At the Carol City teleport point, a group of over twenty players were chatting together.
"I think that guy is a total scammer. How could he possibly know the strategy for the Forsaken Warlock Camp?"
"He shouldn't be a scammer. Otherwise, how would he have known where we wiped？ He must know this dungeon inside out to tell where we'd die."
Opinions were all over the place. It was hard to call it one way or the other.
“Stone, how is it? Did he say anything?” a warrior beside him asked. He was the team leader, called Half-Awake Fox.
Stone relayed what Nie Yan had said.
The Holy Word Priest thought for a long time, looked at the team members, and asked, “Do you think it’s credible？”
“Hard to say,” said the nearby player. The Depraved Warlock stages were too tough, and they hadn’t even seen the Depraved Priest before wiping.
“Maybe that Nie Yan has cleared the Depraved Warlock camp with a team before.”
“He really is a pro. That spawn point outside the Depraved Warlock area—he told me about it himself. He said he used to play a warrior but deleted it and started a thief instead. I think his warrior must have been at least level four, otherwise how would he know so much?” Flying Stone defended Nie Yan, fully trusting him.
“Should we try his method？”
“Everyone get ready. We leave in ten minutes,” the Holy Word Priest decided.
“Boss Fox, are we really going？” another mage asked.
“I think his words have some credibility; otherwise, he wouldn’t know the Depraved Warlock dungeon so well. Let’s try it. If that guy is a liar, I’ll make him pay.” Half-Awake Fox said confidently. He could still tell truth from lies. If they hadn’t wiped in the Depraved Warlock camp earlier, he wouldn’t have asked Stone to seek help from Nie Yan.
Nie Yan was still farming Water Spiders, collecting Fine Silk. The grinding process was quite dull.
He was taking on a Water Spider, about to finish it off, when squeak—the spider let out a sharp cry.
The six Water Spiders in the distance were alerted and surrounded him.
Taking on two Water Spiders at once was already his limit. If he ran into more than two, he had no chance of winning at all.
Nie Yan pounced forward, landing a critical hit and killing the low-health Water Spider. He snatched the copper coin it dropped, but six Water Spiders had already rushed up to him.
Nie Yan quickly plunged into the water and swam toward the bottom.
The six spiders crawled on the water's surface, searching for traces of Nie Yan.
Nie Yan swam far away. After more than a minute, he began to feel suffocated. He looked up at the water's surface and saw that the Water Spiders had only increased in number. If he went up now, he would surely die.
To keep from drowning, Nie Yan could only activate the underwater breathing skill on his Water-Repelling Pearl, planning to swim back to the surface at a spot with fewer Water Spiders.
A ray of light shone down from the lake's surface, illuminating the deep, dark lakebed. Nie Yan vaguely saw a golden flash pass by at the bottom. His heart skipped a beat—could it be some kind of treasure?
Since the Water-Repelling Pearl's underwater breathing duration was still long, Nie Yan dove deeper toward the lakebed.
It was unfathomably deep. The deeper Nie Yan dove, the greater the pressure on his abdomen.
The lakebed was covered in jagged rocks, narrow and dark between them, with vision only about two yards.
Nie Yan could see that the rocks at the bottom were covered in ores like black iron crystals, but unfortunately, he didn't have a mining skill, so he had to give up.
Chilly currents seeped out from between the jagged rocks, washing over Nie Yan's body, making him feel a biting cold.
Suddenly, a huge golden eel swam out from between the jagged rocks and passed right by Nie Yan.
Nie Yan was startled, but when he looked more clearly, he realized it was a Golden Electric Eel！
The golden flash he had seen earlier from above was exactly this Golden Electric Eel！
Golden Electric Eels are a rare type of monster, ranging from level 0 to level 20. They have a gentle temperament and never attack players first. When players attack them, they fight back, releasing a powerful electric current from their tails. In the water, this is a deadly killing move.
If you take down a Golden Electric Eel, it usually drops some decent equipment, at least Bronze-grade.
Golden Electric Eel： Level 0, 80 HP.
Good thing it was only a level 0 Golden Electric Eel. If it were a slightly higher level, Nie Yan wouldn't be able to harm it at all.
Nie Yan followed alongside the Golden Electric Eel, observing its body, searching for its weak point. This Golden Electric Eel was three meters long.
The Golden Electric Eel was completely oblivious to Nie Yan's presence, even swimming around him a few times.
It was said that the Golden Electric Eel's vital point was its neck. Nie Yan looked over and noticed a red scale on the eel's neck.
That was the Golden Electric Eel's weak point！
Nie Yan followed the Golden Electric Eel into a narrow crevice between rocks. He raised his dagger and stabbed at the eel's neck, performing an Assassinate that pierced into its throat. A gush of crimson blood flowed out.
－11。
The Golden Electric Eel hadn't expected this player beside it to attack, and thrashed violently, trying to shake off Nie Yan.
Nie Yan clung tightly to the Golden Electric Eel's body, but the eel was covered in slippery mucus, making it hard to hold on.
The Golden Electric Eel whipped its tail, sending a powerful electric current blasting toward Nie Yan.
－32。
The current struck Nie Yan, his body feeling like a million ants gnawing at him, a numbing sensation that left him completely limp.
The Golden Electric Eel's electric attack had a paralyzing effect！
In a daze, Nie Yan sensed the Golden Electric Eel trying to escape. The dagger in his hand pierced into the eel's body and got stuck near its spine.
Nie Yan gripped the dagger tightly.
The Golden Electric Eel dragged Nie Yan forward as it swam. Another electric current blasted into Nie Yan's body, and a damage value of -23 floated up above his head.
The Golden Electric Eel was a special monster, stronger than a leader-class one. If it were a slightly higher level, Nie Yan would have already been dead.
