Chapter 279: Shadow Slaughter

The Eternal City has started to attract some members of the Bull Man Tribe for leveling up. These members are relatively wealthy players who form groups, each contributing a bit of money to purchase several area-of-effect magic bombs, then coming here to level up for a while. It’s somewhat unrealistic to stay here for long-term leveling, as the cash consumption is too high.

With players’ levels increasing, the Eternal City will soon be officially opened. In that case, it’s better for capable members of the Bull Man Tribe to come here and level up a few more levels.

Nie Yan found a less crowded spot, assigned the experience gain to the Golden Earth Dragon exclusively, placed the dragon in a relatively safe location, fed it a piece of meat, and let it stay there.

Nie Yan ran toward the distance, using the Headless Knight Doro’s Mounted Crossbow to attract nearby mechanical puppets, drawing in hundreds of them, and then bombarded them with area-of-effect magic bombs.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Magical flames erupted.

One after another, the area-of-effect magic bombs flew into the sky, then fell and exploded, causing a string of damage values to float above the mechanical puppets’ heads.

Row after row of mechanical puppets fell to the ground.

Nie Yan watched the Golden Earth Dragon’s experience bar, which was rapidly increasing. A series of white lights flashed over the dragon, and its level shot up to level 9. Checking the dragon’s status, all its attributes had significantly increased. Its health had risen to 260, and its attack had become 63-67, with other attributes also improved. The attribute growth was quite fast. After all, it was only level 9. At this rate, when the Golden Earth Dragon reaches level 22 or 23, its attributes will far surpass Nie Yan’s.

In addition, the Golden Earth Dragon gained a new skill.

Basic Dragon Breath: Spits dragon breath to attack enemies, adding a 20-point skill damage modifier, causing 5×5 yard area damage of (base attack + skill damage) with fire elemental damage. The cooldown time is three minutes, and the next level requires reaching level 20.

The effect of Dragon Breath is obviously very strong, providing area-of-effect damage. Even at the basic level, it can already deal such damage. If the Golden Earth Dragon’s level is raised, it will be extremely enjoyable to farm monsters and level up in the future. One Dragon Breath from the Golden Earth Dragon can wipe out an entire area.

Nie Yan decided to level up here for a while but needed to find a more suitable place to raise the Golden Earth Dragon’s level faster.

Additionally, Nie Yan needed to level up himself. After the release of the Forgotten History expansion, players’ levels were skyrocketing. If he didn’t level up soon, his level would quickly fall behind. It would be best to find a place to farm evil creatures, which would allow him to level up and unlock part of the skills on Shadow Assassin.

Nie Yan glanced at the skills on Shadow Assassin and focused on one in particular: Shadow Slaughter. The activation condition is to kill a level 50 lord, and it must be an evil creature.

Shadow Slaughter: After activating the Shadow Slaughter state, attacking a unit deals 30% of the attack damage to ten units within a 10×10 yard radius around the target. It lasts for 2 minutes with a cooldown time of 2 natural days.

Shadow Slaughter is an extremely satisfying area-of-effect skill for rogues.

Area-of-effect skills are very rare for the rogue class, and any such skill is extremely valuable.

What Nie Yan currently lacks is precisely this type of skill. Having such a skill would be very useful for both farming monsters and player-versus-player combat. The only drawback is its relatively long cooldown time.

As players acquire more advanced skills, Nie Yan must also increase his skill count to maintain his advantage.

After thinking for a moment, Nie Yan suddenly had a goal in mind. He glanced at the nearby Golden Earth Dragon and decided to focus on raising this creature to level 20 first.

Nie Yan noticed that the Golden Earth Dragon had grown significantly, now reaching about waist height. He wondered how large it would eventually become. Would it grow as enormous as the Golden Earth Dragon he had encountered in the Sin Domain Canyon before? If so, that would be truly terrifying.

Nie Yan ran toward the distance again and lured another group of mechanical puppets, numbering around four to five hundred, then bombarded them with area-of-effect magic bombs.

Another wave of mechanical puppets fell, and the Golden Earth Dragon leveled up to 13. The higher the level, the harder it became to gain experience.

Nie Yan calculated that the Golden Earth Dragon required about three times more experience than himself to level up. Making the Golden Earth Dragon truly powerful was no simple task. To level up together with the Golden Earth Dragon in the future, Nie Yan would need to gain several times more experience than ordinary players.

The Golden Earth Dragon sat in a corner of the open space in the distance, its head drooping in boredom.

Because Nie Yan had ordered it not to move from the spot, it could only sit there idly.

With its current strength, it couldn’t farm these mechanical puppets at all.

Nie Yan picked up the items on the ground and approached the corpse of a mechanical puppet. A gray paper skill book on the ground caught his attention. He bent down and picked up the skill book dropped by the mechanical puppet.

