Chapter 1 Arranging Affairs

With the Assassin Alliance settled, Nie Yan checked the level rankings. Tang Yao was at level 25, and Po Tian at level 24. Although the level gap between them remained around one level, it seemed to be widening.

"You're out?" Tang Yao messaged Nie Yan.

"Yeah, finally out."

"Want to join us in grinding Scale Frogs?"

"I have some things to take care of. You guys go ahead. Anyway, it seems like grinding Scale Frogs gives a lot of experience." Nie Yan said. He didn't need much time to catch up with the people on the level rankings. He could level up in a few days. He wanted to level up his Lockpicking skill first. Otherwise, when he got to high-level maps, he wouldn't be able to open locked treasure chests.

The guild warehouse was full of level 30 equipment. The equipment he and Tang Yao had been grinding for recently, plus the stuff they had looted before, amounted to over five hundred pieces. Especially Tang Yao and the others, who had been grinding elite Scale Frogs for seven or eight days, taking down at least dozens every day, had looted almost three to four hundred pieces.

This terrifying quantity left the players speechless. But what frustrated them was that they were still far from level 30. The guild still didn't have nearly enough low-level equipment!

Nie Yan went to various places to level up his Lockpicking skill. One aspect was to level up the skill, and the other was to get more low-level equipment for the guild. He also needed to collect the remaining Chapters of Order.

"What are you busy with?" Tang Yao asked, surprised.

"I just got a Lockpicking skill, but it's only Beginner level. I want to level it up a bit before going to higher-level maps."

"I see, alright then."

"Did your red name disappear?"

"It did, but I still haven't gotten the Murderous Maniac Badge."

"Looks like you're out of luck, forget it then." Nie Yan was puzzled. The Murderous Maniac Badge should drop from Scale Frogs. Could it be that Tang Yao's red name wasn't fierce enough? That couldn't be. He had killed nearly a hundred people!

Sometimes luck came and couldn't be stopped, and sometimes bad luck meant only frustration and helplessness.

Nie Yan went to the Starry Night Pharmacy again, upgrading it by one level to become a level four shop. On the Bird Plume side, he had already recruited a large number of alchemists, scroll makers, dismantlers, and other production class players. Basically, all the master-level production class players whose names he could remember from his previous life had received invitations from the Starry Night Pharmacy. The Starry Night Pharmacy's financial resources were tempting. Some people signed contracts directly, while others were still waiting to see. After all, just because the Starry Night Pharmacy was hot now didn't mean it would be hot when it shifted to other industries. However, after receiving invitations from the Starry Night Pharmacy, they wouldn't easily accept invitations from other guilds for the time being, waiting to see what happened.

The rapid expansion of his financial resources made Nie Yan very happy, but he also felt a sense of crisis. The land in several cities had been snapped up. In fact, the land he had purchased accounted for less than 3% of the entire Glimmering Empire. Fortunately, these plots of land were all relatively valuable. If their value was calculated in the future, it might reach about 30% of the total value of all commercial land in Glimmering, so many plots of land had fallen into the hands of various guilds, teams, or individuals.

In fact, the most profitable thing in Faith wasn't land, but the important military facilities of the future: fortresses!

Fortresses were equivalent to the guild headquarters of various guilds. They also had various commercial shops, allowing ordinary players to trade inside. The guild would collect taxes on the various transactions inside, manage the fortress, and also allocate houses to players, and so on.

Therefore, many guilds were often willing to invest a lot of energy into the guild warehouse to promote the development of the guild, rather than spending too much money to buy land. After all, waiting for land to appreciate in value was a very long process, while if the guild developed, what they would get in the future would not be a piece of land, but a fortress city!

"Did Big Bro Seven and the others get me a few Random Teleport Scrolls?" Nie Yan messaged Guo Huai and asked.

"Two."

"Mail them to my personal warehouse."

"Okay."

Nie Yan felt that there were too many things he had to do. He felt like he couldn't keep up. There were many things he could do after being reborn. He couldn't do them all at once. He could only pick some to do, trying to improve his strength as much as possible.

After Nie Yan got the Random Teleport Scrolls, he teleported to Link Town, avoided the players' sight, left the town, and headed into the deep mountains and forests. It wasn't that he was afraid of these ordinary players, but because it would be too troublesome to be followed.

His destination was a cave in a canyon in a level 20 map. There was a Chapter of Wisdom there, guarded by a Hellfire. Every two hours, the Hellfire would fall asleep for two minutes. He could use this time to bypass the Hellfire and get the Chapter of Wisdom. Two minutes wasn't enough time for him to retreat safely, so he could directly use a Random Teleport Scroll to escape.

With the Random Teleport Scroll, getting the Chapters of Order was much easier.

However, the Chapter of Wisdom was a mage item, and its buff effect was stronger for mages. It was of no use to Nie Yan. Like the previous Chapter of Courage and Chapter of Freedom, the Chapter of Courage was more suitable for warriors who charged and attacked head-on, while the Chapter of Freedom was an item for thieves.

