Chapter 164 – Undead Slayer
Nie Yan felt bewildered after taking a look at the system notifications. He hadn’t receive the slightest bit of experience for killing the Headless Horseman.
Monsters on this map don’t give experience…?
While he was pondering over this problem, he happened to glance at the quest bar positioned at the corner of his vision. I should focus on completing the quest first. Who knows… there might be some sort of reward at the end.
After grasping hold of a suitable strategy, slaying Headless Horsemen became as easy as one-two-three. Without receiving even so much as a scratch, they fell victim to the constant line of bolts firing from his crossbow in quick succession.
About an hour later, he checked his quest bar again.
Task 1 – Kill 20 Headless Horsemen (Progress: 16/20)
From the bodies of these Headless Horsemen he had also managed to pick up two more blueprint pieces. Considering they were for a Sub-Legendary Crossbow, the drop rate wasn’t all that bad. At the very least, he saw hope of completing the full blueprint.
Eventually, after grinding them for so long, Nie Yan had grown confident enough to make an attempt at controlling one with Undead Rite.
After figuring out their weakness, he had already confirmed he was in no danger so long as he stayed behind them, giving him a sense of reassurance as he boldly cast the spell.
Undead Rite’s success rate might be a little low, but inevitably there’d come a moment when it would work. Following repeated failures, he eventually prevailed in assembling a full party of five Headless Horsemen, whereupon he directed his minions to attack any monster wandering about, thus improving his mobbing speed significantly. Not much later, he cleared the quest.
Task 1 complete! You have received the Junior Undead Slayer title.
Task 2 – Kill 200 Headless Horsemen
Nie Yan gazed at the new title which had appeared in his status bar. It would increase his Influence by 1 in all human nations.
Every player could receive numerous titles. Among them were titles such as Great Thief, Shadow Dancer, Divine Priest, and so on… which were class-related titles, but there were some special titles as well. Believer of the Holy or Undead Slayer, the title he had just received, were part of the latter category. Each title gave special property bonuses. For example, Undead Slayer raised Influence… not a bad reward, especially considering how widespread humans were across the continent, so even the slightest boost in Influence would come in quite handy later on.
After clearing Treant Forest and purchasing so much property in the city, plus gaining a certain amount from establishing a guild as well, Nie Yan’s Influence in Calore had already reached 19. Now, with the additional point from this new title, it had risen to 20.
Raising Influence in a city was very difficult. Doing it in towns and villages was relatively easier in comparison. As for entire nations, he had only done so once in his past life, and that was when he received the title of Great Thief which gave him an additional 5 Influence in all human nations. The title naturally held other benefits, but nevertheless, he never expected the Undead Slayer title to similarly increase his Influence in all human nations as well.
After checking the next quest, Nie Yan didn’t expect it to still be making him kill Headless Horsemen. Moreover, the amount required this time was ten times more than the last. This quest line was really strange…
However, with the aid of his five minions, he was killing Headless Horsemen at a much faster pace than before. He continued doing this quest because he wanted to see what sort of rewards lay ahead.
After a long time, he finally gathered all ten pieces of the Dullahan Cavalry Crossbow Blueprint. They emitted a dazzling light in the palm of his hands before slowly merging into an intact blueprint. This was a heavy crossbow. If he didn’t have enough Strength, then it would be truly difficult for him to even lift it up. Not to mention, with how much it weighed, it would dramatically reduce his movement speed while equipped which was why he couldn’t carry it with him at all times. He would have to keep it in his bag and only take it out when absolutely necessary. That was probably the most sensible method of handling it.
Storing away the blueprint in his bag, he checked the rest of the harvest he obtained since entering this realm. Outside of a few pieces of Level 30 equipment, he also found three more equipment blueprints, two of which were Bronze-grade while the other was Silver-grade. The drop rates of blueprints were rather low, making each one found very valuable. Especially considering there was a huge market for Bronze and Silver-grade equipment among ordinary players. After all, they couldn’t afford Gold-grade equipment, so they had to get by with lower grade equipment. In the future, if he opened an equipment shop and hired a few Advanced Blacksmiths and Advanced Tailors, then he would be able to craft the weapons and armours from these blueprints. Since their properties were pretty good, they would be able to earn him quite some gold.
The equipment drop rate here was rather high. In Nie Yan’s eyes, these drops were basically sparkling mounds of gold!
In the future, aside from a potion shop, other business, such as an equipment shop, were also necessary to thrive. As commerce in the game grew even more prosperous, achieving market dominance like he was doing right now would be much more difficult. However, as long as he secured a good chunk of the market, he would still be able to earn a lot of gold, and he could already start slowly preparing now.
When he spotted another Headless Horseman, he would order his five minions to surround and attack it. After it was killed, he would search for his next target.
About two hours later, he cleared the second quest.
Task 2 complete! You have received the Intermediate Undead Slayer title.
He checked the property bonuses of this title. It increased Influence in all human nations by 2!
He didn’t think it would still raise his Influence. With more Influence, he would receive better benefits when expanding into other cities and taking on quests in the future.
Task 3 – Kill 2,000 Headless Horsemen
This quest line was starting to become more and more frightening. However, for the sake of finding out what the reward was at the end, he decided to persevere through.
