Game of the World Tree

Looking at the chest in front of them, one of the surviving three players, a tank named “Advancing Leghair,” frowned.

“Wasn’t the reward supposed to be a Silver-rank promotion slot? How did we end up with just a treasure chest instead?”

Even though he had already advanced to Silver-rank, it didn’t mean they weren’t expecting the promotion slot as part of the loot.

Moreover, although it was still uncertain whether the slot could be traded, the value of the Silver promotion slot had already surged significantly among the playerbase.

“Let’s just open the chest first and take a look. Maybe it’s inside!” suggested “Fight Me If You Dare,” a Level 41 Silver-rank mage.

The three of them stepped forward, each picking a chest and opening it all on the spot.

With a flash of dazzling purple light, an item appeared in each of their respective hands.

Specifically, they received two pieces of upper epic purple-class equipment for Iron-rank, along with a pouch containing 800 gold coins.

Honestly speaking, such rewards wasn’t a bad haul.

But the three all immediately felt disappointed upon seeing what they’ve got.

Compared to the rewards they had initially hoped for, these items felt like mere consolation, to say the least.

“What a rip-off! It’s not even a silver-class item nor a promotion slot…” Leghair said with frustration.

“Exactly…More than 20 of us have fought for such a long time, but in the end, this is the only reward we’ll get? This dungeon seemed easy enough, but these rewards are seriously underwhelming… Where’s the supposed promotion slot reward?”

Fight Me chimed in, also clearly dissatisfied.

Ji Gang remained silent for a moment, then suddenly spoke: “Maybe there are more rewards hidden somewhere in this place. Let’s keep searching around!”

The other two’s eyes lit up at his suggestion.

Right!

They hadn’t searched the whole area yet!

Without hesitation, the trio swiftly sprang into action, scouring every corner of the palace.

However, even after inspecting the entire place, they still hadn’t found anything aside from ruins and debris.

In the end, there are no extra rewards, much to their further disappointment.

The initial three chests were truly the only loot dropped after defeating the demon lord.

“Dammit, this… is so stingy!”

Leghair cursed.

Ji Gang also frowned slightly but then thought for a moment and said in uncertain tone,

“Could it be…because we completed the dungeon, but our performance rating was too low?”

His words made the other two pause and think.

Perhaps, their Guildleader was right.

While they had indeed cleared the dungeon, thinking back, they also remembered that the system notification also included a part wherein it states that their performance rating was just “barely satisfactory.”

“There’s a really good chance that the quality of loot we got was somehow related to that…Now that I think about it, it would be pretty boring if this new dungeon could be easily cleared on our first try, right? I mean, back when I played traditional online games, no one ever succeeded in clearing a new dungeon without dying multiple times first…”

Fight Me nodded in agreement.

Just then, a new system message appeared within their field of view:

【❗ 】

【The Quest has been completed…】

【 All players shall now be teleported out of the palace in 3 seconds… 】

Seeing the message, Ji Gang shook his head ruefully.

“Let’s go. This was just our first attempt…”

“We’ll try again tomorrow…”

Three seconds passed in an instant as a soft glow enveloped the three of them, and a gentle force teleported them away.

Then, once the trio was successfully transported away, the ruined palace began to repair itself, as everything returned to its prior original state.

Within the Divine Kingdom of the World Tree, Evé shook her head lightly as she closed her monitoring screen.

“It’s not easy to obtain the silver-class reward. Challengers are only eligible to receive it if they achieve a perfect performance rating.”

Their leader, Ji Gang, was correct in his assumptions.

The reason their team only received three lucky chests as rewards was that, although they had managed to clear the dungeon, their performance rating was lacking.

After all, their raid team was composed of 25 players, yet only three survived by the end.

On top of that, it took them a full two hours just to whittle down Azazel’s HP to near-death.

Quite frankly, if she hadn’t placed those several limitations on Azazel, their team would have already been wiped out shortly after the battle began.

Luckily for them, she had never really intended for any players to face a full wipe when fighting Azazel.

After all, while Elven Kingdom is just a game for the players, and their deaths are a regular occurrence, but for Evé, it’s different.

It would’ve cost her unnecessary resources if the players had been slaughtered by Azazel.

The primary objective of this labyrinth was to utilize Azazel and absorb his power, while training the players served merely as a secondary benefit.

That’s why, for each team that entered the Demon Palace, Evé restricted Azazel’s strength to align with what the team could theoretically manage, even if only one member was left.

What’s she’s doing is othing more than maximizing efficiency.

Nonetheless, not all victories are graded equal.

A flawless victory wherein a 25 player team can clear the dungeon unscathed is one thing; but barely surviving with just three severely injured players as the sole survivors is a completely different matter.

Evé understood that making the dungeon far too easy or allowing rewards to be obtained without much effort would detract from the experience for these players.

After all, part of the fun of dungeon raiding is learning the mechanics through numerous trial and error, often dying multiple times before finally succeeding.

In this manner, the process of exploration would be inherently more enjoyable for the players.

However, this primarily applies to general games, and Elven Kingdom not like any other typical game.

For Evé, deliberately making things difficult just to enhance gameplay could actually contradict her own vested interests.

Also, resurrecting players, especially those who have advanced to Silver rank, can really put a strain upon her divine power.

Though players needing resurrection coins had offset what divine power she lost, why should such unnecessary consumption be added in the first place?

Therefore, Evé chose to adjust how the rewards are given instead.

Indeed, the dungeon boss fight is designed to be a battle where players can avoid death and have a high chance of success as long as they exercise enough caution and patience.

But at the same time, the rewards are also divided into different classification.

Simply put, to get the best rewards, they must first achieve a perfect victory!

And that’s where the real challenge of this new dungeon lies.

Evé set the rewards based on their overall performance, not merely on the fact that they cleared the dungeon.

Of course, if an elite player at Level 40 could solo the entire dungeon by themselves, then Evé would certainly grant them the highest reward.

Such talents would definitely need to be nurtured, after all.

The news of Autobots raid team successfully clearing the new dungeon quickly spread among the playerbase after the system announcement.

The way they succeeded in their first attempt surprised the entire server, catching many off guard.

They cleared it with just one attempt?

In that case, isn’t this dungeon far too easy?

But when people heard about their performance rating and the rewards they received, everything started to make sense.

So that’s why—they barely scraped by with the lowest possible performance rating!

“This new dungeon… its difficulty likely isn’t about whether we can defeat the boss per se, but rather, how we can do it in a perfect manner. It seems impossible to get the best rewards unless someone get the highest performance rating first.”

After hearing about Ji Gang’s experience, Li Mu made this assessment.

— 415 —

【 THE DUNGEON’S DIFFICULTY 】

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