Because Silver Wolf took away 40% of the experience, the 561 ghosts only brought Wu Shaochen 370,944 experience points. His level is still at 22, with 462,982 out of 500,000 experience points. If it weren't for Silver Wolf taking away an extra 20%, Wu Shaochen would have leveled up by now. However, Wu Shaochen doesn't care about the experience, as he knows he can easily gain more. What concerns him is that despite the massive amount of experience gained, Silver Wolf has only reached level 10. Nevertheless, its power has grown tremendously.
[Silver Wolf]
Talent: Awakening in progress...
Level: 10
Health: 40,400
Mana: 2,200
Physical Attack: 550
Physical Defense: 330
Magic Defense: 220
Speed: 220
This level 10 Silver Wolf is much stronger than before, and its talent is still awakening, so it should be able to improve further. The most significant improvement is its speed, which has reached 220 points at level 10. With this, Wu Shaochen can now coordinate with Silver Wolf to fight bosses. Previously, he couldn't let Silver Wolf take the damage from bosses because its speed was lower than theirs. Sending it out would have meant losing it. Although a pet can be summoned again after an hour with only a level drop, multiple deaths will lower its loyalty, and if loyalty becomes too low, the pet may betray its master. That's why Wu Shaochen never thought of sacrificing Silver Wolf. Perhaps it's because of this reason that even after its awakening, Silver Wolf is still willing to be his pet. The level 10 Silver Wolf has grown quite a bit, but it is still only the size of a calf.
"Now that my talent has reached its limit, let's go back to the previous level and grind for experience. The efficiency here is too low," Wu Shaochen thought. He logged out to have a meal and then logged back in. He planned to grind until midnight and then tackle the dungeon, which should significantly increase his power.
Finding a safe spot without monsters, he logged out and reheated the packed lunch he brought. He opened his phone and started browsing the forum. The most discussed topic was still that piece of dark gold equipment. It is impossible to have dark gold-level equipment in the current stage, and no one should be able to deal with a dark gold-level boss. Later, someone revealed that Dust Seal obtained the dark gold equipment only after coming out of a dungeon. This instantly ignited everyone's passion. Countless people were tirelessly leveling up just to reach level 20 and challenge the dungeon sooner.
Wu Shaochen chuckled. "Forget about the dark gold equipment, guys. Successfully completing a normal dungeon only rewards a silver treasure chest. You should be grateful if you can get a piece of gold equipment."
After finishing his meal, Wu Shaochen logged back in with Silver Wolf and returned to the first level. Going towards the left passage, he knew that grinding for experience on the first level was the most satisfying. As expected, he reached the end of the passage and saw a densely populated mining area with level 24 skeletons carrying skull shields. They had 68,000 health, 620 defense, and slightly lower attack power at 610 compared to level 23 skeleton mages. However, their skill was shield bash, which was quite troublesome, dealing only 150% damage but causing a one-second stun that was quite annoying.
"Sigh, thinking about it now, the Skeleton Warriors in the first mining area were easier to fight." However, whether they were easy or not, he had to fight them to increase his health and level up Silver Wolf. He aimed to kill the tiger within two days, which would greatly enhance his strength. After that, he planned to tackle the Golden-level War God's Mysterious Realm. That would be nice.
Wu Shaochen embarked on another long journey of monster grinding. The Shield Bash of these Skeleton Guardians made him feel frustrated. He could only lure four or five at a time. Shield Bash had a cooldown of only 10 seconds, and luring too many would result in being stunned and vomiting.
Jinling City...
Aoshitianxia: "Have you found Dust Seal?"
"No, he hasn't appeared in Jinling City for a long time. He seems to be constantly fighting monsters outside, and the places he goes are usually high-level monster areas that we can't reach," Aoshifangyu said.
"Hmph, let's see how long he can hide," Aoshitianxia sneered. Then he said, "Let them continue searching. We need to hurry and try to reach level 20 today to challenge the dungeon."
Julu City.
A flash of leveling light passed by, and Shenwang, the president of the Divine King Pavilion, became the first to reach level 20 with the help of other experts in the guild after Dust Seal.
