Chapter 484 - Struck Gold
Five days later, Nie Yan had swept through every chest in the several maps located at the border of Calore’s territory. Looking at his progress, Advanced Lockpicking Specialist had already reached 52%. Just a few more days of treasure hunting, and it would rank up to Master!
During these five days, Nie Yan had opened a total of 1,337 chests. Several times he nearly lost his life. Thankfully, even if he could do nothing else, his fleeing skills were still top notch.
Nie Yan and Tang Yao had only explored 30% of the high level maps in Calore. Many regions had powerful monsters flying around. He didn’t dare to approach these places with the Netherthunder Eagle.
However, merely the loot from these places left Tang Yao floored. They had already returned to Calore with full bags quite a few times. The value of the equipment they obtained couldn’t be estimated. It turned out treasure chest hunting could actually be this lucrative!
“Let’s sort out our inventories and see what we got,” Nie Yan said. For the sake of saving time, he stuffed everything he obtained into his bag before moving on. He had no time to actually examine them. His and Tang Yao’s bags were already filled to the brim with loot.
After finding a safe place to land, Tang Yao unsummoned the Netherthunder Eagle. Activating a Return Scroll, they teleported back to Calore.
“Where are we headed?” Tang Yao asked after the two emerged from the transfer point.
“We’re heading to the Starry Night Potion Shop. We’ll move over all the loot from our personal storages in an empty workshop, and see what we got!” Nie Yan said. He also couldn’t help but get a bit excited.
The two headed to the Starry Night Potion Shop. Before long, a grand building came into view.
This over 50 meter-tall building was divided into 10 stories and occupied a large amount of land. No other building in the vicinity could rival the Starry Night Potion Shop in size, not even the neighbouring Credit Exchange Hall.
“Wow, the Starry Night Potion Shop has really grown. It’s the most eye-catching building around. You probably spent quite a bit of gold upgrading it to Tier 10, huh?” Tang Yao clicked his tongue in admiration.
“Upgrading the Starry Night Potion Shop to Tier 10 and buying all the related appliances and furnishings for the new rooms set me back about 200,000 gold. Thankfully, the money has already been made back,” Nie Yan smiled.
“How much does the Starry Night Potion Shop make in a day?”
“Deducting production costs and other expenses, the Starry Night Potion Shop generates a net profit of more than 50,000 gold a day. Apart from this, it also supplies Asskickers United with 60,000 gold worth of potions on a daily basis!” Nie Yan said. The Starry Night Potion Shop was undoubtedly the number one potion shop in all of Conviction. At the same time, it also had the most Alchemists. No other potion shop could compare. With a total of 3,000 Alchemists, of which nearly 50 were Advanced Alchemists, it was a gathering place of talent.
Tang Yao was speechless. The Starry Night Potion Shop made more in a day than some small guilds were worth!
“I heard Angel Corps recently opened their own potion shop called Holy Paradise Potion Shop. They’re expanding pretty rapidly,” Tang Yao said after recalling some people talking about it in the guild chat.
“How many Alchemists do they have?”
“300 in total with 5 Advanced Alchemists,” Tang Yao replied.
“Still a far ways off from the Starry Night Potion Shop,” Nie Yan chuckled. However, the activities of Angel Corps did attract his attention. After thinking for a bit, his eyes narrowed. He might not be able to touch Angel Corps, but the Starry Night Potion Shop was fully capable of suppressing the Holy Paradise Potion Shop.
As the two friends chatted, they had already arrived in the main hall of the Starry Night Potion Shop. It was bustling with people looking to buy potions.
“Let’s head upstairs,” Nie Yan said. He led Tang Yao up the stairs to a workshop on the fifth floor which hadn’t been assigned to an Alchemist yet.
With a crashing sound, Nie Yan and Tang Yao dumped all the items they had collected over the past five days on a large table. The pile of loot sparkled and glittered.
“Let’s sift out the equipment first and store it inside the treasury,” Nie Yan suggested. Sorting through all these items would take at least an hour or two.
The two set off to work. A while later, close to 600 pieces of equipment were divided into a second pile of items.
“Wow, they’re all pretty high quality,” Tang Yao said after skimming through the stats of the equipment.
“It’s because we were the first to explore those maps. That’s why there were so many Gold and Dark Gold chests. I think we opened more than 20 Dark Gold chests and 120 Gold Chests,” Nie Yan said. Normally Gold and Dark Gold chests were extremely rare. Some people could go weeks without finding even one. Others could go through their whole lives without seeing one. Meanwhile, he had opened so many in a short five days.
