Nie Yan, with his decade of experience, could impart wisdom to Bai Kaishui with just a few words.

A barrage of magic slammed into the treants. After the third round, the first treant fell. A dozen seconds later, another collapsed.

Nie Yan walked to the treant's corpse and searched it, finding a few copper coins and a pair of bronze bracers with +2 Focus for mages.

"Equipment dropped, for mages, you guys can distribute it yourselves," Nie Yan said, tossing the bronze bracers to Yu Lan.

Tang Yao and Huang Hun naturally ignored the item. The bronze bracers were decent, but far inferior to their own equipment.

The bronze bracers were eventually taken by the mage, Hai Dao, for twelve copper coins. Taking equipment in the team was much cheaper than on the market.

"Nie Yan, that move you did earlier was amazing. How did you do it? Teach me next time," Yao Yao said. The techniques for using crossbows and mages casting spells were similar. Among the many players, she was considered an expert, but compared to Nie Yan, she was far behind.

Nie Yan smiled slightly, "Sure, it's not that difficult. We can talk about it after the dungeon." He then walked forward, continuing to attract the treants. They came in waves, sometimes only one, sometimes two or three, but never more than three at a time. Because it was an Expert-level dungeon, the equipment drop rate was more than 500% higher than a normal dungeon, and the quality of the equipment was far better. After the group killed those eighteen treants, they received three decent bronze items and one silver item.

Yu Lan and the others only got five bronze items in total after running the Treant Forest dungeon on Simple difficulty, and the stats weren't that great. But now, the value of these three bronze items and one silver item far exceeded those five, a very auspicious start, which invigorated the team members.

"This Expert-level dungeon truly has amazing rewards," Huang Hun said with emotion. Such an equipment drop rate was unimaginable to him.

"This is just the beginning," Nie Yan said. The rewards he had gotten from the Expert-level Treant Forest in his past life were far more than this.

"There's a fork in the road ahead," Huang Hun said. The group looked ahead and saw two paths leading to different places in the dark forest.

"Go west," Nie Yan said.

"Shouldn't we go east?" Huang Hun asked in surprise. When he and Ban Xing De Hu Li ran the dungeon, they went east. The west was a dead end. Regardless of the difficulty, the content of the Treant Forest dungeon was the same.

"Trust me, it's not wrong to go west. The west is a dead end, but don't you find it strange that there's a dead end in the Treant Forest? There are good things on that dead end! But you have to be careful, there are many treants on the road, it's very dangerous," Nie Yan said. This side quest was well hidden, and few people discovered it. Without a guide, they might miss it.

The group followed behind Nie Yan, heading west. There were often treants active on the road, and they appeared very frequently, charging into the team from time to time. Fortunately, Nie Yan warned them, and they were prepared.

"Sap!" Nie Yan used Sap, knocking a treant unconscious, then turned to attack another treant.

Bai Kaishui and the others quickly charged forward, and the magic from the rear followed, falling like raindrops, slamming into the treants with a series of loud thuds.

Two treants fell to the ground and died.

After searching near the treant corpses, they found three copper coins and a skill book.

Skill Book: Spiritual Evasion.

Skill Description: Rogues enhance their intuition to evade attacks. Passive skill.

Skill Attributes: Grants an additional +2 bonus to Intuition Evasion checks and a +1 bonus to Perception checks.

User Restriction: Rogue, Warrior, Paladin. Usable by any faction.

"It's a rogue item, I'll take it," Nie Yan said in the team chat. This skill book was a rare skill, and the drop rate in this Expert-level Treant Forest dungeon was very low.

This Spiritual Evasion skill book could be used by rogues, warriors, and paladins. If it were put on the market, it would be worth at least two silver coins, and it would still be in high demand. If it were in an ordinary team, everyone would definitely fight for such good equipment, and some teammates might even turn against each other.

But here, Nie Yan took it directly. Although many team members were extremely envious, no one dared to say anything. Nie Yan had said beforehand that all the equipment he could use would belong to him, and without Nie Yan in this Expert-level dungeon, they could hardly move an inch, let alone get such good equipment.

Each class had a total of fifty skill slots. An ordinary rogue could fill half of them, which would already be very good. Generally, a rogue only needed more than a dozen active skills, and twenty would be amazing. Therefore, most skill slots had to be filled with passive skills.

A few skills could be upgraded, but most skills could not be upgraded. After leveling up, they could forget some low-level skills, freeing up skill slots to learn higher-level skills.

Spiritual Evasion was one of the skills that could not be upgraded.

Nie Yan learned Spiritual Evasion and looked at the attributes. Intuition Evasion and Perception had both increased. A passive skill that increased permanent attributes was much more valuable than a piece of equipment.

As the group traveled halfway, and they were about to reach the edge of the forest, a melodious flute sound rang out, slowly drifting through the trees, crisp and moving.

"There's an old man at the end of the forest who says some strange things, but no matter how we ask him, he won't give us a quest. We defeated the Treant King without triggering the old man, so we think the old man might be unimportant. Could it be a side quest?" Huang Hun said, looking at Nie Yan, wondering what Nie Yan thought of his words.

"A non-player character will never appear in a dungeon for no reason. There's a 90% probability that every NPC is related to the main quest," Nie Yan said, heading toward the end of the forest.

Huang Hun was quite puzzled. Could it be that Nie Yan could find some clues from that old man? It was probably just a waste of time.

Nie Yan had read detailed guides for almost all dungeons, and he had personally experienced 99% of them. This kind of problem was easy to solve.

"Nie Yan, have you been to this dungeon before?" Yao Yao asked. She was very curious about how Nie Yan knew everything.

"I've been here with a group," Nie Yan nodded.

"Was it on Expert difficulty too?"

"Normal difficulty."

"Then how dare you enter the Expert-level dungeon?"

"Actually, Expert-level dungeons aren't that difficult to clear. As long as you find every hidden spot in the dungeon and your skills aren't too bad, clearing an Expert-level dungeon isn't difficult," Nie Yan replied.

Nie Yan answered with certainty, as if everything could be easily solved in his hands. Yao Yao glanced at Nie Yan's profile. Nie Yan's angular features were still slightly childish, and there was some stubble on his chin. He wasn't particularly handsome, but he had a special charm that made people trust and rely on him involuntarily.

Yao Yao couldn't help but take a few more glances, then seemed to think of something, and her pretty face blushed, and she quickly looked away.

"Yao Yao, how did you meet him?" Yu Lan, who was next to her, asked Yao Yao in a low voice. She was also a little curious about Nie Yan. It was rare to see such a powerful person so early after the game's launch.

"That day I went to collect waterskins... he saved me. If it weren't for him, I probably would have died and lost a level," Yao Yao said with lingering fear. That day, she was inexplicably besieged by six water spiders. She drank a bottle of blood and used two scrolls to kill three of them, but the remaining three almost took her life.

Yu Lan had to admit that Yao Yao was lucky to meet Nie Yan. It would be hard to find a rogue this strong, even if you searched high and low.

The group killed another treant, and with a ding, a white light shone from Nie Yan's body.

"I leveled up," Nie Yan said, looking at his personal stats panel. He was already Level 4.

"Congratulations."

"Congratulations." The team members congratulated him.

"Nie Yan, how did you level up? How are you so fast?" Tang Yao asked in surprise. His experience was much higher than Nie Yan's before, but how did Nie Yan get ahead of him in just one day?