The Era of Gods

Chapter 269: Chapter 269: Six Months Later: The Second Treasure

After coming out of the dungeon, Lin Xiao saw Yi Lei chatting leisurely with his companions at the entrance. When Lin Xiao emerged, he overheard Yi Lei saying:

“The difficulty of this dungeon is average, and the rewards are average too, but if you farm it continuously, the cumulative rewards are pretty good. I barely passed the Fourth Level; it was a really close call. I can no longer farm a second Level 4 dungeon, and the probability of the difficulty skyrocketing at the Fifth Level is high, so you guys should consider your own strengths, try to get through the three levels of other dungeons first before thinking about the rest.”

There are many clever people in the world. If he could farm this way, others could too, and basically, the first three levels wouldn’t stump them.

Lin Xiao felt the pressure mounting.

“I need to speed up.”

Before entering the Ruins of Myriad, he had put on quite a show, attracting attention from many spectators. He knew that many people must’ve recognized him, and although they were polite on the surface, they were certainly holding their breath, eager to surpass him; he couldn’t let them actually do so and end up face-slapped.

After coming out of the Salan Battle Dungeon, while on the way to the next one, Lin Xiao pondered over the troop configuration for the upcoming fight.

Breaking through the Fourth Level of the dungeon, he gained 20 Griffins, which were a Level 3 type of soldier belonging to the Cathedral and also a flying unit.

The fact that he got 20 Griffins instead of a Griffin card was surprising. It seemed the higher the soldier type level, the more difficult it was to acquire them.

Level 1 and Level 2 soldiers are cannon fodder in any race and therefore produced in large numbers, while Level 3 and Level 4 represent the mid-tier backbone with a sharp decline in availability. Levels 5 and 6 are advanced soldier types, and it goes without saying that their availability would diminish further—they also come with level restrictions.

A First Level hero can lead any soldier type below Level 3, a Level 2 hero can lead up to Level 4, a Level 3 hero can command Level 5, and so on; the top-tier Level 7 soldier types require a Fifth Level hero to lead them.

Thus, it’s clear that hero leveling is exceptionally challenging. With his current frequent dungeon farming, he had only accumulated a total of six thousand experience points, far from the one hundred thousand needed to reach the second hero level.

Fortunately, if his leveling is slow, so is everyone else’s. Under the same circumstances, he still had an edge.

There wasn’t much to adjust with his current troops; he decided not to deploy the 20 Griffins. With each Griffin requiring the space of four individuals, swapping them in would necessitate the replacement of eighty Elite Riflemen, which he didn’t feel was worth it.

These were just ordinary Griffins, not Elite Griffins. There was no need to replace them just yet; better to save them until there were enough to combine into a card.

The types of soldiers that haven’t been summoned can be combined through the Creation Rubik’s Cube.

Before entering the second dungeon, Lin Xiao readjusted his forces, exchanging one hundred Elite Archers for two hundred Elite Riflemen, resulting in a setup of two hundred Elite Archers and six hundred Elite Riflemen.

The reason was that the situation in this dungeon differed from the Salan Battle. He had a larger area to defend, so he needed more riflemen to extend his defensive lines.

The difficulty of these six dungeons was not too varied. It was adjusted based on the player’s strength during their first entry into the dungeon, with the challenge of the second, third, and fourth levels progressively increasing from that initial standard.

However, this standard is generally fixed within a specific range since there’s a minimum threshold of strength for the dungeon. To pass, even the weakest can’t be too bad.

So it’s impossible to breeze through seven or eight levels with just a few dozen riflemen in the first level. There are no such easy deals.

Three hours later, Lin Xiao emerged from the third dungeon with a pensive expression.

Standing outside the dungeon, he thought for a while, then took out three Elite Rifleman Cards and an Elite Archer Card from his storage space to replenish the troops he had lost, and started his second challenge.

Yes, he had lost the previous challenge, just by a bit.

But, equipped with the experience from last time and a readjusted troop formation, he believed he could overcome it.

After two difficult hours, he made it through the level. Coming out from the dungeon, Lin Xiao decided to take a break and challenge the next dungeon tomorrow.

Though the difficulties of the Fourth Levels varied from dungeon to dungeon, there were significant differences.

The main issue was that his troop configuration was too monotonous and he lacked powerful close-combat soldier types to withstand the impact of the opponent’s mid-tier units.

Upon returning to the Sacred Gate, just as he approached the entrance, he saw Yi Lei and a group of people looking quite upset as they came out. Yi Lei avoided eye contact and hurried past without a greeting; the same went for the rest who were with him, a rather unexpected reaction.

As Lin Xiao pondered over their behavior, suddenly another rider charged out from the gate. On closer inspection, it was Jia Sanyue who, upon seeing Lin Xiao, waved and shouted:

“Lin Xiao, don’t go in yet.”

With a face full of question marks, Lin Xiao watched Jia Sanyue approach, stop near him, and, looking back at the gate, said in a low voice:

“Two players who used True-Body Descend have arrived.”

In a flash, Lin Xiao understood.

Jia Sanyue continued:

“Did you just see Yi Lei? Those two true bodies were very arrogant; they humiliated everyone. If you’re going back…”

“I get it!”

Lin Xiao understood instantly. If he went back now, he would certainly be severely humiliated, and possibly even worse.

