Yin felt a sense of pressure. Every favour he asked for, even if it was from his own family, would have to be repaid.
Looking at the skill trees in front of him, a thought occurred in his mind. What should he choose?
He looked through the different skill trees, slowly realising their difference –
While the country's skill tree was like a visual map, the tree of his clan was more like a clan genealogy, with each member of his clan clearly described.
The two Grand Elders, his grandparents who had started the clan, old patriarch Jie Lianghu and old matriarch Wu Huanli. A line connected them, with another line emerging from their connection, leading to another member of the family, his father and the current patriarch, Jia Tangshan. A line extended to the right from him, connecting with another line, the line of his wife Liu Anling.
Their line extended downwards to their children, the first son Jie Yunyuan and his wife Shi Meili. Yin was the second son, Jie Yunyin, unmarried 20 years old, and his younger sister, the first daughter, Jie Yunxue, 16 years old and having just reached adulthood.
Next to this line there was another line extending below the two Grand Elders, the family of Jie Tangshan's brother, a different line living a distance away from the clan.
Yunyin looked at the case containing each name, then at the lock next to their name.
[Use 10 Influence to unlock the effects of Clan Member "Jie Lianghu" for the clan?]
A thought appeared in his mind, 'So the skill tree here is about unlocking the personal effects of each person and making it available for the whole clan? No, I shouldn't hastily come to a conclusion, but at least this should be the starting effect.'
His eyes drifted and he looked at the three other skill trees –
The faction skill tree was empty, with nothing to unlock. The same was with the family skill tree… with a single member, there was nothing to unlock, so Yin skipped them and looked at the last skill tree, his personal one!
To his surprise, this skill tree was like a pagoda with nine floors, with two cases on the first floor –
[Wisdom: Official (Ministry of Revenue)] [Wisdom: Scholar (School of Painting)]
When his eyes hovered over this part, a pop up appeared on the cases, astonishing him in an instant –
[Use 10 Influence to increase Talent by one stage?]
His eyes trembled for just a moment before he forced himself to calm down.
Heiluan looked over for a moment before he lowered his head again, thinking he had just imagined things.
Yunyin's thoughts exploded in his mind, and he nearly instinctually replied 'Yes', barely suppressing his own drastic move.
But then he thought, was this really drastic? Looking at it, he felt that increasing the talent was the most important! The very best effect he could possibly enjoy!
Yet this moment of hesitation made him realise, with the renown he gained, wouldn't it be a waste to put any points in this?
A wave of confusion hit him, leading him to try and calculate the benefit of his choice with his Abacus.
The numbers rose and fell – he calculated the speed at which he could gain renown, refine it into power and finally rise in his official rank. Unfortunately, he didn't have any numbers to calculate with, everything that had happened before was a lucky coincidence, and he didn't even know how the Ministry of Land would take revenge on him…
'Wisdom is a raw power while my talent for officialdom is the tool that refines raw power into usable power. Since that's the case, I will definitely have to increase my talent!'
The talent in this world was indeed ranked from nine to one, following the court's ranking of officials. Because of this, the pagoda didn't seem foreign to him.
You need a ninth rank talent to enter the path, which already excludes 99% of people.
But what Yunyin saw on the pagoda wasn't his talents but the paths he had found success in! For he knew himself that he actually had ninth rank martial talent, it's just that this talent was a lot less than that of his wisdom talent!
Theoretically, his father had told him that his talent was at the seventh stage, yet the pagoda displayed it at the ninth stage. This could only mean that the pagoda's talent was different than the real talent!
Every time a professional reaches a new rank, they also raise their own main talent by at least one rank, related talents by half a rank, and unrelated talents by a fourth.
Because of this, his initial talent in wisdom was seven, when he reached the ninth rank in officialdom, his talent in officialdom was one point higher than his wisdom rank and his talent in other paths increased by another one. Reaching the ninth rank as a scholar, his talent as a scholar became one higher than his wisdom and he increased the other wisdom talents by half.
Unfortunately, he had increased his talent in both by 1.5, yet they remained in the seventh stage. This was because compared to the 1 talent point to one talent rank ratio in the first three stages, this ratio became three points to one rank in the ranks six to four.
Meaning, his talent would have to be at least 9 points to have a chance of reaching the sixth rank of officialdom!
Talents in this world were confusing – it seemed too clear, as if a god had directly split talents into ranks and gave everyone a way to gain more talents… but who can do it?
Technically with Yunyin's initial talent of seven, once he rose to the seventh rank, he would have ten talent points, allowing him to enter the sixth stage. But the problem was after that – how could he gain more talent points to rise further?
Becoming a scholar or following other paths would consume a lot of time and be extremely difficult – just because your talent in Wisdom was good, who knew if your talent as a scholar would find a way to be expressed?
The path of taking a profession is to constantly explore, refine and enhance your own talents. And yet these talents are just merely the superficial upper limit.
Many with ninth rank talent never become professionals, many with seventh rank talent stop at the ninth or eight stage – progressing on the path has never been a matter of talent.