble Phantasms, and full buffs? But if this was also a path, shouldn't it progress level by level? Why was its rank maxed out from the very beginning?
A flurry of thoughts flashed through his mind. The satisfaction brought by the increase in strength faded, and the pain of the cut on his finger from the sword blade, and the swelling from bumping during his roll, resurfaced. The brief yet intense battle had not left him unscathed.
Su Ya could only temporarily bury the questions swirling in his head and sheathe the longsword back into the scabbard tied to his left hip.
Just then, a light sound of footsteps accompanied by the rhythmic clip-clop of a horse's hooves sounded. The owner of the voice that had helped Su Ya earlier came up behind him.
So, Su Ya heard these words:
"I ask thee—"
It was the tender voice of a young girl, crisp with a hint of uncertain hesitation, but as she reached the latter half, her tone became incredibly resolute.
"Art thou the sovereign whom I shall serve!?"
The moment he heard these words, Su Ya's mind instantly crashed, and one phrase echoed in every corner of his brain: [Hey, are you my fucking Master?]
His first thought upon regaining awareness was, Oh no, could I have been chosen by the Holy Grail? Is this actually a Lostbelt from some Type-Moon universe?
But, the next second, a dagger was pressed against Su Ya's throat.
A calm voice spoke: "Answer me!"
"Your name is—"
"Su Ya." Su Ya immediately raised his hands, displaying the French gesture of surrender.
The voice was silent for a moment, seemingly discerning, but soon, she exhaled deeply and said solemnly:
"Never mind whether you are Arthur or Su... Ya."
"From now on, your name is Su Ya Pendragon!"
"Son of King Uther!"
"The new King who will soon inherit all of Britain!"
"Now, turn around."
"..." Su Ya fell silent. After all, having witnessed King Uther's rather tragic death, he had absolutely no desire to be this "king" of some bird-brained kingdom.
Transmigration, great! Transmigrating to a world of swords and magic with transcendent paths, a 40K Servant War, and even a seemingly promising cheat—that was truly great!
But transmigrating into a doomed monarch whose kingdom was about to fall, and who would be cut in half himself, that was decidedly not great! Not to mention, Su Ya wasn't even the heir to this kingdom, and he never wanted to be king. Agreeing to this demand now would be like putting a chain around his own neck and willingly walking to the guillotine.
How could I agree to this!?
However, upon receiving no clear answer, as if completely indifferent to Su Ya's life, the blade of the dagger pressed against Su Ya's throat unceremoniously pressed down. The cold blade tightly pressed against his skin, and beads of blood oozed out, falling onto the dagger and flowing down the blood groove towards the red rhomboid gem on the hilt.
"Wait!"
Su Ya's scalp immediately tingled. He could only helplessly push himself up from the ground, enduring his exhaustion and aches, hands raised high, and slowly turn around.
"Kneel on one knee, with one hand on your chest." The clear, cold voice continued to command.
Su Ya could only comply. As he did so, he had initially intended to use the self-defense techniques he'd learned from "Women's Self-Defense" in his previous life to fight back and subdue the assailant behind him. But from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed that the dagger pressed against his neck was held by no one; it simply hovered in mid-air, as if it could take his life at any moment.
Impressive, it's magic!
Until—
Su Ya had fully followed her instructions, turning around, kneeling on one knee, and placing a hand on his chest. He then saw a delicate white hand, extended from a silvery-white lace sleeve, with a purple ring on its thumb, held out before him.
"Take my hand, and kiss me!"