Tang Yao was tasked with depositing everything into the treasury. The sudden appearance of Level 100+ equipment caused the guild to boil over with excitement.
“How did the boss get all this equipment?”
“I don’t know! You don’t think the boss mobilized an expedition force to collect this equipment, right? How come there’s so much? Even if you grinded nonstop, there still shouldn’t be so much! Looking at the stats, a lot of them are Gold and Dark Gold-grade. Didn’t the official website say the drop rates for Level 100+ equipment was extremely low?”
No one foolishly asked Nie Yan about the origin of this equipment. Who knew if this information would be leaked out by the spies of other guilds.
After getting rid of all the equipment, all that remained were gems, scrolls, skill books, and various other miscellaneous items. It was hard to pick out what was what.
“It’s the Advanced Magic, Manaflow Circulator! Looking at the requirements… I can learn it right now!” Tang Yao cried out after picking out a gold embroidered skill book from the pile.
Manaflow Circulator was a rare skill. At rank 1, it could halve the cast time of all spells for 10 seconds.
“Sure, go for it,” Nie Yan replied. As he rummaged through the pile, searching for skill books that he could use himself, Tang Yao let out another cry.
“Holy shit! It’s Spell Overdrive! Awesome!”
Before Level 100, Spell Overdrive was extremely rare and expensive. After Level 100, the drop rate was a bit higher, but it was still fairly rare. It could boost Magic Power by 30% for 20 seconds.
Tang Yao set aside these two skill books and continued excitedly searching for ones that he could use.
“My god! It’s Solemn Judgement! I’ve struck gold!”
“Oh shit! It’s Blaze Clash! Amazing!”
…
Tang Yao was grinning from ear to ear. He had picked out 15 skill books that he could use from the pile and set them aside. He could learn seven of them right away, while he would have to wait until his stats were high enough to learn the other eight.
“I need to forget some of my old skills. Nie Yan, help me pick out the ones that are useless,” Tang Yao said.
“Alright, get rid of Dark Corrosion.”
“Wait, why?” Tang Yao asked in surprise. “Dark Corrosion is still pretty useful. It can reduce a target’s defense.”
“You recently learned Death Corrosion, right? At rank 2, Dark Corrosion will look like garbage and become completely obsolete,” Nie Yan replied. Even though he didn’t play a Mage in his past life, he had clashed with them thousands if not tens of thousands of times. He was pretty familiar with their skills.
Tang Yao compared the effects of Dark Corrosion and Death Corrosion. The two were practically identical, except Death Corrosion’s effects were much more potent. A Rank 1 Death Corrosion was comparable to a Rank 6 Dark Corrosion. He decided to listen to Nie Yan and forgot Dark Corrosion.
Following Nie Yan’s advice, Tang Yao forgot three more skills, then started frantically learning new ones. One skill book after another disappeared in his hand with brilliant flashes of light.
“Sweet! This is the first time I learned seven rare skill books in one go!” Tang Yao said. It was as if he was on cloud nine.
Nie Yan also started looking for skill books he could learn.
“These are for Holy Mages. These are for Elementalists.” Tang Yao organized the skill books from the pile. The skill books that dropped from Level 100+ maps were fairly rare at this stage of the game.
“Divide these with Undying Scoundrel and the others.” Nie Yan set aside a pile of skill books. He took out five to give to Xie Yao.
“Hey, here’s a Shadow Escape Skill Book,” Tang Yao said.
“Set that aside for me,” Nie Yan said. Shadow Escape, Gale Step, and Shadow Waltz were pretty similar, giving three seconds of invincibility upon activation. However, Shadow Escape reduced movement speed by 50% and increased Cloaking by 50%. It was a rare skill.
There were still more than 100 skill books remaining. Nie Yan and Tang Yao had to go through them one by one. This was an extremely time consuming task.
“Elemental Resonance, Advanced Heal, Cure Grievous Wounds, Mana Drain, Intermediate Revive, Paladin’s Protection… Nie Yan, I think Bladelight and the others are going to lose their minds with joy. In the future, no other elite team will hold a candle to ours!” Tang Yao exclaimed, unable to contain his excitement. He knew just how important these skills were for teams. Their dungeon clearing ability would be raised to all new heights!