Fa Biao De Wo Niu
Chapter 8 The Price of Disdain
After appraising the equipment, Nie Yan walked outside and looked down at the skill bar. There were only two skills in the skill bar: Stealth and Vital Strike.
A perfect thief is built on countless skills. Thieves can lack equipment, but they absolutely cannot lack skills.
Nie Yan knew all the places where thief skill books could be farmed in the early stages. However, he wouldn't expend much effort to farm those skill books since any skill book that could be farmed could be bought on the market.
Where else could he get rare beginner skill books?
Nie Yan smacked his forehead. How could he have forgotten about that?
For a thief, if they want to have continuous combat power, they often choose between the Alchemy and Bandage skills. Alchemy involves making various health potions, elixirs, and so on. In battle, a health potion is like a second life. After a battle, drinking a slow-recovery potion allows one to quickly restore combat power and return to battle, speeding up the leveling process. Bandages, on the other hand, are less effective than instant health potions. Ordinary Bandage skills can only be used after the battle is over.
Nie Yan knew a place where he could learn the rare Combat Bandage skill.
In the future, when his level is high, buying intermediate or higher-level instant-recovery potions and slow-recovery potions from the market will be very expensive. After all, every instant-recovery and slow-recovery potion is something players squeeze out from between their teeth, so the price is very high. Unless they are rich, ordinary players often can't afford instant-recovery and slow-recovery potions.
But Nie Yan was different. He had many ways to make money quickly in his head, so he didn't have to worry about money. In the future, instant-recovery potions and slow-recovery potions could be bought from the market. There was no need to bother learning Alchemy, but if he learned Combat Bandage, it could greatly improve his survival ability. After considering everything, he had an idea in his mind.
He would go and learn Combat Bandage first.
Nie Yan spent two copper coins at the NPC pharmacy to buy two bottles of beginner Underwater Breathing Potion and ran towards Lake Randu, not far from Tarrak Town.
Passing through several level two and three monster areas, there were many players teamed up to kill monsters. They often occupied an area. Melee classes like warriors and holy knights would draw the monsters, and then mages would bombard them continuously. Some teams also had priests. Even though the priests didn't have healing yet and their attack wasn't as good as mages, they were just there to soak up experience. But priests were still very popular when teaming up. Because if a team wanted to develop in the future, they had to have a good relationship with the priests. Lack of a priest was equivalent to lacking an endless backup blood bank.
As for thieves, in the early stages, thieves were easily abandoned by teams, but the speed at which thieves leveled up alone was famous. As long as they bought all the necessary skills, the speed at which thieves leveled up alone was no less than that of mages. It didn't matter if they couldn't join a team.
Leveling up at various monster spawn points was very boring, but they could chat and joke around, and time would pass quickly.
Nie Yan carefully passed through these players' monster-grinding areas. The penalty for a player killing another player was red name and inability to return to the city. When a player with a red name was killed, they would drop levels more severely, and all their equipment would be dropped. However, the red name would disappear after grinding monsters for a while. Therefore, many players would often take risks for the equipment on others, not hesitating to get a red name to explode the equipment on others. For safety, one must be very careful when encountering unfamiliar people in the wild.
The shore of Lake Randu was a spawning area for murlocs. It was said that murlocs were descendants of the ancient beast Naga. After countless generations of reproduction, they eventually evolved into their current form, with the body of a fish and the limbs of a human. Their weapons were sharp teeth and the harpoons in their hands.
Murlocs were level three monsters, and there were many of them. There was also a murloc village nearby. Nie Yan had to first pass through the edge of the murloc village, enter Lake Randu, swim across the lake, and then he could reach his destination.
The murloc village was located on the shore of Lake Randu, with hundreds of wooden huts scattered sparsely on the sandy beach at the edge of the lake. This murloc village had at least three hundred murlocs, dozens of murloc leaders, and two elite murlocs. If one wanted to clear this place, it would take at least a thousand people.
Nie Yan was about to use Stealth to bypass the murloc village when a system notification rang.
Area Announcement: Triumph Guild will clear the area in three minutes. Players near the murloc village, please leave.
Triumph Guild? Nie Yan raised his eyebrows. In his previous life, he had some grudges with the Triumph Guild. The Triumph Guild had a large number of people, acted arrogantly, and cleared the area at every turn. Once, one of Nie Yan's brothers killed three Triumph players because he was dissatisfied with Triumph's clearing, and he formed a grudge with the Triumph people. The Triumph people chased him to death, threatening to clear that brother back to level zero. At that time, Nie Yan and others were weak and could only hide in the deep mountains and train hard for more than a month before daring to come out. However, even after coming out, they could only protect themselves and did not dare to confront a large guild like Triumph head-on.
The feeling of being useless at that time was indescribable.
In this life, that kind of history will never repeat itself. This debt must be settled, but not now.
Nie Yan had only just entered the game and still needed to accumulate capital little by little.
He ran towards the shore of Lake Randu.
Looking ahead, the blue water and the blue sky were connected, and the lake water sparkled in the sunlight.
The Triumph Guild was nervously mobilizing. The movements of Triumph Guild players had been detected in many places nearby. They had come in large numbers, and it seemed they were preparing to attack the murloc tribe.
The murloc tribe was not a dungeon, but a monster gathering point. These places often produced some good items.
Nie Yan passed through a grove of low trees, about two hundred yards from the lake.
A fireball streaked across the sky and shot towards Nie Yan.
A flash of fire, Nie Yan's line of sight through the trees, fell on an elemental mage wearing a red robe, the other side was a member of the Triumph Guild, a level three elemental mage!
