Nie Fan was sending out a zonal advert when the conversation between two players beside him caught his attention.
It was a Warrior and a Mage, with the former appearing skinny but experienced, while the Mage was on the plump side. Both of them looked just short of their mid-twenties.
“I heard that Hell Assassin just joined Demon God Studios,” the Warrior told the Mage mysteriously. “I guess that’s only natural for the player ranked fifth in the pro gamers’ leaderboards.”
“Where did you hear that from?” the Mage asked in surprise and stared at the warrior. “Hell Assassin’s price tag wouldn’t be low either, since he is the top two Thief in China!”
“I heard that Demon God Studios were offering an annual salary of seventeen million to win him over.”
“An annual salary of seventeen million…” The Mage gasped—Demon God Studios really were rich but also generous!
Although the price tag on professional gamers in VR games at the current age wouldn’t lose out to superstars of various physical sports, there weren’t many studios that could make offers worth seventeen million dollars.
“What are they thinking over at Demon God Studios?” The Mage murmured. “I heard that they were recruiting top players everywhere, and had even acquired five or six studios that were quite impressive.”
“Their target is definitely not studios in the country. With their financial ability and rate of expansion, it is already assured that they would soon dominate the nation—word is that their rivals are the foreign: Eternity Studios and Zeus Studios.” There was a worshipful look in the Warrior’s eyes. It appears that Bloodfeather, leader of Demon God Studios was his object of adoration, as is expected of all men with fine character.
“Wow. They would make our country proud if they could really beat Eternity and Zeus. That said, I would have no more regrets in life if I could join Demon God Studios.”
To those two, Demon God Studios was the holiest of existence. Their members would often involve themselves in various charities aside from their continuous expansion of influence, which in turn earned them quite a pull over society.
However, Nie Fan pursed his lips in disdain: those people who appeared good-natured outwardly were actually deplorably despicable on the inside. At least from his perspective, Bloodfeather wasn’t a person of upright character—that man had to be connected to the death of Nie Fan’s father!
How could someone who backstabbed a former partner so heinously be a good person?!
Clenching his fists, Nie Fan breathed out a mouthful of turbid air to calm down. Revenge was too early for now since he doesn’t even have the right to talk to Bloodfeather, and he had to steadily improve his ability before all else. It was also best if Demon God Studios did not notice him, and it was best to cut down anything too fancy from now on.
***
Nie Fan was unable to buy another Skill Tome, so he proceeded to prepare some necessary consumables including a lot of Novice Mana Potions before leaving the village.
He did not run into any trouble in his journey since Wandering Souls Studios had already given up their hunt on him.
After venturing deep into the Blood Shade Plains, he eventually caught sight of a distant azure lake.
It was Lake Messian, which had formed for untold years at the heart of the Blood Shade Plains. It was also a dead lake with concentrated levels of salt, and monsters would often appear in its depths. That was the reason players would not dare to come too near the lake itself, although there many of them would farm monsters on its beaches where Level 23 Windwalk Polyps were spawning—those creatures bearing translucent wings had rather low HP but yield high EXP, which made them suitable for leveling.
When Nie Fan walked up to the beach, he looked around to check that no one noticed him before casting Sealmorph and promptly leap into the water. With a loud splash and water splattering everywhere, he dived downwards rapidly with his fishlike swimming agility after morphing into a seal, heading deep towards the bottom of the lake.
Still, the deeper he swam, the dimmer the light became. Eventually, only strips of illumination would rapidly flash past his vision.
The dark depths of the lake are full of unknowns, and another reason why many players would not brave going underwater. They generally tried to avoid going too deep aside from Druids with Sealmorph since Novice Gillyweed Potion only lasts 3 minutes, and being underwater for too long meant drowning if they couldn’t surface in time.
Nie Fan found fields of weeds were swaying at the depths, and checked his coordinates to ensure that he was near his objective before continuing to swim forward. There, visible to his vision despite the lightless shadows, was an enormous shipwreck.
The shipwreck was over twenty meters tall, a behemoth despite having half of its bulk sunken into the mud. Its full shape was not distinct since it was exceedingly dark around here—if normal players came here with the darkness enveloping them, the gigantic shadow of the shipwreck would have scared them witless.
There were many aquatic monsters swimming around the shipwreck too: each of them had human heads attached to eel bodies up growing up to four meters long, and had limbs holding sparkling iron tridents. They would often move around in groups, and they could swim very swiftly.
[Eelbeast: level 30, 560 HP.]
The Eelbeasts’ did not have much HP for a Level 30 beast, but their attacks were powerful and movement rapid.
Moreover, Nie Fan could not fight at the moment since he was still under Sealmorph, and the outcome was only too imaginable if he ran into them.
Nonetheless, he promptly dove to the bottom of the lake, using the weeds as cover and slowly approached the shipwreck.
There were a lot less monsters at the bottom, but with the Eelbeasts swimming around above it was still dangerous if he was careless and was noticed.
Around three minutes later, Nie Fan reached the edge of the shipwreck and swam inside through a broken gap on its hull. The space within was vast: he could see the outlines of cabins and corridors, and he moved along the corridors to swim upwards.
Room 201, room 205—he identified each cabin number with the dim light that had streamed in through some unknown spot.
There wasn’t much time. He would drown here if he didn’t quickly find it!
When several dark figures flashed, Nie Fan quickly hid behind one of the doors. He then found three massive Eelbeasts rapidly swimming in his direction. All of them were Elites!
When his heartbeat quickening unwittingly, Nie Fan promptly held his breath.
Meanwhile, the three Eelbeasts wandered over the corridor for a moment, even moving just inches away from Nie Fan at one point. Still, their perceptions appeared to be not so sensitive and, nothing unusual, they quickly swam away.
Nie Fan then came out from behind the door. After another round of searching, he finally found room 305, which door was so old that the lock dropped off with a gentle shove, and it slowly opened.
As he swam into the room, he found that the room was not actually large but was a storeroom stacked full of rotted cargo. Looking around, Nie Fan then found a box the size of a wash basin, but was made of some unknown wood that remained undamaged despite its age. Various natural runes were also carved over it and radiated faint white light.
That’s it! Reaching out and grabbing it with his right flipper, he fished the box into his bag and rapidly swam out of the room.
There were only 3 minutes left in his morphing after wasting so much time. He might not make it if he didn’t hurry, and so he swam upwards at top speed.
Anything could wait after he returned to the surface!