After checking his status panel, Liu Xuan took a moment to glance at Blue Star’s level rankings. He was firmly in first place at Level 13, and the gap between him and the competition was anything but small.
The player in second place was only Level 11, while everyone from third to tenth was Level 10.
What was more, they were all Chinese players. There was no helping it—the experience bonus before Level 10 was simply too high.
However, once they reached Level 10, their leveling speed clearly began to slow down.
Take Xiao Lu, for example. After Liu Xuan carried her through a dungeon, she shot straight up to second place.
But she couldn’t keep up afterward. Several hours had passed, and she was still only Level 10.
Liu Xuan couldn’t help thinking that without the experience bonus, reaching Level 13 would still have been no problem for him. But those other players would probably only be Level 5 or 6.
“Old Meng, so many people on the rankings are already Level 10. How come you’re only Level 9?” Since they had nothing better to do while traveling, Liu Xuan casually struck up a conversation. “You’re supposed to be a professional gamer. Our battlefield has the highest experience bonus, too.”
Zhang Meng rolled his eyes. “If I wanted to grind, I could definitely catch up. But I have to worry about everything happening on the battlefield, all right? Why don’t you take over?”
“Haha, I think I’ll pass.”
Liu Xuan knew that Zhang Meng had a lot on his plate.
For example, he had to deal with conflicts between teams, players stealing monsters, abandoning teammates, or newcomers who couldn’t find a party and didn’t know how to develop quickly after entering the battlefield...
Basically, whenever anything happened, the people in Battlefield 2468 went to Zhang Meng.
The poor man really did have a lot to worry about.
Zhang Meng continued explaining, “Besides, our battlefield doesn’t believe in letting a small portion of people take all the experience first. Everyone is leveling as quickly as they can. At present, over ninety percent of the players are at least Level 8.”
“Once all ten thousand quests are completed, I’m confident that the battlefield’s average level will exceed Level 10. By then, when the area across the river opens, the monsters there will definitely be above Level 10. Everyone will be able to head over and fight them right away.”
Liu Xuan couldn’t help praising him. “That’s impressive, Old Meng.”
Having someone handle the planning made things much easier for him.
Take the ten thousand quests, for example. It wasn’t impossible to let everyone accept and complete quests however they wanted, but their efficiency would definitely suffer.
Suppose there was a quest monster that was easy to kill. If everyone swarmed over to hunt it, they would end up fighting over monsters, and the quests would actually take longer to complete.
Or perhaps many people would go run dungeons because the equipment rewards were better.
But dungeon quests were slow to complete. Someone could spend half a day running a dungeon and return to the village with only one or two quests turned in.
If everyone went to run dungeons for the equipment, when would those ten thousand quests ever be finished?
Balancing leveling, equipment farming, and quest progress was something Zhang Meng needed to coordinate.
...
When they returned to the newbie village, Liu Xuan planned to grab something to eat at the inn. After that, he intended to head north and hunt some wild monsters.
There was no need to return to the Quarry Dungeon. Some players had already tried it.
After it had been changed into a five-player dungeon, the requirement had been reduced from five hundred kills per minute to fifty.
That number was far too low for him to farm efficiently.
Besides, Liu Xuan was now Level 13. Killing Level 8 monsters barely gave him any experience.
It simply wasn’t worth it.
He would much rather head north, toward the area near the Orchid River Outpost, and hunt some Level 10 monsters.
But just as he was about to leave the village, he happened to pass by the village chief. The white-bearded old man looked at him, and his eyes suddenly lit up.
“Warrior, please wait!”
Liu Xuan looked at him in confusion. “Village Chief, were you calling me?”
“That’s right.” The village chief sized Liu Xuan up, a smile gradually spreading across his face. “I didn’t expect anyone to reach this level before the official northern expedition began. Perhaps I have something I could entrust to you.”
Liu Xuan’s eyes immediately lit up.
Could this be a hidden quest? Did he need to reach Level 13 before heading north to trigger it?
“What is it? Leave it to me.”
“It’s like this. You’ve been to the quarry, I assume? Actually, if you follow the mountain range southeast from the quarry, you’ll come across a mountain called Eagle Spirit Mountain, where a great many eagles have made their nests.
“That place was originally a sacred site where some shamans worshiped the Eagle Spirit. But ever since the north fell, a group of deserters occupied the mountain and became bandits. Whenever harvest season comes, they descend from the mountain and steal our grain.
