Chapter 173: Wisdom

The cave exuded rolling waves of heat, and the rock walls were scorching to the touch. Players needed to be at least level 25 and have at least 7 fire resistance to enter the Hellfire Cavern and walk around without continuously losing health. To withstand Hellfire’s skills, players needed at least 30 fire resistance. Therefore, in the previous life, only when guilds reached around level 30 would they organize teams to come here and obtain the Wisdom Chapter.

After the Hellfire was defeated, it would take two days to respawn. As a result, players from guilds often waited around, and as soon as Hellfire respawned, they would immediately call for help. Countless people died in fights over Hellfire.

Hellfire itself was powerful and, combined with the narrow cave environment, made it extremely difficult to deal with.

Nie Yan’s figure blended into the rocky background as he slowly crept in, weaving through the narrow tunnel. Many red crystals were embedded in the nearby rock walls, shining brilliantly. This place produced large amounts of Flame Crystals and was a mine.

Looking deeper into the cave, flames roared, and a figure moved in the depths.

Nie Yan could barely see a glimpse of Hellfire, but he dared not go further. Hellfire’s perception was extremely sharp when it awoke. Once a player got within approximately thirty yards of Hellfire, it could sense them. At Nie Yan’s current level, if detected, it would be hard to escape.

Nie Yan crouched behind a rock and slowly waited for the right moment.

Time passed minute by minute. Five minutes later, Nie Yan’s fire resistance potion wore off, and his health began to drop by 8 points per second. He drank a Slow Regeneration Potion, which restored 5 health points per second for 120 minutes. Combined with his natural health regeneration, it barely balanced the damage rate.

After 120 minutes, the Slow Regeneration Potion expired, and Nie Yan continued waiting. The scorching heat wave continuously drained his health. When his health dropped to around 20 points, he took another Intermediate Fire Resistance Potion and sat in a corner to eat bread and restore his health.

He kept enduring like this. If he had known this would happen, he should have bought more fire-resistant equipment. However, fire-resistant gear for rogues had always been overlooked, and there were few such items for rogues in the auction house. Only fire-resistant gear for warriors had high appreciation potential. Therefore, Nie Yan mostly bought warrior gear and didn’t pay much attention to fire-resistant gear for rogues.

Anyway, the Star Pharmacy was his family business, so the ingredients for these potions weren’t worth much, so Nie Yan didn’t mind the consumption of potions.

If Hellfire had just finished sleeping, he would have to stay in place for two hours to wait for Hellfire’s next sleep.

It was worth waiting two hours for the Wisdom Chapter. The Wisdom Chapter was almost the easiest to obtain among all the Order Chapters.

After waiting for more than thirty minutes, the heat wave in the entire cave suddenly calmed down, and the firelight in the depths of the cave gradually dimmed.

Hellfire was asleep! Nie Yan stood up abruptly, activated Shadow Dance, and sprinted toward the depths of the cave.

Nie Yan finally saw Hellfire’s appearance through his blurred vision. Hellfire was a giant stone golem, about five yards tall. Its entire body was composed of stone joints. During active periods, its body burned with raging green flames, but when sleeping, the flames would extinguish, leaving only faint blue flames burning at the joints.

Hellfire curled up in a corner.

Nie Yan carefully crept past Hellfire, a slight movement could awaken Hellfire. At the same time, he couldn’t move too slowly because he didn’t have much time, only about two minutes.

There were shallow pits on the ground, flowing with red magma, emitting scorching heat.

This magma looked calm, but once touched, it would burn off a lot of players’ health.

Nie Yan carefully watched his step and passed by Hellfire.

Hellfire’s soft snoring sounded like rolling thunder.

After passing Hellfire, Nie Yan quickened his pace and sprinted forward, entering the wide chamber inside the cave at the fastest speed.

This wide chamber was entirely composed of Flame Crystals, emitting scorching fire elements. It was said that mining Flame Crystals in this chamber had a yield more than 200% higher than outside. However, miners often wanted to enter the chamber but couldn’t because this area was often monopolized by major guilds.

The chamber was engulfed in blazing fire elements. In the flame-engulfed room, an Order Chapter hovered motionless in midair, radiating a dazzling crimson glow.

Nie Yan reached out with his right hand toward the Order Chapter. As his fingers touched it, the flames around the Order Chapter suddenly disappeared, and it fell from the sky.

He caught the Wisdom Chapter and put it into his backpack.

That made a total of three Order Chapters.

If he used a random teleport scroll to escape immediately, it would be absolutely safe. But he thought, there was still more than a minute left. If he could save one random teleport scroll, wouldn’t that be better?

Without any hesitation, Nie Yan used an acceleration scroll and sprinted outside.

