Chapter 23: Tremendous Gains!

Hidden here?

Morning Breeze followed the elven thief to a dilapidated courtyard. To his surprise, the thief moved aside a pile of firewood, opened a chest concealed beneath it, and placed something inside. After finishing, he quickly replaced the firewood and hurried off.

An encrypted chest! Clever!

Seeing that this fellow had actually bought an encrypted chest from the auction house, Morning Breeze almost killed him on the spot—if not for wanting to keep his Blood Dragon identity hidden. What was an encrypted chest? It was a chest with a set password; without it, there was no way to open it. These chests were system-protected: if you tried to destroy the chest, everything inside would be obliterated. Morning Breeze remembered that such password chests couldn’t be stored in a backpack and only allowed three password attempts per day.

“Xiaoxue, help me put something into the guild vault.” Without hesitation, Morning Breeze pushed aside the firewood and carried away the encrypted chest. This had to be handled through Xiaoxue, as encrypted chests couldn’t go into personal packs or player warehouses—only into the guild’s vault, and they had to be physically transported there.

Inside the main city, players carrying encrypted chests were protected; any attempt at theft would be logged and soon NPC guards would arrive. So Morning Breeze wasn’t worried about being robbed. Still, many people cast him curious glances, wondering what could be so important it had to be stored in an encrypted chest rather than a regular warehouse.

Though intrigued, the other players had no time to concern themselves with Morning Breeze. Their main focus was to find the traitor known as Indifference and recover the stolen treasures from the Alliance vault. None of them realized that the stolen goods were already in Morning Breeze’s hands.

The territory of the Frost and Snow Guild was little more than a large house. Most guilds couldn’t afford land within the main city and rented smaller plots instead. Morning Breeze followed Xiaoxue to the basement storage room, placed the encrypted chest in the vault, and after three failed password attempts, left.

“Morning Breeze, it’s enough to store things in the vault—why go to all the trouble for an encrypted chest? What did you put inside?” Xiaoxue was puzzled. Normally, only important guild documents required such protection, since these couldn’t be kept in a regular warehouse.

“I don’t know either—just found it,” Morning Breeze replied, then had Xiaoxue transfer the chest’s ownership to his name. With the ownership changed, no other guild member could move the chest, not even the guild leader, and the ownership couldn’t be altered again.

“Found it? Really?” Xiaoxue doubted him, but before she could ask more, Morning Breeze had logged off and switched back to his main character.

Two unexpected visitors arrived at the city cemetery that day. Morning Breeze recognized one of them—a rare Monk class named Healthier Kun. Next to the monk was a Summoning Warlock, game ID “Victory Through Gambling,” who looked like a frail young man but whose piercing gaze marked him as an expert.

“Little thief, you’re even bolder than I am, daring to steal from the Alliance’s military vault. But tough luck running into me!” the monk said to the empty air. “Hand over half the loot and I’ll spare your life!”

There was no response for a while, and the monk laughed. “Little thief, I have tracking tools. No matter how far you run, you can’t escape me!”

Ground Roll!

The monk rolled across the ground, sprang up, planted his hands, and spun his legs like helicopter blades. The red-named thief was kicked out of stealth. The warlock’s imp and hellhound immediately charged to intercept him.

As a professional player on the Gale Team, Victory Through Gambling’s interception skills were top-notch. Even with sprinting speed boosts, the thief couldn’t get away, and without the Vanish skill, Indifference couldn’t re-enter stealth mid-combat. Soon the monk kicked him to the ground, and as he tried to rise, a palm strike left him unconscious—two skills and he was out cold.

“Indifference, you’re unlucky to run into a high monk like me!” the monk taunted after killing the traitor, then checked the loot—only to find trash equipment, not a single treasure. “Aren’t red-named players supposed to drop loads of loot? And this guy’s a traitor, no resurrection allowed—shouldn’t everything drop?”

“Obviously, he was prepared and hid the valuables. Let’s search the area,” said Victory Through Gambling, equally frustrated. They’d hoped the monk’s tracking tools would lead them to the traitor and his stolen goods, but the thief had been too clever, hiding everything away.

Both monk and warlock were thoroughly annoyed, not realizing Indifference’s encrypted chest was now in Morning Breeze’s hands. Logging in, Morning Breeze appeared in the Chaos Lands—his name showed no red, so the Alliance clearly hadn’t connected Blood Dragon’s raid on the military vault to him.

A legendary orange axe. Without hesitation, Morning Breeze opened his pack and saw a two-handed axe inside. It was double-bladed—one side large, the other smaller, both razor-sharp. Where the blades met, a skull emblem was embedded. Clearly, this was not of Alliance make; they would never use a skull as a weapon’s insignia.

Arcanite Axe

Legendary. Binds on equip. Two-handed axe.

Requirement: Warrior

(Temporary level 18)

Damage: 293–498

+90 Strength

Grants skill: Whirling Throwing Axe

Passive: Ignores 30% of enemy defense on attack

Passive: Normal attacks deal 40% extra damage

Passive: Using any melee area skill grants 30% extra crit chance and 40% more damage

Description: Unstoppable slaughter!