For instance…

Perhaps in the City of Glory, they wouldn’t be able to directly attack him, but keeping tabs on him and waiting for an opportunity to take him out wouldn’t be difficult.

Even without Divine Power, players who performed True-Body Descend could maintain at least a Seventh Level physical combat strength, which, at this current stage, was an insurmountable force for those with Projection Descending.

There’s no need to doubt the base nature of a person; he could be sure that if those two saw him, they would definitely have such thoughts.

Don’t even mention the fear of retaliation after returning; if someone dares to engage in True-Body Descend, they’re already gambling with their life, so why would they fear that?

If successful, their strength and potential would greatly improve, and their own college would protect them.

Eliminating other competitors in the Ruins of Myriad is within the rules; even if they eliminated Wu Zhonglin, the backing of the War Throne behind him couldn’t say much, at most they would express dissatisfaction behind the scenes and suppress him a little.

Therefore, Lin Xiao directly turned his horse around and left, not returning to the city.

He decided not to return for the time being. After all, heroes don’t exert much pressure on logistics, at most he’d need to find some ordinary villages to replenish food from time to time.

But this isn’t a long-term solution; one can’t always stay outside and never return to the city.

Lin Xiao felt that it was time to consider his next steps.

He could foresee that with his current strength, it would be very difficult to pass the Fifth Level of the dungeon; he might have to die many times to barely make it through, which is clearly unacceptable.

So after completing the remaining Fourth Level dungeons, he needed to consider temporarily leaving this place for the next stage of his development.

There weren’t many paths before him now, roughly divided into two: one is to leave the territory of the City of Glory and enter the unexplored neutral territories outside of any major force’s influence to seek various opportunities.

The other is to head to the battlefield, whether it is the territory contested between the City of Glory and Barbaric City or the territory contested with Southern Swamp City, all within the battlefield areas. There, enemy heroes are everywhere; one can undertake various military tasks to receive rewards or directly defeat enemy heroes to plunder their resources.

In this hero world, there’s an interesting unwritten rule: heroes can defeat enemy heroes, and as long as they’re not mortal enemies like the Cathedral and Undead, they usually can choose to pay a ransom for their lives, similar to how nobles in the Middle Ages could pay ransom for themselves after defeat. However, the ransoms for heroes include not only Gold Coins and various resources but also soldier types and even treasures.

This set of unwritten rules not only marks how much ransom is due but also sets a default set of standards.

For example, higher-level heroes are not allowed to attack lower-level heroes actively; they generally cannot exceed attacking one level down, such as Level 3 heroes can initiate attacks against Level 2 heroes, but cannot move against First Level heroes.

What’s interesting is that after who knows how many years of change, now there’s a specific standard for the resources needed to redeem oneself after defeat for heroes of different levels.

Of course, these unwritten rules do not apply to them as players.

Making war profits is also a good way to get rich quickly.

The prerequisite is that you have sufficient strength, or else you’ll just be handing out freebies to others.

Right now, Lin Xiao couldn’t decide which path to choose. After contemplating a while, he decided to first finish clearing the remaining dungeons.

After leaving the Sacred Gate, he randomly stopped by a native village without a lord to rest for a while and then led his army to continue towards the nearest dungeon.

Two days later, after clearing the last of the six dungeons, Lin Xiao emerged from the dungeon and was about to leave without even tallying his loot.

That’s because the two True-Body Descend competitors had already begun clearing dungeons over the last two days, and he needed to leave early to avoid running into them.

Just out of the manor where the dungeon was located, he saw from a distance a joint force of several players composed of one to two thousand riflemen, five to six hundred archers, and several dozen Griffins flying in the air heading towards the dungeon. He took a quick glance from afar, cursed his bad luck, and kept his head down as he quickly moved away from the dungeon and went in the opposite direction.

Riding on a Heroic Warhorse, Li Wenze looked up instinctively towards that direction and said to the guy beside him:

“Chase after him and see who that is,” he said.

This guy was also a competitor, all of whom had voluntarily attached themselves to them after seeing the powerful True-Body Descend of the two.

Players who didn’t pose any threat were gladly welcomed by Li Wenze as underlings.

The underling spurred his horse, bypassing the dungeon and saw Lin Xiao, who was speeding away, and quickly waved and shouted:

“Brother ahead, wait up for a moment, I have a question!”

Lin Xiao lashed his horse with a whip, and it sped up even more.

The underling returned, speechless, and told Li Wenze, who chuckled and said:

“Only contenders for the Treasures of Myriad or the competition rankings would run upon seeing me because they’re afraid I’ll kill them.”

His eyes sparkled with dangerous light as he said:

“Remember the look of that man; next time you see him, stop him immediately.”

Lin Xiao ran for several kilometers in one breath and only relaxed when he saw no one was catching up.

Lucky to have discovered it early, if he had been blocked even a moment later, it would have been the end.

“I can’t stay here; I need to leave immediately.”

There are two that have True-Body Descend, and if their first move is to clear dungeons, they’re bound to run into each other again, which is too dangerous.

Just as well, he had reached the limits of his current stage of strength by clearing the dungeons up to the Fourth Level; he’d need to recruit a batch of Elite Griffins or be able to upgrade a bunch of soldiers to elite status.

Thinking about clearing so many dungeons without being able to upgrade to elite, that difficulty is just too high