He was as fast as a cheetah because every second was extremely precious to him now.

The azure flames on Hellfire’s body gradually burned brighter and more intensely. Nie Yan could already feel the scorching heat emanating from it.

Nie Yan leapt forward, performing a heavy jump, soaring more than three yards high, flying over Hellfire.

He extended his left hand and shot out a strand of spider silk, sticking to the top of the distant cave, and pulled hard, flying forward more than ten yards, like a fleeting shadow, rapidly increasing the distance from Hellfire to more than ten yards.

Hellfire finally woke up from its sleep. Upon discovering Nie Yan, it immediately charged at him in fury.

Roar! Hellfire let out a violent roar. Its steps were large, and its heavy footsteps made the entire cave tremble continuously.

Nie Yan had to balance his body and sprint outside.

But his speed was clearly no match for Hellfire’s. Hellfire was getting closer and closer. Nie Yan’s right hand took out an Intermediate Flash Powder from his backpack. With a bang, the flash powder exploded, and blinding light bloomed.

The green flames in Hellfire’s eye sockets flickered, and it let out a piercing scream. A raging heat wave surged from the cave, as if trying to swallow everything.

Nie Yan tightened his grip on the random teleport scroll. If any uncontrollable situation occurred, he would decisively crush the scroll to escape without hesitation.

Seeing the heat wave rushing behind him, Nie Yan quickly dodged behind a rock.

The heat wave swept past.

In the rolling heat wave, Nie Yan’s health rapidly dropped, plummeting more than two hundred points. He quickly drank an Intermediate Instant Regeneration Potion, and his health instantly returned to full.

The Intermediate Instant Regeneration Potion could restore 500 health points. This potion was generally used by players around level 30.

In the previous life, Hellfire’s wave-type attacks weren’t particularly strong. As long as one wasn’t hit directly, it would only deal around 50 damage to level 30 players. Therefore, Nie Yan guessed that as long as he dodged the direct blast of Hellfire’s heat wave, he would only take around 200 damage at most.

As the heat wave stopped, Nie Yan continued sprinting outside.

Hellfire was disoriented for a few seconds before noticing Nie Yan again. By then, Nie Yan had already run another ten yards away.

Hellfire chased Nie Yan for a while but turned back when Nie Yan ran out of the cave.

Rushing out of the cave, he immediately felt much cooler. He looked at the attributes of the Wisdom Chapter he obtained.

Wisdom Chapter: Order Chapter Volume I, Chapter IV.

(Legendary Item Fragment)

Item Description: The holder of the Order Chapter will receive divine inheritance. Your mission is to spread the glory of the gods.

Item Attributes: The holder gains 2 Intelligence and 1 Skill Point for every 5 levels gained. +30 Intelligence, +15 Focus, +15 Willpower, +16 Tenacity, +15 Jump, +15 Reflex, +16 Speed. Skills: Calm, after using this skill, all single-target elemental magic skills have zero cooldown time, but mana cost is doubled. Sea of Flames, creates a sea of flames within a 30×30 yard area. Damage is related to Intelligence.

Usage Restriction: This item is limited to Lawful Good users.

Note: This item takes effect immediately upon being placed in the backpack.

For Nie Yan, the Wisdom Chapter was practically useless, as both skills were only effective for mages.

Nie Yan checked his status, and the Wisdom Chapter had no bonus effects for him, only effective for magic users, which made him feel regretful. However, Nie Yan’s goal was merely to collect all the Order Chapters of Volume I and synthesize them. Therefore, whether the Wisdom Chapter had bonus attributes or not didn’t have much impact on him.

Nie Yan put the Wisdom Chapter into his backpack, entered stealth mode, and disappeared into the jungle.

Now that players’ levels had improved, there were already other players active in this area, so Nie Yan had to be careful.

The next target was the Monastery of Light, the essence of all Order Chapters in Volume I, the Order Chapter Volume I, Chapter I, the Justice Chapter!

The Monastery of Light was very far away, so Nie Yan could take the opportunity to open the treasure chests along the way to practice his lock-picking skills.

He checked the current proficiency of his lock-picking skill.

Lock-picking Expert: Beginner 17/100.

Lock-picking was the hardest skill to practice among all skills. As a rogue, he had to practice lock-picking; otherwise, the rogue would be useless. At Nie Yan’s speed of finding treasure chests, he had only found 12 locked chests in nearly two hours. For ordinary players, it would probably take at least thirty days to open enough chests to reach one hundred.

However, before leveling up to thirty, they had enough time to practice lock-picking skills. Moreover, there would be more locked chests in the instances. Joining a team to raid the Medusa’s Nest or the Saith Valley once would allow them to encounter at least three or four locked chests.