Chapter 1 The Beginning

Nie Yan looked at his opponent's name, Fallen Frog, and frowned. He vaguely remembered this person; he seemed to be a professional player. Although Fallen Frog didn't make a name for himself as a Shadow Dancer in his past life, it wasn't because his skills were lacking, but because he devoted all his energy to a great cause: opening treasure chests! This guy was an eccentric, but in the treasure chest opening business, few could compare to him. In his past life, there were quite a few people with the title of Shadow Dancer, and some of them hadn't revealed their names to the outside world. However, there weren't many who had the title of Treasure Chest Hunter. There seemed to be only two or three in the entire Greenland, and Fallen Frog was one of them.

Nie Yan knew exactly how many treasure chests one had to open to earn the title of Treasure Chest Hunter. In his past life, he had opened at least five or six thousand treasure chests. He opened slightly fewer ordinary map treasure chests. When exploring dungeons, he had to open an average of three to five treasure chests every day, but he was still a long way from the title of Treasure Chest Hunter.

It was said that over 60% of Fallen Frog's skills were to help him escape in various situations, with only a small portion being attack skills. Later on, players had many skills, ranging from twenty or thirty to thirty or forty. Many players couldn't use them all. Each of them would study a set of tactics that suited them, and it was enough to have a few skills they were comfortable with. However, the skills Fallen Frog was most comfortable with were all escape skills. When he was in his eighties or nineties, he dared to go to maps for levels one hundred fifty or sixty to find treasure chests. This guy was one of a kind. Due to the small number of attack skills, he missed out on being a Shadow Dancer, but he was still quite famous. Many impressive people, even the guild leaders of the major guilds, liked to go to him to find good stuff.

Nie Yan's voice communication rang. He looked at it and saw that it was sent by Fallen Frog.

"You're pretty awesome. That golden treasure chest is yours. You're Nie Yan from Nirvana Flame, right?" Fallen Frog said. He was quite open-minded. After all, treasure chests could always be found again.

Nie Yan smiled noncommittally. Fallen Frog must have seen his name, otherwise he wouldn't have asked. He sent Fallen Frog an invitation to the Assassin Alliance. Fallen Frog had always been a free man, so his business was all over the major guilds. If he invited him to join a guild, he might be rejected. So Nie Yan only sent an invitation to the Assassin Alliance.

Fallen Frog saw that Nie Yan didn't reply and was about to go to the next place to continue searching for treasure chests when he suddenly received a system notification.

System: Player Nirvana Flame has invited you to join the Assassin Alliance (special channel). Do you agree?

Fallen Frog had heard about the Assassin Alliance from a friend who was a professional player. It seemed to be a professional player alliance that had just been created a few days ago, and everyone from the Berserker Studio had joined it.

Since the Assassin Alliance was just a channel and didn't have the binding force of a guild, it wouldn't hurt to go in and take a look.

He clicked Confirm and joined the Assassin Alliance. He looked at the introduction of the Assassin Alliance and roughly understood what kind of organization it was. Joining such an organization would be very helpful for his future business. He looked at the top of the alliance page. The Assassin Alliance had set up an alliance leader and five princes, all of whom were anonymous. He didn't know which level Nie Yan was.

Nie Yan saw that Fallen Frog had joined the Assassin Alliance, but he was still just an ordinary member. He had to complete some tasks and reach a certain number of points before he could get a title. However, with Fallen Frog's skills, it should be easy to improve his title.

With the activities of Half-Asleep Fox, Love Killer, and Fa Lan, the number of people in the Assassin Alliance was already close to two thousand. The player who founded the Assassin Alliance in his past life didn't have as many connections as Half-Asleep Fox, Love Killer, and Fa Lan. Half-Asleep Fox and Love Killer were very well-connected among professional players. They knew basically every professional player with a little fame. Their two studios alone had more than five hundred professional players, and their customer base was also very large. Although Fa Lan wasn't a professional player, he was an evergreen in the major virtual games, and his qualifications were there, so he definitely had a lot of contact with professional players. Moreover, Fa Lan knew many bosses of major companies and pulled in hundreds of people at once. These people were all potential customers in the future.

When the Assassin Alliance's recognition among professional players increased, it would definitely have even greater development in the future.

After adding Fallen Frog, Nie Yan continued to open treasure chests and headed towards the Light Monastery.

"Can I ask what skill you used to climb over the cliff just now?" Fallen Frog knew his question was abrupt, but for a player who was unusually obsessed with searching for treasure chests, Nie Yan's skills were too attractive.

Nie Yan thought for a moment. It wouldn't matter even if he revealed it to Fallen Frog, so he said, "Crawler's Ring, a rare item."

