Nie Yan glanced at his opponent’s name, Luonan De Qingwa (The Unfortunate Frog), frowned slightly, and vaguely recalled something about this person. It seemed he was a professional gamer. Although The Unfortunate Frog hadn’t earned the Shadow Dancer title in the previous life, it wasn’t because his skills were insufficient. Instead, he had devoted all his energy to a great endeavor—opening treasure chests! This guy was unique and eccentric, but in the field of treasure chest opening, few could rival him. In the previous life, there were many people who had the Shadow Dancer title, and some of them didn’t reveal their identities publicly. However, those who bore the Treasure Hunter title were rare; there seemed to be only two or three in the entire Grenland, and The Unfortunate Frog was one of them.
Nie Yan clearly knew how many chests one had to open to earn the Treasure Hunter title. In his previous life, he had opened at least five or six thousand chests himself. In regular maps, the number of chests was slightly fewer, but during the initial exploration of instances, he would open three to five chests per day on average. However, he was still far away from achieving the Treasure Hunter title.
It was said that more than 60% of The Unfortunate Frog’s skills were escape skills that helped him survive in various situations, while offensive skills only accounted for a small portion. In the later stages, players usually had many skills, sometimes twenty or thirty, even thirty or forty. Most players couldn’t even use all their skills effectively, and they would each develop a set of tactics suitable for themselves, relying on a few skills they were comfortable with. However, the skills The Unfortunate Frog was most familiar with were all escape techniques. When he was at levels eighty to ninety, he dared to enter maps of levels 150 to 160 just to open treasure chests. He was truly one of a kind. Due to the scarcity of offensive skills, he narrowly missed the Shadow Dancer title, but his reputation was still significant. Many powerful players, even guild leaders of major guilds, liked to go to him to acquire good items.
Nie Yan’s voice chat suddenly rang out. He glanced and saw it was a message from The Unfortunate Frog.
“You’re pretty impressive. That golden chest is yours. Are you the famous player Nieyan from the Bull Tribe?” The Unfortunate Frog asked. He was quite open-minded, after all, missing one chest meant he could always look for another.
Nie Yan smiled, neither confirming nor denying. The Unfortunate Frog must have seen his name, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked such a question. Nie Yan sent him an invitation to the Assassin Alliance. The Unfortunate Frog had always been independent, doing business with various guilds. If Nie Yan invited him to join the guild, he might be rejected, so Nie Yan only sent an invitation to the Assassin Alliance.
Seeing Nie Yan didn’t reply, The Unfortunate Frog was about to head to the next location to continue searching for chests when he suddenly received a system notification.
System: Player Nieyan invites you to join the Assassin Alliance (special channel). Do you accept?
The Unfortunate Frog had heard of the Assassin Alliance from his fellow professional gamer friends. It was said to be a professional gamer alliance, having been created just a few days ago, and all the members of the Kuangzhan Studio had joined.
Since the Assassin Alliance was merely a channel without the binding nature of a guild, it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.
He clicked confirm and joined the Assassin Alliance. After checking the introduction of the Assassin Alliance, he roughly understood what kind of organization it was. Joining such an organization would be very helpful for his future business. Looking at the top of the alliance page, the Assassin Alliance had an alliance leader and five princes, all anonymous. Nieyan must be one of these ranks.
Nie Yan checked and saw that The Unfortunate Frog had joined the Assassin Alliance as a regular member. He needed to complete some tasks and accumulate a certain amount of points to obtain a noble title. However, with The Unfortunate Frog’s skills, advancing in rank should be quite simple.
With the efforts of Banxing De Hulu (Half-Awake Fox), Aiqing Shashang (Love Wound), and Fabulan (Falan), the number of the Assassin Alliance had already approached two thousand. In the previous life, the player who founded the Assassin Alliance couldn’t compare to Banxing De Hulu, Aiqing Shashang, and Fabulan in terms of networking. Banxing De Hulu and Aiqing Shashang had extensive connections among professional gamers and basically knew every well-known professional gamer. Alone their two studios had over five hundred professional gamers and a large customer base. Although Fabulan wasn’t a professional gamer, he was a constant presence in various virtual games, with his experience and connections ensuring that he interacted frequently with professional gamers. Moreover, Fabulan knew many company bosses, and he pulled in hundreds of people at once, all potential future customers.
Once the Assassin Alliance’s recognition among professional gamers increased, it would surely have greater development.
After adding The Unfortunate Frog, Nie Yan continued opening treasure chests and headed toward the Light Abbey.
“May I ask, what skill did you use to climb over the cliff just now?” The Unfortunate Frog knew his question was abrupt, but for a player who was extremely obsessed with searching for treasure chests, Nie Yan’s skills were too attractive.
Nie Yan thought for a moment. Even if he revealed it to The Unfortunate Frog, it wouldn’t matter. “Crawler’s Ring, a rare item.”
