Sun, King of the World, Mistaken Smile, and all the other top Thieves who had received guidance from him had truly grown strong enough to stand on their own.
After watching the stunning battles in the videos, Nie Yan felt he definitely couldn’t do any better than them. He let out a deep sigh, a mix of gratification and regret in his heart.
Maybe coming back was unnecessary. Asskickers United was in good hands. Plus, even if he wanted to claw his way back to the peak, he was already past his prime. He might as well enjoy his retirement in peace.
Nie Yan glanced at his pet window. Even though he’d hatched the Divine Eclipse Dragon over three years ago, it was still at Level 0. Then there was the final empty pet slot. Thinking for a bit, he decided to take one of the dragon eggs from the guild treasury. When they cleared out the last of the Violet Eye Dragons from the nest all those years ago, they obtained three eggs. Those quickly found an owner. However, there still was a Violet Eye Dragon egg sitting in the guild treasury. Apparently, it was produced later on when the tamed Violet Eye Dragons bred. This was definitely a rare event.
Nie Yan decided to hatch this Violet Eye Dragon, then feed it an Evolution Crystal. Like this, he would have three dragon pets. With their unrivalled firepower, his levelling speed would quickly increase.
The Chaos Temple dropped a skill book called Spirit Awe. It was a passive skill that was available to all classes. After learning it, all pets would flee at the mere sight of you. So, when PvPing against experts, pets were effectively useless. Nevertheless, three powerful pets would accelerate his levelling speed by quite a bit, saving him a lot of time. He needed every little advantage he could get because he had fallen too far behind in level.
Nie Yan headed to the treasury manager. Pulling open the treasury window, he bought the Violet Eye Dragon egg for 3,000,000 merit points. This was an unimaginable sum for ordinary guild members. But to him, it was only a drop in the ocean.
News of the Violet Eye Dragon egg disappearing from the guild treasury sent large waves among some players who’d been working on getting the merit points for it. However, with so many other amazing items in the guild treasury, one less dragon egg didn’t attract too much attention.
After Beast Tamer Hall had finished taming the Violet Eye Dragons, he decided to open up a pet shop in Okoron. Nie Yan went here to hatch it, after which he fed the Violet Eye Dragon an Evolution Crystal, raising its Growth Rate from 15 to 20 and putting it on par with Lil’ Gold. However, it was still a far ways off from the 30 points of the Divine Eclipse Dragon.
Nie Yan went back to browsing the guild treasury to see if there were any other good items. His gear hadn’t improved in three years. Many of the items inside the treasury were far better than what he was currently wearing. Not to mention the treasury had grown even more dazzling. There was pretty much anything you could imagine, with no lack of oddities and ends. He would have to check the auction house out too and see what was up for sale.
Even though his equipment was still the same, the amount of gold he had his disposal ballooned dramatically. Just the Starry Night Potion Shop brought in gold in the 10 digits daily.
After browsing for a bit, Nie Yan concluded the guild treasury was truly filled with good things. However, most of these items still couldn’t enter his eyes. He shifted his focus to the Special Items section. It consisted of over 30 pages and 100,000 items in total.
There were many items Nie Yan didn’t recognize. Occasionally, he would find something interesting. The sheer amount of items left his head spinning.
Flipping to the next page, a particular item caught his eye.Heart of Gaia: Special Item
Description: Earth Resistance +50, Earth Magic +20%
Gaia’s Might: Channel the power of Gaia and become immune to all earth damage. Duration: 30 seconds. Cooldown: 20 minutes.
Restrictions: Righteous Faction
Nie Yan recalled the Kiln Fire Heart and Heart of Winter, both of them still in his bag. So he was right! These items were part of a series!
Taking the Heart of Gaia, Nie Yan started searching for other similar items. Before long, he found two more, the Aqua Heart and Arcana Heart.
The Kiln Fire Heart, Heart of Winter, Heart of Gaia, Aqua Heart, and Arcana Heart emitted a multicoloured radiance in Nie Yan’s palm. He wondered if there were any others and what their use was when put together.
Nie Yan sunk into deep thought. These items were most definitely part of a series, and there were likely only five of them!
For items like the Kiln Fire Heart, 50 Magic Resistance was pretty decent, but not something to write home about at this stage of the game. The supplementary skill was better, but it took time to cast. Skills like Kiln Fire and Gaia’s Might simply weren’t practical in PvP. When facing off against a Mage, you wouldn’t know if they were going to use Fire Magic, Earth Magic, or even combination magic.
