Early the next morning, Lu Ran and the others arrived at the instance hall.
“Lu Ran, you go tackle the Endless Tower first. After that, we’ll continue our grinding session,” Ye Hongyi said.
Lu Ran did as he was told.
Lei Tai stretched and let out a loud yawn. “Ugh, I’m so sick of grinding these instances lately. The process is just so boring.”
Ye Hongyi shot him a glance.
“You don’t have to participate, you know. Xinxin is protecting Lu Ran anyway, and I’m more than capable of handling the elites and bosses myself. Besides, I’m much faster than you are.”
Hearing this, Lei Tai’s eyes immediately widened in protest.
“No way! Fine, boring is boring, but that’s still better than you two hogging Lu Ran all to yourselves.”
At that moment, Liu Xinxin suddenly spoke up. “Actually, if you’re really that bored and want a change of pace, I have a new idea for before Lu Ran starts the team instances. It might even be faster than our current routine of grinding regular instances.”
Hearing this, Lei Tai instantly perked up.
“Really? What is it?” he asked eagerly.
He was clearly genuinely fed up. Any alternative, even a different instance or grinding method, would offer some welcome novelty.
Liu Xinxin explained, “Originally, Lu Ran’s skill range was vast enough to cover a huge area in the open world, wiping out all the monsters within it. Large-scale monster clearing like that naturally yields high experience. However, because the skill coverage was simply too large, it easily caused collateral damage to other adventurers caught in the area.”
“But now it’s different!” she continued. “Now that Lu Ran has the Trident of the Calming Seas, he can freely control the coverage area, even the shape, of his skills!”
“So you mean… take Lu Ran to grind in the open world?” Lei Tai asked. It was a novel approach, and certainly less monotonous.
“That makes sense!” Ye Hongyi’s eyes also lit up after hearing the idea. “Open world monsters have varying levels, so Lu Ran can totally take on higher-level ones for even more experience. That’s something you can’t do in instances!”
After all, if an instance’s level exceeds the adventurer’s level, they can’t enter it. There’s no possibility of surpassing one’s level to grind instances there.
But the open world was different. Even level 60 wild monsters? Lu Ran could grind them all the same!
“But nowadays, while instance grinding is the mainstream, there are still tons of adventurers who prefer open-world grinding,” Lei Tai questioned, sounding doubtful. “Wouldn’t it be hard to find a particularly suitable spot with no other adventurers around? It would have to be pretty remote.”
There were plenty of low-level areas right outside the city, but those monsters would give Lu Ran pitiful experience. Areas with slightly higher levels, especially in the 30-40 or 40-50 range, were teeming with adventurers grinding in the open world – it was a lively scene!
Finding a large, unpopulated area… forget dozens of kilometers, even finding a few square kilometers without people probably wouldn’t be that easy.
Liu Xinxin gave a faint smile.
“In Longxia, there are still quite a few places like that. The Kunlun Mountains in the northwest, and the Hundred Thousand Mountains in the Southern Frontier… very few adventurers are willing to go to either.”
Lei Tai thought about it and realized she was right!
“The Kunlun region is in the far northwest, near the Valley of Death. The monsters are high level, the environment is harsh – it’s truly a no-man’s-land. The Southern Frontier is even more terrifying! Venomous insects, toxic monsters, evil spirits, and fierce beasts are everywhere. Some of the bleeding debuffs from those poisonous insects can’t even be dispelled. Even my National Guardian Army can’t set up defenses there!” Lei Tai nodded in agreement.
“But in the Southern Frontier,” Liu Xinxin continued, “most of those poisonous insects, along with the monsters in the swamp and jungle areas, belong to the Dark attribute. For Lu Ran, that place would be paradise! Furthermore, there are even fewer adventurers than in Kunlun, and the monster levels are unevenly distributed, meaning varying amounts of experience. Lu Ran can clear them all on a large scale. Surely this speed would be faster than us grinding level 25 instances now, right?”
