Gradually, as his combat skills became more proficient, Nie Yan found it very easy to deal with ordinary first-tier creatures. These creatures couldn’t even get close to him, let alone cause any damage.
After defeating another Dark Mammoth and collecting its crystal core, Nie Yan suddenly had an idea—wondering whether he could use his steal skill on creatures like the Dark Mammoth.
He checked the attributes of his steal skill.
Nie Yan’s steal skill was at level sixteen, with a success rate of about 96%. Additionally, when stealing from higher-level targets, the success rate would significantly increase, and one steal attempt could yield multiple items.
If he could steal items from the Dark Mammoth, one successful steal should be sufficient.
After briefly searching the area, Nie Yan soon found another Dark Mammoth.
This Dark Mammoth was rubbing its sharp teeth against a large tree.
Nie Yan stealthily approached behind the Dark Mammoth, getting closer and closer, and then cast the steal skill on it.
System: Steal successful. You have obtained 30 gold coins and a skill book titled “Master Gatherer.”
He actually stole something!
Before Nie Yan could even check his inventory, the Dark Mammoth let out a deep growl and swung its long tusks toward him.
Nie Yan quickly stepped back, dodging the attack, and delivered an elbow strike. With a loud thud, the Dark Mammoth entered a stunned state.
Once controlled, the Dark Mammoth had little chance of recovering.
Nie Yan landed several quick attacks, killed the Dark Mammoth, collected its crystal core, and immediately checked his inventory. There, lying quietly in his bag, was a skill book.
Master Gatherer: When gathering herbs and other items, additional skill experience can be obtained. Enables gathering of herbs one level higher.
This skill book was extremely rare. If given to a production-class player, it could quickly increase their gathering skill level. However, for Nie Yan, it wasn’t particularly useful because even if he learned the Master Gatherer skill, he couldn’t gather Red Dragon Grass due to his extremely low gathering skill level.
After thinking for a moment, he decided to keep the Master Gatherer skill book and bring it out for the players of the Bull Man Tribe.
After placing the Master Gatherer skill book into his bag, he continued searching for the next first-tier creature. After this experience, every time Nie Yan encountered a first-tier creature, he would first attempt to steal from it, emptying its inventory before anything else.
Most first-tier creatures only carried some gold coins, but with good luck, he could sometimes steal production-class skill books. Almost every type of production-class skill book was available—Master Gatherer, Master Miner, Master Tailor, Master Alchemist, and so on. These items were extremely rare but surprisingly abundant in this area.
Throughout the entire day, Nie Yan obtained three Master Gatherer skill books, five Master Miner skill books, three Master Tailor skill books, and two Master Alchemist skill books. His haul was quite impressive. In addition to these, he also acquired two super backpacks, each containing 120 slots.
Ordinary backpacks with fifty to sixty slots were already considered spacious. With two 120-slot backpacks, Nie Yan’s inventory space became significantly more open.
During the day, Nie Yan attended classes at the First Military Academy, and at night, he returned to Ancient World to work on the Saint Shadow Dancer class change quest.
This continued for about seven or eight days, and Nie Yan completed the first phase of the Saint Shadow Dancer class change quest.
Soon after, he received the second phase of the task, which required him to kill five hundred second-tier creatures.
Second-tier creatures were relatively easy to deal with. Although they were significantly stronger than first-tier creatures like the Dark Mammoth, they weren’t overwhelmingly powerful. Nie Yan’s attacks could still deal effective damage.
As his activity area expanded, Nie Yan gradually became familiar with and adapted to the environment of Ancient World, searching the jungle for monster traces.
Here, various high-level herbs grew abundantly, and high-grade ores were scattered everywhere, making them highly desirable. If his gathering and mining levels were high enough, Nie Yan would definitely stay here, focusing on gathering and taking as much as possible. Missing this opportunity meant never getting another chance. These items were extremely rare and valuable outside. It might take until the next high-level instance over level one hundred to obtain even a small amount. With these resources, the Bull Man Tribe could cultivate countless forging masters and potion masters!
After crossing a narrow jungle area, Nie Yan arrived at a grassland. Before him stretched a vast field of golden-colored herbs, and his heart leapt with excitement—it was Golden Orchid Grass!
Golden Orchid Grass was a relatively low-level herb, an essential ingredient for crafting intermediate instant mana potions. Due to the high demand for intermediate instant mana potions among players, the supply of Golden Orchid Grass had always been insufficient, making it expensive—selling at five gold coins per plant.
Here, Golden Orchid Grass grew in abundance, seemingly inexhaustible!
