Nie Yan examined the properties of the ring.

Scarlet Poison Ring: (Dark Gold)Requirements: 120 Strength, 160 Dexterity

Properties: Attack 53–57, +20% Poison Damage, Poison Resistance +20, Ignore Level +1

Weight: 0.1 lb

Restrictions: Can be equipped by all factions.

It was crafted from a ferrous metal and adorned with a large ruby that emitted a bewitching tint. A ring that was able to raise attack was truly a rare sight indeed. Moreover, it had the Ignore Level property and increased Poison Damage and Poison Resistance as well. Such an accessory was an extremely amazing existence even for a Level 30 player. Then again, any piece of equipment dropped from a Lord-class would never be lacking in any respect, to say nothing of this ring that was Dark Gold-grade. Nie Yan felt it quite a pity that accessories could not be upgraded with Fortune Gems; otherwise, he would have definitely raised it by at least five stages.

By having such a ring in his hands at this stage of the game, he was practically defying the heavens.

However, with such high stat requirements, it wasn’t something an average player under Level 30 could hope to equip.

Nie Yan glanced at his character information. After recently levelling up to Level 16, he gained an additional 2 Dexterity from the Chapter of Freedom, so his Dexterity was currently 110. Thanks to the Chapter of Courage, he also received an additional 2 stat points on top of the 5 that were given every 5 levels. Allocating everything into Dexterity, he brought his to a total of 117. However, he was still short by 43 points. When I get back to Calore, I should go and find a few skill books to raise it some more, he thought.

If he could equip the ring, then his attack would reach an even more frightening level.

Finished examining the ring, he then shifted his attention to the leather armour.

Scarlet Scaled Leather Armour (Dark Gold)

Requirements: Level 30

Properties: Defense 268–272, Physical Damage ?10%, Resilience +32, Defense Level +1

Weight: 27 lb

Restrictions: Thief; can be equipped by all factions.

Its properties were pretty good, but with it requiring the player to be Level 30, it was useless to him for now. And just like the ring, it was also an item meant for a Thief. Tang Yao was out of luck.

Finally, he took a look at the recipe that dropped. It was an Intermediate Mana Potion Recipe which could only be learned by an Intermediate Alchemist.

“What a stroke of luck!” Nie Yan fully understood the worth of an Intermediate Mana Potion Recipe. It was several hundred times rarer than an Intermediate Health Potion Recipe. Due to how difficult it was to obtain, its was incredibly valuable.

For Mages, their mana bar was like a second health bar, so if it ran out, their lives would be in danger. This was why having good mana potions was vital. In dungeons, it would allow them to continue dealing damage at a steady pace. Even more so, if an unexpected situation occurred, it could indirectly allow them to save a teammate from death!

In his past life, the manufacturing costs of an Intermediate Mana Potion was about 1 silver, while it was usually sold for around 60 silver. If there were plenty of materials and ingredients, an Intermediate Alchemist would be able to produce up to fifteen bottles every hour. By rough estimations, he could easily imagine how much profit this would bring in.

The primary ingredient for concocting Intermediate Mana Potions, Windletter Herb, could be found in any Level 1–50 map, and they had already started appearing in the marketplace. However, medicinal plants such as the Windletter Herb grew sporadically. The lower the level of the map, the less likely they were to appear. Often times, the same type of plant could be an ingredient in numerous recipes, so despite not being needed immediately, many large guilds would frequently purchase and stockpile them. Hence, even if a player camped out at the auction house all day, they still wouldn’t be able to acquire much.

Like many other guilds, since Holy Empire wasn’t able to match the behemoth that was the Starry Night Potion Shop, many of their guild Alchemists ended up leaving their ranks, and their consumption of medicinal plants fell accordingly. However, thanks to the deal Nie Yan had negotiated with them, they were able to sell their surplus to his shop. As a result, he was able to acquire vast quantities of medicinal plants every day, which was why he wasn’t too worried about lacking ingredients. Besides, it would soon have Asskickers United as a supplier as well.

It was a bit unfortunate that Intermediate Mana Potions were currently still out of reach to most players. For the time being, only a few of the more wealthy players would be able to afford them. Even then, they would likely only be used in case of emergency.

Climbing down from the rocky hill, Tang Yao walked over to Nie Yan and handed back the Crawler Ring before asking, “What did it drop?”

“Only Thief equipment.”

“... Is my luck really that bad today?” Tang Yao was left almost speechless. Nonetheless, the type of equipment a field boss would drop was always random, so he could only reluctantly accept this outcome.

“You’ve already outlevelled most of your gear. I have a few pieces of Level 10 Mage equipment back at my storage that you can use for the time being. Then, when I have the time, we’ll get you a set of Level 20 gear,” Nie Yan said. If they continued at their current pace, Tang Yao would reach Level 20 in no time.

After killing the Lord-class Scaled Frog, Nie Yan’s PKer status had completely disappeared. In the end, he still wasn’t able to find a Slaughter Fiend Medallion. He could only sigh in regret and wait for the next time to try again.

“Wow, red names really do go away pretty quickly when killing Scaled Frogs.”

“Yeah, it’s one of the fastest ways,” Nie Yan answered reluctantly. He didn’t actually want his red name to disappear just yet. Perhaps, if he had been red for just a little while longer, a medallion would have dropped.

Never expecting it to take them ten hours just to kill a single Lord-class monster, Nie Yan and Tang Yao hastily made their way over to the two remaining Elites. Considering that Elites only spawned once a day, they definitely couldn’t let them go to waste. After all, though not as much as a Lord, they still gave generous amounts of experience.

At this moment, the pair were completely unaware of just how much of an uproar they created among the players when Tang Yao suddenly leaped to Level 17. With Heaven Breaker being cleanly knocked out of first place, the forums were booming with discussion.

