About five days later, Nieyan had emptied all the treasure chests on several familiar maps around Carol City. Checking his treasure-opening level and the Lockpicking Expert skill, he found the proficiency had reached 52% of the Advanced level. The skill had improved rapidly, and after a few more days of opening treasure chests, it would reach the Master level.
During these five days, Nieyan had opened as many as 1,337 treasure chests. While opening them, he encountered danger a few times, but fortunately, although he wasn’t good at much else, his escape skills were top-notch, so everything ended up being safe.
They had only covered about 30% of the high-level maps around Carol City. Many mountainous regions were avoided due to concerns about flying monsters, so Nieyan didn’t dare to send his Shadow Thunder Falcon into those areas.
However, even from just these areas, the gains were staggering. Tang Yao was awestruck. They had transported several batches of equipment back to Carol City, and the value of these items was immeasurable. It turned out that specializing in opening treasure chests was such a profitable endeavor.
“Let’s sort through and see what we’ve collected,” Nieyan said. To save time, he had just stuffed everything he obtained into his backpack and continued searching for the next chest, without having time to examine them one by one. Both Nieyan’s and Tang Yao’s backpacks were now completely full.
The two found a safe place to land. Tang Yao dismissed his Shadow Thunder Falcon, and both activated their Return Scrolls. In a flash of white light, they returned to Carol City.
“Where to now?” Tang Yao asked as he appeared at the teleportation array, turning to Nieyan beside him.
“To the laboratory at Starry Sky Pharmacy. Let’s move all the items stored in our personal warehouses there and see what we’ve collected,” Nieyan replied. At the thought of checking the equipment, he felt excited.
The two walked toward Starry Sky Pharmacy. In the distance, a magnificent building came into view.
This structure stood fifty yards high, occupied a vast area, and had ten floors. No other building nearby could rival it, not even the distant Credit Point Exchange Hall.
Tang Yao marveled, “Starry Sky Pharmacy has become the most iconic building here. Constructing a level-ten pharmacy must have cost a fortune back then.”
“Upgrading the pharmacy to level ten and purchasing various items cost me at least 200,000 gold coins in total. However, Starry Sky Pharmacy has already earned all that money back for me,” Nieyan said with a smile.
“How much does Starry Sky Pharmacy earn daily?”
“Currently, after deducting costs and raw material expenses, the daily net profit is around 50,000 gold coins. In addition to daily revenue, Starry Sky Pharmacy provides the Bull Tribe with at least 60,000 gold worth of potions daily,” Nieyan said proudly. In the entire Pantheon, Starry Sky Pharmacy was undoubtedly the top pharmacy. Moreover, it had an unparalleled number of alchemists—nearly 3,000 alchemists, including almost fifty Advanced Alchemists, making it a powerhouse of talent.
Tang Yao was stunned. The daily net profit of Starry Sky Pharmacy alone was enough to rival the net worth of some smaller guilds.
“I heard that Angel Dominion has started a pharmacy called Luminous Heaven Pharmacy, and it’s already gaining some traction,” Tang Yao mentioned. He had heard someone mention it in the guild chat and remembered it.
“How many alchemists do they have?”
“About 300 alchemists and five Advanced Alchemists,” Tang Yao replied.
“They’re still far behind Starry Sky Pharmacy,” Nieyan said with a smile. However, Angel Dominion’s move caught his attention. After a brief thought, his eyes narrowed. While he couldn’t take down Angel Dominion directly, he could certainly have Starry Sky Pharmacy stir up some trouble for Luminous Heaven Pharmacy.
As they talked, the two had already entered the trading hall of Starry Sky Pharmacy. The hall was bustling with people, clearly thriving.
“Let’s go in,” Nieyan said, leading Tang Yao upstairs to the fifth floor, where a laboratory was located. Since no alchemists had been assigned there yet, the space was very spacious.
Nieyan and Tang Yao brought over all the items they had collected over the past few days and dumped them onto the table with a clatter. The table was now piled high with items, sparkling and dazzling.
“Let’s sort out all the equipment and put them into the guild warehouse,” Nieyan said. It would take at least one or two hours to classify all these items properly.
The two got to work. Soon, about five to six hundred pieces of equipment were selected.
Tang Yao casually browsed through the attributes of these items and said, “There are quite a few good things here.”
“Since those maps hadn’t been explored before, there were quite a few Epic and Rare treasure chests. I remember opening more than twenty Epic chests and over a hundred and twenty Rare chests,” Nieyan explained. Normally, Rare and Epic treasure chests were very rare. Some people might not even encounter one in ten or more days, and some might never see one in their entire lives. Yet Nieyan had opened so many in just five days.
