Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed the World

With cracking sounds, the egg started splintering open and out popped an eagle chick. It was still fairly small, but large enough to be held in Tang Yao’s arms.

Nie Yan gazed at the Netherthunder Eagle. It looked like an ordinary eagle, except for its glossy, jet black feathers.

The Netherthunder Eagle spread its wings and started preening itself. Its sharp eyes were clear and limpid, sparkling with intelligence.

“I’m already taking a liking to this little fellow.” Tang Yao scratched the Netherthunder Eagle. It appeared to be enjoying the feeling as it affectionately rubbed its head against his hand.

Tang Yao took out a slab of meat from his bag, something he normally fed to his Spectral Wolf, and held it out in front of the Netherthunder Eagle’s beak. It pecked at the meat curiously, then swallowed it whole.

“It’s still a chick right now. You’ll have to wait a while for it to be fully grown,” Nie Yan said. Since the Netherthunder Eagle was still quite small, it probably didn’t have any combat strength. Tang Yao would have to wait for it to slowly mature.

“No, it can turn bigger and become a flying mount right now!”

“Really?” Nie Yan was surprised. Did flying mounts not have growth periods?

“Hold on. Let me keep looking at its stats,” Tang Yao said. The amount of information in the Netherthunder Eagle’s stat page was massive. It would take him a while to go through all of it. “The stats of the Netherthunder Eagle are pretty balanced. Dexterity increases its flying speed, and Strength increases its attack power. Which stat should I add?”

“That depends on what you want. I think as a Mage you should have the Netherthunder Eagle focus on Dexterity,” Nie Yan advised. Tang Yao’s damage was already unrivalled. Add that to the lightning speed of the Netherthunder Eagle, and he would become a superb aerial turret.

“Hmm… not a bad idea. I’ll listen to you. Speed complimenting power.”

“You should try experimenting yourself too. After all, I don’t have any experience with flying mounts either,” Nie Yan said. His knowledge of flying mounts in his past life was only in passing.

“Flying mounts are divided into nine ranks. Each rank will give an exponential boost in stats,” Tang Yao said. He opened up the page on the official website about flying mounts and compared the information with the Netherthunder Eagle’s stat page.

“What rank is the Netherthunder Eagle?” Nie Yan asked. He was completely clueless in this regard. Back when he assassinated Cao Xu, the flying mounts patch was still in its infancy. Very few players had them, and to the him of that time, they were unattainable existences.

“It’s Rank 1. All recently hatched pets start out at Rank 1. In the future, its rank will slowly start to rise. Apparently I can increase the size of this Netherthunder Eagle on command. Let’s head to the wilderness and see for ourselves,” Tang Yao said. His knowledge on flying mounts was still shallow. He would have to slowly learn and familiarize himself with them.

“Alright, in a bit.” Nie Yan suddenly recalled there was also a leaderboard for flying mounts. Every flying mount would automatically be registered into it, but the names of their owners wouldn’t be shown. This leaderboard encompassed the whole Righteous Faction. He checked the leaderboard. Sure enough, Tang Yao’s Netherthunder Eagle was there.

At present, it was the only flying mount on the leaderboard!

“Summoning a flying mount takes five minutes. Recalling it also takes five minutes. If it dies, you can’t revive it unless you have a Resurrection Crystal,” Tang Yao muttered. This rule was a bit frightening. If a flying mount died during combat, it would be incredibly difficult to revive. It would also be hard to recall when encountering danger.

“It seems like flying mounts have Life Cores,” Nie Yan remarked after recalling something.

“Right, flying mounts have Life Cores. If you crack open their heads, you’ll obtain a life core. Flying mounts can only rank up by eating these things,” Tang Yao read from the information page. He understood the implications behind this. In the future, when flying mounts became more widespread, he would have to kill the flying mounts of other players to rank up his Netherthunder Eagle.

As Nie Yan and Tang Yao chatted, a group of 20 players rowdily entered the pet shop.

“Destroyer, I heard the pets here can go for tens of thousands of gold,” a Level 50 Thief said to a Warrior in silver white armour.

“Hmmm? It’s not that much! My team makes several gold a day running Golden City. Any good drop can sell for a few hundred to a thousand gold no problem,” Destroyer chuckled.

Destroyer was a Level 66 Warrior clad in a set of Level 65 Dark Gold-grade equipment. He was the same caliber as Sesame Cake.

After Destroyer finished speaking, the eyes of the other players glimmered with admiration.

Destroyer had a smug look on his face. Since he was the most outstanding player by far out of this group, he couldn’t resist showing off.

“People are coming. Let’s leave,” Nie Yan said. He put on his Shadow Walker Cloak.

