Chapter 1 Exceeding All Players

Even though Nie Yan’s understanding of the game surpassed all current players, he couldn’t get fat in a day. Nie Yan needed to collect top-tier equipment piece by piece, slowly arming himself, to gradually widen the gap between himself and ordinary players.

That’s why he was determined to get those Pages of Order!

He advanced across the vast Himes. This empty area was a safe zone, protected by a barrier. The monster-spawning areas were still far away.

Nie Yan could only rely on his sense of direction and vague coordinates from memory to find the right path. After passing through a thick layer of barrier, a huge figure appeared in the distance, wandering across the vast Himes Wasteland.

It was a Bone Kodo!

Some monsters were active in Himes—Kododos that had died in battle. Their souls were attached to their corpses, turning them into Bone Kododos that roamed everywhere.

There were over three hundred Bone Kododos in the entire Himes. It took a day to respawn after one died.

These Bone Kododos spawned slowly, but they dropped excellent loot. With luck, one could even drop a Bone Kodo mount. After the official announcement of the Freedom Chapter's location, countless teams and guilds entered the Himes Wasteland, causing a sudden increase in the number of players here. It was impossible to snatch a Bone Kodo. Consequently, there were many bloody incidents due to the competition for Bone Kododos.

Nie Yan went into stealth and crept towards the Bone Kodo, throwing a Detect at it.

Bone Kodo: Level 23 Elite, HP 1600/1600.

It was an elite-level monster, and Bone Kododos were extremely fast. With Nie Yan's current strength, it was unwise to provoke it. Nie Yan’s Undead Sacrifice had a certain chance of successfully commanding the Bone Kodo, but if Undead Sacrifice failed, it would attract the Bone Kodo’s hatred. Given the Bone Kodo's speed, Nie Yan would have no chance to escape.

He needed to think of a way to command the Bone Kodo. At the very least, he needed to find some meat shields first.

It seemed that going east would lead to some lower-level undead monsters. He could go there and come up with a plan.

Nie Yan slowly retreated until he was out of the Bone Kodo's sight, then deactivated Stealth and ran into the distance.

About three minutes later, some lower-level undead creatures came into Nie Yan's view—Skeleton Warriors wielding broken battle axes and wooden shields, wandering aimlessly.

Skeleton Warrior: Level 15, HP 800/800.

With Nie Yan’s current attack power, even if Stun was ineffective against Skeleton Warriors, he could easily deal with them.

Nie Yan entered Stealth and crept towards one of the Skeleton Warriors, landing an Assassinate on its back.

-128, a damage value floated above the Skeleton Warrior's head.

Equipping the +7 Blood Oath Dagger and the +2 Assassin's Training, Nie Yan's attack power had increased significantly. Even though he was a much lower level than the Skeleton Warrior, he still easily broke through its defenses.

After being attacked, the Skeleton Warrior swung its battle axe at Nie Yan.

Nie Yan dodged to the side and countered with an attack on the Skeleton Warrior, followed by a thrust.

-109, -112...

Nie Yan quickly reduced the Skeleton Warrior's health to just over sixty points, then quickly retreated.

Undead Sacrifice!

System: Undead Sacrifice skill failed.

Nie Yan quickly retreated.

Undead Sacrifice!

System: Undead Sacrifice skill failed.

On the third failed attempt, Nie Yan swung at the Skeleton Warrior, killing it.

These Skeleton Warriors gave 700 experience points, which was quite a lot. Nie Yan found a place to sit down, ate bread to recover his health, and waited for his health to recover before continuing to look for the next target.

After repeating this process continuously, finally, when facing the third Skeleton Warrior and casting Undead Sacrifice, a crisp system notification sounded.

Success! Nie Yan was excited. He looked at the Skeleton Warrior; its bones had turned dark black, and its health had increased slightly. He could control its movements!

System: Please name your summoned creature.

Nie Yan thought for a moment and randomly named it Skeleton Warrior 1.

With the first Skeleton Warrior, things became simple. He let Skeleton Warrior 1 stand in front while Nie Yan leisurely cast Undead Sacrifice from behind. If Undead Sacrifice failed, he would have Skeleton Warrior 1 rush up and eliminate that Skeleton Warrior before looking for the next target.

As he progressed, he successfully summoned four Skeleton Warriors. Nie Yan grinded with these Skeleton Warriors for a while, then headed towards the Bone Kodo's location.

From afar, he saw the towering Bone Kodo. These Skeleton Warriors looked pitifully small compared to it.

After thinking for a moment, Nie Yan controlled a Skeleton Warrior to walk towards the Bone Kodo. It basically played the role of bait.

The Bone Kodo noticed the Skeleton Warrior approaching it and let out a roaring growl, pawing the ground with its front legs and exhaling a hot breath.

The low-intelligence Skeleton Warrior, controlled by Nie Yan, didn’t know what fear was and gradually approached the Bone Kodo. Nie Yan entered Stealth and slowly circled behind the Bone Kodo.

Seeing that it was about time, Nie Yan had the Skeleton Warrior charge at the Bone Kodo.

