After numerous attempts and losing several dozen Skeleton Fighters, Nie Yan had still not managed to succeed.
It seemed Undead Rite's success rate was also influenced by the level discrepancy between the caster and target. Wracking his brain to no avail, he finally decided to check the game's official website to see if there was any information regarding this skill. Surprisingly, he did find something, which was quite a rare occurrence. According to the information there, Undead Rite had a twenty percent chance of controlling the targeted undead if it was equal to the caster in level. For every level the undead exceeded the caster, the chance of success would fall by one percent. The success rate would further diminish when facing Leaders, Sub-Elites, and so on. In short, if the target surpassed the player by twenty levels or more, the success rate became nil.
Since this was the first time he had come into contact with this type of skill, he wasn't too knowledgeable regarding its intricacies. Apparently checking the official website every once in a while still held some benefits.
He was only Level 9 while the Skeleton Kodo was Level 23, not to mention a Leader-class monster as well, so his low success rate thus far was to be expected.
However, if he was incapable of controlling a Skeleton Kodo, he wouldn't be able to proceed with the next step of his plan.
As time gradually ticked away, Nie Yan grew increasingly impatient. The only consolation was that his experience was steadily rising. Killing the undead in this area also wasn't a bad way to level.
At this point, he had forgotten exactly how many Skeleton Fighters died as he didn't care to name them anymore. Was it twenty-seven or twenty-eight? Regardless, he ordered one of them to get a Skeleton Kodo's attention while he circled behind to cast Undead Rite.
The Skeleton Fighter gradually approached the Kodo. Once it got in range, the Fighter brandished its battle axe and charged forward.
Upon being struck, the Kodo violently lashed out in a rage fueled stupor.
「Bang!」The Skeleton Fighter was knocked flying away.
Taking advantage of this moment, Nie Yan cast Undead Rite!
As per usual, he began backing off after using the spell but halted his retreat when he noticed a change occurring in the Kodo's appearance. Did I succeed? He quickly pulled up the system announcements to check and soon found his answer. I did succeed!
He mentally commanded the Kodo to move, and almost immediately, it trembled and then began lumbering over to him.
"Haha! I finally succeeded!"
Having obtained his first Kodo, he was finally able to move on with the next step of his plan.
Undead Rite's duration on the Kodo was relatively long, so after thinking for a bit, he decided that he might as well do a bit of levelling.
「Where are you right now?」Nie Yan asked, sending Tang Yao a message.
「I'm levelling with Yu Lan (Blue Feather) and the others. Why, what's up?」Tang Yao responded. Since their first encounter several days ago, he had become much more familiar with Yu Lan and her team, even occasionally running a dungeon or two together with them. Furthermore, thanks to Nie Yan's guidance, their team's equipment progressively improved. They were even able to run Fallen Shaman Camp now.
「Return to the city,」Nie Yan said. He could only bring Tang Yao alone and not Yu Lan and the rest.
「Alright, let me say goodbye to them first,」Tang Yao said.
Several minutes later, Tang Yao sent Nie Yan a message:「I'm back in the city. Where are you right now?」
「Head to the transfer point and teleport to Hems, Dead Field Gate. The transfer fee is twenty silver. Do you have enough money?」Nie Yan asked.
「Hems, Dead Field Gate…? Wait, isn't that a Level 20 zone!? Why are you all the way over there?」Tang Yao cried out in alarm. Why was he in a Level 20 map at his level? That was practically suicidal!
「You'll know when you come over!」Nie Yan said.
「Ugh… Alright, fine… give me a minute. I don't have enough money on me right now,」Nie Yan had asked him to come over alone, so it definitely meant this was important. Since he had full trust in his brother, he didn't ask any more questions.
「If you don't have enough money, I can send someone over to cover the rest」Nie Yan said. If Tang Yao wasn't able to gather up the funds, he could only ask Sleepy Fox to borrow some money.
