Nie Yan didn't know why, but he felt an uneasy premonition gripping at his heart, telling him something big was about to happen.
This intense intense feeling nagged at his mind, leaving him unable to focus on anything else.
In the previous timeline, the storyline of the Vengeance of the Undead expansion started out with a player stumbling upon Necromancer Vorderman's Necklace of Death. Slowly corrupted by its influence, they transformed into a powerful Necromancer. Reviving Vorderman, the two raised an army of undead and took over a stronghold. With the stronghold as their strategic point, they erected a tower that flooded the sky with endless death energy, turning the place into a paradise for the undead.
What happened after was something straight out of a horror story. The undead started swarming out to the nearby strongholds. Every person they killed would be reborn an undead. Their army grew larger and larger, to the point of becoming an uncontrollable disaster which threatened to engulf the entire continent. Both the Viridian and Satreen Empires mobilized into action. With the Paladins and Priests as the main fighting force, the players and NPCs slowly repelled the undead back bit by bit. However, though the lands could bask in sunlight again and new life was born, many NPCs had died fighting against these forces of darkness. This ultimately led to players gaining much more influence, allowing them to control the political power in both nations.
Nie Yan wasn't sure if someone had obtained Necromancer Vorderman's Necklace of Death. If this was indeed the case, it would probably be the start of the Vengeance of the Undead expansion.
Once the expansion went live, it would be an unprecedented disaster of apocalyptic scale.
Nie Yan suddenly thought of his Great Prophecy skill. He wondered if it would be useful in predicting this disaster.
Nie Yan arrived at a square outside Asskickers United's office in Calore. Opening his skill window, he activated Great Prophecy. A pillar of white light fell down from the sky and completely enveloped him inside. A warm light energy slowly spread out through his body.
Just as Nie Yan was about to sense something, a powerful dark energy suddenly corroded the light energy from Great Prophecy. BANG! He felt a huge blow to his chest akin to his heart being split apart.
Nie Yan staggered back and spat out a mouthful of blood.
Great Prophecy has failed. All stats -30% for 5 days.
Seeing this notification, Nie Yan couldn't help but knit his brows. "How could Great Prophecy fail?"
It was probably because the scope of this event was too large for him to predict. This failed prophecy meant Nie Yan couldn't use Great Prophecy again for the next 10 days.
Nie yan had no way of confirming whether this really was the Vengeance of the Undead expansion. If he tried to warn the elders of the Viridian Empire about this disaster and he was right, they could prepare and make sure the calamity of the previous timeline wouldn't repeat itself. But if he was wrong and it was just him panicking over nothing, what awaited him was his own personal calamity. As the guild leader of Asskickers United, there was no way he could take this risk. Not to mention he had no idea when or where the undead would actually attack.
「Guo Huai, tell the Engineers to stop crafting catapults and trebuchets and focus on producing Gnome Magic Cannons. Also, invest 15,000,000 gold into upgrading the walls of all our strongholds,」Nie Yan said. This was the decision he came to after much reflection. For the sake of safety, Asskickers United had to prepare their defenses.
「I'll get to it immediately. Is something big about to happen?」Guo Huai asked in a concerned tone.
「Don't ask for now. How much funds do we have? If we don't have enough, I can think of a way.」
「About 8,000,000 gold. Right now, our strongholds, the Starry Night Potion Shop, and other businesses generate about 2,000,000 gold in profits every day. Because we're continuously expanding, our expenses are at about 1,500,000 gold a day,」Guo Huai replied. This kind of income was unprecedented. Perhaps even Angel Corps wouldn't be able to compare.
「Start selling some of our Dispel Fog Scrolls. We're starting to accumulate too many,」Nie Yan said. For the sake of preserving the secret that Dispel Fog Scrolls could be bought from NPCs, Guo Huai would have people buy them within seconds of them refreshing in the shops. At present, Asskickers United had more than 1,000 Dispel Fog Scrolls in storage. If they continued on like this, it would be a huge burden on their finances. It was better to sell off some of their stock at a marked up price and rake in a nice profit.
Guo Huai had his people set out across the Viridian Empire and start selling off the Dispel Fog Scrolls, listing up no more than 10 in every city. Instead of dumping them all at once, they would be offloaded bit by bit to keep them selling at target price.
Before long, Dispel Fog Scrolls started appearing in the auction houses of various cities across the Viridian Empire. Because many of the large guilds didn't have them, they'd suffered heavy losses while exploring Griffon Woodlands. Though they knew from certain information channels that guilds such as Angel Corps used them to greatly lower the difficulty of exploring the place, they didn't know how they acquired them. So, the moment they heard Dispel Fog Scrolls were up for sale in auction houses all across the empire, they immediately made a mad scramble for them, offering small fortunes for every single scroll.
The price of Dispel Fog Scrolls was inflated to an excessive degree, with some scrolls selling for as much as 70,000 gold each, surpassing their real value by more than 10 times over. The frenzy of the market even exceeded Nie Yan's expectations.
Sure enough, it was truly terrifying when pent-up demand was finally vented out.
Upon learning that Dispel Fog Scrolls were being listed up for sale, the various large guilds immediately sent people to camp out the auction houses. Some guilds even sent their people over to other cities.
Before long, the first batch of 100 Dispel Fog Scrolls were sold for a total of 6,000,000 gold. The financial burden on Asskickers United was instantly reduced by quite a bit.
After obtaining these Dispel Fog Scrolls, the lucky buyers would most definitely start exploring Griffon Woodlands again. It looked like Angel Corps would soon be feeling the heat.
To be able to manipulate the market from behind the scenes was truly an amazing thing. By monopolizing something trivial like the Dispel Fog Scrolls, Asskickers United was able to sell them off for a ridiculously inflated price and rake in the profits.
With the first batch of Dispel Fog Scrolls sold, the remaining would have to be sold off bit by bit.
After earning a large sum of gold from selling Dispel Fog Scrolls, Asskickers United started crazily upgrading the walls of their strongholds. Generally, ordinary guilds would be satisfied with Junior or Intermediate walls. Even among main strongholds, there were very few with Advanced walls. Meanwhile, Asskickers United had upgraded all their walls to Advanced. If the amount of gold they spent on it was revealed, it would leave the vast majority of guild leaders ashamed and speechless. The amount of gold they invested into their stronghold's defenses wouldn't even amount to an odd scrap of what Asskickers United put in.