Chapter 104: The Mysterious Second Floor of the Mining Area

“Young man, did you catch this little one?” Bevicent looked at Chen Mo in surprise.

“Yes.” Knowing that Bevicent had no intention of attacking him, Chen Mo relaxed a lot and answered truthfully.

“Do you have some Crystal Ore on you?” Bevicent asked with interest again.

“I was lucky enough to get one.”

“Good, good. If you’re interested, young man, you can bring the Crystal Ore to me to exchange for some good items. If you don’t want to, that’s fine too. When you reach Level 18, you can come find me. I have something I’d like to ask for your help with,” Bevicent said with great appreciation.

This old man… actively giving out a Quest?

Did he really run into such a good thing? Could this old man be from the evil faction, and his equipped “Most Wicked” Title took effect?

No, no.

When Bevicent saw him, his expression didn’t change. It was only after he saw Big Fatty that his attitude shifted. Was the trigger condition for this Quest actually Big Fatty?

Chen Mo looked at Big Fatty. Sensing Chen Mo’s gaze, Big Fatty looked back at him with a clueless expression.

Chen Mo wanted to ask Bevicent for clarification, but Bevicent didn’t give him the chance. After telling Chen Mo to come find him at Level 18, Bevicent moved and disappeared into the white mist.

There were unknown monsters on the second floor of the mining area, and even the old man Bevicent would leave his cabin. It seemed the information on the Forum was always limited.

Bevicent came here because of that unknown monster. The second floor of the mining area must be hiding some unknown secret.

Chen Mo suddenly became interested in the second floor of the mining area and wanted to explore it himself. Especially that unknown water sphere monster—it actually had an invisibility ability. If he could find its nest, even if it wasn’t a Boss, capturing one as a subordinate could still be useful at times.

If that water sphere monster had a Boss, and he was incredibly lucky enough to capture it…

Just thinking about it made Chen Mo a little excited.

An invisible Boss, no matter how low its attack power, could instantly kill many Players. Even well-equipped Players would be half-dead if not outright killed!

The second floor of the mining area was an Undeveloped Area. After some exploration, he might even be able to solo the Area Elite here. That way, he could also find out what rewards there were for pioneering an unknown area alone!

There was no information about the Area Elite on the second floor of the mining area on the Forum. That kind of information was held by the Guilds that had explored here. Even if they didn’t need it themselves, they wouldn’t leak it. Whether Chen Mo wanted to capture the water sphere monster as a Pet or kill the Area Elite, he had to explore on his own.

At Chen Mo’s current Level, exploring the second floor of the mining area was naturally a joke. He needed to level up first.

Level—Chen Mo urgently needed to increase his Level now!

Once his Level was higher, he could do many of the things he wanted to do!

Chen Mo originally planned to find Bevicent and exchange his Crystal Ore for some good items once he reached the second floor of the mining area. However, after encountering the water sphere monster and Bevicent, Chen Mo decided not to exchange it and instead focus on leveling up.

He had a vague feeling that the water sphere monster targeted him because he had Crystal Ore on him. Bevicent wanted the Crystal Ore, and it was related to the water sphere monster.

Since he wanted to capture the water sphere monster, or even their Boss leader, he absolutely could not give the Crystal Ore to Bevicent.

Having figured this out, Chen Mo spent the following time quietly killing monsters to level up, while also thinking about whether he could obtain a few more pieces of Crystal Ore.

System Notification: You obtained one “Crystal Ore”!

It seemed his prayers had worked. Just before 12 a.m., the Mutant Plunder skill showed its power again, and Chen Mo obtained another piece of Crystal Ore.

Chen Mo felt happy inside—the more of this stuff, the better.

After killing monsters on the second floor of the mining area for over five hours, Chen Mo’s backpack had gained a lot of low-level ores. Ores had different purity levels, and Chen Mo discarded the low-purity ones. Aside from ores, Chen Mo also obtained 41 units of Blood of Curse.

Forty of those units of Blood of Curse had been obtained over two hours ago. In the following two hours, Chen Mo only obtained one more unit of Blood of Curse. Without going deeper to kill higher-level monsters, even if he continued killing Ore Monsters here, he wouldn’t be able to get more Blood of Curse.

Seeing this, Chen Mo knew that if he wanted to kill the Area Elite, he couldn’t fall behind in Level or equipment. It wasn’t as if having the Power of Annihilation from the Most Wicked Title alone would allow him to kill the Area Elite.

