Chapter 328 – Standardized Equipment
“I just need you to help me kill 2 groups of Phantom Berserkers. I can handle the rest from there,” Nie Yan said. This was the first main obstacle in the quest.
These seven Phantom Berserkers resembled immovable titans, blocking Nie Yan and Tang Yao’s path.
“Are you kidding me?” Tang Yao stared at Nie Yan with an incredulous expression. Had this brother of his gone mad? How could they possibly deal with these seven Level 60 Elites!?
“I’m dead serious. Don’t worry, just follow my instructions. These Phantoms Berserkers don’t have any armour or magic resistance, so there’s no level suppression effect against low-level players. You basically deal true damage to them. They ignore physical attacks, but take an extra 30% damage from magic attacks. I’ll lock them down with Advanced Twisting Vines, then you wipe them out with a group-target spell,” Nie Yan explained. He wouldn’t have brought Tang Yao here if he didn’t have some form of assurance.
Tang Yao nodded. “Since you’re confident, tell me what I have to do.”
Nie Yan explained his plan to Tang Yao in detail.
“Alright, I’ll go draw their aggro according to your instructions,” Tang Yao said. He approached within 30 meters of the seven Phantom Berserkers.
Nie Yan got into position and gave the signal. Tang Yao waved his staff and shot out a ball of black flames.
「Boom!」The fireball struck one of the Phantom Berserkers, its flames scorching the surroundings black.
All seven Phantom Berserkers immediately locked onto Tang Yao. They swung their hammers and charged toward him.
Charge!
Charge!
After activating Charge, the Phantom Berserkers were several times faster than Tang Yao.
Holy shit! Tang Yao hurriedly activated Windchaser and bolted toward Nie Yan.
Seeing Tang Yao leading the Phantom Berserkers towards him, Nie Yan started activating the Advanced Twisting Vines Scroll as it lit up with a brilliant radiance.
The Phantom Berserkers quickly closed in on Tang Yao. He was simply too slow, and the level difference was too great.
Nie Yan, who was in the middle of activating the Twisting Vines Scroll, also broke out in a cold sweat. He never expected the Phantom Berserkers would be so fast after activating Charge. They could even outrun players on mounts which gave a movement speed bonus of 150%.
One of the Phantom Berserkers swung down its hammer at Tang Yao. It looked like he was about to be smashed into a meat patty.
In the last second, Tang Yao transformed into a seagull and desperately flapped away.
「Crash!」The hammer struck empty ground, leaving a small crater and sending sand flying everywhere.
Tang Yao actually managed to escape! After flying for about 30 seconds, he returned to human form and continued running towards Nie Yan.
Nie Yan never expected Tang Yao to have such a trick up his sleeve. He could immediately tell this was the effect of the special item, Ring of Transformation!
The Ring of Transformation allowed a player to transform into an animal of their preference, whereupon they would gain innate skills based on the animal they transformed into. For example, the seagull Tang Yao just transformed into gave the player an enormous boost in movement speed as well as the ability to fly. However, they weren’t allowed to attack, and getting hit would knock them out of the transformation. Furthermore, the Ring of Transformation’s duration was extremely short at only 30 seconds.
In a dire situation like the one Tang Yao was just in, the Ring of Transformation was extremely useful.
After barely escaping by the skin of his teeth, Tang Yao breathed out a sigh of relief. Work like pulling mobs and drawing aggro really wasn’t his cup of tea.
Seeing Tang Yao lead the group of Phantom Berserkers toward him, Nie Yan waved and activated the Twisting Vines Scroll.
Thick and solid vines shot out of the ground and tangled the feet of the charging Phantom Berserkers, stopping them dead in their tracks.
Tang Yao, who was previously fleeing for his life, turned around and waved his staff. After chanting several unintelligible syllables, a black cloud of flames condensed in the sky and started raining down flames on the Phantom Berserkers.
−276
−312
−298
−305…
A blanket of damage values floated up into the air.
The Phantom Berserkers had no magic resistance, so Tang Yao basically dealt true damage. He continually retreated as he cast area-of-effect magic nonstop.
The Phantom Berserkers struggled ceaselessly, roaring and yelling in the blaze, but the vines firmly locked them down. Their health fell by roughly 30%.
“Nice work!” Nie Yan faintly smiled.
The seconds ticked away.
