The Guilds’ Grind and Hidden Powers

While Lin Shenyue and her companions diligently hunted monsters, numerous super guilds also embarked on their journey to accumulate points.

They employed a strategy where their members would weaken monsters, allowing core players to deliver the finishing blow to the injured creatures. This method allowed them to earn points significantly faster than Lin Shenyue’s group.

Naturally, this approach yielded less experience, as the official rules of Divine Realm stipulated that only 10% of a monster’s experience points were awarded for the final hit.

Nevertheless, the elite players from these large guilds could still match the leveling pace of Ye Jue and his companions.

While this slowed the overall leveling speed of their guild members, the guilds compensated these individuals with various rewards, such as points. Currently, with no guilds formally established, dedicated financial personnel managed these compensation schemes.

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However, even with these tactics, they could only keep pace with Ye Jue’s group when they were clearing skeleton monsters.

After all, Ye Jue could also hunt moles during the day to level up, whereas the guilds were limited to slowly grinding with only 10% of the experience gain.

By the end of the fifth day, Lin Shenyue had reached Level 14 with 50% experience. Ye Jue was at Level 14 with 20%, Divine Wind at Level 14 with 8%, and Xu Linglong and Embracing the Moon, Clear Breeze were both at Level 13 with 50%.

These levels were achieved despite their limited five hours of experience acquisition time each day; otherwise, their progress would have been even higher.

Concurrently, on the official leaderboard, six of the top ten players had chosen to hide their names. These six players were, of course, Lin Shenyue’s group of five and Dark Demon.

Lin Shenyue’s 14th level and 50% experience secured her the top spot on the leaderboard, with Ye Jue in second, Divine Wind in third, and Dark Demon in fifth. Xu Linglong and Embracing the Moon, Clear Breeze ranked eighth and ninth, respectively.

While the official leaderboard allowed players to hide their nicknames, the rankings published by Bai Xiaosheng disregarded such preferences, directly revealing names and backgrounds. Generally, guilds and players dared not offend Bai Xiaosheng, as merely divulging their or their guild’s information to rivals would be enough to cause significant trouble.

The player ranked fourth on the level leaderboard was Heaven’s Left Hand from the Heaven Guild. With relatively fewer guild members, especially elite players, having entered the game, he had access to more resources.

Consequently, his level had already reached 13 with 80% experience.

Heaven’s Left Hand scowled as he stared at the level rankings. As the top guild in several games, they only held two first-place positions in Divine Realm. One of these was a priest ranking that was practically unachievable and only considered first due to their guild’s historical dominance in previous games.

He had fully expected to claim the top spot on this level board. He could understand losing the Warrior ranking to Iron Blood Berserker, but Iron Blood Berserker did not have the abundant time he did to push levels.

Therefore, he had long marked this first place for himself, only to have it snatched away by several players whose names he didn’t even know. This filled Heaven’s Left Hand with intense frustration.

Being suppressed by Iron Blood Berserker was one thing, but to be outranked by a few unknown, minor players made him even more indignant.

Despite his displeasure, he found himself helpless. The players had hidden their names, and even Bai Xiaosheng could only make educated guesses about their identities.

Thus, Heaven’s Left Hand simply committed their levels to memory, resolving to make another strong push for experience the following day. What he failed to realize, however, was that Ye Jue’s group had exploited a minor bug, making it impossible for him to catch up to Lin Shenyue and Ye Jue in this particular level range. He might even find himself surpassed by others from behind.

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Due to Ye Jue’s classes, the group did not stay for the sixth day’s experience gain. However, Xu Linglong and Embracing the Moon, Clear Breeze remained for an hour.

After seven hours of monotonous skeleton grinding, Lin Shenyue’s experience reached Level 15 with 20%, and both Ye Jue and Divine Wind also hit Level 15.

Xu Linglong and Embracing the Moon, Clear Breeze, however, only had 68% experience at Level 14, still a distance from Level 15. Although Ye Jue knew how to unlock the Level 15 dungeon, even its prerequisite quests were beyond the capabilities of just three people.

They would need Xu Linglong and Embracing the Moon, Clear Breeze to join them to succeed. Consequently, Lin Shenyue and the two others who had reached Level 15 went their separate ways to attend to their own matters.

Ye Jue, naturally, went to class. Divine Wind set off to explore various maps, while Lin Shenyue, of course, resumed practicing her life skills, which she had neglected for several days.

By the time Xu Linglong arduously reached Level 15, it was already the eighteenth hour of the sixth day in the game. The moment she completed her leveling quest, Xu Linglong immediately left Embracing the Moon, Clear Breeze to search for Lin Shenyue.

Embracing the Moon, Clear Breeze, feeling helpless, proceeded to the Mage Guild to learn his new skills.

Lin Shenyue, with a sigh, was pulled out of the alchemy room by Xu Linglong, then followed the excited girl on a tour of Vermilion Bird City. She had, in fact, intended to explore Vermilion Bird City herself, but she feared getting lost again.

Therefore, despite a hint of resignation, Lin Shenyue did not object to Xu Linglong’s plan.

By this point, the number of active players in the game had reached 20 million, with nearly a million players bustling within the vast Vermilion Bird City. Even though the city was expansive, its streets were now quite crowded.

As Xu Linglong led Lin Shenyue through the city, they eventually arrived at a street where players had spontaneously organized a marketplace of stalls.

Many players along the street were loudly hawking their wares, causing Lin Shenyue, who preferred a quieter atmosphere, to frown slightly. However, seeing Xu Linglong’s eager expression, she followed her in.