"Shenwang, are you going to tackle the dungeon?" asked Shen Zhi zuo shou, who was beside him.
"Yes, I'll go and have a look first. You guys probably won't reach level 20 today. I'll go in alone to test the waters. Since Dust Seal can clear it by himself, the difficulty of this dungeon shouldn't be too high. We can't waste the daily opportunity," Shenwang nodded.
Then, the group arrived at the Linlang Dungeon in Julu City. Shenwang looked at the first team's name displayed on the stone tablet, "Dust Seal's Team," and smiled. Finally, he could indirectly have a showdown with Dust Seal. He clicked on the challenge button.
"Do you think Shenwang will succeed in the challenge?" the several experts from the Divine King Pavilion who came along began discussing.
"Of course, he's Shenwang. How could he be compared to Dust Seal, who suddenly appeared from nowhere and only had an advantage in the early stages? He's actually a weakling," Shen Zhi zuo shou said confidently.
"That's right. Dust Seal might have had an advantage in talent, but he's actually mediocre in terms of true strength," Shen Zhi you shou added.
As they chatted for a while, a figure suddenly appeared and was teleported out. Then the group saw Shenwang's serious face outside the dungeon.
"What happened, Shenwang?" they quickly asked.
"This dungeon is very difficult! We can only enter and challenge it together when all of you reach level 20," Shenwang said, glancing deeply at the name on the stone tablet, then turned and left.
The others looked at each other, quickly followed after him, and didn't dare to say anything. It was evident that Shenwang had failed. It was not the time to rub salt in the wound.
Chapter 69: The Most Ruthless Assassin
As the first level 20 player appeared, the experts on the leaderboard also gradually reached level 20. The first thing every level 20 player did was to run the instance, only to be defeated and sent back out. Fortunately, death in the instance does not result in level or equipment loss, only teleportation. Otherwise, these people would surely regret their decision.
While Wu Shaochen, who focused solely on grinding passives, was in a private chat channel, he received a message from Xue'er: "Chenfeng, do you have any strategies for the instance?"
Chenfeng replied, "What strategies do you need? Just clear it one path at a time."
Xue'er said, "But there are more and more monsters, and we can't defeat them."
Chenfeng replied, "Can't you form a team? It's easy to clear with a full party of 10 people."
...
Chenfeng said, "You didn't go into the instance alone, did you?"
Xue'er replied, "Um..."
...
Chenfeng said, "You're so weak. You dare to challenge the instance alone even though you're like this."
At this moment, Su Muxue, standing at the entrance of the instance, was infuriated by Wu Shaochen's response. She really wanted to reply with "Aren't you alone too?" in the end, but she held back. That guy was not worth it.
After replying to Su Muxue's private message, Wu Shaochen opened the level rankings and found that besides himself, everyone else was already level 20.
"These people level up quickly," Wu Shaochen thought to himself. He couldn't slack off either, so he continued grinding...
It took him over three hours to finally clear out all the Skeleton Shield Guards in this area. There were a total of 604 Skeleton Shield Guards. Wu Shaochen's level also reached lv23: 165390/600000. After level 20, the experience required for each level increased by 100,000, and the leveling difficulty significantly increased. However, it didn't matter to Wu Shaochen because he could still grind for HP even without leveling up. His goal was to become a tanky assassin.
With the Immortal Body and the previous 561 stat points, he gained an additional 1165 HP. Combined with the 80 points from leveling up and the 10% bonus from his title, he gained a total of 1369 HP. His maximum HP reached 15646. He didn't allocate any attribute points to the next level and still had 40 points left. Wu Shaochen allocated all of them to Vitality, further increasing his physical defense and magical defense by 57 points. His physical defense reached 950 points, and his magical defense reached 939 points, nearly reaching 1000 points. His defense and HP made him the tankiest assassin in the entire server.
The more than 600 Skeleton Shield Guards also allowed Silver Wolf to reach level 14. However, what made Wu Shaochen frown was that the experience required for Silver Wolf's awakening was much higher than before. Currently, with a 40% experience bonus and fighting monsters in their 20s, it took over a thousand kills to reach level 14. If it were before, he would probably already be in his twenties.