“I had originally planned to wait until the warriors grew stronger before gathering you all to eliminate that threat. After all, there is still plenty of time before they come down again. But if you can find a team of sufficiently powerful companions, perhaps you could clear out this danger now.”
At this point, the village chief paused. “However, there’s no need to rush. Those deserters are quite strong. At your current level, you would only barely be able to fight them. It’s also fine if you’d rather deal with them later.”
Liu Xuan immediately shook his head. “I want to go now.”
Judging from the village chief’s words, the deserters on Eagle Spirit Mountain were probably not low-level. Liu Xuan might only have barely met the level requirement to go there.
There was even a good chance the monsters were above Level 15.
But with more than two hundred thousand HP, Liu Xuan didn’t care!
Forget Level 15—even if their level were doubled, he still wouldn’t fear Level 30 monsters.
Seeing that Liu Xuan was determined, the village chief stopped trying to dissuade him and instead offered a suggestion. “If you plan to form a team, you might want to bring more priests, depending on the situation.”
“Why? Is there some special role for priests over there?”
The village chief explained, “Eagle Spirit Mountain was once a holy mountain of the shamans. If priests go there, they may receive the Eagle Spirit’s recognition and perhaps even obtain some kind of inheritance.”
Does that mean there’s a chance to change classes there?
Liu Xuan pondered for a moment and decided not to call anyone over yet. He would scout the area alone first.
He didn’t even know what kind of class the shaman was. Was it powerful? Was it a healer or a damage dealer?
If he made the information public now and all the priests rushed over to change classes, that might cause problems.
After asking the village chief for the precise location of Eagle Spirit Mountain, Liu Xuan set off.
He discovered that the route in this direction was connected to the farmland he had passed through when he first left the farm.
However, this area was even more desolate. The fields had gone untended for so long that the grass had grown waist-high.
Some abandoned farming tools, broken-down ox carts, and other debris were scattered along the roadside.
From a distance, Liu Xuan spotted what appeared to be a rather strange scarecrow. But when he approached, he discovered that the original scarecrow had been discarded in the field beside it.
What hung from the frame was a human skeleton.
It seemed to be intended as some kind of warning.
After passing through the fields, he reached an endless wasteland.
Liu Xuan followed the direction indicated by the village chief. Surprisingly, he didn’t encounter a single monster along the way.
With Fleet of Foot active, he ran faster and faster.
Eventually, he built up to ten times his normal movement speed, turning into a gust of wind.
It took him less than ten minutes to reach his destination.
Liu Xuan stared in astonishment at the towering mountain peak before him, which rose into the clouds. Even as he was struck by its majesty, he couldn’t help muttering, “Don’t tell me I have to climb all the way to the summit?”
But then he thought about it.
Those deserters probably didn’t live that high up.
What would be the point?
After stealing the grain, they would still have to carry it all the way back up.
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
m back to his original world. In the end, he realized he had overthought things. [Hey, why is Shen Manni, the female lead, acting strange? Shouldn't she be fawning over the male lead at this point?] [Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you sick? Weren't you supposed to break off your engagement today?] [Damn it! An Youyi, please do your job as an undercover agent and sell my information to the protagonist, you idiot!] ... At this moment, Xu Mo himself didn't know that these female leads had already heard his inner thoughts. Then they decided not to play by the rules. Xu Mo: Please respect my profession as the big villain!
uld barely embark on the path to immortality. Just as he was on the verge of death, his golden finger awakened. No matter whether it was poison, drained blood and vital energy, diminished lifespan, or any other physical debuff caused by paying a price—once midnight passed, everything would be refreshed. From then on, whenever someone asked what kind of person Chu Ran was, the answer was simple: Forbidden arts that other cultivators dared not learn? Chu Ran would learn them. Prices that even demonic cultivators dared not pay? Chu Ran would pay them. Lifespan that even righteous cultivators dared not burn? Chu Ran would burn it. All the blood essence in his body? Take it. Want both his hands and feet? He would cut them off and send them to you. You say he’s finished? He wasn’t built to sit idle. You think he’s gone mad? No—he was simply waiting for midnight. From that day onward, Chu Ran would respect neither Heaven nor Earth, bow to neither gods nor ghosts. He had only one wish: For midnight to arrive a little sooner.
