Chapter 279 – Shadow Slaughter (1/2)

Chapter 279 – Shadow Slaughter

Everlasting City. Some of the richer members of Asskickers United were starting to show up. By pooling together their funds, they could afford enough Magic Bombs for a brief power-levelling session in the outer district. Due to the sky-high costs, levelling there for any extended period of time was impractical.

As the average level of the player base rose, the existence of Everlasting City would inevitably be revealed to the public. With this being the case, it was in the best interest of Asskickers United to take advantage of their monopoly while they still could.

Nie Yan found a relatively secluded area and summoned the Golden Dragon. He jumped into the settings and diverted all incoming experience to his pet. Afterwards, he fed it some steak and ordered it to stay put.

Dashing away, Nie Yan used his Cavalry Crossbow to aggro the several hundred Mechanical Golems in the vicinity. After he built up a large enough wave behind him, he began sweeping through with Magic Bombs.

「Boom! Boom! Boom!」A magical blaze enveloped the area.

Magic Bombs arced through the sky, one after the other, before falling to the ground and exploding as a blanket of damage values rose up into the air.

Swaths of Mechanical Golems collapsed to the ground.

Nie Yan saw the Golden Dragon’s experience skyrocket as the special effect for levelling up played over and over again. It directly ascended to Level 9. Its health rose to 260 while its attack and magic power rose to 63–67, while all its other stats also rose considerably. Its growth rate was truly frightening. If the Golden Dragon kept growing in this fashion, its stats would far surpass Nie Yan’s by the time it reached Level 23.

The Golden Dragon also acquired its first skill.

Dragon Breath (Junior): Spray out Dragon Breath, dealing (20 + Magic Power) Fire Damage in a 5-meter cone. Cooldown: 3 minutes. Ranks up at Level 20.

Dragon Breath was an outstanding area of effect skill. It was only Junior-rank for now, but it could already deal so much damage. If he brought the Golden Dragon’s level up, clearing mobs would definitely become much easier. One Dragon Breath could scorch an entire area down to ashes.

Let’s level here for now. I’ll find a better place some other time.

Not just the Golden Dragon, Nie Yan also needed to level up. After the release of the Buried History expansion, the levels of players were skyrocketing. If he didn’t quickly start levelling, he would soon be left behind. It would be ideal if he found a map with evil creatures. Like this, he could level up while also unlocking some of the skills in his Glimpse of Darkness.

Nie Yan looked over the skills in Glimpse of Darkness before focusing his attention on a single one—Shadow Slaughter. To unlock this skill, he only needed to kill a single monster. But looks could be deceiving, as the monster he had to kill was a Level 50 Lord that was an evil creature.

Shadow Slaughter: While active, deal 30% splash damage to up to 10 targets in a 10 meter radius. Duration: 2 minutes. Cooldown: 2 days.

This was a skill any Thief would drool over.

Area-of-effect Thief skills were extremely rare. Even if one showed up in the marketplace, its price would be staggering.

What Nie Yan currently lacked was precisely this type of skill. With such a skill in his arsenal, whether in PvP or PvE, it would be extremely useful. The only downside was its fairly long cooldown.

An increasing number of players obtained new high level skills every day. If Nie Yan wanted to maintain his superiority, it was imperative for him to raise the quality of his skills.

Nie Yan had his sights set on a new goal. He glanced at the Golden Dragon beside him. I’ll get this guy up to at least Level 20 first.

Nie Yan noticed the Golden Dragon had grown quite a bit. It now reached up to his waist. He wondered how big it would get in the future. Would it grow as large as the one in Sinful Gorge? If that happened, it would be too frightening.

Nie Yan dashed off to aggro another 500 Mechanical Golems. After rounding them up, he cleared them away with Magic Bombs.

Another wave of Mechanical Golems collapsed to the ground, and the Golden Dragon ascended to Level 13. The higher its level, the more experience it needed to level up.

Nie Yan did some calculations. The Golden Dragon required at least three times as much experience to level up compared to him. If he wanted to bring it up to a truly high level, it would be no simple matter. If he wished to keep the Golden Dragon’s level close to his own, he would be forced to put endlessly more effort into levelling than the average player.

Far off in a secluded corner, the Golden Dragon was wriggling about, bored to death.

Because Nie Yan ordered it to stay put, it couldn’t leave.

At its current level, there was no way it could handle the Mechanical Golems.