Chapter 55: Frantic Leveling, Derived Spell

Ye Rong held the Immortal Mansion Key in his hand and examined it for a long time before carefully putting it away.

A White Wood Tier Immortal Mansion Key, which connected to the lowest grade Yellow Rank D Tier Immortal Manor, tested the Player’s wit and adaptability rather than just raw strength. All these conditions were extremely favorable for Ye Rong.

If it had been a different Immortal Manor, Ye Rong might not have passed it smoothly with his strength at that time.

His understanding of Immortal’s Cave Abodes was also limited back then, otherwise he would never have used the Immortal Mansion Key so recklessly.

This time, it was a Bronze Tier Immortal Mansion Key. While the rewards were better, the difficulty was understandably multiplied. Ye Rong would not use it lightly until he was completely confident — this was different from a Golden Daily Quest; the Immortal Mansion Key could be used anytime he wanted, but a Golden Daily Quest, once missed, would not necessarily appear again anytime soon.

He had already proven, at the risk of his life, that Min Mountain Snow Ridge was not a friendly place. At least at his current Level, grinding monsters there was quite difficult.

Ye Rong could easily handle a single stray Mountain Ghost, but when facing two, the pressure increased exponentially.

Especially since each Mountain Ghost could have a different innate ability. When they complemented each other, they could unleash several times their individual strength.

This time, Ye Rong had only encountered two types of innate abilities. Who knew how many more Mountain Ghosts with various skills would appear if he went deeper? Even with ten lives, it wouldn’t be enough.

As for the Snow Yeti Inner Core needed for the Golden Daily Quest, it came from monsters living in the snow-eroded areas of Snow Ridge, which were even stronger than Mountain Ghosts.

“Sigh, I better just focus on grinding Levels honestly. Young people shouldn’t aim too high without the ability.”

He shook his head and comforted himself with a few words, then returned to Endless Forest Sea as his grinding spot.

Other nearby grinding spots more suitable for him were hundreds of miles away. Being that far from the Sect was obviously inconvenient.

For two consecutive days, Ye Rong put in the same desperate effort as when he and his dorm mates grinded Levels around the clock back in college. He ate his three meals hastily each day, and saved as much time as possible except for necessary exercise like shadowboxing to stretch his muscles.

With over sixteen hours of crazy grinding every day, the ape-like creatures in Endless Forest Sea suffered. If not for fast respawns, the apes in one area would have been nearly wiped out by Ye Rong.

It wasn’t that Ye Rong preferred ape-type monsters; in fact, these humanoid monsters were very tricky, highly intelligent, and if in a group of three to five, they were adept at coordinating and using combat formations. Dealing with them required significantly more effort and energy than dealing with ordinary monsters of the same Level.

Despite this, Ye Rong was so keen on fighting ape-type monsters because he discovered they had an extremely low chance to drop Monkey Staffs, similar to Mountain Ghosts dropping Mountain Goblin Tokens. One Monkey Staff could be sold to Hidden Sword Pool for five taels of silver, and collecting ten Monkey Staffs allowed him to exchange them with the Crimson Red Ape for a Yellow Wood Stick, a first-tier Divine Weapon.

A first-tier Flying Sword was sold for one tael of gold at Hidden Sword Pool, but in reality, among Players, it was far from that price. A first-tier Flying Sword could fetch at most twenty taels of silver, depending on its attributes.

Comparing the two, Ye Rong chose to exchange the Monkey Staffs for silver.

Having experienced the hardship of being broke, Ye Rong considered making money a major task alongside improving his own strength.

The drop rate for Monkey Staffs was slightly higher than for Mountain Goblin Tokens. After a full day of grinding, Ye Rong typically got between ten to twelve Monkey Staffs. Over two days, by selling Monkey Staffs, he accumulated his first tael of gold in Far Shore.

The diligent grinding was not in vain; Ye Rong had already raised his Level to 25.

This Level might still be far from those at the top of the Level Ranking, but within the context of Qingcheng Sect, it was quite good.

Ye Rong didn’t shut himself off from the outside world while grinding. At least, Bapi Choujin would pass on the latest news from the Sect to him during their chats every day.

Among their group, the highest Level wasn’t actually the leader Dongliu Cangshui, but his younger sister, a lucky beauty. She was the one Bapi Choujin mentioned earlier, who was fortunate enough to be taken as a disciple by Lv Linggu.

She completed some task and actually obtained a set of Magic Treasures, consisting of five items that only occupied one Talisman Slot.

With that set of Magic Treasures, she killed monsters effortlessly. She was now Level 28, three Levels higher than Dongliu Cangshui.

Among the other Registered Disciples of Qingcheng, there were also Players who stood out and showed promise, but none had surpassed Level 30.

As for major Sect events, things seemed relatively quiet. Everyone realized the difficulty of the Initiation Task and had split into several factions, all quietly grinding Levels. It was said that a group of overconfident Players tried to take on the task boss, and the outcome was, of course, a complete wipe, very pitiful.

Ye Rong’s Sword Light swept across, and the head of the Four-armed Silverback Ape flew off. Its bulky body fell with a heavy thud, raising a huge cloud of dust.

At the same time, a System Notification that sounded like heavenly music reached Ye Rong’s ears — he had finally completed the fifth layer of Qingcheng Qi Refining Method.

Ye Rong almost felt like crying and screaming at the sky. He finally understood what Closed Beta Players meant when they said that Leveling up and training Dao Scrolls were very conflicting tasks. How to balance the Experience Distribution between the two was something a top Player must be capable of.

Over these two days, Ye Rong distributed experience evenly: 50% to character experience and 50% to Dao Scrolls experience. Even for just the fifth layer of Qingcheng Qi Refining Method, the experience required for completion was staggering — grinding for half a day only moved the progress bar a tiny bit.

But fortunately, he had reached the fifth layer, and the first derived spell of Qingcheng Qi Refining Method appeared.

Full of anticipation, Ye Rong opened his personal attribute panel — from what he learned from Bapi Choujin, White Ape Sword Art might have less growth potential in the later stages compared to Qingcheng Sword Art, but its derived spells in the early stages were very powerful. The first derived spell was “Ape Leaps,” which gathered all his energy, spirit, and focus for a fierce strike, with an attack range of three zhang, increasing attack power by 200%, usable twice per day.

In comparison, Qingcheng Sword Art’s derived spell, Soaring Sword Heavenward, used for travel, seemed weak and was simply not on the same Level.

Under the section for practiced Dao Scrolls, three sub-items were listed: Qingcheng Qi Refining Method, Qingcheng Sword Art, and Chongxu True Scripture.

Ye Rong slowly shifted his gaze to Qingcheng Qi Refining Method. Current status: Practiced to fifth layer, complete. Derived spell was —

Fluorescence Microscopy Technique: Increases sight range by 100 meters, consumes 200 Qi Value, lasts for half an hour, usable ten times per day.