“Hurry up and cast Meteor Shower!” Nie Yan said through the voice channel.
“It takes ten seconds to chant Meteor Shower, there’s no way we can make it in time!” Tang Yao said anxiously. He estimated that these rock spiders would already be upon him before he could finish casting his spell.
“Just start chanting, quickly.”
Tang Yao gritted his teeth, undid the mage’s scroll, and began chanting the Meteor Shower spell while waving his staff. Swirling flames began gathering toward his location.
Blazing heat danced in the air.
Nie Yan lured more than twenty rock spiders into the open area at this crossroads, where the swarm of spiders surged forward. He quickly retreated into the narrow passage where Tang Yao was located, leaving only one rock spider to squeeze through and block the entrance.
“Stun it!” Nie Yan shouted, performing a stunning attack that left the rock spider dazed.
Ten seconds, nine seconds, eight seconds, seven seconds…
Time ticked away as the flames around Tang Yao grew increasingly intense.
Spells requiring a sequence of syllables to chant were usually powerful area-of-effect spells. Nie Yan had seen the Meteor Shower skill before; it was the only area skill that arcane and fire mages could learn at level zero. It was a great spell for grinding mobs, though out of a thousand arcane and fire mages, perhaps only one would have access to Meteor Shower.
The rock spider regained consciousness and lunged at Nie Yan. Nie Yan quickly raised his dagger to engage the spider, keeping it occupied so it couldn’t attack Tang Yao and interrupt his spellcasting.
Ten seconds might seem long or short—it was just counting from one to ten, after all, and would pass quickly.
Tang Yao raised his staff and uttered a strange, elongated syllable that even he himself couldn’t understand. A giant fireball plummeted from the sky, crashing down with a bang and exploding among the spider swarm. Flames scattered like blossoms falling from the heavens, spreading in all directions. These sparks continued burning after landing on the ground, dealing continuous damage to the monsters each second.
The more than twenty rock spiders shrieked in pain after being hit, but they couldn’t reach Nie Yan or Tang Yao.
Nie Yan had calculated everything in advance, which was why he dared to pull so many monsters at once.
The unique terrain of this crossroads allowed Nie Yan to grind mobs this way. If they were out in an open plain, pulling so many monsters and using area spells to blast them would be tantamount to suicide. In overly narrow spaces, the damage caused by Meteor Shower would be extremely limited. But here, it was just right.
Tang Yao felt even more admiration for Nie Yan, who had thought of even this small detail.
One second later, another fireball fell and exploded.
Flames shot into the sky.
After five consecutive fireballs, six rock spiders were killed outright, while the persistent flames burned another fifteen or sixteen. The remaining spiders were all left with low health, showcasing the immense damage of the Meteor Shower spell.
Staring at the corpses of the rock spiders strewn across the ground, Tang Yao was stunned for a long time. Was all of this really his doing? It was hard to believe!
“Nie Yan, was this me?” Tang Yao asked foolishly, looking at the full screen of experience gained, finally confirming that the powerful Meteor Shower spell had indeed been cast by him.
“What are you spacing out for? Clear the remaining spiders.”
“I’m out of mana.” Tang Yao looked at his empty mana bar. He could still throw a few arcane missiles, but couldn’t even cast a fireball anymore.
Nie Yan suddenly remembered that Meteor Shower consumed a huge amount of mana. For Tang Yao to successfully cast it was already quite impressive; he certainly didn’t have the energy left to cast any other offensive spells.
Besides the mana consumption, a low-level mage scroll was also quite valuable. If they kept using Meteor Shower to grind mobs and level up, it would be very expensive.
Nie Yan rushed toward a rock spider with low health, performed a critical strike, and quickly eliminated the remaining monsters.
After a while, all more than twenty rock spiders lay dead. Nie Yan collected everything from the ground, earning a total of three copper coins, with no equipment dropped. Checking the system message bar, he saw a full screen of experience gained. With so many rock spiders, Nie Yan’s experience had increased by a full 3%.
“There are no more monsters around. Let’s go deeper inside.” Nie Yan said. Grinding like this could only be experienced once in a while, as the monster respawn rate in this area couldn’t keep up.
“Go deeper? Why?” Tang Yao asked in surprise.
“I need to take care of something deeper inside. This cave has its own hidden wonders.” Nie Yan smiled mysteriously, only vaguely recalling this fact now.
At the end of the rock spider cave was a deep pond with very deep water and many intersecting currents connecting to an underground lake. Passing through the underground lake led to another enclosed valley where many unusual medicinal herbs grew. Most importantly, there was a fragment of the Scroll of Order, a coveted item for countless players.
Legend said that the Scroll of Order and the Scroll of Chaos were divine artifacts that had existed since the Age of Coexistence (873–1235). They had been in the world for five or six hundred years now. Their origin was a mystery, as was the identity of their writer.
Order and Chaos represented the rules of the continent.
Each of the Scroll of Order and the Scroll of Chaos consisted of six volumes and thirty-six chapters, representing two different forces scattered throughout the world.
Legend had it that collecting all the Scrolls of Order would allow one to rebuild divine order and gain powerful divine abilities. The owner of the complete Scrolls of Order would become the supreme ruler of all the light temples, the great pope. Meanwhile, whoever collected all the Scrolls of Chaos would gain destructive power. They would be destroyers of order, and upon collecting all the Scrolls of Chaos, one could become the mighty Dark King.
Both the Scroll of Order and the Scroll of Chaos were legendary items.
When the first six chapters of the Scroll of Order appeared, the first expansion pack, “The Forgotten History,” was launched by the Granlan Empire and the Saturn Empire.
These six chapters of the Scroll of Order were respectively the Chapter of Justice, the Chapter of Goodness, the Chapter of Courage, the Chapter of Wisdom, the Chapter of Fairness, and the Chapter of Freedom.
These six chapters of the Scroll of Order ended up in the hands of six individuals, all of whom occupied a place among the top hundred kind and lawful players. The first, third, and sixth holders respectively possessed the Chapter of Justice, the Chapter of Courage, and the Chapter of Wisdom. This made the Scroll of Order an item equal to divine artifacts in the eyes of players.
Although the Scroll of Order indeed possessed immense power, it couldn’t be stored in a personal warehouse and had to be carried at all times. When the holder of the Scroll of Order was killed by a player, the item would inevitably drop unless one had collected all six chapters of one volume. Thus, conflicts over the Scroll of Order never ceased.
The Chapter of Justice, the Chapter of Courage, and the Chapter of Wisdom were respectively held by the leaders of three super guilds. The holders of the remaining chapters of the Scroll of Order also had powerful forces. However, they traveled incognito, rarely displaying or using the Scroll of Order in public. Nie Yan, however, had seen the immense power of the Scroll of Order in videos.
The holder of the Chapter of Justice, Saintly Knight Angel of the Angelic Dominion Guild, faced off against over a hundred hostile players, summoning sixteen Justice Knights and defeating a hundred-player team single-handedly, becoming a legend.
The holder of the Chapter of Wisdom, Saintly Mage Emperor Killer of the Holy Arbiter Guild, used the forbidden spell Radiant Glory to purify more than 300 undead necromancers while resisting an undead invasion, becoming another immortal legend of the Scroll of Order.
The holder of the Chapter of Courage, the Holy Roman Empire’s guild leader, Berserker Sword Half-Awake Fox, charged alone into the enemy guild’s ranks during a guild war, killing one every ten steps, slaying two hundred enemies, and proving unstoppable.
Thinking about it, Nie Yan felt his blood boiling.
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