Whirling Throwing Axe: Technical skill. Hurl two spinning axes at a target, dealing 150% attack damage to all enemies struck in flight, and 4x damage to the main target. The axes return, hitting enemies again on the way back. Technical requirement: S-rank. Usage: dual-wield two-handed axes. 15s cooldown. No resource cost.

“Haha!” Morning Breeze roared with excitement at the axe’s attributes. In his previous life, he had never wielded an orange weapon, yet here he was at level 18 with a super weapon. If not for this special event granting access to the Alliance vault, players would have needed a huge amount of military merit for such a prize.

After going into stealth, Morning Breeze transformed into Blood Dragon, converting his unique darkgold sword into a darkgold axe. He had to admit, the Wind King was right—Blood Dragon should use axes for even fiercer attacks, making it harder for opponents to block. Now, with this killing axe, he could dual-wield two axes.

The reason for converting the darkgold two-handed sword into an axe was to synergize with the Arcanite Axe’s Whirling Throwing Axe skill—a powerful offensive move. This was a true technical skill: throwing the axes didn’t guarantee they’d fly and return as commanded; poor aim or power would cause failure, hence the S-rank difficulty.

Blood Giant Dragon Axe

Darkgold, bound, transformable, two-handed axe

Requirement: Blood Dragon

(Temporary level 18)

Damage: 221–332

+56 Strength

+56 Constitution

Grants skill: Endless Rage

Passive: Ignores 40% of enemy defense on attack; crits deal 50% extra damage

Passive: Hitting 3 or more targets boosts crit chance by 20% and damage by 40%

Description: Unstoppable, the Blood Dragon alone reigns!

Both the Arcanite Axe and Blood Giant Dragon Axe granted defense penetration and area damage bonuses, making Blood Dragon’s AoE attacks devastating—cloth-armored classes would be instantly felled.

Nature Talent Gem. Frost Talent Gem. No need to check them—Morning Breeze already had a Fear Talent Gem in his vault. With so many gems, he planned to sell the Nature Talent Gem for a pile of gold to buy rare materials for future top-tier weapons at level 60.

Blood Strike: Recovery skill. Unleash the power of blood to deal 120% attack damage to an enemy and restore 15% of maximum health. Usage: Defensive Stance. Cooldown: 25s. Resource cost: none (Requirement: Warrior)

An orange skill book! This was a unique skill: once Morning Breeze learned it, no other warrior could. Such books were never sold; Morning Breeze had never even seen one before. Berserkers’ Bloodthirst healed 2% health—already incredible—but Blood Strike restored 15%. This was clearly designed for shield warriors, as it required Defensive Stance. Fortunately, Morning Breeze was dual-specialized in both berserker and shield, so he could use it.

Assault Armor Fragment: Artifact piece. A fragment of the artifact “Assault Armor.” Gather six fragments to assemble the artifact. (Hint: One fragment is in the Frozen Lake.)

An artifact fragment! Morning Breeze was stunned—this wasn’t equipment players could obtain at this stage. The Frozen Lake was a level 40 area on the world map. For now, he would just store it in the vault.

Meteor Burn Forbidden Scroll: Forbidden scroll. Tear open the scroll to summon a meteor storm over a 5,000-meter area. Monsters killed by the scroll grant no experience or loot; non-red-named players drop nothing. Single-use only.

The red scroll was forbidden magic. With this, Morning Breeze needn’t fear even an army. Not just the top ten guilds—even the top hundred would pose no threat. At his current power, even without forbidden magic, Blood Dragon could contend with them.

Dragon Treasury Treasure Map: Treasure map. Shows the location of the Dragon Treasury. Only players with a map can claim the dragon’s hoard.

A treasure map—just what he liked! Morning Breeze glanced at it, then stowed it away; the area was for level 60, unreachable for now.

Pet Mutation Potion: Pet potion. Add a drop to a cup of pure water to make mutation potion; feed it to a pet to mutate, gaining higher stats and more skills. Usable 300 times.

Pet potion! Every player needed this, especially hunters. At level 20, players could have pets join battle; hunters could have two, giving them an even greater advantage.

On the world map, players could summon creatures to fight alongside pets—a great synergy. At level 20, Morning Breeze planned to train pets on the side while Blood Dragon racked up kills for experience. He’d used Blood Dragon sparingly lately, so players’ levels had caught up—soon it would be time to gain more experience through fresh kills.

Frohlor’s Dragon-Slaying Techniques: Legendary scroll. Deliver to the librarian of Doom City to learn how to forge a Dragon-Slayer Blade.

A legendary weapon! But it would have to wait until level 60, and he’d have to forge it himself—no easy task. If the crafting failed, the scroll would be lost, so only with sufficient strength should it be attempted.

What a haul! Who would have thought raiding the Alliance vault would yield so much? The only mystery was what that elven thief had taken. For now, he could only wait for the encrypted chest to be unlocked. Morning Breeze now wanted to practice his Whirling Throwing Axe skill!