Rebirth of the thief who roamed around the world (BOOK 1)

Chapter 135 - Smoke Powder

Domineering and covered in black scales, these huge Scaled Frogs appeared particularly terrifying as they lumbered across the forest floor. Tang Yao, upon spotting them, nearly received a heart attack from fright. Are you serious? Are these supposed to be the mobs we could handle!?

"Your Arcane Fairy's Ignore Level is at +7 now, right?" Nie Yan asked. Ignore Level was a fairly useful property, especially when engaging higher level mobs-while in PvP, its advantages were obvious. With it, Tang Yao would be able to inflict effective damage against opponents up to 12 levels higher than him. When facing opponents above that, there was still a chance of ignoring the level difference.

"Yeah." Tang Yao nodded.

"Good, we can hunt these Scaled Frogs then. As long as one in five of your spells procs the Ignore Level effect, you'll be able to whittle their health down. Also, with the Arcane Fairy around, you won't have to worry about conserving your mana because you'll never run out in the first place!" Only after factoring in this minor detail did Nie Yan realize that it would be beneficial to bring Tang Yao along. After all, who knew what sort of goodies these mobs would drop while hunting them at their current level? Not only that, but they gave plenty of experience as well. Hence, this was the perfect opportunity for the pair of best friends to do some levelling together!

Nie Yan glanced at the leaderboards. At present, the highest ranked player in the entire Viridian Empire was Victorious Return's guild leader, Heaven Breaker, who had already reached Level 15. After the opening of Sosil Valley and Medusa's Lair, he had soared to the top of the leaderboards. As a testament to his guild's power, the third and sixth positions belonged to Victorious Return as well. Second place was occupied by a Level 14 member of Holy Judgement, while Sleepy Fox, who was already Level 13, was ranked fourth. Fifth place belonged to a member of Radiant Sacred Flame, and seventh place belonged to Battle Crazed Alliance's very own Kill Love.

As for the top-ranked guild of the Righteous Faction in his previous timeline, Angel Corp, their scope of influence was limited to the Satreen Empire, which had their own leaderboards separate from the Viridian Empire's.

Five formidable powers had risen to prominence in the Viridian Empire: Victorious Return, Radiant Sacred Flame, Holy Judgement, Holy Empire, and Battle Crazed Alliance. The other guilds struggling for power were relegated to second-rate positions.

Naturally, many more formidable powers would emerge in the future; however, in the initial stages of the game, there were only these five. Their influence was still relatively minimal for the time being-not yet enough to shake the empire as a whole-but when they started partitioning the empire's strongholds and receiving its respective taxes, they would grow immensely in power to the extent of obtaining seats in the empire's parliament. From then on, they would truly be able to reshape the policies of the empire.

If forthcoming events proceeded as they had in the previous timeline, then Cao Xu would bring Victorious Return, Radiant Sacred Flame, and three other major guilds under his control, gaining a vast number of strongholds and ascending to the position powerful overlord. Afterward, he would secure seven seats in the empire's parliament and become such a domineering existence that the other three powers-Holy Judgement, Battle Crazed Alliance, and Holy Empire-would go to great lengths to avoid his crosshairs. If such events were to recur, then Nie Yan would be unable to live his days in peace.

If he wanted to avert this worst-case scenario, it wouldn't do to remain forever complacent in the shadows, unwilling to step into the spotlight. As a single person, no matter how many players he could take on by himself because of his growth in level or the gear he obtained, there was no way he could match the might of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of men.