Ye Rong quickly resolved the Mushroom and Fish Slice Porridge in front of him, as if he had a deep hatred for the bowl in front of him.
Just early in the morning, the Building Manager had come to collect the rent for the next month from each room. The remaining amount on Ye Rong's ID card jumped down, another 120 yuan less—
No one dared to owe rent beyond the deadline, otherwise, with just one phone call from the Building Manager, Mechanical Police would arrive within five minutes to impose a double late fee and a three to ten-day detention on the rent delayer.
Spending money before earning it made Ye Rong's mood not so great first thing in the morning. However, he never had the habit of mistreating his stomach, so breakfast was still necessary.
This bowl of Mushroom and Fish Slice Porridge was quite substantial, using premium quality japonica rice, and large tender pieces of fish, each with the same knife pattern. A few mushrooms and green onions made the white porridge even more fragrant.
A bowl of Mushroom and Fish Slice Porridge only cost 3 yuan, which was quite cheap. Ye Rong rotated among forty or fifty types of breakfast, barely managing to cope with these machine-made foods.
After finishing the Mushroom and Fish Slice Porridge, Ye Rong took out the Psychomotor Conductor and logged on to The Other Shore to continue his leveling journey.
With two magical weapons at his disposal, Ye Rong's leveling efficiency increased greatly, and he was no longer limited to battling a few low-level monsters.
Level 6 Green Wolves, level 8 Rotten Tree Spirits, and even the highest level ordinary monster in the Newbie Village, the level 10 Black Wind Leopard, were all on Ye Rong's target list for leveling.
Ye Rong had long set his sights on the level 8 Rotten Tree Spirit.
The Rotten Tree Spirit had high blood, defense, and a vicious attack, with even a passive skill - Corroded Soil - that turned the land within a one-meter diameter around it into corrosive mud. Targets within it would have their movement speed reduced by 15%, attack speed reduced by 10%, and lose one point of life every two seconds.
There was only one drawback: its movement speed was too slow.
For those without ranged attacks, whether this drawback existed or not made no difference. But for Ye Rong, it was a different story.
With two long-range attack weapons in hand, Ye Rong could easily eliminate the Rotten Tree Spirit from a safe distance without taking any risks. The slow, almost crawling movement speed allowed Ye Rong to run a short distance to create enough space.
A water talisman could cause more than three times the damage of a fireball, but Ye Rong's usage of the Aquarius spell was not unrestrained and uncontrolled. Once depleted, the Aquarius spell would require an hour and forty minutes of waiting to fully recover.
Ye Rong's habit was always to keep at least five water talismans in the Aquarius spell, using the fire spell as the main attack while occasionally combining it with the Aquarius spell.
By doing so, the efficiency of monster killing would not be affected too much, and it would ensure that he always had two magical weapons available for use in case of emergencies. This included encountering elite monsters and malicious players who stole monsters and killed people.
Although the Rotten Tree Spirit was a wood monster, fireballs didn't cause additional damage when they hit it. Each fireball extinguished with a "sizzle" sound, as the damp and water-rich trunk prevented the fireball from burning.
Fireball, fireball, fireball, then retreating a few steps, continuing to cast fireball, mixing in a water talisman, and resuming the fireball. Repeating this pattern several times, a Rotten Tree Spirit would sway its trunk and turn into ashes, offering its experience points to Ye Rong.
Ye Rong executed this process meticulously. The execution of this process was not difficult, as everything was based on him possessing two magical weapons with long-range attack capabilities; otherwise, the high attributes and passive skill of the Rotten Tree Spirit would make players aiming for it suffer.
While battling monsters, Ye Rong also had time to think about his future development direction—
Upon reaching level 15, each player could join a sect of their liking, and it was from that point on that they would truly begin The Other Shore world and learn Daoist Techniques and spells.
There were no fewer than twenty sects in The Other Shore, each with its own advantages and strengths. There were also some hidden sects and loose cultivators that required a combination of opportunity, luck, and strength to join. Players who joined hidden sects often had a greater advantage in the early stages, as their masters were usually major figures, and with fewer players in the hidden sects, the resources of the sect could be tilted to a greater extent.
Ye Rong didn't want to waste a lot of time trying his luck to see if he could join a hidden sect. After learning about the development direction of all the sects, he had set his heart on joining the Qingcheng Sect.
Qingcheng was also a major sect in The Other Shore, but its Divine Thunder was not as powerful as Mount Emei's, its spells were not as mysterious or versatile as Kunlun's, and its formations were not as useful as Huashan's. However, it had one advantage: the Qingcheng Refining Qi Formula had the most obvious improvement effect on flying swords.
Ye Rong, who knew that his greatest reliance was on flying swords, naturally yearned for the Qingcheng Refining Qi Formula. Joining the Qingcheng Sect was also a natural choice. Besides, the weakness of the sect's spells could be compensated by the player's individual efforts, learning sophisticated spells from other channels.
However, apart from the level 15 requirement to join a sect, the walk from the Newbie Village to the nearest Main City would take at least five or six days. Even with the Taixuan Bingpo Sword allowing him to fly, it would still take two to three days.
For new players, this was simply unacceptable, as they didn't know what powerful monsters they would encounter in the wilderness—
Not to mention the loss of life essence, but because there was no respawn point set in the main city, dying would still result in reappearing in the Newbie Village. Even using the price of dying once to reach the Main City immediately was impossible to achieve.
Only two days into the public test, many players had already attempted to defeat the key Giant Water Turtle, which would grant the Earth God Talisman. Every attempt ended in failure, with players losing life essence and dropping equipment. However, through the countless sacrifices of many players, the Giant Water Turtle's attributes and skills were roughly figured out.
Its life value was estimated to be over 10,000; its defense was also quite high. Its normal attacks were average, but it had two skills.
Skill 1: it launched a water column that could instantly kill any player without multiple pieces of defense-enhancing equipment. Thankfully, the skill's release frequency was not high.
Skill 2: it formed a fog of water, and the Giant Water Turtle would rapidly regain health within the fog. This skill was activated when the Giant Water Turtle's life value dropped below half and lasted for ten seconds, with a 10-minute cooldown.
With these two skills, no one had successfully defeated the Giant Water Turtle and obtained the Earth God Talisman thus far.
However, Ye Rong was not in a hurry. After all, he was still far from level 15, and there was plenty of time for him to come up with a perfect method to kill the Giant Water Turtle.
As his thoughts raced, the actions in Ye Rong's hands didn't slow down, and one Rotten Tree Spirit after another fell by his hand.
The 280 experience points from each Rotten Tree Spirit made Ye Rong's experience bar grow rapidly, especially since no other players were in his leveling area to fight for the monsters.