Guo Huai, Hao Cheng, Zhao Li, and a few other friends all received the news; after which Tang Yao’s chat was being overrun with messages.

「Young Sparrow Hawk, how did you suddenly level up so quickly? Too frightening!」

「Level 17 already... Heavens, you’re too amazing.」

「Tang Yao! You’re so awesome. You actually beat Heaven Breaker! We even thought you guys weren’t going to make it today. Who could’ve known you were going to jump so many levels at once!」

「Quick, go look at the forums!」Guo Huai said.

Both Nie Yan and Tang Yao opened the forums. The Viridian Empire board was almost exploding with activity as the title of every post was highlighted in bright red.

「A player suddenly went up 3 levels at once. Is this a bug?」

The official response from a staff member on the Conviction website was:「We’ve already done an investigation and verified that the player in question has levelled up in a legitimate way. If a player kills a monster above their level, the system will reward them with additional experience. We’ve also verified that this system is working as intended.」

The Conviction staff were quite responsive. They would always answer within five minutes of a player raising an issue.

Below the official response, the commenters were all expressing their amazement and shock. Tang Yao’s accomplishment was inconceivable. To level up three times at once... just how much experience was required? Just what kind of monster would you have to kill to suddenly jump from Level 14 to level 17?

「Viridian Empire’s Most Godly Player! Levelled 3x at Once to Destroy Heaven Breaker!」

「A Legend is Born. The God-like Player, Young Sparrow Hawk.」

「A Surprise For All Players. God Sparrow Hawk Has Beaten Heaven Breaker!」

The rest of the threads were all along the same lines. In a short while, Tang Yao was pushed to the forefront and became an instant celebrity!

I wonder what their reactions would be if they knew this godly player was still wearing the Fire Chaser Set... I bet they wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry! Tang Yao sighed as he thought in a self-mocking manner. Even though the Fire Chaser Set was by no means bad, it was completely unsuitable for someone of his level.

「My heavens! Amazing... this is too unbelievable.」Guo Huai gasped.

「Huh? What’s up? Did something happen?」

「Just a moment ago, we started receiving more players applying to our guild. And instead of slowing down, it’s actually still going up! There are so many people applying that I can’t even go through all of them. The guild headquarters is packed. There’s already several thousand of us in there. Any more, and it’s going to collapse!」Guo Huai informed excitedly. Never in his wildest dreams did he expect for such a grand occasion to occur.

「How many members do we have right now?」

「More than five thousand, and that number is still rapidly increasing. Right now, even though we’re only accepting players over Level 9, we’re still getting plenty of people applying. It’s going to take me at least a day to go through all of them, and I think four or five days to get all the guild affairs in order. At the rate we’re going, I think, by tomorrow, we’ll break through to ten thousand members at the very least.」

Listening to Guo Huai’s description, Nie Yan and Tang Yao could roughly imagine how the situation was going over at their guild headquarters.

The guild headquarters was an instanced area given by the system. Starting out, it would be quite modest with only a small courtyard and a very narrow building. Both could be expanded by spending money on upgrading the headquarters’ tier. The building was designed to fit around two hundred people, while the courtyard could hold about eight hundred. Yet, right now, over several thousand players were crowded in there with Guo Huai.

「We’re a success!」 Tang Yao exclaimed.

Nie Yan shook his head before saying in a cool-headed manner,「It’s still too early to be celebrating. Right now, we don’t know how many players from other guilds have infiltrated our ranks. We still need to gradually sift through them, carefully monitor them, and do some deeper background checks. If we find these moles, we immediately kick them. As for the other players, it’s still hard to say how cohesive we’ll be as a guild and how effective we’ll be in guild battles. We’re at the most critical juncture in our development. We need to take things slowly, step by step. If we go too fast, we might end up tripping and falling over without any way to get back up.」

Tang Yao and Guo Huai fell silent. They had let their excitement get the better of them. Thankfully, Nie Yan’s words were sobering.

「Find a few more people we can trust to help manage the guild and have them carefully comb through the members. We’ll divide our ranks accordingly. The higher level the player and the more contribution they have, the more access we’ll give to some of our resources. I’ll fill up the treasury as soon as I get back,」Nie Yan continued.

「Yeah, you’re right. We got a bit too excited,」Guo Huai said. It seemed Nie Yan had grown much wiser than them.

「You guys aren’t in the wrong. Today’s occasion is still worth celebrating over. After all, we’ve finally taken our first step. We might not be comparable to those famous guilds now, but given time, as long as we set about our tasks diligently and gain a strong foothold, we’ll still have a chance of expanding much more in the near future.」

「If our members grow over ten thousand, our treasury might not be enough,」Guo Huai said anxiously.

「Don’t fret, I have a method,」Nie Yan replied. For the sake of developing his guild, he would turn to the place that he had always relied on to earn money, the auction house. Last time, after gathering a great deal of equipment with Petrify Resistance and Anti-Petrify Potions, he had sold them for a decent profit. In a few days, a Level 10 dungeon called Blazing Ravine would open. It was important because that was where he would be focusing his attention on next. In preparation for its opening, he would start gathering equipment with Fire Resistance, potions, and so on. There were also items such as Basic Flash Powder, Sheep Transformation Scrolls, and Web Scrolls from Trembling Milo’s Shop to think about. Right now, most players were under Level 10, so the market for them was at its peak. Players were finally starting to have some more money in their pockets, so they could actually afford to start buying more expensive things, which meant the timing was ripe for him to start flooding the marketplace with these items!

If the guild was to expand, then the treasury would have to keep up. Not only that, but it had to be better than anyone else’s!

Nie Yan wasn’t simply establishing a guild; no, he was setting the foundation for an empire!