Chapter 113 – Thunderbolt Blaze
Nie Yan headed to the transfer point and proceeded to Tasoyi Village. Retracing the steps of his last visit, he traversed Plague Forest, the Gaia Monitor’s nest, and eventually arrived back at the overhanging cliff.
The cold wind, that originated from the Desolate Tundra of the North, whistled through the ravine. Although it would inevitably warm up during its journey here, currently the chilling nip still persisted.
As Nie Yan stood at the edge of the cliff, he stared at the dense forest canopy below.
The ravine was the central region of the Plague Canyon and also where Windletter Herb, a primary ingredient required to manufacture Intermediate Anti-Paralysis Potions, grew in abundance. At the peak of its demand during Nie Yan’s past life, this alchemy ingredient had sold for up to seventeen silver per plant. Moreover, since the mob density in the zone was relatively high and mostly consisted of Quilled Kobolds, a mob that was very slow and possessed no long range attacks, it became a favourite training ground among Mages who had reached Level 20.
The only inconvenience was that it was quite tedious to get to this zone. In order to do so, players would need to detour around a large mountain range. Usually, most players would set out on this journey by horseback. However, since Nie Yan didn’t have a mount, who knows just how much time he would waste if he were to actually walk the entire distance. Thus, the best option available was to take a shortcut by jumping off this cliff.
Naturally, this was only possible thanks to the Featherfall Jewel’s ability; otherwise, the fall would undoubtedly mean certain death.
Nie Yan finally jumped off the cliff.
The wind whistled past his ears as he rapidly descended into the ravine below.
Falling from several hundred meters high was still considerably exhilarating. After dropping over two hundred meters, his descending velocity was still constantly increasing. Soon, the air resistance made it difficult for him to keep his eyes open. As the ground drew closer and closer, he hastily activated the Featherfall Jewel’s ability.
Almost immediately, his falling speed slowed down to a crawl. Nie Yan adjusted his position accordingly and searched for a suitable location to land at. Eventually, after finding an opening in the canopy, he safely came into contact with the ground.
Nie Yan didn’t immediately take action but scanned the surrounding with his eyes instead. The area he landed in was a small meadow, roughly fifty meters in size, that thankfully happened to be beside the rock face.
This spot should be fine… Nie Yan thought. The topography in this meadow was quite suitable for his plan. He also quickly discovered many Windletter Herbs in the area. This was clearly an area that wasn’t frequented by other players, as the plant was freely growing everywhere in his surroundings. Unfortunately, his Gathering skill hadn’t yet reached the required level to harvest them.
Eventually, a Quilled Kobold wandered into the meadow. This monster was a bipedal, dumpy porcupine that only reached half a person’s height. They wielded small wooden clubs studded with wolf teeth. Their backs were covered in sharp, ash gray quills, which provided them with an extremely strong physical defense, and even enabled them to reflect some damage. However, not only were they especially slow, they were also vulnerable to magic, which made them easy targets for Mages. This one for example, upon discovering Nie Yan’s presence, emitted an odd, high-pitched squeak before charging straight at him.
Nie Yan instantly used Transcendent Insight to examine the Quilled Kobold.
Quilled Kobold: Level 23
Health: 1,300/1,300
A Level 23 Quilled Kobold’s health and defense were both frighteningly high.
Nie Yan retrieved his crossbow and shot three bolts at the approaching Quilled Kobold.
−10, −11, −10, three damage values rose above its head. However, as a Level 23 monster, its health regeneration was astonishingly high. Thus, the damage Nie Yan had dealt was quickly negated as its health had already recovered back to full.
Nie Yan activated Swift Retreat. With his movement speed increased by thirty percent, he was able to easily put a large distance between himself and the Quilled Kobold.
After assessing its speed, he became well aware of the situation. As long as he didn’t allow the Kobold to get too close, he would be in no danger whatsoever.
