Hearing Bai Zemin's words and feeling the somewhat painful negative in his voice, Lilith understood what he was thinking.
"Don't worry... Even if in the end you can't choose a great blacksmith class, you can still choose a subclass related to blacksmithing if you're lucky." She gently patted his shoulder and nodded towards him.
"What?" Bai Zemin somewhat overlooked her effort to lift his slightly flagging mood and asked with wide eyes, "We can choose subclasses?"
"Yes?" Lilith tilted her head. Then, as if realizing something, she lightly slapped her forehead and muttered, "Right.... You're still in the First Order."
"Excuse me?" He looked at her dumbfounded.
For a few seconds, Lilith and Bai Zemin both looked at each other with wide eyes; it was as if their minds had gone blank for a brief moment, and if there was a third party next to them, they would probably laugh at how comical they looked at that moment.
"Cough... So... Can you explain a little bit what's going on here, Lilipedia?" Bai Zemin cleared his throat and leaned his upper body to approach her and looked at her very seriously straight in the eyes.
At first, Lilith was a little intimidated by his sudden move to approach her. But just when she felt that she might blush at any moment, the way Bai Zemin addressed her made her unable to help but laugh internally.
"Hey, you little brat. Who are you calling Lilipedia?" She joked.
"Brat?" Bai Zemin returned to his original position and folded his arms as he said with a suggestive smile, "I don't remember who it was that got a lesson from this brat the other night in bed? Besides, didn't you just call me big brother a few minutes ago? Come on, little sister Lilith, call me big brother like you love to do and maybe I'll give you your favorite lollipop."
This time, Lilith really couldn't stop a very slight blush from appearing on her tender cheeks. This surprised Bai Zemin greatly and the smile on his face grew enormously.
Even if he died this instant he could at least die smiling! Because for the first time, he had somehow defeated this naughty little succubus in a verbal game!
Aha! Now do you understand my difficulties?! Bai Zemin was practically screaming and jumping for joy inside.
However, after thinking it over, he realized that something was wrong. Lilith shouldn't blush so easily, right? After all, she was a succubus and for better or worse had lived for about a century. Bai Zemin was infinitely sure that she must have experienced far more suggestive and direct words than what he had just said.
Of course, a virgin like Bai Zemin who had practically no experience about women or how ladies' hearts worked could never understand that to get such reactions out of a girl depended on who the other person was, otherwise all it would generate would be disgust, discomfort, and awkwardness.
"Little brother Zemin, you're getting more and more naughty all the time." Lilith tried her best to calm down and then said with a face filled with arrogance, "You want me to call you big brother? Dream on! Since I am older than you, naturally you should call me big sister! But well... If you want to be the bigger one so badly, then you'll have to beat me in combat.... Oh, just so you know, I'm not talking about a sword battle!"
The previous thoughts flew out the window as he heard the woman's challenge in front of him. He didn't back down and said confidently, "You think you can beat me? Do you even know how high my Stamina is right now? It's close to 1000 points! I know your stats must be monstrously higher than that right now, but try comparing that to your stats when you were level 50."
"What? You already have a stat close to 1000 points?!" Lilith couldn't help but raise her voice and her eyes widened in shock as she looked at him as if she was looking at an alien.
"Hmph!" Bai Zemin didn't respond and after snorting he flashed his status window at her.
Lilith gasped and her heart trembled as she saw the numbers scrolling in her retina. Unconsciously, she muttered, "Even though I knew you were strong and had been accumulating a lot of stats.... I didn't expect you to be at this level already."
"Now you see?" He looked like the emperor of the heavens as he looked down at her and said, "It's only a matter of time before I surpass you in every physical aspect, and by that time.... Hmph! Just wait and see what's good for you!"
However, Lilith was no longer listening to him. Her surprise at seeing Bai Zemin's stats could not be described in mere words.
He might not be aware of how the Soul Record worked, but Lilith had spent a large part of her life studying this strange entity and gathering information. Bai Zemin's current status window and his crazy stats were something that even someone like her could not ignore even though compared to her stats it was effectively not worth mentioning.
However, Lilith said nothing. She wanted him to figure things out slowly and gradually by himself instead of her being the one to take away all the surprises.
In the end, she licked her lips and looked at Bai Zemin's crotch as she said softly, "Maybe it's not so bad to call you big brother in the future..."
Bai Zemin nodded pleased with himself and ignoring the slight embarrassment he felt inside, he decided to return to the main topic, "So, little minx.... Can you continue with the analysis?"
While Bai Zemin enjoyed these moments very much and if it were up to him he could very well spend the whole day chatting with Lilith and joking with each other, the truth was that such a thing was not possible at present. It was already past 14:40 and there was a lot of work to be done and a lot of things to finish that needed his intervention in some way or another.
