Chapter 1754: Nightmare’s Beginning

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

Chapter 1754 – Nightmare’s Beginning

Shortly after the Adventurer Alliance’s exchange benefits were published on the official forums, news of the post spread throughout Cold Wind City like the plague. Even the members of the various Guilds of Cold Wind City turned green with envy when they read its contents.

Level 50 Fine-Gold Set Equipment!

To the current Guilds of Cold Wind City, such equipment only appeared in their dreams.

“Asura is too ruthless! The adventurer team actually pulled out such a card to lure in independent players!”

“How did Asura get its hands on this Magic Light Set?”

“Crap! If I had this Magic Light Set, I could easily solo-tank a Level 55 Grand Lord!”

“It’s no wonder Asura’s top few experts possess such powerful Attributes. It turns out that they’re wearing this Magic Light Set.”

The upper echelons of Cold Wind City’s various Guilds fell silent when they saw the benefits Asura was offering.

Just the weapons and equipment Asura put up for exchange were far superior to what their Guilds had. However, compared to these weapons and equipment, the second exchange benefit Asura offered was the part that truly gave them a headache.

Combat techniques!

Combat techniques were much more precious than weapons and equipment.

At the end of the day, weapons and equipment were external items. Moreover, as players continued leveling up, they would also have to keep replacing their weapons and equipment; using their current items forever was impossible.

However, that was not the case for combat techniques. Combat techniques would not fall behind the times and could accompany players on their entire journey in God’s Domain. They provided improvements directly to a player’s base combat power and thus were many times more valuable than weapons and equipment.

Given a choice between obtaining Level 50 Dark-Gold Equipment or a combat technique, the majority of players would go with the combat technique. After all, if one chose the Level 50 Dark-Gold Equipment, they wouldn’t necessarily be able to obtain a combat technique by using it. Moreover, once they reached Level 60, their Level 50 Dark-Gold Equipment would no longer be considered top-tier for their level. However, if one chose the combat technique, the immediate benefits from the combat technique might not be as much as those of the Level 50 Dark-Gold Equipment, but with their improved combat standards, obtaining equipment that could rival Level 50 Dark-Gold Equipment was only a matter of time.

Combat techniques were also something the various Guilds constantly sought. Unfortunately, these were truly too rare and difficult to acquire.

Even until now, the various Guilds had not found a single clue that could lead to the acquisition of a combat technique. Every known combat technique in Cold Wind City right now was created by talented experts. However, these experts would never teach others the combat techniques they had researched and invented through great efforts, as these combat techniques were their trump cards. Sharing their combat techniques would only result in them losing an edge over others.

Currently, the only Guild in Cold Wind City that possessed a combat technique was Hecate. However, Hecate had a very heavy restriction on the combat technique, and only core members that had signed binding contracts were qualified to learn it. Experts that were not contracted to the Guild had no hope of learning it.

…

Meanwhile, inside Hecate’s Residence…

Sitting inside the exquisite Guild Leader’s office, Carnage read the exchange benefits of the Adventurer Alliance with an indescribably grim expression on his face, his eyes having turned bloodshot. The Guild’s upper echelon inside the room was similarly stupefied by Asura’s forum post.

“Is this Asura adventurer team filled with lunatics? They’re actually offering combat techniques for exchange?”

“Are they not afraid that letting outsiders learn these combat techniques will hamper their adventurer team’s development in the future?”

Everyone inside the room voiced their confusion over Asura’s crazy behavior. They had never imagined that Asura would make such a bold move in order to obtain Cold Wind City.

At this time, a Level 52 Ranger suddenly entered the room and reported to Carnage, “Vice Guild Leader, I just received a report stating that a large number of elite players contracted to us have just dissolved their contracts. Currently, we have already lost over a thousand contracted elite players—and this number is still steadily climbing…”

“Have these people lost their minds? Dissolving their contracts means having to pay us three Gold in compensation!” The members of the upper echelon standing at the sides of the room were stupefied when they heard the Ranger’s words.

Although the contracts Hecate signed with the independent players wishing to partner with it could be dissolved, the price to do so was very steep.

Three Gold was a lot of money even to expert players, let alone elite players. Although players’ income had risen due to their increasing levels, the repair fee for weapons and equipment was also higher. Moreover, players had many other expenses, such as potions and Magic Scrolls, food and accommodation. In the end, players would be able to save only a small portion of their earnings each day.

At this stage of the game, elite players would be fortunate if they had 50 or 60 Silver Coins in savings, while ordinary players would only have around 10 Silver Coins banked. Only expert players would have a little more extra money, with most expert players having roughly five or six Gold Coins stashed away. Hence, they had set the compensation fee at three Gold, which was half of the liquid funds of an expert player.

Yet, now…

…

Meanwhile, outside Asura’s Residence…

Shortly after the Adventurer Alliance’s benefits were publicized, a large crowd of independent players had appeared here. Within half an hour of the alliance’s benefits’ disclosure, over 50,000 independent players had come to apply to the alliance. The long queue that formed outside of Asura’s Residence extended across five whole blocks. Moreover, the number of applicants was still climbing rapidly. This situation forced Asura to mobilize over 500 members to maintain order at the application site.

The spectacular scene stupefied the scouts sent over by the various Guilds.

Among the players looking to join the Adventurer Alliance were many Level 51 and Level 52 elite and expert players and even some well-known adventurer teams of Cold Wind City. In fact, the scouts actually recognized some of those standing in line to be elite and expert members of various Guilds. Though, to be precise, these people were former members now.