Nie Yan proceeded to run deeper into the forest and began to draw the aggro of other monsters. Whenever he came across a Quilled Kobold wandering around, he would fire a few bolts at it as he passed by. After being attacked, they would immediately pursue him while flailing their clubs. In this fashion, he continued to aggro more monsters while maintaining an optimal distance that wasn’t too close nor too far away from the monsters.
As he led the angry monsters on a chase around the forest, the mob began to resemble a train with Nie Yan as the conductor. Starting with only one Quilled Kobold, more and more joined the chase, until the size of the mob had exceeded twenty. Eventually, he led the entire mob of Kobolds back to the meadow he had originally landed at.
Having gotten the Kobolds where he wanted them, he accelerated his pace and quickly left their line of sight. Afterwards, the Kobolds deaggroed and returned to an idle state.
As such, this group of fifty to sixty of these Quilled Kobolds had flooded this open area. There were around fifty to sixty of them. Luckily for Nie Yan, it was unlikely that this group would disperse and wander out of the area any time soon.
Nie Yan ran off to another region of the forest and continued to aggro monsters with his crossbow. Before ten minutes had even passed, he had gathered another mob of a similar size behind him. However, unlike the previous group, several of the Kobolds in this group were comparatively larger and faster than the rest. Nonetheless, since there were so many ordinary Kobolds packed around them, obstructing their movements, they were unable to have any significant impact on the chase.
He once again used Transcendent Insight to examine one of these larger Kobolds.
Quilled Kobold (Leader): Level 25
Health: 2,100/2,100
They were Leader-class monsters that possessed significantly higher health. In normal circumstances, he would never dare to tangle with these Leader-class Kobolds. However, at present, even they were his prey.
Soon, he brought over the group of Kobolds to the meadow, before breaking off their aggro by moving out of their line of sight. Now, together with the previous group, this already crowded place started to become congested.
Nie Yan’s corralling of the Kobolds to the meadow progressed smoothly. After half an hour, he had managed to lead four more large groups of Kobolds into the area. This small meadow was now thoroughly crowded with over three hundred Quilled Kobolds, a number that would leave anyone completely speechless.
Finally finished… A faint smile could be seen on Nie Yan’s face as he stared at the group of Kobolds in this meadow. The final step would be to reap the rewards of all his efforts!
He nimbly evaded the attacks of the Kobolds as he made his way toward the rock face, then he activated the Crawler Ring’s ability. An attractive force immediately emerged from both his hands, and using this attractive force, he began to quickly climb up the rock face. After reaching an appropriate height, he found a suitable ledge to stand on.
As he firmly stood on the ledge he looked down upon the meadow and saw the Quilled Kobolds everywhere!
If he waited too much longer, all these monsters would begin to disperse!
Nie Yan switched out some of his gear with the three pieces of equipment that increased Intelligence, then retrieved the Thunderbolt Blaze Scroll and activated it.
「System: Do you wish to cast Thunderbolt Blaze?」
Yes!
「System: Casting Thunderbolt Blaze Scroll…」
As he began to read the words on the scroll aloud a succession of hard-to-pronounce invocation syllables left his mouth.
Casting this scroll required a set of syllables and gestures. In other words, it would require ten seconds to cast. The scroll in his hands gave him the feeling as if it was a giant sphere of fire, raging and ready to combust.
It was time, the Thunderbolt Blaze scroll was activating!
The fire elements in the atmosphere frantically converged, making the surrounding atmosphere increasingly hot as waves of scorching air rose up into the sky. It seemed as if some type of otherworldly destructive power was being awakened, ready to rain destruction upon wherever it was summoned. Clouds of flames, that resembled the beautiful shade of red from a sunset, began to pulsate in the sky.
Yet such a dazzling existence represented utter destruction.
Thunderbolt Blaze was an area of effect magic that called down a storm of flames upon the enemy and could only be learned by an Elementalist. It was also a rank one magic from the Elemental Palace, which meant that its destructive power this early in the game was astonishingly powerful. It could even deal decent damage to monsters over Level 30, so there was no need to talk about these Quilled Kobolds that were only slightly over Level 20.