Since it was a common skill book, Nie Yan initially wasn’t very interested. However, upon seeing the skill book’s description, he felt a surge of excitement.

Basic Haste Step: Enter a stealth state to escape. The stealth activation has a 3-second invincibility period, increasing movement speed by 20%, but reducing stealth and hide state effectiveness by 60%. The cooldown time is 3 minutes, requiring level 20. The next level requires 500 agility.

Haste Step is an essential skill for rogues, providing movement speed increase while in stealth. Especially the 3-second invincibility can avoid many magical effects, making it a rare and valuable skill.

However, the reduced stealth and hide state effectiveness makes it easier for enemies to lock onto the target.

If he could reach 500 agility and upgrade to Intermediate Haste Step, the effect would be much stronger.

Although Haste Step is an essential skill, it can be found in all maps above level 20, but its drop rate isn’t particularly high. It is rare between levels 30 to 40, and only becomes common at around level 60.

In his past life, Haste Step was one of Nie Yan’s most habitual skills to use. In this life, not having the Haste Step skill felt a bit uncomfortable.

Reacquiring the Haste Step skill excited Nie Yan greatly. Although Shadow Dance Step is a good skill, it isn’t as practical as Haste Step.

Nie Yan learned the Haste Step skill and glanced at his skill bar, where a familiar skill appeared. This feeling was completely different. It was an innate familiarity, allowing him to easily master this skill.

In addition to the Haste Step, Nie Yan also obtained a large amount of equipment, all of which were level 40 items. However, since the mechanical puppets were ordinary monsters, the equipment dropped wasn’t very good, mostly white and blue gear.

The guild also had a high demand for this type of equipment. Ordinary players couldn’t afford high-stat gear and could only temporarily use white and blue gear as transitional equipment.

Nie Yan carefully tallied up and realized he had actually acquired two pieces of the Silver Eternal Set. His luck was quite remarkable. If each Silver Eternal Set was valued at 700 gold coins, the loot obtained would roughly cover the expenses. The Eternal Set reserved by Ban Xing Hu Li had already been delivered by Guo Huai, netting 700 gold coins. Not to be outdone, the Jia Lan Temple also purchased a set from the Bullman Tribe. Selling two Eternal Sets earned him a total of 1,400 gold coins.

With more Bull Man Tribe members leveling up in the Eternal City, many Eternal Sets were produced. The Bull Man Tribe now had as many as seven remaining Eternal Sets. Cui Can Dao Guang had a set of Epic Eternal Set, Yi Yan and Leng Ao Ying each had a set of Rare Eternal Set, and the remaining four sets were distributed to several outstanding shield warriors. Thus, the Bull Man Tribe’s seven shield warriors were initially formed!

The quantity and quality of shield warriors determine a guild’s future!

Nie Yan put the two loose pieces into his backpack, wondering when he could collect a few more sets.

After consuming nearly two hours, Nie Yan finally raised the Golden Earth Dragon to level 20. By now, the Golden Earth Dragon was almost as tall as him. Checking the dragon’s attributes, its health was 550, and its attack was 380-393, with other attributes also significantly increased.

The Golden Earth Dragon’s attribute growth wasn’t fixed; the higher the level, the more the attributes increased. At this stage, the Golden Earth Dragon was already capable of holding its own.

Additionally, the Golden Earth Dragon gained two status skills.

Basic Haste Aura: Increases movement speed by 5% for all party members within a 20×20 yard radius. The next level requires reaching level 30.

Basic Counterattack Spike: Reflects 5% of melee unit attacks. The next level requires reaching level 30.

Aura skills are permanently effective, automatically applied without the need for activation, and do not consume mana, which is the most satisfying part.

Although the status bonuses are relatively small, they are still considerable, with stronger effects at higher levels. Nie Yan recalled someone in his past life who obtained a pet with a high damage reflection rate. That player then crazily increased the pet’s health using various methods while lowering its defense, eventually creating an extremely powerful pet. At level 180, the pet had health as high as 70,000 to 80,000, although its defense was extremely low. During leveling, the pet would lure in melee monsters and stand there, using attack reflection to gain experience. In team battles, practically no melee player dared to attack this pet.

Therefore, if the talent state of Counterattack Spike is developed, it will also be extremely powerful.

Additionally, the Golden Earth Dragon’s Dragon Breath has been upgraded to Intermediate.

Intermediate Dragon Breath: Spits dragon breath to attack enemies, adding a 100-point skill damage modifier, causing 5×5 yard area damage of (base attack + skill damage) with fire elemental damage. The cooldown time is two minutes, and the next level requires reaching level 60.

After upgrading the Dragon Breath by one level, its effect was noticeably enhanced.

Nie Yan could feel the Golden Earth Dragon’s strength rapidly increasing. At this point, it could probably withstand two or three level 25-26 monsters.