Chapter 1 The Siege of Hilton Fortress

Nie Yan remembered that Hilton Fortress had experienced a siege by demonic creatures. The NPCs here fought fiercely with the demonic creatures for a full five days before the war ended. After that battle, there were far fewer NPCs in Hilton Fortress. When players began to enter the fortress, it was full of broken walls and ruins. The players replaced the city-guarding NPCs and became the main force against the demonic creatures here.

The NPCs here wore bizarre clothes, covered in strange scales or something similar. Because a large number of underground demonic creatures attacked every year, the NPCs made armor from the scales taken from the corpses of these demonic creatures. These scales were of different sizes, making the armor look a bit strange.

Nie Yan asked some NPCs and learned that the whereabouts of High Overseer Brexspier were erratic. He often went to underground caves to hunt demonic creatures and would only return after a long time.

"Excuse me, where can I find Mr. Brexspier?" Nie Yan asked a leather merchant who had set up a stall.

"Respected Demon Hunter, Great Scholar, Great Thief Nie Yan, Mr. Brexspier returns to Hilton Fortress every six days. Every time he comes back, he brings back a large number of spoils, sells them to us merchants, and buys consumables. There is still one day before he returns, please wait patiently." The NPC leather merchant said respectfully. Nie Yan's title made the leather merchant a little frightened. In the entire Hilton Fortress, Nie Yan was a rare and important figure.

Nie Yan had no choice but to wait and wander around Hilton Fortress.

He tried hard to recall all the information related to Hilton Fortress from his previous life. He suddenly remembered that Hilton Fortress had a hidden shop that sold a large number of monster hides. Sometimes, he could even buy rare legendary monster furs. In addition, there were also a large number of blueprints needed by tailors to make clothes, and occasionally some good things would appear.

That hidden shop sold a certain amount of monster furs and blueprints to the public every day. After being bought, they would not be refreshed. In his previous life, large guilds often sent people to squat here to snap up items. If they hadn't been bought for a long time, the items there would gradually accumulate. Before Nie Yan, no other player should have been to that hidden shop, so there must be a lot of good things accumulated there.

In addition to the hidden shop, Hilton Fortress also had a slave market, where slaves from all over the place were often sold. Slaves were different from mercenaries. Hiring a mercenary required paying a certain amount of employment fee every period of time. If the payment was not made for a period of time, liquidated damages would have to be paid. When the employment agreement expired, the mercenary would leave. But once you bought a slave, it meant that he became your property.

According to the system settings, only players who had completed their first class advancement were qualified to buy slaves, and each player could only buy one slave. If he was the president of a level 5 guild, he could buy three slaves. Guild presidents above level 5 could buy even more slaves. Some special titles would also have different treatments.

Each slave had different talents and abilities. Some slaves were useless, while others were master-level production or combat professionals.

Nie Yan could take advantage of the fact that not many people had come to Hilton Fortress yet and that these two places had not been discovered by the players, to find some good things.

If he found the slave market, he could have the players in the guild who had changed jobs buy one or two slaves.

As for the exact location of these two places, Nie Yan had no impression, and when he asked some NPCs, they all said they didn't know.

Nie Yan remembered that he did have an acquaintance in Hilton Fortress, and that was the physician Blevins.

Not long after Nie Yan entered the game, he had searched for fine silk for the physician Blevins at Lake Ranthor, when he was still a low-level player. He would go find the physician Blevins, and maybe he could find the exact location of those two places.

Nie Yan began to inquire about the physician Blevins.

"Physician Blevins, he works in the Hilton army, and the Hilton Fortress army has been stationed on the south side of the fortress." A short old man told Nie Yan the answer.

Nie Yan walked towards the south side of the fortress while wandering around. It would take at least fifteen minutes to walk to the south side of Hilton Fortress.

Walking to an open square, there were no buildings around. Looking to the north, there was a volcano in the distant sky, rolling black smoke upwards, forming a cloud covering the sky.

As Nie Yan walked, he heard several NPCs whispering around him.

"Mount Anferlit has become active again these past two days. It is estimated that it will erupt in five or six days. The last eruption was about twenty years ago." An old man said in a hoarse voice.

"Mount Anferlit is very far away from here. It takes a long time to ride a horse from Hilton Fortress to Mount Anferlit. Its eruption is like a grand firework display for us." A young warrior laughed loudly.

"There have been two earthquakes in the past few days..." The old man was a little pessimistic.

Nie Yan smiled when he heard these words. The attitudes towards life of young people and old people were always different.

