Nie Yan's movements grew more and more fluid as he got accustomed to this new style of combat. By now, he could dispatch ordinary Rank 1 monsters without breaking so much as a sweat. He didn't even need to rely on skills to dodge their attacks anymore.
After felling another Dark Mammoth, Nie Yan started digging out its Life Core. Suddenly, a thought struck him, "I wonder if I can use Steal on these monsters..."
Nie Yan glanced at his skill bar. At Rank 16, Steal had a base success rate of 96. The penalties from attempting to steal from a target above his level were greatly reduced. He could now also steal multiple items at once.
"If I can use Steal on these Rank 1 monsters, one success should be enough to take everything they have!" Nie Yan's eyes shone brightly.
Nie Yan explored around. Before long, he encountered another Dark Mammoth. It was grinding its tusks against a tree.
He snuck up behind the Dark Mammoth. Carefully placing his feet, he inched closer and closer. When he was within arm's reach, he slowly guided his hand forward.
Steal!
Steal successful! You have obtained 30 gold and a Gathering Master skill book.
Yes! It worked! Nie Yan's face lit up with joy.
Before Nie Yan had a chance to look at his bag, the Dark Mammoth let out a furious cry and swung its tusks at him.
Nie Yan leaped several paces back, evading the attack. He dashed back in with an elbow strike. BANG! The Dark Mammoth was stunned.
Once it was CCd, its fate was sealed.
Nie Yan unleashed a flurry of attacks and quickly dispatched the Dark Mammoth. Digging out the Life Core, he then quickly checked his bag. Sitting in the corner was a skill book.
Skill Book: Gathering Master
Description: Gain additional proficiency when harvesting medicinal plants. Reduce gathering requirements by one rank.
This skill book was extremely valuable. It would allow an artisan to quickly raise their Gathering skill. Unfortunately, it was completely useless to Nie Yan. Even if he learned it, he still couldn't harvest the Red Dragon Herbs. The rank of his Gathering skill was simply too low.
Nie Yan pondered for a moment. "Well, even if it's useless to me, it'll be of use to others in the guild."
He tossed the Gathering Master skill book back into his bag, then resumed his hunt. From then on, every time he encountered a Rank 1 monster, he would use Steal on it until there was nothing left to take.
Most of the time, Nie Yan only stole gold. But every now and then he got lucky and obtained a skill book. Gathering Master, Mining Master, Tailoring Master, Tinkering Master... all these artisan skill books piled up in his bag. These precious items were as common as weeds here!
After spending a whole day grinding, Nie Yan ended up with three Gathering Master, five Mining Master, three Tailoring Master, and two Tinkering Master skill books. He had no complaints with this harvest. Besides this, he had also snagged two 120-slot super bags!
Ordinary 50- to 60-slot bags were already some of the largest you could get at this stage of the game. With two 120-slot bags, Nie Yan suddenly had a whole lot more inventory space to work with.
Nie Yan attended classes in the Top Military Academy during the day, and continued doing his Luminous Dancer class advancement quest in the Ancient World at night.
A week later, Nie Yan finally finished killing 500 Rank 1 or higher monsters.
The second part of the Luminous Dancer class advancement quest line required Nie Yan to kill 500 Rank 2 or higher monsters. Even though they were much stronger than their Rank 1 counterparts, he could still deal with them fairly easily.
After exploring around more and more, Nie Yan gradually familiarized himself with the environment of the Ancient World. He searched the forest for signs of monsters.
The abundance of precious medicinal plants and ores here was enough to drive countless players mad with greed. If only his Gathering and Mining were a little higher, he would've harvested them all. Once the opportunity was missed, it would be gone forever. These materials were all extremely rare in the outside world, to the extent that you would only have a miniscule chance of obtaining them in Level 100+ dungeons. With these crafting materials, Asskickers United could nurture numerous Master Blacksmiths and Alchemists!
After passing through a long and narrow patch of forest, Nie Yan arrived at a meadow. He was greeted by the sight of a large field of medicinal plants. His heart shook. "Gold Orchids!"
Gold Orchids were a fairly low rank medicinal plant and a primary material used in concocting Intermediate Mana Potions. Since the demand for Intermediate Mana Potions was currently sky high, the supply of Gold Orchids couldn't keep up. So, their prices inflated to 5 gold each.
Nie Yan stared mesmerised at the vast field of Gold Orchids before him.