“Get back 30 meters!” Nie Yan anxiously shouted. Tang Yao immediately retreated to a position 30 meters away from the Phantom Berserkers.
Before the vines released their grip on the Phantom Berserkers, Nie Yan began activating the second Advanced Twisting Vines Scroll.
After 30 seconds, the Phantom Berserkers broke free of the vines and charged toward Nie Yan.
They were getting closer and closer, 10 meters… 6 meters… 3 meters…
The Phantom Berserkers were like lions pouncing on their prey. When they were only 2 meters away from Nie Yan, the Twisting Vines Scroll in his hand disappeared with a flash of light. Vines shot out from the ground and began wildly growing.
The Phantom Berserkers were firmly bound right in front of Nie Yan.
Tang Yao let loose with another area-of-effect spell. Thanks to the support of his Arcane Fairy, he could fire spells without break.
The health of the Phantom Berserkers rapidly dropped.
Advanced Twisting Vines would only be effective three times. Afterwards, the Phantom Berserkers would become resistant to its effects.
However, three Twisting Vines bought enough time for Tang Yao to kill them.
Just like before, Nie Yan used the third and final Advanced Twisting Vines Scroll while Tang Yao continued attacking. When the last barrage of spells fell, the seven Phantom Berserkers let out mournful roars before collapsing on the ground.
“Is it over?” Tang Yao asked in a daze. They had killed the Phantom Berserkers without a hitch thanks to Nie Yan’s strategy. Seven Level 60 Elites were dead just like that, he found this hard to believe.
Nie Yan once more proved with his actions that his judgement was correct.
The seven corpses of the Phantom Berserkers disappeared, leaving behind a pile of loot on the ground.
Nie Yan collected it all. Most of it was Level 60 equipment, ranging from Silver to Gold-grade. These pieces of equipment couldn’t be used for the time being. He continued rummaging around and found 3 gems with quality ratings of 7. Each one was worth over 120 gold. All at once, he had made back the money he spent on the Twisting Vines Scrolls.
A few other items also caught Nie Yan’s eye.
One was an Intermediate Revive Skill Book which currently couldn’t be found in the marketplace. It had an extremely low drop rate and only appeared in Level 50 maps or higher. With an Intelligence requirement of 580, he didn’t know if any Priest in the guild could learn it yet.
Furthermore, there were two Advanced Alchemy Recipes which were also quite valuable.
Out of the 7 Advanced Alchemists in Calore, 5 were currently in the Starry Night Potion Shop. Both Bird Leaves No Eggs and Quiet Nannan were about to break through from the Advanced rank to become Master Alchemists.
These two Alchemy Recipes would be very beneficial to both of them.
The final item caught Nie Yan’s attention the most, a Standardized Equipment Blueprint!
It was the Level 60 Gold-grade Sinister Light Set, a set of equipment for Arcane Mages. It could only be crafted by an Intermediate Tailor or higher. It required 3 Magic Rune Cloths, 2 Raging Flame Cloths, and 3 Golden Silk Threads. The Sinister Light Set wasn’t the best Level 60 set available, but it was still pretty decent. Top experts probably wouldn’t need it, but to mid-ranked players, this was definitely a treasure. Standardized Equipment Blueprints were different from regular blueprints in that they could be learned by up to 20 players. As long as there were enough crafting materials, these 20 Tailors could continuously craft this Level 60 Gold Set.
The Sinister Light Set was easily mass manufactured since the blueprint could be learned by Intermediate Tailors and the crafting material weren’t that precious.
It was even possible to outfit guild members on a large scale with Standardized Equipment.
In the future, there would definitely be more and more Standardized Equipment.
After picking up all the loot, Nie Yan turned to Tang Yao and said, “Let’s go onto the next group!”
In the next area, there was a group of 9 Phantom Berserkers. Employing the same method as before, Nie Yan and Tang Yao cleared these Phantom Berserkers. After picking up the loot, they found another Sinister Light Set Blueprint. With 2 of these blueprints in their possession, they could have 40 Tailors craft Sinister Light Sets at the same time.
Seeing the corpses of the Phantom Berserkers on the ground, Nie Yan turned to Tang Yao and said, “You can go back now. You won’t be able to go to the next area.”
Tang Yao looked up ahead. The monsters in the distance were densely concentrated. He nodded. “Alright, be careful.”