Chapter 1 A Complete Set

Xie Yao had collected the complete set of equipment, putting Nie Yan's mind at ease. With this set, it would be hard to find an opponent. In the entire Righteous Faction, there were definitely no more than a handful who could match it.

Locked in a stalemate with Angel Corps for several days, the losses on both sides continued to accumulate. The vast majority of players were embroiled in chaotic battles, with only a small number able to guarantee their daily leveling time. As a result, they couldn't level up as they normally would, and the growth in strength of the two major forces slowed down rapidly. This was a head-on collision on the front lines, with both sides vying in terms of manpower losses.

Under Nie Yan's guidance, Nirvana Flame also launched an economic war against Angel Corps, using the huge amount of funds at their disposal to buy up large quantities of herbs, wood, metal, and other raw materials needed to manufacture war machines, as well as many alchemical items necessary for war. The prices of these items were driven up very high, and in order to replenish its resources, Angel Corps had to spend four to five times more money than before, which was unbearable for them. Angel Corps and Century Financial Group had to divert large amounts of funds into the game every day, purchasing game currency on a large scale, just to barely maintain their daily consumption.

This was precisely Nie Yan's goal. Doing so had some impact on Century Financial Group's financial situation. Failures in various investments had made Century Financial Group's cash flow noticeably tighter than before.

Soon, the thieves Nie Yan sent out returned with some news. They had discovered the location of the dragon's nest, but there were at least seven or eight dragons active there every day, and they didn't dare to approach, so they hadn't been able to investigate the inside of the dragon's nest.

Knowing the exact location was enough. The next task would have to be done by Nie Yan himself. The fact that there were seven or eight dragons near the dragon's nest was far beyond his expectations. It seemed that getting one or two dragon eggs wouldn't be an easy task.

He glanced at his experience points. After so many days, they had only increased by 5%. The leveling speed was indeed too slow.

Nie Yan headed towards Starry Night Pharmacy. He had been very busy lately, and it had been a long time since he had visited the main store of Starry Night Pharmacy.

Walking through the streets, a magnificent sixteen-story spire-shaped building in the distance came into view. After the upgrade and renovation, Starry Night Pharmacy was completely different from what he had seen some time ago. The white, clean walls looked solemn and majestic. It was the tallest building in the entire Calore, and many players who came to Calore would always visit it, taking photos and commemorating their visit. It had become a landmark building here.

In front of Starry Night Pharmacy was an open square, about 30 by 30 yards in size, with a small flower bed in the center. In the center of the flower bed was a fountain, with a statue on top of it. It was a thief wearing a black cloak, his face completely hidden under the wide cloak, making it impossible to see his appearance. He was crouching, holding a dagger in each his left and right hands, like a cheetah waiting to pounce, a typical thief image. However, the only difference was the two daggers in his hands, the Bloodthirsty Dagger and the Slaughter Dagger, their strange and curved arcs giving off a fatal sense of lethality.

Everyone knew who this statue was.

In the Orc King City, there were no less than ten statues of Angel Wings, while in Calore, there was only one statue of Nie Yan. However, this one statue was well-known.

Because it was located in front of Starry Night Pharmacy, it was even more symbolic.

Nie Yan started from scratch, created Nirvana Flame, and established a huge empire in the Greenland Empire. In terms of business, he had the behemoth-like monopoly giant, Starry Night Pharmacy. In terms of personal strength, his record was brilliant and he had never been defeated.

The name Nie Yan meant an immortal myth, with many topics that people enjoyed talking about.

Looking at this statue, Nie Yan couldn't help but smile. When the members of Nirvana Flame said they wanted to build a statue for him, he didn't agree, but he couldn't resist the collective persuasion of the guild members. They had their own reasons. Angel Wings had erected statues in the Orc King City, so how could Nirvana Flame lag behind? Building such a statue had a certain positive significance. Not many people were allowed to build statues in the city, and it was a symbol of glory.

To Nie Yan's surprise, building such a statue added a lot of popularity to Starry Night Pharmacy, which was an unexpected gain.

Walking through the outer square, he entered the interior of Starry Night Pharmacy, which could be described as magnificent. The ground was paved with a peculiar white floor tile, and looking at the ground, players could even clearly see their reflections.

Looking ahead, there were rows of counters and shelves in the back, lined up for more than sixty yards. The shelves were filled with bottles and jars, neatly arranged, which looked quite spectacular.

