Seeing the others nodding in agreement, Alex couldn't help but feel a bit exasperated. Yesterday, he had only earned 40% experience points when killing the purple scythe creature. For the regular blue scythe monsters, he barely scraped together 2%.
The slow rate of experience accumulation had made him lose interest in keeping track. But now it was clear: killing a single blue scythe creature normally earned 20% experience, and thanks to the quest scroll's effect, it had doubled to 40%.
On top of that, Alex was wearing the **War God's Glory** pendant, which further doubled his experience gain, resulting in the 80% experience boost he now enjoyed.
As for why he had earned only 2% experience per blue scythe creature yesterday, Alex suspected it had something to do with his attribute levels. His stats were just slightly lower today, but that difference seemed to affect his experience gain.
This realization sent a thrill through Alex. Killing monsters was now rewarding him with massive experience, and leveling up significantly boosted his damage output. It felt like he had stumbled upon a game-breaking exploit.
Knowing his stats would soon return to E-level and higher, today was his last real chance to grind levels. In hindsight, Alex regretted boosting his attributes too quickly—if he had more time, he could have leveled up to dozens or even hundreds of levels, making him virtually unstoppable against all the monsters.
But regret wouldn't change anything now. All he could do was seize the opportunity today.
With his new perspective, Alex's behavior shifted. Initially, he had planned to let Chris and Dean practice by fighting monsters, but the allure of rapid leveling was too strong to resist.
Before long, Chris and Dean stood dumbfounded as Alex tore through waves of monsters, cutting down half of them before the others could even react.
As they continued to hunt monsters around the school, the team quickly noticed Alex's damage output was rising at a frightening rate. At the start, it took him two hits to kill a creature. Then it became three or four hits. But after five or six waves of monsters, Alex started one-shotting them.
By the time the rest of the group had taken turns practicing, they had killed over 50 monsters in less than an hour—half of which Alex had taken down by himself.
Finally, Tanya couldn't contain her curiosity and asked, "Alex, what level are you now?"
Still riding the high of rapid leveling, Alex grinned as he checked his stats. "Not much, just shy of level 20."
"What?! You cheat!"
"Are you serious? Level 20? That means your damage is doubled! No wonder you're one-shotting everything!"
Everyone was stunned, even the usually calm Luke let out an expletive. If this really were a game, Alex would be the player running hacks, one far beyond any normal GM's power.
Amid the group's shocked reactions, Alex tried to explain patiently. "Yesterday, I was only getting 2% experience per kill. I'm guessing experience is tied to my attribute levels. If I go back to E-level stats, I probably won't be able to level up this fast, so I'm grinding hard today."
This explanation helped them understand a bit better. Matt nodded thoughtfully. "That makes sense. Yesterday, you killed tons of monsters, but your damage didn't really seem to increase."
Dean, always quick with numbers, raised an eyebrow in suspicion. "But even if you're getting 40% experience per kill, that shouldn't be enough to hit level 20 already."
Exactly!
Alex had only killed around 20 monsters. Even if each one gave 40% experience, that was still just 1,000%—half of what was needed for level 20.
Alex chuckled and raised his pendant with a smirk. "The guide sold me this thing. It cost 30,000 points, but it doubles all my experience."
"No way!"
"Alex, you've fully become one of those annoying pay-to-win players! Or I guess, pay-to-win with points, in this case!"
Dean and the others groaned dramatically, unable to process just how lucky Alex had gotten.
Under Alex's overwhelming strength, what were once terrifying monsters now seemed like walking bags of experience, ready to be harvested.
By midday, everyone had completed their daily quest of "killing the lower-ranked blade fiends," and most of the remaining monsters had been left for Alex to farm.
While the rest of the team's average levels had risen to around 4 or 5, giving them a 40-50% damage boost, Alex's level had soared to an eye-watering 80, increasing his damage by a staggering 800%.
He had essentially become a walking, talking MMO cliché—the "9999 damage per hit" warrior from those cheesy browser game ads. Though it wasn't quite that exaggerated, against the blue scythe creatures, Alex had turned into a monster himself. Just touching them was enough to end them.
The only reason Alex stopped leveling up further was that his stamina had dropped to a critical 15%. Otherwise, he might have kept going. Moreover, Alex eventually felt a bit guilty and allowed his teammates to kill more monsters, which slowed his pace.
But even without Alex hogging all the kills, Chris and Dean couldn't match his leveling speed. Every fight drained their stamina faster, limiting how many monsters they could take down.
By the end of the morning, Alex's team of 20 had slain more than 300 monsters, clearing out nearly every creature within a hundred-meter radius of the school.
When they returned, everyone was beaming with excitement. After grabbing lunch from the guide, they went back to their classroom, ready to divvy up the spoils.
With nearly 300 N-grade awakening stones in their inventory, it was more than their backpacks could hold. Almost everyone on the team had a full stash.
Even with a few classmates still unawakened, there were more than enough stones to go around. After a quick discussion, the group decided to split the loot evenly.
Alex took 80 stones, roughly a quarter of the total. The remaining 200 were split between Tanya, Matt, and the others, leaving each with ten stones apiece.
After the distribution, the excitement in the room was palpable. Even the students who had stayed behind couldn't hide their envy—and regret.
Each N-grade awakening stone was worth 3,000 points, meaning everyone who had gone out earned at least 30,000 points. That was a fortune!
And from the look of things, Alex's group hadn't even encountered much danger. In fact, it seemed like they had spent the morning having fun. Learning that their strength had also increased, the remaining students couldn't sit still any longer.
Eager to awaken their powers, they quickly used the awakening stones, hoping to join Alex and his crew in the next outing.