Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed the World

A Rank 8 Smothering strike was already enough to amaze Bladelight and the others. If Nie Yan showed them the rest of his skills, he could only imagine their reactions. Would they faint from shock?

“Right, I saw other skills besides your Smothering Strike,” Bladelight recalled.

“I have Rank 11 Backbreaker, Rank 9 Concussive Blow…” Nie Yan listed off his skills one by one.

Everyone started with wide eyes. Nie Yan’s skills were simply unbelievable!

If it were only one skill, though shocking, it would still be within the realms of common sense. But he had a total of 19 Rank 8+ skills, with the highest being Rank 15. No words could describe how mindblowing this was. With so many powerful skills, Nie Yan could easily take on an equal level Lord. As long as it wasn’t a broken existence such as the Miasma Scorpion King, even challenging a Lord over Level 100 was possible.

Rank 11 Backbreaker, Rank 10 Reverse Grip Backstab, Rank 10 Counter, Rank 10 Phantom Assassination, Rank 10 Flicker Strike, Rank 7 Backstab, Rank 8 Smothering Strike, Rank 9 Concussive Blow, Rank 15 Kick…

Any one of these skills was enough to drive a player mad with envy. Given Nie Yan had five Freedom Skills at Rank 10+, his regular skills like Smothering Strike and Concussive Blow really didn’t seem like much now. Unless you used some sort of special method, raising your skills to this level would take years!

“Man, I want to train my skills in that map too!” Bladelight said in envy. The others likely felt the same way. It was a pity Venita’s Dreamland was exclusive to the Legend of the Ten Holy Paladins’ questline.

“A map for training skills, huh…” Nie Yan suddenly recalled a certain map with an NPC that helped players train their skills. The rate at which they acquired skill proficiency would be significantly higher. “When you guys reach Level 120, I’ll bring you to a map just like that. You’ll gain about three times skill proficiency, maybe up to eight times or even higher if you’re skilled enough.”

Though nowhere near as good as Venita’s Dreamworld, that map still had its merit.

Its location was fairly well hidden. A player only happened to stumble upon it by a stroke of luck in the previous timeline. The real trouble started when it became known to the public. Since that NPC only issued out this quest to 500 people a day, the number of disputes that broke out around him were too many to count. Victorious Return had once tried to monopolize this map for a period of time, incurring the fierce retaliation of all other guilds until they finally relented. After all, it wasn’t like they discovered this map first. What right did they have to it?

Asskickers United would really hit the jackpot if they could monopolize this map. With higher ranking skills, levelling for their members would naturally become easier, allowing them to pull further ahead of their competition.

As for any misgivings other guilds might have, since this map was discovered by Asskickers United first, they had full authority over it. This was an unspoken rule among players.

Hearing Nie Yan’s words, Bladelight and the others showed strong interest. They always felt like the ranks of their skills were lacking, especially when levelling. It was having a serious impact on their development. They wanted to train their skills, but the process was too slow. They had to sacrifice a great deal of time. If there were some sort of shortcut, it would save them a lot of trouble.

Everyone suddenly felt a strong urge to train their skills. Bladelight and the others were the top players in the Viridian Empire. If they put their minds to something, the results would be astonishing.

After sorting everything out and recuperating, Bladelight’s team prepared to continue exploring Griffon Woodlands. After all, flying mounts were of vital importance. If they could build a Griffon Cage in the Cripps Stronghold, Asskickers United’s aerial force would benefit immensely.

Nie Yan was already at Level 97, 78%. Level 100 wasn’t far off. He could sense the title of Shadow Dancer was right within grasp.

After Bladelight’s group left, Nie Yan continued levelling.

As Nie Yan neared Level 100, levelling became all the more difficult. Grinding ordinary mobs simply wasn’t efficient enough. A suitable target suddenly popped into his mind.

With so many powerful skills, challenging ordinary Level 100+ Lords probably wouldn’t be an issue.

Teleporting back to Calore with a Return Scroll, Nie Yan set off on his Darkwing Dragon for the mountains to the north.

It was a pity Nie Yan didn’t gain any experience for monsters the Darkwing Dragon killed. Levelling would be much faster if he could take advantage of its powerful stats.

About 20 minutes later, Nie Yan arrived in a forested mountain range.

Circling in the sky, Nie Yan searched around. This place was like Solud Mountain in the Korou Mountain Range. He discovered a clearing halfway up the mountain. It was devoid of any life, save for a large creature roaming around.