To Nie Yan, the monetary value of Golden Orchid Grass was secondary. Even at five gold coins per plant, collecting ten thousand of them would only yield fifty thousand gold coins. However, it held special significance for him—if he learned the Master Gatherer skill and gathered this Golden Orchid Grass, with the sheer quantity available here, he could quickly raise his gathering skill to an advanced level. Once at an advanced level, he could gather herbs one level higher, allowing him to collect Red Dragon Grass and similar herbs.
A single Red Dragon Grass plant was worth at least seventy or eighty thousand gold coins or even more. Considering the number of Red Dragon Grass plants on this map, after a few days of gathering, he could collect hundreds of them. Such expensive herbs were generally difficult to sell, especially in such large quantities. However, they would be excellent for cultivating the Bull Man Tribe’s potion masters.
If he decided to raise his gathering level, he would need to stay on this map for a longer time.
In his previous life, the market availability of Red Dragon Grass had always been extremely scarce. It seemed that when Xiao Lang wasn’t cultivating his gathering skill during his Saint Shadow Dancer class change, Nie Yan had this realization.
Nie Yan weighed his options. This was a rare opportunity to train his gathering skill. If he missed it, he wouldn’t find another. After leaving, training his gathering skill to advanced or master levels would be impossible without months or even years of effort.
After making his decision, Nie Yan took out a gathering skill book and learned it.
The gathering skill book transformed into a beam of white light as Nie Yan checked his skill list. A new Master Gatherer skill appeared, replacing his original gathering skill.
Golden Orchid Grass was everywhere here, unlike outside where it might take hours to find a single herb. In fact, gathering skills were relatively easy to train, but most players spent the majority of their time searching for herbs, which limited their skill progression.
This field of Golden Orchid Grass was enough to drive any player wanting to train gathering skills into a frenzy.
Nie Yan crouched down and began gathering the Golden Orchid Grass, carefully pulling each plant up, performing various processing steps, and confirming a successful gather before placing it into his backpack. Most attempts were successful, with only rare failures. If a gathering attempt failed, that Golden Orchid Grass plant would be ruined.
However, even if many plants were destroyed, Nie Yan wouldn’t feel heartbroken.
One by one, the Golden Orchid Grass plants were harvested—twenty per batch. After six hours, he completed thirty batches, and a crisp system prompt sounded.
Nie Yan checked his Master Gatherer skill and saw that it had advanced to the intermediate level.
He could still gain skill experience by continuing to gather Golden Orchid Grass, so he wasn’t ready to move to another area yet. He continued with the tedious gathering work.
If it were an ordinary player repeating such monotonous work continuously, they would probably go mad. However, Nie Yan persisted. Perhaps because of his experience across two lifetimes, his mindset had become much stronger than before.
In this isolated place, he was completely alone, as if everything he did was unrelated to other players. However, Nie Yan understood that improving his gathering skill was also a way to accumulate strength. Once his gathering skill improved, if he encountered rare herbs during quests, he could collect them instead of having to miss out helplessly.
Day after day, fortunately, there was nothing major happening in the Glireland Empire, allowing Nie Yan to stay here and do these tedious tasks in peace.
Time passed day by day, and Nie Yan and Xie Yao gradually adapted to the life at the First Military Academy. Though there were occasional minor incidents, their days remained generally peaceful.
Five days later, accompanied by a crisp system prompt sound, Nie Yan’s gathering skill finally advanced to the advanced level. With the advanced Master Gatherer skill, he could now attempt to gather Red Dragon Grass, although the success rate was still uncertain.
Nie Yan stopped and, based on his previous memory, headed toward the area where Red Dragon Grass grew.
Avoiding the monsters that had just respawned, Nie Yan’s eyes finally spotted a Red Dragon Grass plant in the forest. This Red Dragon Grass was as vivid as a flame, very eye-catching.
Nie Yan approached the Red Dragon Grass, squatted down, and carefully removed the soil around it. The fibrous roots of the Red Dragon Grass were now exposed before him.
When removing the soil, he had to be extremely careful. If he accidentally damaged the roots of the Red Dragon Grass, the plant would be ruined.
Gathering Red Dragon Grass was a very complicated and tedious process.
Just then, Nie Yan’s finger accidentally brushed against one of the Red Dragon Grass’s fine roots. With a soft snap, the plant quickly withered, turning into a dry, lifeless stalk.
Darn! Nie Yan had no choice but to stop halfway and continue searching for the next Red Dragon Grass.
Out there, if a team’s gatherer ruined a Red Dragon Grass plant, they would probably be scolded by the entire team.
Because of its scarcity and the difficulty in gathering, Red Dragon Grass was so expensive.
Fortunately, there were plenty of Red Dragon Grass plants here. Even though he ruined one, Nie Yan didn’t feel particularly distressed. He simply continued searching for the next one.
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