Along the way, skeletons kept popping up, but Wu Xiaochen couldn't be bothered to deal with them. He would attack with two daggers if they came at him, but if they didn't, he paid them no mind. After walking for over ten minutes, they finally reached the end of the passage. Before them lay what should be the real mining area—a vast expanse of rocky terrain with scattered stones. Countless skeletons filled the mining area, densely packed. This sight immediately sparked a desire in Wu Xiaochen, who hadn't planned on fighting these skeletons. Even though he could continue to level up his talents after reaching the Silver Realm, talents could be leveled up at any time. Seeing such a dense group of monsters was a first for him. It would be a waste not to have a good group fight.
Level 20 skeletons only had an attack of a little over 400, and not even their skills could break through Wu Xiaochen's defense. Moreover, their skills didn't include any control effects. This was definitely an opportunity to experience the thrill of a group fight.
Thinking it, Wu Xiaochen recalled his Silver Wolf back into the pet space. He needed to level up quickly now, and there was no need for it to share experience. Honestly, the A-rank talent Silver Wolf was undoubtedly a powerful assistant for other players, but for Wu Xiaochen, it was merely a wolf for sharing experience. For example, at this moment, you could say it was not strong. At level 16, it could definitely easily defeat level 20 skeletons, even handle three at once without any problem. But Wu Xiaochen wanted to group fight, against a large number of such monsters. At this time, if the Silver Wolf were to join, it would be done for in minutes, completely useless. So, it could only be said that it wasn't that the Silver Wolf was too weak, but that Wu Xiaochen was too strong.
After recalling the Silver Wolf, Wu Xiaochen charged directly into the group of skeletons, striking each one twice before moving on to the next, paying no attention to the attacks landing on him. This feeling was quite exhilarating.
However, as he fought, Wu Xiaochen realized an awkward issue—assassins weren't suitable for fighting densely packed monsters. Otherwise, they would end up like him, surrounded and unable to move. Although these skeletons couldn't break his defense, he couldn't even take a step now.
"Damn, got too excited and ended up charging in too deep," Wu Xiaochen regretted. The situation was quite embarrassing now. He could only slowly clear the monsters around him, watching the skulls of one skeleton after another swaying in front of him, which almost made Wu Xiaochen vomit. But he had no choice; he couldn't fly and didn't have any displacement skills. Even using Void was useless in this situation.
"Sigh, I must learn displacement skills in the future. This situation is too embarrassing, and I'm sure I'll have nightmares tonight," Wu Xiaochen muttered to himself, then brandished his daggers fiercely, venting his frustration on the skeletons around him.
While Wu Xiaochen diligently fought the skeletons, other players were also working hard to level up and obtain better equipment. The overall strength of players in the Divine Oracle had significantly increased. Most players now had one or two pieces of black iron equipment, and the more powerful ones even had a few pieces of bronze equipment. Many guilds now found it relatively easy to defeat bronze bosses, especially with a larger number of guild members, making it easier to discover the bosses. Indeed, in many cases, more people meant more strength.
In a cave, Proud World picked up all the boss equipment that had fallen to the ground, replaced one piece with a usable bronze equipment, and distributed the rest of the equipment to a few members of Proud World. After the Silver boss was snatched away, Proud World, despite feeling angry, made the decision to have everyone search for bosses everywhere. This was already their third bronze boss, and Proud World now had five pieces of bronze equipment and one Silver piece. The rest of the members also had black iron equipment, resulting in a tremendous increase in overall strength. Proud World, along with other core members of the guild, had also spent a considerable amount of money to acquire a large number of black iron equipment to arm themselves. Their main goal was to settle the score and kill Chen Feng in the Beginner Village.
On a plain, Su Muxue led members of the Su Corporation in tackling a level 16 bronze boss. With the large amount of equipment purchased from Wu Xiaochen, Su Muxue had gained an advantage, surpassing other players by a large margin. She had reached level 17, and each of her Fireball spells dealt seven to eight hundred damage. Compared to the two to three hundred damage dealt by others, her output was exceptionally powerful.
Just as the boss had a sliver of health remaining, a group of people suddenly arrived at the scene, witnessing the situation. Faced with a boss at low health, it was unlikely that many people could resist the temptation, and this group was no exception.
However, they quickly experienced the terror of the Archmage. With a Fireball spell every 1.5 seconds dealing over a thousand damage, and the player's defense nowhere near the boss's, the Frost Nova spell every five seconds froze anyone it targeted. Su Muxue's talent truly shone through: reducing skill cooldown time by 50%, which was the reason she had chosen to be a mage.
With the Shieldbearer from the Su Corporation protecting her, Su Muxue was like a mobile turret, killing off players who tried to steal the boss one by one. In the end, only a few bitter ones managed to escape.
"Miss, you're amazing..." the members of the Su Corporation exclaimed.
"That's right! Our Miss is the top Archmage in the Divine Oracle. How dare these people try to steal bosses from us?" another person chimed in.
"Exactly, they underestimate themselves. I believe our Miss is already on par with that Chen Feng," others flattered.
"Alright, let's continue fighting the boss!" Su Muxue's expression turned cold. In her heart, she thought, "How could I possibly compare myself to that freak?"
Players from various guilds were also leveling up while searching for bosses. In the areas with monsters at around level ten, black iron bosses were easy to find, and there were quite a few bronze bosses as well. However, silver bosses and above were very rare.
Wu Xiaochen spent a full hour clearing out all the skeletons in the mining area, including those he encountered along the way. In total, he killed 514 skeletons. His level increased to: Lv19: 138,750/200,000. He added 514 points to his Immortal Body, along with the 40 points from leveling up. His total health, after the title bonus, reached 8,106 points, breaking through the 8,000 mark. He decided to save the 10 attribute points for now.
Rubbing his slightly sore right hand, Wu Xiaochen thought to himself, "I won't do this again in the future. Mages are more suitable for group farming. Damn it, my mind is still filled with images of skeleton skulls. It's terrifying. I don't even know how I managed to endure it." However, this was the first time he had killed so many monsters at once, and the leveling speed was incredible.
Picking up three pieces of black iron equipment that dropped on the ground, Wu Xiaochen directly put them up for auction. He had initially planned to list them for 20,000 each, but he suddenly realized that there were already a lot of black iron equipment listed on the auction house, with prices ranging from a few thousand to ten thousand.
"Ah, after sleeping for eight hours, are black iron equipment really worth so little now?" Wu Xiaochen pondered. But thinking about it, it made sense. There was a chance for ordinary monsters at around level ten to drop black iron equipment. Even ordinary solo players would have one or two pieces of black iron equipment after such a long time.
Finally, Wu Xiaochen listed them for 10,000 each and continued walking deeper into the mine. Ahead was another passage, and he entered it. However, this time, no skeletons emerged from the passage. The passage was much shorter than the previous one, and he walked out in a matter of minutes. Ahead was another mining area, much larger than the previous one, with a large group of skeletons wandering around. There were more skeletons than before, but they had skeletal axes in their hands, which made them slightly different from the previous batch.