Chapter 1 Hilton Fortress

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

The NPCs here wore strange clothes, covered in odd scales and the like. Since a large number of underground monsters attacked every year, the NPCs made armor from the scales taken from the corpses of these monsters. The scales were of different sizes, making them look a bit strange.

Nie Yan inquired about the whereabouts of High Overseer Brexspell from some NPCs. Brexspell's movements were erratic, often going to the underground caves to hunt monsters, only returning after a long time.

"Excuse me, where can I find Mr. Brexspell?" Nie Yan asked a leather merchant with a stall.

"Respected Demon Hunter, Great Scholar, Great Thief Nie Yan, Mr. Brexspell returns to Hilton Fortress once every six days. Each time he returns, he brings back a large number of spoils, selling them to us merchants to purchase consumables. There is still one day before he returns, please wait patiently," the NPC leather merchant said respectfully. Nie Yan's titles made the leather merchant a little frightened. In the entire Hilton Fortress, Nie Yan was considered a rare big figure.

Nie Yan could only wait, and wandered 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 even rare legendary monster furs. In addition, there were a large number of tailoring patterns needed to make clothes, and occasionally some good things would appear.

That hidden shop sold a certain amount of monster hides and patterns every day. After they were bought, they would not be refreshed. In his previous life, large guilds often sent people to camp 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. To hire a mercenary, you had to pay a certain amount of employment fees every period of time. If you didn't pay for a period of time, you would have to pay liquidated damages. When the employment agreement expired, the mercenary would leave. As for slaves, once you bought a slave, it meant he became your property.

According to the system settings, only players who had completed their first class advancement were eligible to purchase slaves, and each player could only purchase one slave. If you were the president of a level 5 guild, you could buy three slaves, and the president of a guild above level 5 could buy even more slaves. Some special titles also had 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 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 each.

As for the exact location of these two places, Nie Yan had no memory. He asked some NPCs, but they all said they didn't know.

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

Not long after Nie Yan entered the game, he had helped Physician Bravins find fine silk in Lake Rando, at that time he was still a low-level player. He would go find Physician Bravins, and maybe he could find the exact location of those two places.

Nie Yan began to inquire about Physician Bravins.

"Physician Bravins, he works in the army of Hilton, the army of Hilton Fortress has been stationed in the south of the fortress," a short old man told Nie Yan the answer.

Nie Yan strolled towards the south of the fortress, it would take at least fifteen minutes to walk to the south of Hilton Fortress.

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

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

"Mount Anfrit 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 elderly old man said in a hoarse voice.

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

"Recently, there have been two earthquakes in a row..." the elderly old man was a little pessimistic.

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

This was just a small episode. 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 actually had five High Overseers and thirty ordinary Overseers. This was extremely rare in other parts of the Greenland Empire. The entire Carol City only had one High 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 superior sulfur produced from Mount Anfrit, and..." an NPC grocer approached him.

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

The grocer dared not pester Nie Yan and retreated.

Mount Anfrit, Mount Anfrit... Nie Yan murmured to himself. 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.

Am I overthinking it? Nie Yan smiled wryly. There was no connection between Mount Anfrit and him!

He didn't know how long the prosperity and bustle of Hilton Fortress could last, or how long it would take before players would truly enter and enrich the fortress.

Nie Yan walked on the streets of Hilton Fortress, feeling a sense of desolation and remoteness. In his previous life and this life, he had witnessed the rise and prosperity, glory and sorrow of this ancient fortress.

"Here is the sale of Dark Red Gold produced from Mount Anfrit, esteemed sir, would you like some?" A short boy, about twelve or thirteen years old, wearing ragged clothes, covered in mud, but with bright black eyes, held a piece of dark red metal in his hand.

"I don't need it..." Nie Yan didn't know how many hawkers he had refused. He refused out of habit.

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

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

"Yes, esteemed sir, this is Dark Red Gold produced from Mount Anfrit. I picked it up from the rock pit of Mount Anfrit. An old man told me that it can be sold for two gold coins," the boy said earnestly. In his opinion, two gold coins was a considerable fortune.

"Can I take a look?" Nie Yan asked, he smiled wryly, a piece of 3-quality Dark Red 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 defense equipment, and it was very rare on the market, generally unavailable. This little boy actually said it was only worth two gold coins. Nie Yan looked at the boy's name, it was Calluns.

"You can." The boy Calluns handed the Dark Red Gold to Nie Yan.

Nie Yan confirmed it was indeed 3 quality.

"Sir, would you like to buy it?" The boy Calluns looked at Nie Yan pleadingly and asked.

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

"Great, esteemed sir, thank you," Calluns said excitedly.

Seeing Calluns' miserable appearance, Nie Yan's heart softened and said: "This Dark Red Gold is worth more than two gold coins."

"How much is it worth then?" Calluns 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?"

Calluns paused and said firmly: "I will use the money to rescue my companions."

Nie Yan placed a thousand gold coins in the trading bar and confirmed the transaction with Calluns. He didn't understand why he would be so foolish as to buy this Dark Red Gold for a thousand gold coins. Perhaps under his cold exterior, Nie Yan still had a trace of his original innocence that had not been extinguished.

"Esteemed sir, thank you, may the Holy Lord bless you." Calluns knelt down to Nie Yan, prostrating on the ground, touching the ground with his head, this was the most pious and solemn etiquette! This was the only way to express Calluns' gratitude.

Nie Yan was stunned by the grand ceremony. Just as he was about to say something, Calluns got up and ran towards the nearby alley, quickly disappearing at the end of the alley.

Seeing Calluns walk away, Nie Yan felt a sense of emotion in his heart, and this emotion was actually for an NPC.

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

He had told Calluns that Dark Red Gold was worth a thousand gold coins, and was rewarded with an honesty attribute by the system.

Nie Yan previously had three states, namely Justice, Courage, and Mercy, and now he had another one, Honesty. What kind of task did the main brain arrange? Nie Yan was really puzzled, he could only slowly unravel this mystery.

~~Speechless about the government's efficiency, things that can be done in a few minutes must be delayed for several days, making people wait there all the time, lacking this and lacking that, just not making it clear, I have to run there again tomorrow, it should be done tomorrow, if it is confirmed that there is nothing wrong the day after tomorrow, there will be at least three updates, and there may be an outbreak.~~