Eagle Spirit Token, Special Passive

After casually picking up the drops from the lesser monsters, Liu Xuan walked over to the boss’s corpse.

One piece of equipment was glowing with a blue light.

[General Hamovi's Breastplate]

Quality: Fine

Required Level: 20

Health: +300

Armor: +50

Strength: +10

The stats were certainly nothing to complain about, but the level requirement was a little too high.

Liu Xuan put it away, then frowned.

Weren’t these monsters a bit too poor?

He’d defeated a boss, and aside from money, it had only dropped one piece of equipment. That was ridiculously stingy.

The bosses Liu Xuan had fought before had never been this shabby.

Even if they didn’t drop more than two pieces of equipment, they would at least give skill books or rare materials.

Could it be because this guy was a deserter, so he was broke?

Unable to figure it out, Liu Xuan shook his head and headed toward the fort.

Hamovi hadn’t brought all his men out. There were still quite a few soldiers inside that needed dealing with.

Once inside, Liu Xuan found that the fort’s defenses were far weaker than those outside. The main buildings weren’t made of stone at all, but entirely of wood.

Strictly speaking, this place could hardly be called a fort.

The soldiers lived in several long, ramshackle barracks. Animal pelts and scraps of cloth were spread across the floor, each one serving as a bed.

Every room was crammed with sixty or seventy such sleeping spaces.

It looked like these people hadn’t been living very well up in the mountains either.

Liu Xuan fought his way through, eventually reaching the central area of the fort.

It was the only building within the fort enclosed by stone walls. At best, it could be considered a second line of defense.

He suddenly remembered that One-Eyed Hamovi’s skill description had mentioned that when the boss’s health fell below 20%, he would go to the fort’s core and retrieve some kind of secret treasure for a desperate counterattack.

It was obviously an ultimate move.

Now that the boss had been killed ahead of time, he had never gotten the chance to come in. Could that secret treasure still be here?

And the skill was called [Eagle Strike], while this mountain was known as Eagle Spirit Mountain. Could the two be connected somehow?

With that thought in mind, Liu Xuan charged straight toward the fort’s core.

There were indeed quite a few surviving soldiers inside, intending to use the stone walls around the core to mount a counterattack.

Liu Xuan simply kept his head down and rushed in. His damage was so high now that anything he touched died instantly. Then a notification suddenly appeared before his eyes.

[Congratulations! You have reached Level 14 and gained 5 free attribute points.]

[You have a new skill available.]

[Because you are currently in a special location and a special treasure exists nearby, you may choose to draw your skill immediately, or obtain it after acquiring the treasure.]

Liu Xuan’s eyes lit up. Being in a special location could affect the skills he obtained?

He considered it. Normally, the passive skills he drew were selected at random. But the prompt said that because he was in a “special location,” he had been given a choice. Did that mean the passive skill he could obtain this time might not come from the usual random pool?

Could it instead be a unique passive related to this place?

This was Eagle Spirit Mountain, a place where shamans had once worshipped their gods. Was it possible that he could draw a passive related to shamans or the Eagle Spirit?

Excited by the thought, Liu Xuan rushed into the building at the core.

Inside was a large hall, thick with the greasy smell of food and alcohol. Perhaps it was where the deserters gathered for their feasts.

On the right side of the hall was a staircase leading down, while on the left was one leading upstairs.

Liu Xuan checked the basement first and found that it was a prison—though not a single prisoner was being held there.

The upper floor was much more pleasant. There was a study, a bedroom, and a council chamber—everything one might need. It was probably where Hamovi normally lived and handled his affairs.

Liu Xuan searched everywhere, but he still could not find the so-called secret treasure.

He could not help but ponder: Could this house not be the fortress’s core after all?

No, that wasn’t right. There was even a stone wall built outside specifically to protect it. It had to be here!

Putting himself in Hamovi’s shoes, once Hamovi’s health dropped below 20%, he could have the other soldiers hold the line outside this building to buy him time. Then he could slip inside and retrieve the secret treasure.

That arrangement made sense.

So the treasure had to be somewhere in this house—but where had it been hidden?

If not for that earlier prompt, Liu Xuan might have assumed it was simply an NPC skill, and that he himself would not necessarily be able to use the treasure.

But since the prompt had appeared, it definitely existed.

Liu Xuan searched the rooms back and forth, knocking here and moving things there. He even endured the foul smell to search the basement cells several times, yet still found nothing.

“Could there be a hidden room?”

Liu Xuan muttered to himself.

He went outside the house, intending to examine its overall structure and see whether there was space for a concealed chamber.

But the moment he came out and looked up, he froze.

There was a pointed roof covered in red tiles above the house. It could practically be considered a third floor.

At the front was a round stained-glass window that appeared to be set into the wall. It looked like the sort that could not be opened—but who knew?

If the soldiers used the stone wall in front of the house as a defensive position, the boss could go upstairs, open that window, and use the secret treasure to attack the enemies below while they were fighting the lesser troops.

Wouldn’t that be perfect?

Now everything made sense.

Liu Xuan studied the pointed roof. Based on its location, it was probably directly above the second-floor bedroom, so he hurried back upstairs.

Inside the bedroom, he looked up at the ceiling. Before long, he noticed that one corner bore a faint square outline. That had to be the entrance.

But how was he supposed to get up there?

Liu Xuan looked around and saw a coat rack standing directly beneath the outline.

He tossed aside the clothes hanging on it, picked up the rack like a pole, and prodded the ceiling overhead.

“Click, click.”

Two sounds came from inside the ceiling. Then the square section suddenly slid aside on its own, revealing an opening. A light wooden ladder immediately unfolded and slid down.

“I really am a genius~”

Liu Xuan climbed up the ladder. The attic was rather dark, lit only by the faint light filtering in through the small stained-glass window he had seen from outside.

There was not much up there to begin with—only a cylindrical object lying on the floor.

Liu Xuan walked over to the stained-glass window and gave it a gentle push. The window immediately came loose and fell outside, shattering on the ground with a loud crash.

Sure enough, according to the usual script, once the boss was badly wounded, he would come up to this attic and use the secret treasure through this window against the people below.

But what exactly was the secret treasure?

Liu Xuan turned his head. With the light filtering in through the window, he finally saw what lay on the floor.

It was a totem pole, with an eagle carved at the top.

Its wings were spread wide, and something resembling a necklace hung from them as though draped over a person’s shoulders.

Taking a closer look, Liu Xuan realized that the necklace’s main pendant was a sharp talon, curved like a barbed hook.

He took it down from the totem pole.

The instant he touched it, an eagle’s cry suddenly rang in his ears.

A single sentence was branded into his mind:

Go to the mountaintop!

Liu Xuan was stunned for a moment before lowering his gaze to the necklace in his hand:

【Eagle Spirit Token: A necessary item for unlocking the Shaman Eagle Spirit inheritance. Of course, because of the power it contains, some people also use it for other purposes.】

This thing wants me to go to the mountaintop?

But I’m not even a shaman, am I?