The Lion King tried every which way to get its claws on Nie Yan. However, as time elapsed, its health eventually fell below twenty percent, and it entered a berserk state. Its robust and muscular body, though weakened, suddenly filled with energy and unyieldingly pounced at Nie Yan. However, no matter how hard it struggled, all of its efforts were futile in the end.

Before another half hour even passed, its health bar fell empty. The Lion King raised its head to the sky and resentfully roared, unwilling to resign to its fate, before collapsing onto the earth.

Gato the Lion King, the boss that would be fought over by numerous players in the future, had its life ended just like that. Nie Yan hadn’t lost a single drop of health in the process of whittling it to death.

「Ding!」A clear melody rang into the air. He received eight hundred percent bonus experience for killing a monster that surpassed him in level. After hitting Level 5, his experience bar continued filling up and only stopped upon hitting thirty-six percent.

The Lion King had dropped two pieces of equipment. Both items lay sparkling on the ground beside Gato’s corpse.

Equipment dropped! Excitement arose within Nie Yan; however, he still couldn’t come down.

He could see ten or so Lions still roaming around in an area not far from Gato’s corpse. In order to retrieve the dropped items safely, he needed to clear them out first. Thus, he continued firing the crossbow until each Lion was shot to death.

Unlike other games, dropped items never disappeared after a certain amount of time. The game resembled real life as in items thrown on the ground would never just evaporate into thin air. As for items players didn’t need or couldn’t sell, they could be broken down into raw materials by the Recycler to recoup some of their value.

Seeing as there were no monsters left in the area, Nie Yan released the web line and dropped to the ground. After falling twenty meters, he only lost sixty health. This sort of height wasn’t enough to kill him with fall damage.

Nie Yan walked up to the Lion King’s side and collected the two pieces of equipment that dropped. Since both items were unappraised, he revealed their properties with Transcendent Insight.

Blackblood Cloak (Gold)

Requirements: Level 5

Properties: Defense 19–21, Resilience +5, Mov. Speed +6

Weight: 2 lb

Restrictions: Thief; can be equipped by all factions.

Lion King’s Shield (Gold)

Requirement: Level 5

Properties: Defense 39–51, Block Chance +12%, Resilience +5, Magic Resist +7

Weight: 10 lb

Restrictions: Fighter, Paladin; can be equipped by all factions.

Nie Yan felt quite satisfied when he saw that a piece of equipment from the Blackblood set had dropped, though he didn’t expect the Lion King’s Shield to drop as well. Its value was much higher than the Blackblood Cloak! To illustrate a point, if he brought it to the marketplace, he absolutely wouldn’t sell it for anything less than twenty silvers. In the best case scenario, he could exchange it for a couple pieces of Thief equipment.

The price for a Fighter’s shield remained high in the marketplace, always occupying the top positions in terms of price. Out of the ten most expensive pieces of equipment sold in the marketplace, eight were Fighter shields.

What a good piece of equipment! Along with the Blackblood Cloak, I’ve made a decent profit. Nie Yan stored the shield and cloak into his bag.

I’m finally Level 5... Nie Yan glanced at his stat page. Due to the Chapter of Courage’s effect. he gained two additional stat points and one additional mastery point upon reaching Level 5, meaning he had a total of seven stat points and two mastery points to allocate. He allocated two points in Strength and five in Dexterity. Since Intermediate Marksman couldn’t be improved any further at his current level, he distributed his two mastery points into Dagger and Dual Wielding. As a result, he gained a ten percent attack bonus along with increased proficiency in wielding daggers. Moreover, he could at long last dual wield weapons.

Nie Yan brought out all the Level 5 equipment he had been carrying with him just for this occasion. After switching out all his Level 0 equipment, he glanced at his character info.

Main Weapon: Horn Dagger (Bronze)

Secondary Weapon: Assassin’s Decree (Gold)

Armour: Headhunter’s Silver Leather Armour (Silver)

Cape: Blackblood Cloak (Gold)

Boots:

Boots of Swiftness (Gold)

Nie Yan’s upgraded equipment drastically changed his appearance. The Headhunter’s Silver Leather Armour, with its dull silver-white lustre, gave off a chilly aura of slaughter and death. From his back hung a dark, blood-red cloak that emitted a faint golden glow. In addition, the pair of daggers he held in his hands flickered with a cold glint. The style of Thief equipment was generally reserved compared to other classes, and Nie Yan had also concealed the equipment’s visual effects, but from a quick glimpse, one could still discern that his equipment was out of the ordinary.

Nie Yan became much faster with his Level 5 equipment. He moved like the wind, leaving afterimages behind him.

“Not bad,” he muttered to himself. He felt quite satisfied with his new equipment.

In this period of time where good equipment was still scarce, his own equipment would cause the overwhelming majority of players to look at him in admiration.

This new equipment would enable him to freely roam around any Level 6 or 7 monster area as he pleased.

Nie Yan would need to wait a day for Gato to respawn, so he began heading out of Violet Dream Hills. His next objective was the Level 8 Elite-class monster Ogre Devourer, who resided in an area not far from this one. The loot the Ogre Devourer dropped was also rather decent, as it dropped items for every class. In his past life, there was even a player who’d obtained a piece of Dark Gold Thief equipment. Of course, the drop rate for equipment of this grade was extremely low. The Ogre Devourer was also a monster that took a day to respawn.

Nie Yan made sure to carefully avoid the Lions as he left the area. Moving forward, he heard a rustling sound coming from a nearby bush. Nie Yan looked over just in time to see a Fighter clad in white armour with an ashen silver greatshield in his hand leap out of the bush and come running in his direction. Just moments later, three Lions also emerged from the bush and pounced after the Fighter.

That Fighter’s footsteps were steady and unhurried. However, his situation was a little unfavourable, as his health was running low and the Lions’ attacks became increasingly ferocious.

Intimidate!

The Fighter’s sudden and explosive roar startled the Lions and halted their movements for a brief moment. Taking advantage of this small opening, he followed with Tendon Break and targeted the closest of the three Lions before rapidly pulling back.

The Lion struck by Tendon Break temporarily entered a crippled state. The two other Lions fiercely growled and leapt into the air, pouncing on the Fighter.

The Fighter retaliated with Heroic Strike, striking one of the Lions and repelling it. He then firmly raised his shield to meet the other Lion’s attack. Even for a Level 6 Fighter, it was still quite difficult to deal with three Level 7 Lions while low on health.

Nie Yan had activated Stealth the moment the Fighter appeared and blended in the background. Instead of leaving, he idled around the Fighter.

If Nie Yan were to take advantage of the situation and act, the Fighter would undoubtedly die. However, he still held some reservations. Judging by the other party’s firm and collected movements, he could tell with a single glance that they were an expert. He was currently contemplating whether it was worth becoming enemies with this expert over a single piece of equipment. In the end, he decided it was best to wait for the three Lions to kill this expert first. After all, when two sides fought, it would always be the third party that benefited the most.

As for saving this person, Nie Yan had no interest in such an idea. He had been in too many situations where the person he saved repaid his kindness with malice. In this world, everyone fought for their own interests, so it was necessary for him to learn how to be cold-hearted.

Since this person dared to come to this area, they were presumably not weak. Nie Yan examined this Fighter with Transcendent Insight.

Resplendent Bladelight

Level 6 Fighter

Nie Yan raised an eyebrow after reading this player’s name. He knew almost all the players who rose to fame in Calore, even if they held just a little bit of reputation. Naturally, this Resplendent Bladelight was no exception.