There were fifty or sixty sales staff next to the counters, most of whom were players, and a dozen were NPCs. They were wearing neat work clothes and were busy at the counters, serving the players who came in. There were also six rest areas in the hall, with at least a thousand seats. The seats were full of people, and every time a number was called, a player would stand up and go to the counter to buy potions. The business was so busy that Starry Night Pharmacy had to handle it in this way, otherwise there would be many people queuing, making the entire hall crowded.

There were two staircases at the edge of the hall leading to the upper floors. Players were constantly coming and going. There was a staff-only passage at the back of the hall, and Nie Yan could go up from there, but he suddenly had some interest and walked up the public staircase. Although the staircase was very wide and could accommodate more than ten people walking side by side, there were too many people, so it was still very crowded.

The first floor was the potion trading hall, which was dedicated to selling potions to the public. The second floor was the raw material trading hall, which was dedicated to purchasing herbs from players. The second floor was obviously more chaotic than the first floor, with all kinds of players, just like a farmers market. Five or six hundred herb purchasers were busy evaluating the herbs, purchasing them, and then handing them over to higher-level traders for verification, and then putting them into storage through a complex process.

The Starry Night Pharmacy headquarters accounted for 60% of Starry Night Pharmacy's entire herb purchasing business, so it was normal for it to be a bit lively.

Continuing upwards, the third floor was relatively deserted, with only a few dozen people. The environment was very quiet, and the seats and so on were very good custom-made seats. Some employees in work clothes accompanied them, chatting softly about something. These people were all big customers of Starry Night Pharmacy, many of whom were people from large guilds who were responsible for purchasing potions. Because they purchased a large quantity, in order to avoid being discovered by their hostile forces, their actions were relatively secretive.

These employees would verify their identities to prevent the potions from flowing into Angel Corps and Century Financial Group, and try to get a better price when trading. The amount of these large customers' transactions was often hundreds of thousands of gold coins, and occasionally one or two transactions of millions of gold coins could be encountered. The profit from each transaction was very amazing.

Above the third floor were not trading halls, but the laboratories of Nirvana Flame's alchemists. According to statistics, there were as many as seven or eight hundred laboratories above Starry Night Pharmacy, with thousands of alchemists working for Nie Yan non-stop. The number of potions they produced every day was quite astonishing. Of course, these were just the alchemists at the Starry Night Pharmacy headquarters. The number of alchemists under Starry Night Pharmacy was as many as fifty or sixty thousand, spread all over the two empires. However, those who could enter the Starry Night Pharmacy headquarters were all elite-level alchemists. Any one of them could be pulled out and treated like a treasure by those guilds. The daily output of each elite alchemist was very amazing, and they also had relatively high benefits, enough to make people jealous.

Going all the way up, through corridors, there were laboratories on both sides of the corridors. Some of the doors were ajar, and you could see the alchemists inside busily working. Starry Night Pharmacy implemented a performance-based salary system. The more potions they made, the more dividends they received, which greatly stimulated the alchemists' desire to work. Many of them were professional players. The salary they earned at Starry Night Pharmacy was more than enough to support their families, and many even reached the level of white-collar workers.

The combination of faith and reality was very good. The real-world productive forces were very developed, and there was no need for so much labor. So what should be done with so many people? If they didn't have a fixed job, it was hard to guarantee that some people wouldn't be bored and cause trouble in society. Faith created a new profession, which was the professional player. The huge amount of consumption generated in Faith supported tens of millions of professional players, solving a lot of employment for the Federation, which was why they strongly supported Faith.

Due to the strong support of the Federation, financial services were provided in Faith, so the game currency transaction was very active. If players had a large number of game coins, they could easily realize them through the trading platform, so the connection between Faith and reality became very close.

It was also because of the prevalence of professional players that many people wanted to enter Faith to make money. Of course, only a small number of them actually made money. Most people could only barely maintain their income balance. Only truly skilled elites could make money. Many ordinary players had to invest money in order to get better.

According to the Federation's statistics, the consumption and virtual game currency transactions generated in Faith accounted for about 20% of GDP, which was a quite astonishing number. It was no wonder that major consortia entered Faith one after another, wanting to get a piece of the pie. Many consortia's investments in the game were very amazing. For example, Century Financial Group's investment in the game accounted for about 25% of the consortium's total investment, and recently it has even risen to 39%.

Under such a background, the Starry Night Pharmacy created by Nie Yan was undoubtedly a behemoth-level consortium in the game, but all the 'money' in this consortium had to be realized through special channels to become real money!