“Found it!”

Nie Yan unsummoned the Darkwing Dragon and dropped down into the trees.

The field boss of this area was a Wendigo. It was on par with a Behemoth in size. However, it was a glass cannon, possessing high attack power and weak defense. It only had physical attacks and lacked special skills. More importantly, it was slow and clumsy, making it fairly easy to deal with and an ideal target for a nimble Thief.

The Wendigo was a Level 110 Lord!

Nie Yan had hunted the Wendigo with a team in his past life. He had ample knowledge of it.

Wendigos were fairly territorial. They would eat all vegetation in a location and dig a burrow for themselves. If you saw a patch of barren earth near Solud Mountain, it was guaranteed a Wendigo was residing there.

This was Nie Yan’s first time soloing a Level 100+ Lord. Compared to other equal level Lords, the Wendigo was relatively easy to bully. It was roughly on par with a Level 100 Elite, only with more health.

With a thud, Nie Yan gently landed on the ground. He dashed through the trees, gradually making his way to the edge of the clearing.

Nie Yan hid behind a small tree. Gazing at the center of the clearing, a Wendigo was there just like he predicted.

The Wendigo resembled a giant bear covered from head to toe in pure white fur. It was grossly rotund to the extent even moving around left it short of breath.

Even so, Nie Yan didn’t dare to underestimate the Wendigo. He scanned his bag. He had prepared a few essentials, such as Advanced Dexterity Potions, Strength Potions, and Speed Potions. Apart from these, he had also brought Advanced Combat Bandages and Master Health and Mana Potions, which could be used at any time during combat.

Nie Yan found a secluded spot and unsheathed Zennarde’s Sword. Rummaging through his bag, he fetched out a crystalline flask filled with an emerald liquid that sparkled brilliantly under the sunlight.

Ordinary players would probably be entranced by this flask of liquid. Little did they know that it was a deadly poison!

This poison was something Quiet Nannan specifically made for Nie Yan. Poisons were divided into two categories. One was a deadly poison which caused the target to continuously lose health. The other was an incapacitating poison which greatly reduced a target’s mobility.

This flask of poison belonged to the former category. It could deal 500 damage every second for five minutes. At least a Master Antidote was required to cure it.

A five-minute duration was a rather rare for a poison. That was a total of 150,000 damage!

Nie Yan carefully smeared the poison over Zennarde’s Sword, giving the blade an emerald sheen.

After finishing his preparations, Nie Yan stood up and entered stealth. He approached the Wendigo from behind.

The Wendigo sat on the ground as crunching sounds rang out through the clearing. It gnawed on some coarse tree roots, its powerful molars easily grinding them into a pulp. It ate messily with half of the food falling into a large pile on the ground.

Nie Yan inched closer and closer to the Wendigo. He was only five meters away, but it was still completely oblivious to his presence. It was the same as in the previous timeline. It had low Awareness.

Nie Yan could feel the heat radiating from the Wendigo’s body.

Transcendent Insight!

Wendigo (Lord): Level 110 Health: 7,000,000/7,000,000It had much more health than the Miasma Scorpion King.

Gale Ambush!

Nie Yan pounced forward with explosive speed, as though he were the embodiment of wind itself.

Backbreaker!

With a pfft sound, Zennarde’s Sword plunged deep into the Wendigo’s spine. Blood sprayed out into the air.

“Success!” The Wendigo was crippled for three seconds.

“Only three seconds.” Nie Yan knitted his brows. When he used Backbreaker on the Miasma Scorpion King, he had crippled it for five seconds. It seemed this Wendigo had a high resistance to crowd control. “This could be a bit troublesome…”

Nie Yan quickly went over his options. The Wendigo was slow. As long as he was quick to react and didn’t make any mistakes, he would be fine.

The Wendigo’s skin turned green. It was poisoned!

−500 −500 −500 …

Apocalyptic Extinction!

Nie Yan debuffed the Wendigo with five curses. Its defense immediately plummeted. His attacks barely did any damage previously. Now he was hitting for more than 1,000 damage with his basic attacks and up to 6,000 with his skills. His damage output far exceeded its health regeneration.

Backstab! Eviscerate!

Nie Yan unloaded one high damaging skill after the other. The damage quickly racked up. The Wendigo’s health gradually fell.