Upon hearing the words “rare item,” The Unfortunate Frog gave up immediately. Rare items were extremely scarce, and it was very hard to find them.
“Your Bull Tribe is at war with the Triumph Empire, right? Don’t go north. There are at least five or six hundred Triumph Empire players there, clearing the Necromancer Priests.”
“Thank you for the warning.”
“You’re welcome.”
Nie Yan bent down and opened the golden treasure chest, taking out a pair of 25th-level golden boots, which belonged to a paladin. The attributes were pretty good, and they looked valuable.
Nie Yan stood on the edge of the cliff at the hilltop, looking forward. The jungle ahead was lush. It shouldn’t be far to the Light Abbey after passing through the jungle. However, he had just received news from The Unfortunate Frog that there were Triumph Empire players in the north clearing the Necromancer Priests. Should he go and check it out?
Looking toward the northern woods, he saw a red mage tower standing in the distance, with many players active below. Occasionally, magic spells exploded in the sky. The Unfortunate Frog’s words were likely true.
The Necromancer Priest was a level-25 boss, extremely fierce among low-level bosses, capable of both single-target and area-of-effect magic attacks. No wonder the Triumph Empire had deployed five or six hundred players to deal with the Necromancer Priest. When the Necromancer Priest was defeated for the first time, one of the dropped items was a top-tier epic dark-blue staff at the early stage. If such an item fell into the hands of the Triumph Empire players, it would create another super powerful mage.
It would take at least ten minutes to get there from here. Nie Yan wondered whether he would arrive in time.
Thinking thus, Nie Yan no longer wasted time. He jumped off the cliff and used the feather-fall gem’s ability when approaching the ground.
His speed sharply decreased, and Nie Yan landed on a branch of a large tree. He then leaped forward, flying five or six yards, landing lightly and swiftly disappearing into the jungle’s depths.
The jungle’s edge was extremely lively, with the sound of magical explosions splitting the sky, flames rising to the heavens, and lightning flashing.
It seemed like an intense battle, and Nie Yan wondered how much health they had drained from the Necromancer Priest.
Ahead, several Triumph Empire players were on watch in the jungle, clearing nearby spawned monsters while chatting.
“I wonder how things are going over there,” said one Triumph player. They were only peripheral players without the right to participate in the battle.
“It’s hard to say. After all, it’s a level-25 boss. Don’t let the team get wiped out,” replied a warrior.
“Boss Thin Dog said it would take at least two hours to finish. There are too many guards near the Necromancer Priest’s tower. We have to clear them one by one before we can enter. Judging by the time, we’ve probably been at it for about an hour?”
“Let’s not think too much. Anyway, after this event, we can get 100 guild contribution points,” another mage player said.
Guild contribution points were determined by the guild leader. In the Triumph Empire, 100 guild contribution points were equivalent to about twenty copper coins.
Previously, it was considered good if a player received five or six copper coins for participating in a guild event. However, as players’ levels increased, the payment for participating in a guild event had risen to more than twenty copper coins.
The depreciation of in-game currency was an inevitable trend. As players’ levels improved in the game, they earned more in-game currency from killing monsters. In the past, killing a dozen monsters would only yield one copper coin, but now, the drop rate of coins from high-level monsters was significantly higher. Sometimes, killing a monster could yield several copper coins, which was quite normal.
Nie Yan entered stealth mode and passed behind these players.
A mage player felt a slight sense of danger in his heart, but it was so faint that he didn’t even notice it.
The others didn’t sense anything at all and continued chatting casually.
Nie Yan passed these players and advanced deeper into the jungle. Along the way, he occasionally encountered one or two Triumph Empire players. They were here both to grind for levels and to patrol, preventing players outside the guild from approaching.
Looking through the gaps in the jungle, Nie Yan saw a mage tower about six or seven meters high. It was entirely crimson, as if dyed with blood. Below the tower, there was a bustling crowd of players busily engaged in combat.
“Focus on dealing damage!”
“Priests, keep healing! Damn it, hurry up!”
Occasionally, shouts and curses could be heard.
Most of these players were around level twenty. It was indeed a bit challenging for them to deal with a level-25 boss. They looked somewhat chaotic, but after all, they were the elite of the Triumph Empire. They were handling the situation quite well without suffering too many casualties.
Nie Yan wondered whether Potian was here, but he was sure that Shou Gou (Thin Dog) was present. They were old rivals. The last time outside the Heiyan Forest, the two of them didn’t have time to determine a winner before being hit by a Meteor Flame. Thin Dog was killed by the Meteor Flame, while Nie Yan was saved by priests from the Holy Roman Empire.
Nie Yan wondered if there were any other familiar faces from the Triumph Empire. Thinking thus, he slowly crept toward the mage tower.
Tai Sui Yellow Amulet Paper FuLu Taoist Love Talisman Traditional Chinese Spiritual Charm Attracting Love Protecting Marriage