“Previously, I completed a task and gained a lot of experience, leveling up a bunch.”
“What task gives so much experience all at once? Where is it? I want to do it too.”
“It was a unique task.”
“Oh, a unique task. Then forget it,” Tang Yao said disappointedly. Unique tasks were usually very difficult to trigger, with varying difficulty levels, but the rewards were extremely generous.
“Nie Yan, you’re level four already?” Yaoyao exclaimed in surprise. When she first met Nie Yan, he was only level two. How come just a few days later, he was already level four? His leveling speed was just too fast.
“Yeah,” Nie Yan nodded.
Even more astonished was Huihuang. According to what Shitou had said, he met Nie Yan three days ago, and at that time Nie Yan was only level zero. How come just a few days later, he was already level four? No wonder Nie Yan dared to delete his character and restart—he must have been confident he could catch up quickly, which was why he deleted his warrior character.
“He’s a really impressive guy, not just generally impressive,” Huihuang mused inwardly.
Earlier, Nie Yan had made up a few lines, saying he had restarted his character, which explained why he knew so much about these instances.
Now level four, Nie Yan glanced at the level leaderboard. The highest level was only six, with players like Ban Xing De Hu Li at five. It wouldn’t take much time before he caught up.
The team advanced through the jungle. At the edge of the jungle in the distance was a cliff, its steep face covered with dense vegetation.
A solitary old man wearing a tattered hat leaned against a tree, playing a flute with deep concentration. The flute’s sound was ancient and distant, echoing for a long time through the woods.
Nie Yan used his scouting ability, which only identified the man as an unnamed old man. However, Nie Yan knew his true identity: Eynpatt, the Warden of Treants. He was the guardian of the jungle, and under his management, the treants coexisted peacefully with humans.
Yet, over a month ago, the treants suddenly became uncontrollable and began slaughtering humans. Dark elves emerged in the treant forest. The elders of Grendale convened and recruited brave adventurers to enter the treant forest and eliminate the most dangerous of them all—the Treant King. This marked the beginning of the story behind the Treant Forest instance.
“Traveling adventurers, this is a dangerous land. The treants will kill every human who enters here. You should leave immediately. Once night falls and the moonlight shines, the treants will gain eerie, powerful strength,” the old man stopped playing and began narrating the task dialogue.
“Respected Warden of Treants, Lord Eynpatt, we have come here precisely to eliminate the harmful treants. May the gods grant redemption to these treants who only know slaughter,” Nie Yan said, pretending to pray devoutly.
“The ones who deserve death are those creatures from beneath the earth; they should receive divine judgment. They stole my flute and hide in shadows and darkness, laughing at me shamelessly,” Eynpatt, the Warden of Treants, said angrily.
“This is where we got stuck. We couldn’t proceed with the task dialogue at all. No matter what we said afterward, the old man just kept telling us to leave, so we ignored him and went to kill the treant king,” Huihuang said in the team chat.
“You guys did the hard difficulty version of the treant forest. If it were expert difficulty, without triggering this Warden of Treants, we wouldn’t stand a chance against the treant king. The treant king here is much stronger than the one in the hard difficulty version,” Nie Yan replied in the team chat. He glanced toward the distant shadows and turned back to continue talking with Eynpatt, the Warden of Treants. “It is indeed them. I noticed them as soon as I entered the treant forest. May the holy light purify these cursed creatures.”
“Adventurer, you can actually detect them? That’s great. Those two cursed dark elves stole my flute, which caused the chaos in the treant forest. This is a dust I developed called Reveal Powder. It can make them unable to hide. Kill them and retrieve my flute, and you will be able to defeat the out-of-control treant king,” Eynpatt, the Warden of Treants, said.
System: You have obtained Reveal Powder, quantity 3.
Reveal Powder: Consumable item that causes all hidden creatures within a 30-yard radius to become visible for 20 seconds.
After obtaining the Reveal Powder, Nie Yan glanced toward the distant shadows. His perception far exceeded that of other thieves at his level, and with his Super Perception ability, he keenly sensed that some evil creatures were following them from the shadows.
Within the team, only Nie Yan had detected the two dark elves.
“You triggered it?” Huihuang was stunned. Previously, they had tried everything and still couldn’t uncover any hidden clues from the old man, yet Nie Yan had managed it so effortlessly.
“We’ve still got work to do,” Nie Yan said.
“Are there really things following us?” Yaoyao followed Nie Yan’s gaze, but saw nothing except shadows, which made her feel uneasy.
“Just some weak dark elves. Don’t worry.”
Nie Yan walked into the dark jungle.
The other eighteen team members followed Nie Yan, passing through a narrow forest path until reaching the base of the cliff. Looking up, the cliff face was covered with scattered green plants.
“Why are we here?” Tang Yao asked.
The other team members also felt puzzled.
Nie Yan glanced up at the cliff face. “We’re going to find an opportunity to catch those two dark elves. Wait, I think I’ve found something.” Nie Yan walked to the cliff edge, jumped up more than three yards high, grabbed the plants on the cliff, and shot out a strand of spider silk, sticking to the grass three yards above. Like an agile monkey, he climbed up very high and landed on a protruding rock on the cliff.
“Look over there!” Yaoyao said joyfully.
Everyone looked in the direction Yaoyao pointed and discovered a faint silver light flickering behind the protruding rock. It was a chest, and it should be a silver chest, hidden in such a secret location. If not for Nie Yan, they would never have found it!
The reason Nie Yan had led everyone here was to get this chest, so he pretended to have just discovered it to avoid raising suspicion from the team members. Because this chest was unique to the expert-level instance.
Nie Yan bent down. The chest was embedded in a crevice in the cliff rock. He had no idea who had discovered it first, but the initial finder must have been an expert. Without keen observational skills, one would never notice a chest hidden midway up a cliff.
In the *Previous Life Strategy Guide*, all details about the locations of chests and hidden items within dungeons were clearly documented. These were compilations of experiences from high-level players. Once they reached advanced levels, these players would record such information and sell it to the official website for a considerable profit.
Every time Nie Yan entered a dungeon, he would first study the official website’s strategy guide, thoroughly familiarizing himself with the dungeon’s mechanics before joining a team. This approach helped him avoid many unnecessary detours.
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