Apart, these items were of little value to Nie Yan. However, perhaps he could bring them together. He still had Pandora’s Box which had the synthesize option. It was worth a try. Worst case scenario, he would lose the five items because he didn’t have a synthesis recipe. This wouldn’t be much of a loss to him, whereas the best case scenario would net him a great item!
Nie Yan placed the five gems inside Pandora’s Box.
The five gems shined with different colours.Do you wish to synthesize these items?
Yes!
The box lit up with a dazzling radiance that threatened to blind him.
Nie Yan quickly covered his eyes with his arms. He could sense five different energies being transformed, then melded together, letting out a scorching heat.
Ah, seems like a failure, Nie Yan thought. He didn’t have high hopes. After all, he was attempting this without a synthesis recipe. There were strict rules to the things you could synthesize inside Pandora’s Box. You couldn’t throw in just anything you wanted. Long ago, he’d tried to synthesize several low grade gems. The end result was nothing being produced and all of the gems being destroyed.
This was only an experiment. Nie Yan had no idea if he would succeed.
Pandora’s Box continued to radiate a scorching heat for several minutes before finally settling down. A crisp notification jingle rang out.
Nie Yan’s heart trembled. This was the sound of a successful synthesis!
Nie Yan hurriedly opened Pandora’s Box and found a five-coloured gem. It was about the size of an egg and completely translucent. Pulsing with different colours, it occasionally released scorching hot fire energy that seemed to come from the depths of the earth, the biting cold ice energy from the heart of the tundra, and so on.
This gem certainlty looked out of the ordinary. Nie Yan wondered what sort of effects it had. So, he examined it.Elemental Heart: Special Item
Description: All Elemental Resistance +500, Magic +50%
Elemental Familiarity (Passive): Greatly weaken elemental damage from all sources with a 20% chance of nullifying it.
Restrictions: Righteous Faction
All Elemental Resistance +500 was incredible even by today’s standards. The skills of the Kiln Fire Heart, Heart of Winter, and other three items had all disappeared, replaced with Elemental Familiarity, which reduced elemental damage and had a 20% chance of nullifying it. This was definitely a top-notch item!
Nie Yan equipped the Elemental Heart into his accessory slot. What was a strong player without an equally amazing accessory? Every slot had to be used to its full potential!
Many of Nie Yan’s accessories needed to be changed out. He would have to build up his gear again one step at a time.
Nie Yan continued browsing through the guild treasury. Seeing the gobsmacking number of items, he couldn’t help but sigh. Since his departure three years ago, many things had changed. The treasury had so many more new special items, many of which were even better than what he currently had. One could imagine how much the players of Asskickers United had grown!
Nie Yan’s eyes fell on a particular set of items. His heart trembled. It’s them!
They were three gems, Inheritance of Radiance, Inheritance of Darkness, and Inheritance of Fire. These items were probably found by the players from Asskickers United. However, they didn’t know what they were used for and so left them in the guild treasury.
The Glimpse of Darkness recorded down how to obtain the Abak Tyrant Set. After following all the clues, searching far and wide, and expanding who knew how much effort, Nie Yan finally collected all the pieces and completed the set. Later on, when he completed the Glimpse of Light, it described how to obtain the five Inheritance Gems. These five gems were used to strengthen the Tyrant Abak Set. In other words, the Tyrant Abak Set could become stronger.
Even though the Level 180 Tyrant Abak Set was still fairly powerful at this stage of the game, it was nothing compared to the gear of the strongest few players. However, after strengthening it with the Inheritance Gems, Nie Yan wondered how powerful it would become.
After withdrawing the Inheritance of Light, Inheritance of Darkness, and Inheritance of Fire, Nie Yan still needed two more Inheritance Gems. They were the Inheritance of Life and Inheritance of Arcana.
Two new quests popped up in Nie Yan’s quest window.The Inheritance of Life has been stolen by the Chaos Keepers in Judgement Valley. Punish these petty robbers! This is your glory. May the Light bless you.
The Inheritance of Arcana has been lost in the Sin Swamp of the underworld. It is brimming with danger there. Brave adventurer, set foot on your journey and retrieve this gem!
Nie Yan already knew where the remaining two gems were. He wondered what would happen to the Tyrant Abak Set after he gathered them.