With a bang, the battle axe in the Skeleton Warrior’s hand struck the Bone Kodo, dealing 32 damage.

The Bone Kodo roared and exhaled a hot breath. The horns on its head butted the Skeleton Warrior away. -356, an extremely high damage value floated above the Skeleton Warrior’s head.

Nie Yan was shocked. The Bone Kodo's attack was too terrifying. A Skeleton Warrior could only withstand three attacks at most!

Nie Yan approached the Bone Kodo and cast Undead Sacrifice. A strange energy hit the Bone Kodo, and it paused for a moment. But quickly, it charged again, knocking the Skeleton Warrior away.

System: Undead Sacrifice skill failed.

Seeing the Undead Sacrifice fail, Nie Yan didn't dare to stay and quickly used Haste to retreat, escaping the Bone Kodo's sight before it killed the Skeleton Warrior.

That Skeleton Warrior was killed by the Bone Kodo’s attacks.

After a while, the Undead Sacrifice skill cooldown finished, and Nie Yan continued to repeat the process.

After three Skeleton Warriors died in a row, Nie Yan still failed to successfully command the Bone Kodo. Helpless, he could only continue to command Skeleton Warriors, waiting until he had four Skeleton Warriors before coming back.

As long as he could ensure that one Skeleton Warrior was alive, it wouldn't be too difficult to command other Skeleton Warriors. However, this process was also very time-consuming. After countless failures, another day passed.

The game closed, and Nie Yan took off the helmet.

Tang Yao had been called away by his dad to do hard labor, and several of his closer friends from school had gone to other places. Indeed, Ningjiang was a terrible place to live. The environment wasn’t good, the security was chaotic, and those with a little money had bought houses and moved away.

Nie Yan stayed at home alone, exercising and reading books, enjoying the leisurely days. Occasionally, he would recall the faces of his parents and look forward to the upcoming senior year of high school.

Until evening, Nie Yan entered the game again to continue commanding skeletons.

After more than an hour, he finally gathered four Skeleton Warriors again and headed towards the Bone Kodo. Being able to command a Bone Kodo was very important to Nie Yan.

"Nie Yan, how's it going on your end? Did you get it done?" Tang Yao sent Nie Yan a message.

"Not yet, ran into some trouble."

"Oh, send me a message when you get back. Guess what I dropped!" Tang Yao chuckled, his excitement barely concealed.

"What is it?" Nie Yan asked.

"Arcane Sprite..."

"What level?" Nie Yan couldn't help but be moved. Tang Yao even managed to drop something like that; his luck was truly extraordinary. There weren't many things that could catch Nie Yan's eye in the early stages. Only items of the level of the Pages of Order, Weaver's Ring, Featherfall Jewel, and Creeper Ring would matter to him. As for Arcane Sprites, they were the ultimate equipment for Arcane mages, and not just any ordinary ultimate equipment!

The physical form of an Arcane Sprite was just a crystal medium that only dropped from Arcane-type sprite monsters. The drop rate was terrifyingly low. After dropping that crystal, Arcane mages could cast a spell to summon an Arcane Sprite to accompany them. This Arcane Sprite was equivalent to a summoned creature with health comparable to the player and slightly higher defense. It had no attack power and was a one-time use; if it died, it disappeared. However, its effects were enormous, greatly increasing the Arcane mage's magic recovery speed, reducing skill cooldowns and magic casting time. The higher the level of the Arcane Sprite, the more valuable it was.

The Arcane Sprite was like a mobile magic ammo depot for Arcane mages. In the later stages, Arcane Sprites were one of the pieces of equipment that many top-tier Arcane mages compared themselves with. It was a matter of prestige to have an Arcane Sprite accompanying them. Because Arcane Sprites disappeared forever once they died, they were even more precious to Arcane mages.

"Level one. Do you even know what an Arcane Sprite is?" Tang Yao was stunned.

"It's described in the library," Nie Yan said.

"Alright, looks like I'll have to go to the library too."

"Be careful, don't let it die. It'll be valuable at level three, and invincible at level five," Nie Yan said. The higher the level of the Arcane Sprite, the stronger the buffs it gave to Arcane mages. But because Arcane Sprites could die, very few players could level them up to level three or higher, let alone level five. Nie Yan had only encountered an Arcane mage with a level five Arcane Sprite once, when he was grinding in the wild. At that time, Nie Yan was already a level 165 Great Thief. He had a small conflict with that level 135 Archmage, and he was almost beaten like a dog and forced to run away. At that time, he had underestimated the power of a level five Arcane Sprite. An Arcane mage with a level five Arcane Sprite was like a machine gun, relentlessly firing magic, as if all magic didn't require mana. It was truly terrifying.

"Be careful and don't die. I'll help you level up the Arcane Sprite when I'm done here," Nie Yan said. If they had a level two Arcane Sprite, their leveling speed would be amazing.

"Okay, hurry up!" Tang Yao said, feeling a bit impatient after hearing what Nie Yan said.

Today's second update. It's the National Day double monthly ticket event. One ticket counts as two, so please vote quickly.