Hearing the words "rare item," Fallen Frog gave up. Rare items were too few, and it was difficult to find them.

"Your Nirvana Flame is at war with the Triumphant Empire, right? Don't go north. There are at least five or six hundred people from the Triumphant Empire clearing out the Evil Witches there," Fallen Frog said.

"Thank you for the reminder."

"You're welcome."

Nie Yan bent down and opened the golden treasure chest, taking out a pair of level 25 golden boots. They were for a Holy Knight, with good attributes, and seemed to be worth a lot of money.

Nie Yan stood at the top of the mountain slope, looking ahead. The jungle was lush. Passing through the jungle, it shouldn't be far from the Light Monastery. However, he had just gotten news from Fallen Frog that there were people from Triumphant Empire clearing out Evil Witches to the north. Should he go take a look?

Looking towards the woodland to the north, a red mage tower stood in the distant forest, and there seemed to be many players active below. Magic exploded in the air from time to time. Fallen Frog's words should be true.

The Evil Witch was a level 25 Lord, extremely fierce among low-level bosses. It knew both single-target and area-of-effect magic. No wonder Triumphant Empire was using five or six hundred people to deal with the Evil Witch. When the Evil Witch was killed for the first time, one of the items dropped was a dark gold staff, one of the best items in the early stages. If that thing fell into the hands of the Triumphant Empire, they would have another super powerful mage.

It would take at least ten minutes to get there from here. He wondered if he would make it in time.

Thinking this, Nie Yan didn't waste any more time. He jumped off the cliff and used the skill on the Feather Fall Gem when he was close to the ground.

The speed decreased sharply, and Nie Yan landed on a branch of a large tree. He leaped forward, flying five or six yards, landed lightly, and shot out like an arrow, quickly disappearing into the end of the jungle.

The end of the jungle was extremely lively. The sound of magic explosions pierced the sky, and flames soared into the sky, with lightning and thunder.

The battle seemed to be very fierce. He wondered how much health they had depleted from the Evil Witch.

A few players from the Triumphant Empire were scouting in the jungle ahead, clearing out the monsters that refreshed nearby while chatting.

"I wonder how it's going over there," a player from the Triumphant Empire said. They were just some peripheral players and didn't have the right to participate in the battle.

"It's hard to say. After all, it's a level 25 Lord. Don't let them get wiped out," a warrior said.

"Leader Skinny Dog said it would take at least two hours to finish. There are too many guards near the Evil Witch's mage tower. We have to clear them one by one before we can go in. Counting the time, it's been more than an hour, right?"

"Let's not think so much. Anyway, we can get 100 guild contribution points after this is over," another mage player said.

Guild contribution was determined by the guild leader himself. 100 guild contribution points in the Triumphant Empire was equivalent to about twenty copper coins.

In the past, players could only get five or six copper coins for a guild activity, but as the players' levels increased, the price for a guild activity had increased to more than twenty copper coins.

The devaluation of game currency was an inevitable trend. As players' levels increased in the game, they obtained more and more game currency from killing monsters. In the past, they could only get one copper coin for killing more than a dozen monsters, but now, the drop rate of money from killing high-level monsters was obviously much higher. Sometimes it was normal to drop several copper coins at once.

Nie Yan entered stealth and passed behind these players.

A faint sense of crisis flashed through the mind of an arcane mage, so faint that it didn't even attract his attention.

The others didn't even feel it and were still chatting.

Nie Yan passed these people and advanced into the depths of the jungle. Along the way, he occasionally encountered one or two players from the Triumphant Empire. On the one hand, they could level up by killing monsters here, and on the other hand, they were also patrolling to prevent players outside the guild from getting close.

His gaze passed through the gaps in the jungle. There was a mage tower six or seven yards high, scarlet red, as if soaked in blood. Under the mage tower, people were bustling about, and groups of players were busy.

"Pay attention to output!"

"Healers, keep up with the healing, damn it, hurry up!"

Shouts and curses came from time to time.

Most of these players seemed to be around level 20. It was indeed a bit difficult for them to deal with a level 25 leader. These people were a bit flustered, but after all, they were elites of the Triumphant Empire. They responded well and didn't suffer too many casualties.

He wondered if Po Tian was here, Nie Yan thought. But what he could be sure of was that Skinny Dog was here. This was an old opponent. Last time outside the Black Flame Forest, the two of them didn't have time to determine the winner before they were hit by the Flame of the Meteor. Skinny Dog was killed by the Flame of the Meteor, while he was saved by the priests of the Holy Roman Empire.

He wondered if there were any other acquaintances from the Triumphant Empire here, Nie Yan thought, slowly approaching the mage tower.