Her sensitivity to data naturally surpassed that of Ye Hongyi and Lei Tai.
But even so, Lei Tai and Ye Hongyi weren’t fools. They grasped the key point almost instantly.
Tens of kilometers of uninhabited area, swept indiscriminately by Lu Ran’s Skeletal Storm… that wouldn’t mean just a few hundred monsters, but thousands! Tens of thousands!
Plus, wild monsters constantly respawn, unlike instances where you have to restart over and over again.
“Great idea! Let’s go to the Southern Frontier!” Lei Tai immediately clapped his hands in approval.
No more boring routine instance grinding, plus Lu Ran gets massive experience gains. Combined with the effect of his Throne of Bones runeword, which negates the dangers… It’s absolute paradise!
Just then, Lu Ran emerged leisurely from the Endless Tower.
The three guild leaders looked up at the global ranking board for the Endless Tower.
Sure enough!
Lu Ran’s floor count had changed to sixty!
Quite a few people were watching this development closely. After all, news had spread yesterday afternoon that the Necromancer had resumed climbing the Endless Tower floors. Based on the usual timing, many had been keeping an eye on it.
“Haha… see, I was right! The Necromancer is climbing again!”
“He just passed the big level 60 hurdle, just like that?”
“Yesterday, he dominated Yu Cangqiong from the Heavenly Dao Alliance on the same floor, and today he breaks through the 60th floor. So strong!”
“This Necromancer is terrifying. Is this even a regular class anymore?”
“Absolutely incomparable. Sigh, and here I am, still stuck on the 26th floor…”
“If he’s passed the 60th floor hurdle, how hard can floors 61 and 62 be now?”
“Nanami, aren’t you scared? Haha…”
…
“You took a little longer today?” Liu Xinxin asked.
“I was testing out skills for a bit,” Lu Ran replied. “Since everyone says the 60th floor is a major hurdle, I wanted to check the boss’s HP and my skill damage. But I didn’t play around for too long, maybe twenty seconds at most, before finishing it off with Blood Spear.”
There weren’t any other adventurers on the same floor anyway. And even if there were, globally, no other adventurer could possibly clear the 60th floor within twenty seconds right now.
“And the test results?” Liu Xinxin was more interested in the data.
“No major issues,” Lu Ran said. “Based on my estimate, if I didn’t use Blood Spear and relied on other skills, it would take about ten minutes to clear the 60th floor. Corpse Explosion actually had the highest damage contribution, followed by Skeletal Storm. I used the Ancient Golem as a meat shield, but it wasn’t very effective since the boss couldn’t really move anyway. I summoned it mainly as a precaution against any potential ranged attacks from the boss.”
That was clear enough.
“You summon two Skeleton Warriors at a time, and with constant Corpse Explosions, its damage contribution being the highest is natural,” Liu Xinxin analyzed. “Skeletal Storm is inherently a large-area AoE skill. Even with infinite stacking potential, its damage per target still wouldn’t surpass Corpse Explosion. That’s normal.”
She pondered for a few seconds before saying to Lu Ran, “You’re on floor 60 now. You’ll be on floor 61 by evening, and surpassing Nanami on floor 62 tomorrow morning. Let’s see what move Nanami makes then.”
Lu Ran’s eyes gleamed with anticipation. He was really looking forward to it too!
And honestly, this was about to be Lu Ran’s first truly global top honor!
The number one spot in the global rankings!
“Shall we continue grinding instances then?” Lu Ran said enthusiastically. “We should be able to reach level 28 today, right? Or at least get very close.”
He was the one who hadn’t gotten tired of the grind yet.
But Liu Xinxin shook her head. “No instances today. We’re taking you somewhere else to level up.”
Lu Ran was taken aback. “Where?” he asked, puzzled. Was there another leveling paradise?
Liu Xinxin smiled faintly. “The Southern Frontier. The Hundred Thousand Mountains.”