Tang Yao was responsible for transporting these items to the guild warehouse. The newly added equipment in the Bull Tribe’s warehouse caused an uproar throughout the guild—it was all level-100 equipment!
“Where did the leader get all these items?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the leader recruited two or three thousand people to collect them? How could there be so many? Even if you kept killing monsters nonstop, you couldn’t get so much loot. Look at the attributes of these items—many of them are Rare and Epic-grade equipment. Isn’t the official website saying that the drop rate for equipment above level 100 is extremely low?”
They wouldn’t foolishly ask Nieyan about the origin of these items. Inquiring about such secrets might even lead to suspicions of being a spy from another guild.
After removing those five to six hundred pieces of equipment, they looked at the remaining items. There were piles of gems, scrolls, and skill books stacked everywhere, making it difficult to sort through anything.
“This is an Advanced Mage skill—Magic Conduction. Let me check the attributes… I can learn it right now!” Tang Yao exclaimed excitedly, picking up a gilded skill book from the pile.
Magic Conduction was a rare skill. At level one, it lasted for ten seconds, halving the casting time of all spells during that period.
“Go ahead and learn it,” Nieyan said. He was just about to look through the pile of skill books for ones he could use when Tang Yao let out another cry of surprise.
“Wow, it’s the Magic Empowerment skill book. This is a great find!” Tang Yao exclaimed, his face lighting up with joy.
Magic Empowerment was a very valuable and rare skill within the level-100 range. In maps above level 100, its drop rate was slightly higher but still relatively uncommon. Magic Empowerment could increase Tang Yao’s magic damage by about 30% for 20 seconds.
Tang Yao set those two skill books aside and continued frantically searching through the pile for skills he could use. One after another, he found items that made him ecstatic.
“Wow, it’s Judgment Sanction! We’re rich!”
“Awesome, it’s Blazing Clash! So cool!”
…
Tang Yao burst into laughter repeatedly, eventually selecting fifteen skill books suitable for him from the pile. He stacked them up, setting aside seven that he could learn immediately and leaving the remaining eight, which required improving his attributes and equipment before he could learn them.
“I need to forget some skills now. I have to remove some useless ones. Nieyan, help me take a look,” Tang Yao said. With these powerful advanced skills, the previously learned inferior ones naturally needed to be partially cleared out.
Nieyan glanced at Tang Yao’s skill list and said, “Remove Dark Corrosion.”
“Why remove that skill?” Tang Yao asked in confusion. “Dark Corrosion is pretty useful. It can reduce the enemy’s defense.”
“You just got Death Corrosion. Once you train Death Corrosion to level two, Dark Corrosion becomes useless and practically unnecessary,” Nieyan explained. Although Nieyan hadn’t played as a mage in his previous life, he had fought against mages thousands, if not tens of thousands, of times. He was very familiar with mage skills.
Tang Yao compared the effects of Death Corrosion and Dark Corrosion. The effects were roughly the same, but level one Death Corrosion was only slightly inferior to level six Dark Corrosion. He decided to follow Nieyan’s advice and forget the Dark Corrosion skill.
Following Nieyan’s suggestions, Tang Yao forgot three skills and then began learning the new ones feverishly. One after another, white lights flashed on his hands as he consumed all the skill books.
“Awesome! This is the first time I’ve learned seven rare skill books at once!” Tang Yao wore a satisfied expression, as if savoring the afterglow of a climax.
Nieyan also started going through the pile of skill books, looking for ones he could use.
“These are for Holy Word Mages, and these are for Elemental Mages,” Tang Yao sorted out some of the skill books. Skill books from maps above level 100 were usually quite rare at this level.
“Let’s distribute these to the guild members,” Nieyan said, setting aside a pile of skill books. From the Holy Word Mage skill books, he took out five—these were for Xie Yao.
“There’s a Rogue skill book called Shadow Escape,” Tang Yao mentioned, pulling out a skill book for Rogues.
“Save it for me,” Nie Yan said. The Shadow Evasion skill was similar to abilities like Swift Step and Shadow Dance, granting a 3-second invincibility effect upon activation. However, its unique feature was that after using Shadow Evasion, movement speed decreased by 50%, while stealth capability increased by 50%. It was an exceptionally rare skill.
There were still at least a hundred more skill books for Nieyan to go through one by one, categorizing them. This was going to be a time-consuming task.
“Elemental Resonance for Elemental Mages, Advanced Healing, Healing Critical Wounds, Magic Siphon, Intermediate Resurrection, and Protection for Paladins. Nieyan, our guild’s team is going to be amazing! For a while, our elite team will definitely be far ahead of other guild teams,” Tang Yao couldn’t contain his excitement. He understood the importance of these skills for a team. They would significantly increase the survival rate of the team when raiding dungeons.
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