「No need, I'm only short by a little bit. I'll just ask my father's aide to lend me some.」
「Alright, then hurry up. I'll be waiting.」
Afterwards, Nie Yan sought out another Skeleton Kodo. He still used the same tactic of distracting them with the Skeleton Fighters while he got into position to cast Undead Rite. If he made Kodo #1 fight, it would make short work of the other Kodo, meaning there wouldn't be any time to cast the skill.
However, without at least several dozen attempts, the probability of him succeeding was very low.
Undead Rite!
Thanks to the Skeleton Fighter drawing its attention away, the Kodo didn't notice him approaching from the rear. After he had used the skill, the Kodo trembled before its bones slowly transformed into a deep metallic black. He successfully took control of another Kodo with Undead Rite.
A feeling of pleasant surprise washed over his mind. Against all expectations, he succeeded. No one could ever be certain when it came to chance; sometimes a person would fail several dozen or even hundreds of times over, but other times, they would prevail after only one or two tries.
And so, Nie Yan obtained his second Skeleton Kodo, which he named Kodo #2. These two Kodos resembled dinosaurs from the ancient past as they possessed thick, sturdy forelimbs, an immense frame, and three sharp horns at the top of their heads, while pale cyan flames flickered in their eye sockets.
With two Kodos at his side, his levelling speed would improve significantly.
「I'm at Hems, where are you?」Tang Yao sent a message asking.
「Stay put, I'll be there in a minute,」Nie Yan replied, bringing the pair of Skeleton Kodos and Skeleton Fighters with him as he headed over to the transfer point.
After walking for a while, he eventually spotted a short, chubby figure waiting by the transfer point.
"Scary… a-are these your pets?" Tang Yao asked in shock, as he stared at the Skeleton Fighters and Kodos by Nie Yan's side.
"Yep, follow me. We're going to level."
"Level 9 already, no wonder your levelling speed is so fast... Also, you scared me half to death when you were bringing those Kodos over! I thought some monsters had roamed into this area, but since these two giant lugheads are on our side, levelling will definitely be much quicker!" Tang Yao exclaimed in excitement.
"It's not bad, Nie Yan laughed. While Tang Yao made a good guess, his fast levelling speed had nothing to do with these Kodos.
"Where's your Arcane Fairy?"
"It's just hiding. It's a little afraid of strangers."
Only then did he notice a chubby little blue fairy hiding behind Tang Yao's back. It resembled a boy with an adorable face and was surprisingly agile despite its appearance. As it hovered in the air, a faint blue light fluttered and spiralled around its body.
「Blub! Blub!」Occasionally, the fairy blew tiny blue bubbles from its mouth that floated into the air.
As long as an Arcane Mage properly guarded their Arcane Fairy from being killed by other players, they would receive an endless supply of mana. This was especially useful for Arcane Mages who had many high damage spells in their arsenal. They would be able to freely cast these spells without worrying about running out of mana. At the same time, their cooldowns and cast times were significantly reduced, meaning they would be able to cast the same spell again shortly after use.
However, when an Arcane Mage faced other players, their fairy would easily become the priority target of the enemy's attacks. Therefore, raising an Arcane Fairy to Rank 3 was an incredibly difficult task. As for anyone who owned a Rank 5 fairy, it meant the player who raised it was also extremely skilled. For that sort of player to not have any powerful enemies was only natural.
"So, what kind of benefits do you get from a Rank 1 fairy?" Nie Yan asked.
"Mana Recovery Rate +200%, all Cooldowns - 30%, and all Cast Time -30%."
"Wow, that's pretty good." Truthfully, Nie Yan was also shocked. Indeed, Arcane Fairies were quite overpowered. "From now on, don't get into too many fights with other players. It would be a shame if your fairy ends up dying."
