Chapter 57 – Boneyard
Lord Grim was now Level 21. Killing Level 26 monsters would give him the most experience. But it wouldn’t give much more. With each higher level, the experience would increase by 2%, so a five level difference would give an extra 10%. However, with these five levels, the difficulty increase wasn’t as simple as just 10%. In addition, if players went to level alone, without even talking about the dangers, the 10% benefit couldn’t be seen due to the increased time needed to gain the experience. It might even be less efficient than killing monsters at the same level.
But the current situation was special. Ye Xiu didn’t care about this small amount of extra experience when killing higher leveled monsters. Rather, he did it to avoid the vast crowds of people and to look for a quiet place to level. After sorting his equipment, Ye Xiu moved Lord Grim to the Level 23-26 Area: Boneyard.
Boneyard wasn’t only the name of a leveling area. It was also the name of the dungeon. It was the same as Frost Forest. The areas outside Frost Forest were Level 20-23 leveling areas and had a large amount of wild monsters. Deeper into the forest were entrances to the Frost Forest dungeon. Similarly, Boneyard had a Level 23-27 Boneyard dungeon.
Players like Blue Brook Guild’s Blue River, these sorts of high-leveled players, had already conquered the Boneyard dungeon. The records showed that the Boneyard first clear party was done by Tyrannical Ambition. Ye Xiu saw that Endless Night’s name was there. As for the other three members in yesterday’s party, they weren’t on there. It looked like they weren’t Tyrannical Ambition’s first-string characters. The Boneyard clear record had already been broken four times. The newest record was currently held by Herb Garden.
As for Boneyard’s three hidden BOSSes, Blue Brook Guild first cleared two of them. It looked like these dungeon records spun in these Three Great Guild’s palms.
Ye Xiu didn’t pay too much attention to all that. Lord Grim quickly reached Boneyard and sure enough, there weren’t many players here. Currently, most players were Level 21 and most of them stayed at Frost Forest to scramble for monsters. There were already Level 22, 23 monsters suppressing them there. And the monsters in Boneyard would be even more so.
After picking a good place to clear monsters, Lord Grim shook the Thousand Chance Umbrella. It transformed into the battle lance form and slaughtered its way over. Eight Midnight Cat Fingernails adorned the Thousand Chance Umbrella, which was equivalent to giving the battle lance a new tip. Adding on the replaced linking axle, these changes upgraded the battle lance form to Level 15. Besides this, the original form and other cla.s.s’s weapon forms were still Level 5 and naturally, couldn’t be compared to the upgraded battle lance form.
The Boneyard’s monsters were the same as the Skeleton Graveyard’s. They were undead monsters. Zombies, skeletons, skeleton archers, skeleton mages, etc. They were Levels 23-26. Their main feature was that they had high damage and high defense, but moved relatively slowly.
With Ye Xiu’s skill, these sort of NPCs weren’t any threat. After controlling Lord Grim to rush forward, he chose an area and began killing monsters there.
Ye Xiu killed very casually. He didn’t overly pursue crucial hits, combos, juggling, back attacks, and those effect-inducing attacks. In order to fully execute these technical move, he would need to concentrate more, move faster, micro faster, and all of these things drained his energy. He was only leveling, that’s all. Ye Xiu wasn’t planning on fighting like he had been in the Professional Alliance finals.
Fighting and resting, Lord Grim may not have killed monsters that quickly, but he was extremely stable. Compared to attacks, Ye Xiu payed more attention to carefully dodging, which made it so that he never needed to run away and rest because he was low on life. He only rested after he ran out of mana.
In Glory, food and potions were recovery items. Food had no cooldown, but couldn’t be used in combat. It restored a lot and recovered it quickly too. Potions weren’t as effective as food, but they could be used while in combat. At a crucial point, they could be used as a last resort. But the better the potion’s effects, the longer the cooldown. Moreover, potions of the same type shared a cooldown, so it wasn’t possible to drink multiple health potions of different levels.
NPCs sold food and potions, but they were of the lowest level and were costly. Besides obtaining them from killing monsters, of the secondary professions, the cooks could cook food and alchemists could make potions. Each player could learn two secondary professions, but only one of them could undergo job advancement. That’s right, secondary professions had job advancements. Once a player reached Level 50, the secondary profession could only be leveled further after completing the job advancement.
At the moment, the new server had only been played on for two days. Aside from the big guilds, no one else had begun learning secondary skills. The alchemists and cooks of every big guilds still weren’t able to supply enough for their own respective guilds, so they didn’t sell their products at the market. Players could only swallow their anger and buy high from the NPCs. The small amount of money they earned from killing monsters and completing quests were all spent on potions.
Ye Xiu was no exception. This sort of investment in the early stages of the game was absolutely necessary. But by relying on his outstanding skill, he was able to save quite a bit by not having to spend much on health potions and food. His money was mostly used on the mana recovery items. He was already quite frugal compared to normal players.
After clearing monsters for around an hour, Lord Grim escaped from battle again and drank to recover mana. Ye Xiu also lit a cigarette to rest a little. Right when he did so, a message appeared. Opening it he saw it was system prompt: Soft Mist has accepted your friend request.
After an hour, Tang Rou finally found Ye Xiu’s friend request. Another message was sent: “Sorry, I just saw it.”
Tang Rou and Chen Guo really were different.
She wasn’t like Chen Guo who actively looked to make friends with others. She wouldn’t treat people too warmly, but she didn’t make you feel cold. When you spoke, you would feel that she listened very attentively; when she spoke, you would feel that she was speaking to you. If the way Chen Guo talked with others was very wild and street-like, then Tang Rou was scholarly, reserved, proper, and polite.
Besides the time when she lost a bit of control saying “Again” ten times in a row, he couldn’t find any faults on her.
Ye Xiu believed that this girl definitely had some sort of background. This sort of self-restraint and temperament reflected a good education. Moreover, she had that fast hand speed.
When Ye Xiu asked about how she practiced her hand speed, she hesitated. This made Ye Xiu convinced that her hand speed wasn’t some sort of innate talent, but rather a result from practicing. This could also be seen from her hands. She was the same as Ye Xiu. She was extremely careful with her hands and took good care of them.
Ye Xiu was certain that these weren’t hands trained through playing games. Pro players’ left and right hands weren’t completely the same because most pro-players used their left hands for the keyboard and the right hand for the mouse. The two moved completely differently. But Tang Rou’s left and right hands moved exceptionally balanced and steady. This unexpectedly made her left and right hands uncoordinated when she played the game.
If his guess was correct, Ye Xiu believed that these quick hands were trained through playing an instrument.
“It doesn’t matter. If you have any questions just message me.” Ye Xiu saw that Tang Rou wasn’t ordinary, but he wasn’t too interested in looking into her background. Truthfully, he himself still had to figure out what exactly his future path was!
Closing Tang Rou’s chat box, Ye Xiu was about to control Lord Grim to kill monsters again when suddenly, he heard a fit of fast footsteps from his headphones. Someone swiftly flew past Lord Grim. With a swing of a pole, the monster, which Lord Grim was about to attack, was knocked into the air.