Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed the World

There were simply too many Level 180 Dark Demonkin. Lil’ Gold and the Shadow Demon Wolf were starting to have a hard time advancing forward. However, if Nie Yan were to kill them himself, their speed would drastically slow down. At that point, he might as well go somewhere else to find harder individual targets.

After two days of continuous grinding, a flash of light fell over Nie Yan, and he was teleported outside the entrance to the Dark Demonic Space.

Here, the players from both great factions were fighting fiercely with sparks flying everywhere. Nie Yan didn’t bother participating. He avoided the commotion with Gale Step and reentered the Dark Demonic Space.

The dungeon was reset. Nie Yan would have to start from the beginning. However, that wasn’t a problem. In fact, it was precisely what he wanted.

The days passed by one after another. The faces Nie Yan saw outside the entrance kept changing, but he never left. After grinding in the Dark Demonic Space for two entire weeks, he reached Level 160. The Divine Eclipse Dragon was starting to catch up. It had reached Level 130 and could already rival a Level 200 Lil’ Gold. It was finally ready to display its might!

Nie Yan entered the Dark Demonic Space once more. He handed over all the Dark Demonic Fragments he’d collected so far to Gower and received 3% worth of experience.

“Sir Nirvana Flame, you have turned in 16,253 Dark Demonic Fragments. Your current rank among all contestants is 226. You have yet to clear the Dark Demonic Space,” Gower said.

Nie Yan raised an eyebrow in suspicion. Could this mean there was an additional reward for reaching number one? Since the Dark Demonic Fragments couldn’t be traded, every fragment he turned in was obtained by himself. After grinding for two weeks straight, he only reached rank 226 on the leaderboards. He couldn’t help but wonder how many more fragments he would need to reach rank one.

Nie Yan continued grinding without pause. The Divine Eclipse Dragon had recently learned a new skilled called Holy Nova Ray. He was eager to test it out.

At Nie Yan’s command, his several pets charged forward. The Divine Eclipse Dragon was still too weak. So, it could only stay in the rear and cast magic.

The Divine Eclipse Dragon started chanting an incantation. Countless specks of light were drawn toward its body.

The air was saturated with holy energy.

Kalenna waved her staff, buffing the Divine Eclipse Dragon with several holy blessings.

The Divine Eclipse Dragon was emitting a dazzling radiance of holy power, as if it were a divine being. FWOOOOOM! It opened its mouth and shot out a giant beam of light. It was 15 meters wide and continued on for more than 600 meters. It pierced through all the Dark Demonkin in its path.

Miserable shrieks rang out from within the light. A string of 500,000s at 10 hits per tick floated up above their heads. Three seconds, five seconds, seven seconds... the beam continued to fire.

Swaths of Dark Demonkin collapsed within the light, transforming into ash.

The beam finally stopped after 10 whole seconds. Nie Yan looked up ahead, his jaw dropping in shock. The next 600 meters of the bridge was completely swept clean of monsters, only Dark Demonic Fragments hinting at their previous existence.

At least 10,000 Level 180 Elite-class Dark Demonkin were wiped out in that attack! This Holy Nova Ray was practically the ultimate skill for levelling up in the Dark Demonic Space! It was more useful than any Forbidden Magic, which had a long cast time; and even though they had large area of effects, only a small portion of it would hit the Dark Demonkin. Not to mention their usual cooldowns of one to two months. Meanwhile the Holy Nova Ray was frightening beyond belief and only had a cooldown time of 30 minutes!

Nie Yan’s experience bar instantly filled up by 0.2%. After reaching Level 160, the amount of experience he required to level up was 580 times that of when he was Level 156. So, it was clear how astonishing this levelling speed was.

If Holy Nova Ray could be used once every half-an-hour, then by the end of the day, he could gain 6% experience from this skill alone! Adding in the contribution from his other pets, that was an additional 5% for a total of 11%. By these calculations, he would reach Level 161 within only 10 days! This was nothing short of incredible!

Nie Yan entered the second stage of the Dark Demonic Space. Where on the first stage he had to fight Level 160-180 Elites, now his opponents were Level 160-180 Variant Elites. Their health increased by six times. The difficulty instantly ramped up. However, the drop rate of Dark Demonic Fragments also increased. After tuning them in to Gower, he could gain quite a bit of additional experience.

The cycle continued. Nie Yan would grind for two days, get booted out of the dungeon, and start all over again.

As calculated, a crisp notification jingle rang out 10 days later. Nie Yan reached Level 161.

Grinding day-in-day-out for 16 hours a day for almost a month straight, any other player would be driven mad from the sheer monotony. In this regard, Nie Yan’s discipline and perseverance were to be commended.