The crowd of Kobolds apparently sensed the danger and began to grow restless. Before long they began to disperse in every direction.
In life and death battles in his past life, he had learned that ten seconds was a very long time. Many things could occur in ten seconds. In fact, magic could still be easily interrupted by an enemy when it was mid-cast. It was also enough time for a Thief to erupt with a fervor of skills, dishing out their entire combo which could kill a Mage on the spot. However, in this current situation, ten seconds was actually quite short. By the time the Quilled Kobolds reacted to the danger, it was already too late. From the start, ten seconds was never enough time for them to safely flee from the meadow.
Nie Yan aimed in an area where the Kobolds were the most concentrated.
Thunderbolt Blaze!
The blazing cloud began to congeal in the sky, before it rained down flames on the entire area.
A frightening torrent of fire!
「Boom! Boom! Boom!」Spheres of flames bombarded the Quilled Kobolds, causing sparks of fire to fly everywhere as the Kobolds let out mournful cries.
It resembled a scene straight out of the apocalypse. Wave after wave of fire rained down, pushing all of the Quilled Kobolds in a twenty-meter radius down to the ground with so much force that they weren’t even able to lift their heads up.
In the midst of this fiery hell, a vast cloud of damage values, −200, −200, −200, rose into the air every second and blotted out everything else. Just how spectacular of a sight was this!?
Even the tanky Leader-class Kobolds were unable to endure such terrifying damage!
Nearly ten full waves of flames rained down upon the area in the spell’s fifteen-second duration, leaving all off the Quilled Kobolds fully roasted!
In the most concentrated area of the spell, the Quilled Kobolds resembled harvested wheat as they toppled over by the dozens.
「System: You have successfully slain a Quilted Kobold. +1800% experience for killing a monster above your level. You have received 5,290 experience points.」
「System: You have successfully slain a Quilted Kobold. +1800% experience for killing a monster above your level. You have received 5,290 experience points.」
…
While all this was happening, Nie Yan looked at his experience bar. It was filling up at a frightening rate. 56%… 67%… 83%… 「Ding! Dong!」The crisp sound of the system prompt echoed out. He had levelled up to Level 8!
However, it didn’t end here. His experience bar was still continuing to fill up at the same alarming rate. 12%… 56%… 73%…
「System: You have successfully slain a Quilted Kobold (Leader). +2800% experience for killing a monster above your level. You have received 25,290 experience points.」
「System: You have successfully slain a Quilted Kobold (Leader). +2800% experience for killing a monster above your level. You have received 25,290 experience points.」
…
Nie Yan noticed his experience had yet again reached one hundred percent. A brilliant radiance enveloped him while the melodious jingle played again. Another level up. Now he was Level 9, yet the experience bar still didn’t stop. Only when it reached fifty-six percent did it finally come to a complete stop.
What a frightening amount of experience!
Nie Yan had only been Level 7 while these Quilled Kobolds were all Level 20 or higher. Hence, the experience multiplier was quite astonishing. As such, on top of their base experience, he had received experience equal to at least eighteen times the base experience, so the amount of experience he had received for each Kobold was excessive beyond reason.
The incredible amount of experience caused Nie Yan to go from Level 7 directly to Level 9. Not only that, but he was also more than halfway to Level 10! If Sleepy Fox were there to witness Nie Yan’s astonishing levelling speed, he would probably faint from shock!
Nie Yan suppressed his excitement as he examined the destruction left behind by Thunderbolt Blaze. After a short while, the remnants of the spell had already slowly begun to scatter. The most havoc was done to the central region, which was now a complete mess. There were Kobold corpses scattered all over the place while the earth was charred black. Quite a few of the corpses even sparkled with light, which was a clear sign that items had been dropped by these Kobolds upon their deaths.
Thunderbolt Blaze only affected everything in a twenty meter radius, so there were still quite a few Kobolds who had survived because they were outside of the spell’s range. However, they all had long scattered and fled due to the terrifying might of the spell.
Thus, he would be able to safely retrieve the items that had dropped from the corpses.