Nie Yan's consciousness grew a little blurry, but he forced himself to stay alert.
The Golden Electric Eel swam swiftly, weaving through gaps between jagged rocks. Streams of blood gushed from its body, dyeing the surrounding waters completely red.
After a while, the Golden Electric Eel struck again with another electric shock, hitting Nie Yan and dealing 16 damage.
The electric eel's body had a limited amount of electricity; the more it used, the weaker the attack power.
The Golden Electric Eel swam for five or six minutes with Nie Yan in tow, attacking him continuously. Nie Yan's health kept dropping, leaving only twenty-three HP left. He struggled to use a low-grade instant recovery potion.
The current paralyzed his entire body, making even the slightest movement extremely difficult.
The Golden Electric Eel grew tired and stopped. Nie Yan seized the opportunity, thrusting his dagger into the eel's neck with a vital strike.
The Golden Electric Eel struggled incessantly, wrapping itself tightly around Nie Yan, completely coiling him inside. An overwhelming sensation of suffocation came from his chest cavity.
-5, -5, -5 — damage numbers floated up from above Nie Yan's head one after another. His health had dropped to only 15%.
Seeing his health steadily decreasing, Nie Yan quickened his attacks, stabbing the dagger repeatedly into the eel's neck.
-8, -8, -8, the Golden Electric Eel's health finally hit zero. It slowly loosened its grip and rolled over, showing its white belly.
Nie Yan finally broke free from the Golden Electric Eel's grasp. He reached out with his right hand and picked up the equipment the eel had dropped—a pair of bracers.
Soft Leather Bracers： Bronze rank, unidentified attribute.
It was dropped by a level 0 Golden Electric Eel, so it should be level 0 too. He'd have to return to town to get its attributes identified. Since it was leather armor, a thief could definitely use it.
He tossed the Soft Leather Bracers into his backpack as the paralysis effect on him gradually faded. He had no idea where the Golden Electric Eel had dragged him to. Nie Yan swam upwards.
Weaving through the gloomy, jagged rocks, Nie Yan spotted a small plant swaying with the current on one of the rocks in the distance.
It was a small plant half an inch tall, with three spindle-shaped green leaves soft as silk.
Judging by its appearance, it was a Water Scale Grass！
Nie Yan's eyelid twitched. Low-grade Instant Mana Potions had six different recipes, and Water Scale Grass was one of the main ingredients for one of them. A bottle of Low-grade Instant Mana was worth thirty copper coins, so the price of Water Scale Grass was around twenty copper coins.
Two bright red water snakes slithered past the Water Scale Grass.
Flowery Scale Water Snake： Level 3, HP 100/100.
Nie Yan waited nearby until the Flowery Scale Water Snakes had swum far away, then swam toward where the Water Scale Grass grew. Like a gecko clinging to the rock, he plucked the stalk of Water Scale Grass and put it into his backpack.
This must be the spawning area for Water Scale Grass. Nie Yan searched around and found two more stalks, so the harvest was pretty decent.
Nie Yan surfaced, breaking through the water. After spending so long in the dim underwater environment, it was really suffocating. Finally, he could breathe.
This area was still Water Spider spawn territory, so Nie Yan kept killing Water Spiders. As the game was about to close, he managed to get a Holy Light Strike skill book for the Holy Knight class. Holy Light Strike is a basic skill for Paladins, and currently costs around 30 copper coins.
Lucky break. In the Water Spider spawn zone, the drop rate for Holy Light Strike is less than one in ten thousand. Some people farm Water Spiders for days and might not even get a single Holy Light Strike.
System： The game will close in three minutes. Players, please prepare to log out.
Nie Yan found a relatively safe spot and hid. Once the three minutes passed, the screen went dark and he logged out.
At 9 AM, a new day began. People went to work. Since they practiced a three-hour work system—one hour in the morning and two in the afternoon—their schedules were quite relaxed. Students, meanwhile, had started their summer break.
After breakfast, Nie Yan started his morning exercise. His father had been in the military and was very strict with him, so his foundation was decent. Back when he was planning to assassinate Cao Xu, he had trained for two years using methods from online special forces training, which were extremely intense. Since he was already older at the time and had missed the optimal training window, the results weren't outstanding, but he could still easily take down two or three adults.
The term 'two or three adults' here referred to adults who had some training. The development of productivity had freed people from heavy labor, and modern society increasingly valued elite education. Beyond basic courses, freestyle combat, taekwondo, boxing, and the like were offered as elective classes starting from childhood, so everyone had decent physical fitness—at least some basic fighting skills. Large combat tournaments were always popular. In fact, you could say it was a martial society.
There weren't many training gadgets at home, so he could only do basic exercises. Once he had enough money to buy equipment and some biological agents, the results would be much more noticeable.
After an hour of exercise and twenty minutes of combat training, Nie Yan began reviewing his lessons. In this era, the role of knowledge was extremely important. The knowledge in textbooks covered practically everything, from simple physics and chemistry to making various polymer compounds, aircraft, small nuclear batteries, and so on. If one thoroughly mastered the knowledge in textbooks, building space shuttles and mechas wouldn't be a problem.
People of this era, stimulated by drugs and bioelectric currents, had an average IQ of over 160, with the highest reaching 260. However, in their lifetimes, they were far from being able to integrate all the knowledge accumulated by their predecessors.
In high school, getting 50 or 60 points out of 100 on a test was already pretty good. There was no concept of passing or failing exams, but every test score would be recorded in one's personal comprehensive evaluation.
In his first two years of high school, Nie Yan's grades ranked in the top three. After transferring to an elite school in the city, his grades fell to the bottom. In this world, money could get many things done, but knowledge determined a person's status. Nie Yan's father could use money to pave a broad road for him, but walking down that road depended on Nie Yan himself.