Equipped with the Most Wicked Title, Chen Mo had killed monsters for ten hours, but the number of monsters that died from the Power of Annihilation during that time was pitifully small—only eleven in total, averaging one per hour.

Moreover, out of those eleven monsters, seven were killed by the Power of Annihilation last night on the first floor. Only four were monsters from the second floor.

It wasn’t hard to conclude that the chance of the Power of Annihilation taking effect was influenced by the monster’s Level and Attributes.

For the Power of Annihilation to kill the Area Elite, he needed to obtain more Blood of Curse to lower the Area Elite’s Attributes, while also raising his own Level. Only then would it be possible. If the Level difference was too great, under Level Suppression, the already low chance of the Power of Annihilation would be greatly reduced.

Nightfall in the Game arrived quickly. The Players on the first floor of the mining area had all left. Chen Mo returned to the first floor and fought his way back to the entrance of the Blackwood Mining Area.

Little Warrior had been waiting for Chen Mo for a while. Seeing Chen Mo come out, she happily jogged over.

The two entered the first floor as they had the previous night. Chen Mo killed monsters, and Little Warrior mined.

After killing monsters alone in the quiet mining area for five or six hours, Chen Mo had grown quite bored. While practicing his skills by killing monsters, he actively struck up a conversation with Little Warrior.

“I’m actually a college freshman!”

Little Warrior’s age seemed to be around sixteen. When Chen Mo asked if she was in her second year of high school, her answer greatly surprised him.

“Don’t look at me like I’m a kid. In two more months, I’ll be 18, a real adult!” Little Warrior looked at Chen Mo’s doubtful gaze and said discontentedly.

Damn, you really can’t judge a book by its cover!

Chen Mo felt he could no longer trust his own eyes, especially in the Game.

However, if she hadn’t adjusted her appearance when entering the Game, certain parts of Little Warrior really could be considered those of an adult.

Chen Mo glanced at Little Warrior’s chest.

Holy cow, it seemed he really was a healthy young man after all. Before, when he thought Little Warrior was a little girl, he didn’t think much of it when he looked. But now that he knew she was almost eighteen, he saw her through colored glasses.

Little Warrior didn’t know what Chen Mo was thinking. She just started complaining in a dissatisfied tone about how people around her always treated her like a child.

Amid their conversation, a white light rose from Chen Mo’s body—he had leveled up to Level 14.

After allocating his Attribute points, Chen Mo continued leveling up.

“Wow, wow, I’ve mined enough ores!” Little Warrior suddenly exclaimed excitedly a little after 3 a.m.

Thanking Chen Mo, Little Warrior left the mining area and quickly ran back to the city to turn in her Quest.

Chen Mo thought he would have to spend the rest of this empty, lonely night alone. But to his surprise, an hour later, Little Warrior came running back.

“There’s a follow-up Quest. I need to mine several types of ores!” Little Warrior said a bit apologetically.

Over the next two days, Chen Mo killed monsters on the second floor of the mining area during the day and returned to the first floor at night to accompany Little Warrior while she mined.

Close to midnight on the third day, the three-day duration of the Most Wicked Title finally ended. Chen Mo could now take off the Title and return to being a normal white-name Player.

However, the Experience required to go from Level 14 to Level 15 was quite a lot. Chen Mo was still over 10% short and hadn’t reached Level 15 yet.

So Chen Mo didn’t rush to remove the Most Wicked Title and continued wearing it while leveling on the second floor of the mining area.

With the Most Wicked Title adding 100 points to all Attributes, it increased his output by nearly half. Without the Title, his monster-killing speed would be one-third slower.

Over the span of three days, Chen Mo practiced setting Traps diligently in reality every day. After three days, his proficiency in setting Traps in the Game had noticeably improved. The several Trap skills he had already mastered weren’t much slower than the System’s automatic Trap setting!

The remaining 10% Experience didn’t take much time. Chen Mo smoothly reached Level 15.

Upon reaching Level 15, Chen Mo immediately equipped the Frenzied Hand Crossbow and learned the Blasting Trap.

Then, Chen Mo looked toward the depths of the second floor of the mining area.

With new equipment equipped, a new skill learned, and the ability to remove the Most Wicked Title at any time, Chen Mo felt it was time for him to explore the second floor of the mining area and see what secrets were hidden there.