Nie Yan wanted to explore this World of Darkness. It’d piqued his interest and was bound to be filled with rare goodies. Plus, his Return Scrolls were grayed out, so even if they wanted to, they couldn’t leave. They were stuck here. Committing suicide to get out also wasn’t worth it. After all, at their levels, every level required an enormous amount of experience.
Fortunately, the Magisters had plenty of mana. If they stuck to less mana intensive spells, they could last for quite a while. Tang Yao didn’t even have to worry about his mana at all thanks to his Arcane Fairy, nor did Xie Yao whose consumption had dropped by 60% because of the effects of the Earth Orb.
Nie Yan’s team was as solid as a boulder. Assailed by a sea of Dark Hounds, they were immovable.
After grinding for five hours straight, Nie Yan and the others were finally starting to run low on mana and health. They could only rely on potions to keep going.
Thankfully, everyone had stocked up on potions before setting out. They wouldn’t run low anytime soon.
“Sparrow Hawk, cast your Forbidden Magic!” Nie Yan shouted. They really couldn’t hold on much longer.
“Got it!” Tang Yao drank a Specialist Mana Potion, restoring his mana back to full. He waved his staff and started chanting an incantation.
His robes fluttered in the wind as he slowly floated up three meters off the ground.
The Arcane Fairy was also giving off intense mana fluctuations. Seeing the seven coloured radiance around it, only then did Nie Yan notice it had already reached Rank 7. It was basically a cheat-like existence. The bonuses it provided to an Arcane Mage were incredibly overpowered. They even had a special ability that greatly reduced the cooldown of a selected Forbidden Spell.
The reason Tang Yao’s Forbidden Magic, Dark Brionac Blizzard, came off cooldown so quickly was precisely because of the Arcane Fairy.
Over a minute and a half passed as Tang Yao finished chanting out 10 sets of syllables.
The surrounding temperature plummeted as dark clouds gathered low in the sky. Soon after, black ice shards started pouring down, sweeping through everything in a 500-meter wide area.
A blanket of damage values ranging from 150,000–160,000 floated up into the air. The movements of the Dark Hounds slowed to a crawl as they were covered in a thick layer of frost. As the blizzard was in full swing, they started collapsing in droves, turning into frozen corpses on the ground. The area south of Nie Yan’s team was instantly cleared.
Nie Yan estimated the Dark Brionac Blizzard had killed at least 8,000 Dark Hounds.
Ding dong! Ding dong! Five notification jingles rang out in quick succession, as Tang Yao’s body lit up with a dazzling radiance. He had risen five levels. He wasn’t the only one. Everyone went up at least two levels, fully recovering their health and mana.
“Sweet!”
Everyone was gobsmacked. This showcased once more just how amazing Forbidden Magic was. It could slaughter Elites and Lords many levels higher in droves. One could imagine how much experience this one action netted.
With everyone back to peak condition, they could keep going again for the next several hours.
After casting his Forbidden Magic, Tang Yao slowly floated back down to the ground. The five level-ups in a row left him completely ecstatic.
Even if they died here now, none of them would lose out. Their moods relaxed quite a bit.
“Levelling here is amazing. Let’s stay for a couple of days!”
“Yeah! Boss, this is a hard-to-come-by opportunity!”
“Mhm. As long as nothing happens with the guild, we can stay here. Try to minimize your potion consumption,” Nie Yan said. He still wanted to find Morphest who had to be somewhere in this map. Until then, he wouldn’t be satisfied.
About two days later, Nie Yan and the others had finally cleared out all the Dark Hounds in the vicinity. After roaming around in the wasteland for three hours, they encountered another sea of Dark Hounds and resumed their levelling spree.
The only thing that left Nie Yan’s group feeling depressed was that these Dark Hounds gave no drops. Each of them on average burned through 3,000 gold worth of consumables every day. That was more than 60,000 gold combined! Yet they didn’t even receive a single copper from these Dark Hounds. Thankfully, all of them were silly rich. It was a drop in the ocean to them. If it were ordinary players though, they would’ve withdrawn long ago.
After climbing over a hill, Nie Yan discovered a lot of Dragonblood Grass growing in the area up ahead, an ingredient used to concoct high rank health and mana potions. At present, his Alchemy Master skill was already at a high enough rank to craft Advanced Potions. However, the potions he made could only be consumed by himself.
“Do you guys know any production skills?” Nie Yan asked.
“I’ve learned Alchemy and Tinkering,” Xie Yao replied.
“I’ve learned Bandaging and Alchemy,” Undying Scoundrel said.