Tang Yao thought for a moment, then nodded and said, "Alright." He resolved himself in his mind. If he wasn't guaranteed to win in a duel, then he absolutely wouldn't participate. There shouldn't be a problem if he only stepped on relatively unskilled players. Otherwise, he would find it difficult to resist the itch growing in his heart. After all, it would be too much of a tragedy if he wasn't allowed to duel other players after obtaining an Arcane Fairy, an existence that would enable him to dominate others.
Nie Yan revealed a wry smile. He knew his best friend's personality all too well. Even though Tang Yao gave a straightforward reply, his mind was definitely thinking something else. The only way to guarantee that nothing bad would happen in the future was to make him improve as quickly as possible. Once he had the strength to protect himself, then he would be able to escape unscathed even when encountering an expert.
"Let's set off," Nie Yan said as he turned around and led Tang Yao with him back to the previous zone to hunt more Skeleton Kodos. Upon encountering one, he would make his Kodos act as tanks while he used Undead Rite from the rear. If the skill failed, then they would simply finish it off.
「System: You have successfully slain a Skeleton Kodo (Leader). +700% experience for killing a monster above your level. You have received 28,290 experience points.」
Watching his experience bar fill up, Tang Yao was shocked. He was just following Nie Yan and still hadn't done anything, but after Nie Yan ordered Kodo #1 and Kodo #2 to finish off the other Kodo, his experience bar suddenly shot up from sixty-two percent directly to seventy-three percent.
This levelling speed was really too frightening.
One had to understand, when he was with Yu Lan and her team, he would use Meteor to kill mobs en masse. Yet after over half an hour of grinding, his experience bar would still only fill up by a mere six percent.
"Don't move too far away from me," Nie Yan said as he picked up the items that dropped from the Skeleton Kodo and then controlled Kodo #1 and #2 to seek out their next target.
"The levelling here is so fast! What did it drop?"
"A Fortune Gem."
"Wow, we're pretty lucky!" A single Fortune Gem was worth around five silver. From Tang Yao's perspective, this was already quite a large sum of money. Although he didn't voice it, he was still brooding over the twenty silver he spent to teleport from Calore to Hems. That one trip practically cost him all of his savings.
While they ventured forth, Nie Yan suddenly recalled that Tang Yao probably didn't have much money left. Thankfully, the profits from this trip should more than make up for it.
"Tang Yao, you should be the one collecting all the drops from now. I'll only take the items that I need, and you can have the rest to sell," Nie Yan said. He wasn't lacking in money; plus, dealing with the tedium of getting rid of equipment was annoying.
"You don't want them?"
"I'm not short on money."
"Well, now that I know you're rich, I guess I won't be shy about taking the drops!" Tang Yao happily exclaimed. They were childhood friends, ones that had grown up together since they were in diapers. If they had to be polite with each other in these circumstances, then they wouldn't be brothers!
After a while, a white radiance enveloped Tang Yao. He had levelled up!
"Damn! This levelling speed is friggin amazing! It's like I'm riding on a rocket!" Tang Yao glanced at his experience bar. He was already five percent to Level 8 and at this rate he would easily reach Level 9 within two days.
"Have you picked up anything good?"
"A piece of Level 20 Silver equipment, a Paladin skill book, another Fortune Gem, and two silver. I'm not sure how much I can sell the first two for," Tang Yao said after checking.
"Give me the Fortune Gem. You can sell the rest," Nie Yan said while inspecting the skill book. Surprisingly, it was the skill book for Silence. "You can list this skill book up in the auction house, but don't sell it for anything less than fifty silver."
"Wow, it's that expensive!" Tang Yao exclaimed, then continued, "Hey, I'm fine with splitting the profits from selling the skill book with you." The Silence skill book was far too valuable in his opinion. Perhaps Nie Yan wouldn't mind passing on one or two silver, but this was an entire fifty silver!
"No need," Nie Yan laughed and then continued in an unconcerned tone, "It's only fifty silver." That amount wasn't even enough to pick at the gaps between his teeth.
What did he mean by only fifty silver!? Recently, less than half of that had nearly stripped him of everything he had! Just how much money did this brother of his have!?