This was just a small interlude. There were always many NPCs talking on the street. Nie Yan listened to their conversations and became familiar with some of the situations in Hilton Fortress. To his surprise, Hilton Fortress had five high-ranking overseers and thirty ordinary overseers, which was extremely rare in other parts of the Greenland Empire. The entire Carol City only had one high-ranking overseer and two overseers.

The strength of the Hilton Fortress garrison was conceivable.

"Respected Demon Hunter, Great Scholar, Great Thief Nie Yan, may I ask what you need? We have high-quality sulfur produced by Mount Anferlit, and..." An NPC grocer came up and said.

"Sorry, I don't need it." Nie Yan shook his head.

The grocer didn't dare to pester Nie Yan and retreated.

Mount Anferlit, Mount Anferlit... Nie Yan murmured. He seemed to have thought of something, but he couldn't grasp it. His intuition told him that he seemed to have missed something, but he couldn't remember it.

Could it be that I am overthinking it? Nie Yan smiled wryly. There was no connection between Mount Anferlit and him!

He didn't know how long the prosperity of Hilton Fortress could last, nor how much time would pass before the players would truly enter and enrich the fortress.

Walking on the streets of Hilton Fortress, Nie Yan had a desolate and distant feeling. In his previous life and this life, he had witnessed the rise and prosperity, glory and sorrow of this ancient fortress.

"Here are sales of Crimson Gold produced by Mount Anferlit, respected sir, do you need it?" A short boy, about twelve or thirteen years old, wearing ragged clothes, covered in mud, but with bright black eyes, was holding a piece of dark red metal in his hand.

"I don't need it..." Nie Yan didn't know how many vendors he had refused. He refused habitually.

A trace of disappointment appeared in the boy's expectant eyes, and he was about to turn around and leave.

"Wait, is that Crimson Gold?" Nie Yan suddenly asked nervously, staring at the Crimson Gold in the boy's hand. The metal emitted a dark red, deep light. It was indeed Crimson Gold, at least quality 3! He almost missed something good.

"Yes, respected sir, this is Crimson Gold produced by Mount Anferlit. I found it in a rock pit in Mount Anferlit. An old man told me that it could be sold for two gold coins." The boy said seriously. In his opinion, two gold coins were an extraordinary fortune.

"Can I take a look?" Nie Yan asked, feeling a little amused. A quality 3 Crimson Gold could be sold for at least one or two thousand gold coins at the current market price. It was an excellent material for making shield warrior defensive equipment, and it was very rare on the market and generally unavailable. This boy actually said it was only worth two gold coins. Nie Yan looked at the boy's name, which was Kalons.

"Yes." The boy Kalons handed the Crimson Gold to Nie Yan.

Nie Yan confirmed that it was indeed quality 3.

"Sir, are you willing to buy it?" The boy Kalons looked at Nie Yan pleadingly and asked.

"Yes." Nie Yan nodded. He noticed some details. The boy Kalons was skinny, a little malnourished, his hands were covered in black mud, and there were some burn marks on his hands.

"Great, respected sir, thank you." Kalons said excitedly.

Seeing Kalons' miserable appearance, Nie Yan's heart softened, and he said, "This Crimson Gold is worth more than two gold coins."

"How much is it worth?" Kalons asked with a confused look.

"It's worth a thousand gold coins. If you had a thousand gold coins, what would you do with it?"

Kalons paused, and then said firmly, "I will use the money to rescue my companions."

Nie Yan placed a thousand gold coins in the transaction bar and confirmed the transaction with Kalons. He didn't understand why he was so stupid as to use a thousand gold coins to buy this piece of Crimson Gold. Perhaps under his cold exterior, Nie Yan still had a trace of his original innocent heart that had not been extinguished.

"Respected sir, thank you, may the Holy Lord bless you." Kalons knelt down to Nie Yan, prostrated himself on the ground, touching the ground with his head. This was the most pious and solemn etiquette! Only this could express the gratitude in Kalons' heart.

Nie Yan was shocked by this grand etiquette. Just as he was about to say something, Kalons got up and ran towards the alley next to him, quickly disappearing at the end of the alley.

Seeing Kalons walk away, a trace of emotion arose in Nie Yan's heart. This emotion was actually triggered by an NPC.

Nie Yan was about to continue walking forward when he suddenly noticed that there was an additional status in his character attribute status bar: Honest.

Just now, he told Kalons that the Crimson Gold was worth a thousand gold coins, and the system rewarded him with an Honest attribute.

Nie Yan previously had three statuses, namely Justice, Courage, and Mercy. Now he had an additional one, Honest. What kind of mission did the main brain arrange? Nie Yan was really puzzled, and he could only slowly unravel this mystery.