To Nie Yan, the value of the Gold Orchids was secondary. At 5 gold each, even if he collected 10,000, it would only amount to 50,000 gold. If he learned Gathering Master and harvested all these Gold Orchids, given how many of them there were here, he would gain enough proficiency to raise his Gathering skill to Advanced rank. It would only take him a few days. At that time, in combination with Gathering Master which reduced harvest requirements by one, he would just barely be able to harvest Red Dragon Herbs! Though, the success rate couldn't be ensured.
One Red Dragon Herb was worth at least 70,000 gold. Given the abundance of Red Dragon Herbs in this world, after a few days of harvesting, Nie Yan would have several hundred Red Dragon Herbs. Such expensive medicinal plants were incredibly difficult to sell, let alone such a large quantity of them. Dumping them all at once would surely crash the whole market. However, none of that mattered to him since he planned to use them exclusively to nurture the alchemists of the Starry Night Potion Shop.
"If I want those Red Dragon Herbs, then I'm going to have to spend a few more days in the Ancient World raising my Gathering skill."
In the previous timeline, there had never been a change in the amount of Red Dragon Herbs in the market. It appeared Mistaken Smile didn't bother harvesting these Red Dragon Herbs when doing the Luminous Dancer class advancement quest.
Nie Yan considered his options. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Once he was back in the outside world, it would take him several months just to raise his Gathering skill to Advanced rank, let alone Master rank. He didn't have that much free time on his hands, nor would he be willing to spend it on such an endeavor even if he did.
After making his decision, Nie Yan took out a Gathering Master skill book and learned it.
The skill book transformed into a ray of light. Nie Yan glanced at his skill bar. The Gathering Master skill replaced his previous Gathering skill.
Gold Orchids grew in large numbers in this place, unlike the outside where you would have to spend hours just to find a single plant. Truthfully speaking, the Gathering skill was actually fairly easy to train. However, most of the time spent training it was used to find plants. That was what made gaining proficiency for it so frustrating.
Other players who wished to train their Gathering skill would probably go crazy if they saw this field of Gold Orchids.
Nie Yan bent down and started harvesting. He carefully plucked the Gold Orchids from the ground, employing various methods to ensure the harvesting was successful. After which he put away the plant in his bag. He succeeded most of the time, only failing occasionally. If the harvesting failed, the plant would wither and die. However, he couldn't care less about these failures.
One Gold Orchid after another was successfully harvested. 20 counted as a full stack. Six hours later, after collecting his 30th stack, a notification jingle rang out.
Nie Yan checked his Gathering Master skill. It had reached Intermediate rank!
Skill proficiency could still be gained from harvesting these Gold Orchids. So, Nie Yan had no plan to leave this place.
An ordinary player would probably go mad doing this kind of monotonous work. However, Nie Yan persevered. Perhaps because he had experienced two lifetimes, his heart was much more resolute than others'.
It was as if Nie Yan was a hermit. Stuck in this secluded world, everything he did had no relation to the outside. However, he understood raising his Gathering skill would also be beneficial to him beyond this place. He would no longer encounter situations where he would have to pass up on rare alchemy plants because his Gathering skill was too low.
Day after day, nothing of importance occurred in the Viridian Empire. Nie Yan could focus on gathering medicinal plants without a worry in the world.
Out in the real world, Nie Yan and Xie Yao gradually became more acclimated to school life in the Top Military Academy. They would occasionally encounter a few road bumps here and there, but everything was good overall.
Five days later, following a crisp notification jingle, Nie Yan's Gathering Master skill reached Advanced rank. He could finally harvest Red Dragon Herbs, even though he was unsure of his success rate.
Nie Yan looked at his map. Based one his memory, he headed back to the area where Red Dragon Herbs were growing.
After sneaking past the respawned monsters, Nie Yan found a Red Dragon Herb among the trees. It was bright red like fire and extremely eye-catching.
Nie Yan walked over to the Red Dragon Herb and bent down. He carefully pushed aside the surrounding soil, revealing the main stalk and roots.
He had to be extremely careful not to accidentally damage the roots, or else the entire plant would wither up and die.
Harvesting Red Dragon Herbs was extremely troublesome. There were many minor things you had to pay attention to.
At this moment, Nie Yan's fingernail accidentally brushed against a tiny rootlet. With a poof sound, the entire Red Dragon Herb withered into a dry husk, no longer giving off any trace of life.
"Dammit." Nie Yan stood up and went searching for another Red Dragon Herb.
Back outside, if someone tasked with gathering accidentally destroyed a Red Dragon Herb, they would be cussed to death by their teammates. They were far too rare. It was exactly this combination of rarity and difficulty that made them so ludicrously expensive. Luckily, Red Dragon Herbs grew in abundance here. Even if he accidentally destroyed one of them, he didn't feel a tinge of regret. He would just move on to another one.