As he explored further into the map, he gradually began to discover that this Illusory Realm of the Dullahans was far more vast than he originally imagined. It could even be described as vast and boundless. After walking in a straight line for several hours, there was still no end in sight.
After three hours or so, Nie Yan discovered a shrine in the distance. It was extremely wide and quite imposing, and with its lofty pillars towering high, it resembled a Greek temple. From a distance, he observed this place. His eyes first fell on the carvings of lions that covered the pillars. Then, he looked at the flight of stairs that led to the main hall. The entrance to this main hall was sealed off by tall, six-meter high metal gates. Even though they were corroded and rusted over time, they were still awe-inspiring to behold.
Lingering just outside the shrine entrance, there were at least several hundred Headless Horsemen in full suits of black armour guarding the gates.
Despite being awfully curious about what was inside, he didn’t dare to take any risks. Making a detour around it, he proceeded to safely hunt the Headless Horsemen nearby. Even though they didn’t give any experience, the items they dropped were quite decent and somewhat made up for it.
The only thing that made him a little confused was that despite him killing countless Headless Horsemen, his PKer status seemed to go down extremely slowly. In fact, he hadn’t even seen it budge in the longest time.
This map was seriously odd.
When server closing time approached, a bag dropped after he killed a mob. At the time it appeared, he didn’t think much of it, but when he finally took a look, he was surprised to discover that it was actually a 32-slot bag.
Magic Rune Bag: 32 slots
In other places, even an ordinary 24-slot bag was quite hard to come by. A 28-slot bag was even more uncommon. He never thought he would actually obtain a 32-slot bag here. Even at Level 40–50, 32-slot bags were quite expensive. At present, the first of them had yet to appear on the marketplace.
After sorting out his items, he swapped out one of his 20-slot bags for the 32-slot bag which immediately opened up a lot of space in his inventory. If he found more Magic Rune Bags, he could increase his inventory space even further!
Since he obtained a Magic Rune Bag from them, it meant these Headless Horsemen had a certain chance of dropping it.
Maybe he’d be able to find a second. He felt even more of an incentive to grind them now. If he had five 32-slot bags, then he wouldn’t have to swap them out even after reaching Level 50–60. Every time he set out on an adventure, he’d be able to stock up on even more things, so he could avoid wasting his time on making return trips to the city.
While Nie Yan was farming Headless Horsemen, a huge disturbance was happening back outside.
Tang Yao had hit Level 18 and was fast approaching Level 19. Heaven Breaker didn’t relax either as he ascended to Level 17. Sleepy Fox and his group weren’t willing to fall behind either, so they were quietly levelling away as well.
“Why hasn’t Big Bro Nirvana Flame returned yet?” Sun asked worriedly.
“He should still be in the game. The fact that he hasn’t died and returned to the city means that he’s safe for now. No need to worry too much,” Tang Yao replied. Although he himself was a little worried, he didn’t reveal it on the surface.
Yao Yao would send Nie Yan a few messages every now and then, but she would never get a reply.
Elite after Elite fell by Tang Yao’s hands, but the Killer’s Demonic Medallion never dropped. Nevertheless, his experience was soaring madly. The three of them were quickly levelling up as their red names gradually cleared. Because Tang Yao refused to relax for even a moment, their supply of Smoke Powder quickly ran dry. So he ordered Sun to make a run to the Starry Night Potion Shop to get a loan. When he pooled enough money to buy some more, they would decide what to do from there.
Nie Yan had already mentioned to Bird that if Tang Yao should ever ask to borrow money, then Bird should promptly lend it. After all, considering how many Intermediate recipes the Starry Night Potion Shop had received from Tang Yao alone, the value of his contributions far surpassed what little amount he was withdrawing. Sun had also deposited all the equipment they had obtained from the Sub-Elites and Elites into the guild treasury. After which he headed over to restock on the party’s consumables.
Scarlet Dream Forest was the spawn zone of Level 20 Dodos. A few days prior, there actually weren’t many players here, but recently, the area was bustling with eighty or so Victorious Return players.
Heaven Breaker had a difficult time trying to gather a dozen Mage who had small-scale, area of effect spells, but his efforts were rewarded as the mobbing efficiency of his group improved greatly.
Around thirty Thieves were shuttling through this forest, pulling groups of Dodos into an opening between the trees. After which the Mages would cast their area of effect magic. As the spells fell over the area, an endless stream of damage values rose up into the sky. Area of effect spells were extremely mana intensive, so their mana wouldn’t be able to hold on for long. For this reason, behind them, a huge group of Holy Mages walked up. They were responsible for transferring mana over to the Mages who were dealing damage, ensuring that their mana bars were always topped up. If they were still running low, then they would drink a mana potion!
With a dozen or so area of effect spells layered over one another, groups of Dodos collapsed to the ground one after another while Heaven Breaker’s experience bar was rapidly filling up. Thus, his levelling speed couldn’t be considered slow either. He was actually managing to keep pace with Tang Yao. In fact, he was almost right on his heels.
As for Sleepy Fox and his group, they had also found a method of levelling up that was relatively quick. With their frantic levelling, they rapidly surged upward on the leaderboards from the lower ranks. However, from beginning to end, no one was ever able to shake Tang Yao’s throne on first place.