"Right." Lilith nodded and said calmly, "We can talk about this important matter in the future. For now, let's focus on choosing the best path for you. That way you can give me a good battle in the sheets when the time comes."
The corner of Bai Zemin's mouth twitched a little and he wanted to say something but in the end decided not to pursue the matter further. Sometimes it was hard for him to understand when Lilith was joking or when she was being serious.
"So, let's continue. First let me finish with your class and then we can talk about the whole subclass matter." She muttered before taking a second look at Bai Zemin's third choice and commenting, "Shadow Dancer.... This class could lead you down a really interesting path. Although I'm not 100% sure, I could swear that this class is a mix between your physical combat abilities, your Invisibility skill, and your Shadow Blink skill.... I think if you go this route you could become a rarely seen lethal killer. Even the Higher Existences should be wary of you when you reach your Fourth Order if you continue at this pace and choose to walk this path."
"Shadow Dancer..." Bai Zemin muttered and a slight struggle could be seen in his eyes.
In fact, somehow he could feel that if he chose this third option as his second job to advance to Second Order he would most likely not regret it in the future. Bai Zemin believed that it would lead him to become a truly mighty existence with the power to speak throughout the universe in the future.
However, he still felt that something was missing.... Because even though Shadow Dancer sounded extremely tempting and seemed to be terrifyingly powerful, Bai Zemin realized that he did not aspire to be one of the strongest and his ultimate goal was not as "simple" as having universe-wide speech power.
"... Let's move on to the next one." He shook his head and sighed.
"Somehow I was already expecting this." Lilith chuckled and pointed out, "At the end of the day, your ultimate goal isn't to be one of the strongest, it's to be the strongest! What you seek is not to have the power of speech, but for your speech to be the power.... Isn't it?"
Bai Zemin forced a smile into his heart upon hearing this and nodded, "So you heard that too..."
"Of course I did." Lilith smiled tenderly and said with slight shyness, "I've always been watching you."
"..." Bai Zemin felt his heart begin to beat faster and irregularly for a brief second but long before he could comprehend anything or study that small movement, it all disappeared as if something had forcibly blocked it.
Without waiting for any response from him or any question, Lilith looked at the fourth option and her eyes briefly twitched.
After a moment of consideration, she looked at Bai Zemin and remarked, "I think this fourth option is pretty clear but I'll say it anyway. I'm sure this job called Heavy Warrior is somehow related to your skill Gravity Manipulation and the combat style in which you use it. You will probably get tremendously devastating attacks in the future if you decide to walk across this path.... But I don't recommend you choose it."
"...I was also thinking something similar to what you just said." Bai Zemin nodded with a frown.
Choosing an option this time ended up being much, much more difficult than when he reached the limit of an Unclassified existence and was aiming to become a First Order existence. Each of the options presented to him this time had many advantages and there were some of them that Bai Zemin could not overlook, which caused his previous decision to waver for a brief moment.
"I'm afraid my magic power will fall behind in the future if I choose this option."
"Indeed." Lilith nodded seriously, "Except for magic warriors, every kind of warrior in existence sooner or later must give up magic for some reason or another. So far, you have mainly used your Gravity Manipulation skill to perform powerful physical attacks, but there have been few occasions when this magical skill was used to suppress enemies. This in itself is an indication that sooner or later you will have to let go of magic if you decide to walk on this path. You may as well pass to the next one as well."
The reason why Bai Zemin had not used Gravity Manipulation to suppress was because up until now, all he had done was slaughter mercilessly. He never thought of leaving an enemy alive. However, such a thing would not stay that way forever and Bai Zemin was aware that abandoning magical power would most likely turn into a great regret in the future.
As if to confirm her suspicions, Lilith pointed out, "If you ask me, the Heavy Warrior option will probably be the option that will give you the most immediate and short-term power. I'm pretty sure that when you acquire this class, a Third Order existence will only be able to kneel before you or die obediently. However, in the long run, I fear you might lose a lot of that great early momentum."
".... Pass." Bai Zemin took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he said with slight pain in his heart.
Even if the power that the Heavy Warrior class gave him was high, Bai Zemin knew from his own experience that large short-term gains were not good. In the past, he had seen many people sink for temporary happiness.
Hearing Bai Zemin's rejection even in the midst of such a powerful hesitation, Lilith's fluttering heart calmed down and she unconsciously let out a sigh of relief before inaudibly saying, "Good thing you didn't choose that option...."
"Sorry?" Bai Zemin looked at her and asked, "I didn't hear you. Can you repeat that?"
"I said I'm glad you weren't driven by greed and power." Lilith smiled and a tinge of sadness glittered in her eyes for a wink that was gone fast enough that even Bai Zemin didn't notice it even though he was looking at her from such a close distance.
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Thank you very much to everyone who voted for Blood Warlock with their Golden Tickets! <3