During the offline hours, Nie Yan relaxed with Xie Yao on the beach, while he would play through the night. Like this, one day after another passed. He deeply cherished this kind of simple life. Only those who had died before could understand this feeling, let alone someone like him who had died twice! His state of mind was no longer the same as before.

As he logged in, Nie Yan found himself again on the bridge of the Dark Demonic Space. He had the Divine Eclipse Dragon cast several AoE spells, clearing out a large swath of Dark Demonkin. After which a white ray of light fell over its body.

The Divine Eclipse Dragon levelled up again! Level 150! This was an important milestone!

Holy Nova Ray rose up by a rank. Its range was increased by 30%, the damage by 50%, and the cooldown reduced to 25 minutes.

The Divine Eclipse Dragon also learned several new skills, all of which were AoE spells.

One was a darkness attribute spell similar to Holy Nova Ray, Abyssal Pierce.

There was a saying that every light attribute magic had a darkness attribute counterpart. It appeared this was true.

Nie Yan was excited to see the effects of Abyssal Pierce.

At Nie Yan’s command, the Divine Eclipse Dragon stood behind the Shadow Demon Wolf and started chanting. Ripples of death energy emanated from its body. WHOM! A line of darkness as deep as the abyss shot out, shrouding the world in death and gloom.

The next 600 meters of the bridge became a sea of death. The Dark Demonkin turned into piles of bones.

“Damn! What a scary spell!” Nie Yan sighed in admiration. “I can use Holy Nova Ray and Abyssal Pierce right after each other! Nice!”

Sure enough, the Divine Eclipse Dragon was great for levelling.

Lil’ Gold and the Violet Eye Dragon were both brawlers. No matter how fast their mobbing speed, it would still be limited. However, the Divine Eclipse Dragon was different. It was the most powerful caster-type dragon! Not to mention its Growth Rate of 30. Once it reached a truly higher level, it would become an unrivalled existence. Its mobbing speed was already on par with peak Magisters like Tang Yao! The only thing holding it back was that it was too low level to deal with some of the higher level monsters.

After the Divine Eclipse Dragon reached Level 150, Lil’ Gold, the Violet Eye Dragon, and the Shadow Demon Wolf were relegated to the back. They were in charge of ensuring its safety and cleaning up any stragglers. It fired out spells non-stop, leaving a trail of corpses in its wake.

With the help of the Divine Eclipse Dragon, the second stage of the Dark Demonic Space was cleared within a day and a half. Nie Yan finally reached the end of the bridge. There, he saw a stone tower floating in the void. There was a single light at the top, giving off a faint glow. There was a shrine inside, which held an enormous crystal ball. He rested his hand over the crystal, which released a dazzling radiance.

[1]. The current fastest time is held by Howling Wind at 5 hours, 21 minutes, and 12 seconds.

After clearing the dungeon, Nie Yan actually obtained a Resurrection Crystal! This was definitely a pleasant surprise. They were still quite rare, but that was secondary. The fact they could revive fallen flying mounts and fairies was far more important to him. A single crystal was worth at least several hundred thousand gold.

If Nie Yan broke the current record, he would probably obtain something even better. He was filled with expectation. He wondered what sort of method Howling Wind used to clear the dungeon in only five hours and what sort of reward he obtained.

Nie Yan was teleported out of the dungeon. Afterwards, he immediately entered back inside. After picking up the pace, he no longer bothered with cleaning up the stragglers. He was rushing forward as fast as he could. His second clear time was 13 hours, 32 minutes, and 50 seconds. This was already a lot faster. He received a Dark Emerald this time around. It was useful for socketing equipment and was also worth several hundred thousand gold.

On the third clear, the time was 12 hours, 22 minutes, and 9 seconds. Nie Yan didn’t receive anything this time. According to the official website, every player would only receive a reward if certain conditions were met: once when they cleared the dungeon within two days, once when they cleared it within one day, and once when they beat the fastest time. Apparently, the reward for beating the fastest time was extremely generous. The first two rewards were merely tokens.

Thinking about it, it made sense. If you received this kind of rewards every time you cleared the Dark Demonic Space, everybody would be running it non-stop.

The first two rewards were already quite good. Nie Yan wondered what sort of reward he would receive for beating the record. Clearing the Dark Demonic Space in five hours seemed incredibly difficult though. That Howling Wind wasn’t ordinary. In the previous timeline, he was also the Satreen Empire’s number one expert. It was a shame Guo Huai failed to pull him into Asskickers United.

“Five hours, huh. It’s hard, but not impossible,” Nie Yan muttered. “I’m going to be levelling here until Level 180 anyway. I’ve got plenty of time.”

1. Remember, an ingame day is 16 hours.