Mages are divided into three types: elemental mages, arcane mages, and holy word mages. Elemental mages can control the power of elements such as ice, fire, and thunder. Arcane mages can control arcane magic. Holy word mages are the rarest, and their skills are the most difficult to train, but their strength is the strongest. They can cast divine magic.
Among elemental magic, the fire magic of elemental mages has the highest lethality.
When Nie Yan discovered the fireball, it was already too late.
Boom, the Fireball spell exploded on Nie Yan's body, knocking off twenty-two points of Nie Yan's health.
System: Player Zi Huo attacked you. You can implement legitimate defense for 3 minutes.
When encountering a mage, either rush up and fight him in close combat, or run away quickly.
Confirming that there were no other Triumph Guild members around, Nie Yan pounced on the elemental mage Zi Huo.
The tactic of the mage is to try to keep a distance from the enemy, and then bombard the opponent with magic.
Elemental mage Zi Huo jumped backward, cast Fire Blast, and another fireball was released, then ran backward, trying to create distance from Nie Yan.
When facing head-on magic, players can use dodge roll, but dodge roll undoubtedly gave the elemental mage a chance to create distance. Nie Yan rushed towards the elemental mage while tanking the fireball.
Boom, another Fire Blast exploded on Nie Yan, knocking off twenty-seven points of Nie Yan's health.
Every time Zi Huo casts a magic, it takes some chanting time.
The elements of casting magic are posture, language, materials, equipment, magic tools, etc. Different magic spells require different casting elements. Some only require language to cast, some require posture, and some require posture, language, materials, and other cooperation to cast.
The casting elements of each magic are different, and the casting time is also different.
Casting a magic spell is done in units of syllables and gestures, one syllable is one second, one gesture is one second, ten syllables are a set of syllables, and ten gestures are a set of gestures. Syllables and gestures can be superimposed on each other.
The time to cast the Fire Blast skill is two syllables and two gestures, which is two seconds. Without learning to cast while moving, casting the Fire Blast skill requires a two-second pause in place.
Nie Yan took advantage of Zi Huo's Fire Blast to approach, a forward stab, knocking off twenty-three points of Zi Huo's health. The defense of the mage is very fragile.
Zi Huo jumped back, a Violent Fire Ring, and flames scattered.
Violent Fire Ring only needs one syllable to cast.
At such a close distance, it was impossible to avoid it. Nie Yan took a hit and suffered thirty-nine points of damage. He moved his finger and took out a bottle of beginner instant-recovery potion from his belt and drank it down.
Zi Huo's movements could be considered mediocre, but not very smooth. Every mage who is forced close by a thief will be a little nervous.
He took advantage of the Violent Fire Ring to retreat.
Nie Yan added so many agility points, the thief's attainments in speed are still quite commendable. At this time, his speed came into play, and he entangled Zi Huo tightly, two consecutive forward stabs, taking off thirty-six points of Zi Huo's health.
Zi Huo another fireball, hit Nie Yan.
The calculation of faith time is three seconds per round. Any magic with a casting time of less than three seconds cannot be interrupted unless the caster dies. Even in close combat, Zi Huo can counterattack Nie Yan.
Under the high damage of the fireball, Nie Yan still had twenty-five points of health left, Zi Huo retreated a distance, raised his staff and chanted magic, and the fire element quickly flowed on his staff, gathering into a ball.
In Zi Huo's view, he still had fifty-one points of health left, which was temporarily safe, but Nie Yan only had twenty-five points of health left. He only needed a fireball to blast Nie Yan to death.
As Zi Huo chanted, the fire element quickly gathered, and the flames burned fiercely.
"Go to hell!" Zi Huo felt that everything was under control, and the fire shone on his hideous face.
Nie Yan understood how dangerous it was at this time. He had already forced himself next to Zi Huo. He glanced sideways at the rage value, and the rage value was fully charged, meeting the requirements.
The deep black pupils locked onto Zi Huo's throat, and the dagger in his hand changed from a positive grip to a reverse grip.
"Vital Strike!"
Nie Yan and Zi Huo passed each other, and a cold light flashed across Zi Huo's throat. A crack appeared at Zi Huo's throat, and blood splattered.
System: Vital Strike complete, attack position deviated by 5%, causing additional attack damage bonus.
-51, a damage value floated up from Zi Huo's head.
The fireball gathered in Zi Huo's hand dissipated and disintegrated. After death, any magic cast by the player would be interrupted.
Reversal of life and death!
How is this possible!
His eyes were full of unbelievable expressions.
Never underestimate the explosive power of a thief. In front of a thief, even if you have an absolute advantage, don't think you are safe, because the next moment, the one who dies may be you.
Zi Huo's eyes dimmed, and he fell to the ground with a thud. Even in death, he still couldn't figure out how a level two thief could suddenly explode with such great damage.
The damage of the Vital Strike skill is indeed good.
Nie Yan put away the dagger, bent down and picked up the equipment dropped by Zi Huo. It was a level 0 Bronze Staff with +3 Perception, estimated to sell for more than a dozen copper coins.
"There's an enemy over there, Zi Huo is dead!"
"Chase, don't let him run!"
Nie Yan killed a Triumph Guild member, such a big commotion must have attracted the attention of nearby players. Six Triumph Guild members surrounded Nie Yan from all directions.
Nie Yan ran wildly towards Lake Randu. His running speed was a little faster than ordinary players of the same level, quickly pulling away a distance from others.
A Berserker appeared in front of Nie Yan, blocking Nie Yan's path.
"Want to run? Not so easy, One-Word Sword Slash!"