Moonlit Dream Canyon had always been a holy land for players levels ten to twenty to grind and level up. A team of six people was grinding monsters and leveling up here: a holy knight, a priest, and four mages.

"Gan Zhe, where do you think our boss is leveling up? He's leveling up too fast. Po Tian, who's in second place, is falling further and further behind," said a holy knight wearing silver-white armor. He looked to be twenty-two or twenty-three years old, and gave people a very clean and tidy feeling.

Knight's Elegy: level 16, member of the Nirvana Flame guild, guild contribution value 800.

This guy was known as the Water King by the Nirvana Flame players. He was the most active in the guild group chat, and would flood the group chat every day when he had nothing to do, but he had a very good relationship with the people in the guild, so Guo Huai promoted him to be a small team leader.

"Who knows? Our boss is awesome enough. I heard that there are more than sixty players following behind Po Tian and leveling him up, constantly using AoE magic to grind monsters and level up. The leveling speed is crazy fast, but they still haven't caught up with our boss, and they're falling further and further behind. Our boss is a god. Do you know what it means to see the head of the dragon but not the tail? If he could be easily known, he wouldn't be the boss." Gan Zhe said. Also being an arcane mage, he had a blind worship for Tang Yao, who had always firmly occupied the top of the level rankings.

"Let's level up quickly. When I reach level 30, I estimate that I can wear a set of Silver equipment. If my guild contribution value is higher, maybe I can wear Gold equipment. The boss is too awesome. It's so difficult for us to get a piece of Silver equipment. It's good enough to have Bronze equipment, but he actually got so much Silver and Gold equipment." Knight's Elegy said with emotion.

"The boss must be grinding sub-elites or elites! Sub-elites and elites generally drop Silver and Gold equipment. We can't even deal with an elite. We can only detour. We barely manage to deal with leaders, so of course we only have Bronze equipment." Gan Zhe said. Only occasionally would there be a piece of Silver equipment when grinding leaders, and it wouldn't even have particularly good stats, so the equipment that Tang Yao dropped was extremely attractive to the players. Now the entire Nirvana Flame guild was holding their breath and rushing levels, rushing for guild contribution.

"There's a Leader Wild Boar!"

"Knight, hurry up!" Gan Zhe said. There was no warrior in the team, so Knight's Elegy had to tank it. Fortunately, the priest in the team had learned Beginner Heal, plus the four mages, dealing with the leader was no problem.

"Alright!" Knight's Elegy added a few buffs to himself, rushed up, and swung his sword down.

Holy knights were slightly weaker than warriors in their ability to tank monsters, but not by much, but their ability to attract aggro wasn't as good, which was why holy knights had never been able to replace warriors.

It took Knight's Elegy a long time to stabilize the aggro.

"Full DPS!"

"Heals!"

These players were quite skilled when grinding monsters. The four mages unleashed their firepower on the Wild Boar Leader. *Bang bang bang*, damage numbers appeared above the Wild Boar Leader's head.

For them, the level 15 Wild Boar Leader wasn't too difficult to deal with. As long as they were careful, they could take it down in two or three minutes, and they would get a piece of Bronze equipment.

They were immersed in the joy of getting the equipment soon.

"Damn it, it has to drop a piece of arcane mage equipment. I haven't gotten a piece of arcane mage equipment in two days!" Gan Zhe shouted, casting spells.

"It's going to be a holy knight's. My luck is always good," the knight said with a happy smile.

"I'm telling you, Knight, you're too ruthless. There have been at least three pieces of your Bronze equipment from yesterday to today!" Gan Zhe said unhappily.

Just as they were feeling happy and preparing to loot the equipment, a few figures appeared on the high slope not far away.

A chill rose from his back, and Knight's Elegy immediately felt uneasy.

"Damn, it's a thief, heal me quickly!" He immediately retreated backwards, and a beam of white light landed on him, restoring a lot of health. He immediately activated a defense skill to avoid being stunned by the thief. Defense was a skill shared by holy knights and warriors. It was because of this skill that they didn't have to fear thieves!

"You son of a *******, who's shamelessly trying to steal our monster!" Gan Zhe focused and carefully watched the movements around him.

Knight's Elegy ran backwards, pulling the Wild Boar Leader further and further away.

On the high slope in the distance, eight players ran over. They had been leveling up in the distance and had rushed over as soon as they received the thief's message.

"There's a Leader monster!" an excited mage said.

"But it's theirs."

"What are you afraid of? Let's steal it!"

The warrior among the eight players charged over, intercepting the Wild Boar Leader.

"Damn it, it's the Triumph people!" Knight's Elegy cursed, his eyes bloodshot. They had worked so hard to discover and beat the Wild Boar Leader down to half health, only to have it stolen like this. How could they be willing to accept it!