As it turned out, all of them had learned and raised the ranks of one or two production skills during their class advancement quests, especially Alchemy. This was an essential skill for everyone. Since an opportunity to use it rarely presented itself, they never mentioned it until now.
Nie Yan rubbed his chin. Since everyone at least knew Alchemy, they could supplement their potion consumption with the medicinal plants they found here.
Everyone continued grinding in the World of Darkness, steadily raising their levels.
After Nie Yan’s level broke through 140, the levelling speed slowed down to a crawl. The amount of experience required was more than 10 times higher than before. Under normal circumstances, it would take him four days or even up to a week to raise one level. Thankfully, nothing happened in Asskickers United during this time. So, they could stay in the World of Darkness.
Xie Yao, Tang Yao, and the other Mages levelled up at a relatively faster pace. The lowest of them had already reached Level 142. However, every next level up took longer and longer. As for Bladelight and the others, they were like Nie Yan, stuck at around Level 140.
The World of Darkness was extremely vast, a wasteland stretching out as far as the eye could see. There were large hordes of Dark Hounds everywhere.
Nie Yan had recorded down every area they passed on the map. They had explored quite a bit, but Morphest was still nowhere to be found.
“I just received the Adjudicator title,” Tang Yao excitedly said after looking at his notification window.
“Is it a high rank title?”
“It seems pretty high. It increases my Influence in the Viridian Empire and Satreen Empire by 60.”
The group found a secluded spot to sit down and rest. They planned to wait for their health and mana to recover before continuing their grind.
“I wonder if we’ll be able to reach Level 150 in two months. Levelling up after 140 is too hard. The amount of experience required for every level up increases by 70%. Can you imagine just how much we’ll need to reach Level 150?” Tang Yao said. He specifically noted down the amount of experience required after each level up and discovered this trend.
Listening to Tang Yao, everyone sucked in a cold breath of air. With this calculation, the amount of experience required to reach Level 150 would be more than 100 times that of 140.
Nie Yan chuckled. “This is only the beginning. Wait until we reach Level 150, and then 160. We haven’t experienced real pain yet.” For the sake of shortening the gap between players’ levels, Conviction made levelling up incredibly difficult when you were in the top percentage of levels. The amount of experience required for every level up reached extremely frightening heights. At the later stages of the game, when everyone’s level reached the soft cap, a difference of two or three levels between players meant an astronomical amount of experience. It was precisely because levelling was so slow that many players placed more importance on gathering better equipment. With better equipment, not only would levelling become faster, but they’d also be more of a force in PvP.
“Boss, how is that something to laugh about?” Undying Scoundrel wryly smiled.
“It’s fine. So what if levelling is a bit slow? No big deal,” Nie Yan said. In the previous timeline, he had reached Level 180. He had already experienced it all. So, he didn’t mind it too much. Back then, the level difference between players wasn’t as great as this time around. Those with average skills were all around Level 150–160; those who were decently skilled and hardworking were around Level 170–180; and those at higher levels, from Level 180–190 or even up to Level 200, were all extremely overpowered existences. They were composed of all Masters, most of whom were powerful Magisters.
In his past life, Nie Yan had taken two years to grind from Level 1–140, three years for Level 141–160, and five years for Level 161–Level 180. This showed how incredibly slow levelling up became at the later stages.
Nie Yan made a rough assessment. His levelling speed was 10 times faster in this life. Honestly, it would be even faster if he didn’t have to spend so much time dealing with guild affairs. He could no longer hole himself up in one place for several months at a time like in the previous timeline. If he continued on at the pace he was going at, it would take him about three years to reach Level 180. As for the levels after that, thinking about the experience required gave him a headache. Reaching Level 200 like those Magisters of his past life would be an enormous undertaking.
However, with Nie Yan’s current levelling speed, it wasn’t impossible to achieve.
Hearing Tang Yao talking about reaching Level 150, Nie Yan recalled the Tyrant Abak Set. He was only two pieces away from completing the set. This was a Legendary-grade set with a powerful set bonus. He wanted to quickly reach Level 150 so he could equip it.
Nie Yan started wondering if they should stay here until Level 150.
There was no guild that could pose a threat to Asskickers United right now anyway. They also required the foreseeable future to consolidate their position in the Viridian Empire. They couldn’t keep going to war, or else their foundation would become unstable.
Nie Yan thought for a moment before making his decision. He would level up a few more times in the World of Darkness first. When he reached Level 148, he would continue searching for the remaining pieces of the Tyrant Abak Set. By the time he found them all, he’d be Level 150.
However, word of them being in the World of Darkness definitely couldn’t be leaked out, or else Angel Corps would come looking for trouble.