However, the actions of these former Guild players were also understandable.

Players joined Guilds to obtain good weapons and equipment more easily. If they couldn’t, they would have no reason to subject themselves to the restrictions of Guilds. Now, however, the Adventurer Alliance was also supplying weapons and equipment—and these were even better than the ones offered by the Guilds. Moreover, players could exchange for combat techniques, something that even expert players hungered for, from the alliance.

The benefits offered by ordinary Guilds could not compare to those offered by the Adventurer Alliance at all.

Hence, it was only natural that plenty of elite and expert players were trying to join the alliance.

…

“Commander, this move of yours is simply too vicious. I just received a report stating that some of the smaller Guilds in Cold Wind City lost a significant portion of their expert and elite members shortly after we announced the Adventurer Alliance’s benefits. It won’t be long before these Guilds are forced to disband. Even Hecate has lost over 300 experts and 4,000 elites thus far,” Yan Ya reported to Shi Feng excitedly as she walked into the Residence’s Basic Forging Room.

She held not a shred of goodwill towards the various Guilds of Cold Wind City, especially Hecate. Just because they had refused Hecate’s poaching attempts, the Guild had actually publicly placed a bounty on their heads. Had Shi Feng not sent them to grind Bosses in the Snow Rift, a forbidden land for players, she would’ve gone directly to Hecate’s grinding spots and paid the Guild back for its kindness.

Having received news that the Adventurer Alliance had managed to plunder over 300 experts from Hecate, she was naturally elated.

In Cold Wind City, even after annexing the Matchless Family, Hecate had only a little over 2,700 expert members. Losing 300-plus expert players was equivalent to losing one-ninth of its expert forces, which was definitely a huge blow to the Guild.

Right now, she could already imagine what kind of expression Hecate’s higher-ups were making.

“Vicious, huh?” Shi Feng laughed, shaking his head. This was only the beginning. He then turned to Yan Ya and asked, “Did you get that thing yet?”

“Mhm. I’ve already bought the largest plot of Land available in Cold Wind City and constructed a three-story Shop on it. As for the interior design, that can only be done after we make a personal visit there. I spent a total of 8,000 Gold. Almost all of the funds our adventurer team has gathered thus far have been used up already,” Yan Ya replied. She then took out a Deed from her bag and handed it over to Shi Feng.

“Good! Let’s head over and take a look.” Shi Feng nodded. After accepting the Deed, he immediately left for Cold Wind City’s largest plot of Land together with Yan Ya.

Originally, this plot of Land was meant for the construction of a Guild Residence. However, as its location was not very good and the Land was quite costly as well, none of the Guilds in Cold Wind City had purchased it. This gave Shi Feng a chance to take it for himself.

“Not bad. This should be large enough,” Shi Feng said, nodding in satisfaction as he arrived at the three-story Shop.

Some independent players were already standing around the entrance of the Shop, curiously eyeing the three-story building.

In fact, let alone these passersby, even Yan Ya, who was trailing Shi Feng, was curious to find out why he had decided to buy a plot of Land in this secluded area. Moreover, he had even wanted such a large Shop to be built on it.

If he really wished to set up a Shop, the wise decision would have been to build one in the city’s central district. Not to mention, even though they had built such a large Shop, the Asura adventurer team did not possess that many items to sell.

However, Shi Feng did not bother explaining his decisions. Instead, he walked straight into the Shop. Currently, the main hall of the Shop was still empty.

Shi Feng also did not hurry to start the decoration process. Instead, he took out a large number of Magic Crystals and rare materials, then started drawing a magic array at the center of the hall.

The magic array he was drawing right now was none other than the Starlight Gathering Magic Array, which he had gotten from the War God’s Temple some time ago. When activated, the magic array would create an enclosed space with a 500-yard radius and increase the Mana density within it by 300%. As the materials needed to produce the magic array were extremely rare and the difficulty of drawing it was equivalent to drawing an Advanced Magic Array, Shi Feng had not bothered putting it to use until now.

Recently, though, Zero Wing had managed to gather the necessary materials for the Starlight Gathering Magic Array. Hence, he decided to use the magic array in Cold Wind City.

The reason for his decision was the dearth of locations with high Mana density in the Ice Crystal World. In fact, the Ice Crystal World wasn’t alone in this predicament. Practically every Otherworld faced this problem. Only Higher Planes had many areas with high Mana density. This was also the main reason why the combat standards of Otherworld players were weak in general.

Without environments of high Mana density, players would have great difficulty improving themselves.

If he wanted to truly raise the Asura adventurer team’s strength, he could not just rely on weapons, equipment, and combat techniques. As for sending players to the continent of God’s Domain via the Ancient Shrine, the cost of doing so was simply prohibitive—way beyond the current means of Zero Wing or Asura. Moreover, having more people cross over would increase the risk of exposure for the Ancient Shrine’s secret.

Hence, before coming to the Ice Crystal World, Shi Feng had already decided to create a place similar to Stone Forest Town’s Battle Arena in Cold Wind City.

Finally, after spending over an hour, he was done engraving the Starlight Gathering Magic Array. The illusion of a dazzlingly beautiful galaxy then formed in the center of the hall.

“Commander, what’s this? It’s so beautiful!” Yan Ya was immediately captivated by the magic array.

“What is this?” Shi Feng smiled. “It’s a new world!”

Saying so, Shi Feng spent 500 Magic Crystals to activate the Starlight Gathering Magic Array.

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