“Mhm...” Tang Yao nodded. It wasn’t suitable for the two of them to show themselves out in public. He also put on a cloak.

“Who’s that Warrior?” Nie Yan asked with a hint of curiosity.

“Seems like someone from Dark Hero, one of their team captains. A nobody,” Tang Yao replied. At their levels, they naturally wouldn’t put these kinds of people in their eyes.

Nie Yan and Tang Yao headed for the exit.

“Destroyer, what kind of pet are you planning to buy?” a player asked.

“Probably a Rhycorn. It synergizes pretty well with Warriors,” Destroyer laughed. Seeing two cloaked figures walking in his direction, he couldn’t help but sneer. What were these two hiding their appearances for? Did they think they were some kind of hotshots, acting all mysterious?

“Wow, a good Rhycorn costs at least 30,000 gold!”

“It’s just 30,000 gold, no big deal,” Destroyer smiled. As his gaze fell on the Netherthunder Eagle in Tang Yao’s arms, his eyes flashed with disdain.

“The palm sized bird, is it a pet? Does it even have any attack power?” the Thief mocked after noticing the Netherthunder Eagle too.

“I heard some bird pets can fly just high enough to peck at a person’s eyes,” an Arcane Mage chimed in.

“Haha, pecking eyes. It’s pretty funny. One time I bumped into a palm-sized bird pet. It tried attacking me, so I slapped it so hard it exploded into a cloud of feathers!” Destroyer heartily laughed. “These kinds of pets aren’t worth much gold. They’re definitely sold cheaply.”

“Like 10 gold, right?’” the Thief laughed.

“10 gold really can’t get you anything good. Take, the Rhycorn, for example, it costs at least 30,000 gold!” Destroyer gazed at Nie Yan and Tang Yao in disdain. His voice was loud enough for everyone in the shop to hear. He enjoyed putting others down to make himself look good.

Tang Yao’s temper immediately flared. “God fucking dammit. These guys are really asking for it.”

“Ignore them,” Nie Yan said in an indifferent manner. He had met countless people like this in his past life.

Tang Yao tried to restrain his anger. The two continued heading for the exit.

Seeing Nie Yan and Tang Yao ignoring him, the laughter of Destroyer and his group grew even more boisterous.

“They’ve probably never seen what a 30,000-gold pet looks like before, right?” Destroyer laughed.

“Can you ride Flying Mounts within the city?” Nie Yan whispered.

“Yeah, I think so.” Tang Yao was a bit taken aback but quickly understood the meaning behind Nie Yan’s words. Fuck, what’s so amazing about a 30,000-gold pet? Open your eyes, I’ll let you guys see what a real amazing pet is!

When the two arrived at the exit, Tang Yao chanted out an incantation. All of a sudden the Netherthunder Eagle grew more than 20 times in size. As it stood in front of the pet shop, a powerful gust of wind blew into the pet shop and sent Destroyer and his group tumbling to the ground.

“What the hell is going on?” Destroyer could barely open his eyes. Looking towards the exit, he saw the Netherthunder Eagle in Tang Yao’s hands grow into a three-meter tall beast. It looked magnificent and was overflowing with might.

Compared to the Netherthunder Eagle, every pet in the pet shop was basically trash!

Everyone in the central square let out cries of alarm after seeing such a huge beast appear.

“It’s a flying mount!” the Thief cried out.

Destroyer was stupefied. He never expected that the Netherthunder Eagle he made fun of would actually be such a powerful flying mount. Then wouldn’t that mean...

Nie Yan and Tang Yao mounted the Netherthunder Eagle. Its back was big enough to fit five people, its giant wings kicking up powerful gusts of wind. It rose up in the air and took to the sky.

“Flying mount? Could it be that was Nirvana Flame?” the Thief said in fright. They didn’t think the person they were mocking just now was the figure they shouldn’t have provoked the most.

“Destroyer, what do we do? That person we just…” the players cried out in fear.

“I heard Nirvana Flame isn’t the type of guy you want to provoke.”

“Yeah, I heard there was a player called Sky Piercer in Victorious Return who offended Nirvana Flame. He was hunted down until he dropped back to Level 0. He hasn’t shown his face since.”[1]

The more these people spoke, the more the fear in their hearts grew.

Destroyer never thought he would bring such a calamity upon himself. Listening to his lackeys, he also got scared. “Let’s head to the Asskickers United branch office and go apologize. If Nirvana Flame forgives us, everything should be fine. If he doesn’t, we’ll have no choice but to leave Calore.” If Nie Yan wanted to make things difficult for him, there was nothing he and his team could do.

1. Liu Rui’s character name in Conviction is Sky Piercer.