3: The Secret of Upgrading

"Hahahahaha!!!"

In everyone's eyes, Yuan Feng seemed to have lost his mind as he suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter.

Immediately after, a global announcement rang out in the minds of everyone across the world three times in succession!

In the gymnasium, the way everyone looked at Yuan Feng completely changed!

Fanaticism! Shock! Envy! Jealousy!

Meanwhile, the looks directed at Lin Chuan inevitably carried a hint of pity.

After all, everyone present had guessed that the secret to Yuan Feng's level-up lay in the crystal cores!

Yet the person who had first discovered the crystal cores was Lin Chuan!

One must realize that with a global population base of tens of billions, A-Level Talents were by no means rare, and there were even plenty of people with S-Class Talents!

Moreover, in such a vast world, there were definitely people stronger than Yuan Feng who had killed far more monsters!

Yet, it was Yuan Feng and Yuan Feng alone who became the very first player to reach Level 1!

Why?

Wasn't it simply because Lin Chuan was the first to discover the crystal core!

To be honest, just looking at a corpse, no one could tell where a crystal core would be located.

Furthermore, during the 9-hour grace period on the first day of the game, because the Dimensional Bugs were so weak, social order had not actually completely collapsed.

Human life was still quite valuable on this first day of the game.

Few people would do anything disrespectful to a human corpse.

And for bonus monsters like the Dimensional Bugs, the drop rate for a crystal core was only 1%!

Lin Chuan remembered clearly that in his past life, the first person to reach Level 1 was a murderer from the Eagle Nation!

Yet even though that man killed people like flies, the time he discovered a crystal core and reached Level 1 was already past 6 p.m.!

And right now, it was only just past 3 p.m.!

Less than an hour had passed since the apocalypse began!

With Lin Chuan's help, Yuan Feng accomplished the game's very first global announcement!

Was Lin Chuan envious, though?

Heh, from the very beginning, he had never intended to claim this global announcement!

First, the reward of +1 to all attributes was completely meaningless to someone like him who possessed a heaven-defying Talent.

Second, and most importantly—

Levels in this Killing Game were not that easy to gain!

Whether to suppress player levels or for some other reason, the level progression in this Killing Game had a very unique mechanic—

First, killing monsters did not directly grant experience points; Yuan Feng and Luan Yuling had already confirmed this through personal experience.

Second, in the early stage of the game, only crystal cores could provide experience points for leveling up. Many people present had guessed this as well.

However, the most important and unique mechanic was—

There was a daily limit on the number of crystal cores each person could absorb!

Without using secret treasures or elixir medicines to enhance one's soul, each person could only absorb 10 crystal cores per day!

In other words, the experience points a person could gain each day were limited!

To a certain extent, this mechanic prevented the level gap between the strong and the weak from becoming too vast, and it also heavily suppressed the leveling speed of players!

However, after players generally reached Level 10, the strong constantly devised various methods to gain extra experience points in order to become even stronger.

For example, the most direct and efficient method was enhancing one's soul, which increased the number of crystal cores that could be absorbed daily.

Alternatively, certain experience potions and experience meals, despite being exorbitantly expensive and subject to various limitations, were still eagerly sought after by countless powerhouses.

Simply because it allowed the strong to accumulate a bit more experience each day than ordinary people!

And all of these were methods for increasing experience points that could only be used after reaching Level 10.

In the early stage of the game, without soul-enhancing secret treasures, experience potions, or experience meals, the method for the strong to surpass others in level was very simple—

Absorb higher-level crystal cores!

While the daily quantity of crystal cores a person could absorb was capped, there was no limit on their levels!

For instance, a currently Level 0 player absorbing a Level 0 crystal core would only gain 1 experience point!

However, absorbing a Level 1 crystal core would grant 10 experience points directly!

In other words, if one absorbed Level 0 crystal cores, they could at most reach Level 1 on the first day of the apocalypse and could no longer gain any more experience!

On the other hand, absorbing a Level 1 crystal core required only a single core to reach Level 1, leaving 9 remaining absorption slots for that day to continue leveling up!

Comparing the two, true powerhouses would naturally choose to absorb higher-level crystal cores!

However, with the apocalypse having just begun, many people had not figured out the rules and were still ignorant of the secret behind experience points.

Many wasted their daily limit of ten absorptions on Level 0 crystal cores!

As the saying goes, fall behind one step, and you fall behind every step of the way!

If you dutifully absorb same-level crystal cores every day, you will only be left further and further behind by the true powerhouses!

Only by fighting above one's level can the strong remain forever strong!

In his previous life, Lin Chuan had fallen five days behind others!

Later, as his Talent continuously upgraded, he gradually gained the ability to challenge higher-level foes and absorbed higher-level crystal cores every day, yet it still took him over a dozen days to close the level gap!

In this life, however, he was going to take the lead from Day 1!

As for Yuan Feng, who claimed the global announcement?

In Lin Chuan's eyes, he was nothing more than an ATM—a corpse that would eventually be burned by his own hands.

At this moment, Yuan Feng snapped back from the intense vanity of the global announcement. First, he felt the immense power that +1 to all attributes brought him, and then he silently chanted toward the remaining crystal core in his hand: "Absorb!"

However, in the next second, his face suddenly froze!

Simply because a system prompt suddenly echoed in his mind:

[Ding! You have reached the daily limit for absorbing crystal cores! Please try again tomorrow!]

What the hell?! There's actually a limit on the number of crystal cores absorbed per day?! What kind of idiotic setting is this?!

If everyone is only allowed to absorb ten crystal cores a day, how can a gap be widened between the strong and the weak?

Could it be through Talents?

Thinking of this, Yuan Feng's expression improved slightly!

After all, he had an A-Level Talent, and he had also received the global announcement reward of +1 to all attributes!

He was the first in the world to reach Level 1, having already surged ahead of the global population of tens of billions!

Even if he didn't have an S-Class Talent, he would surely become a formidable warlord in this apocalyptic world!

Yuan Feng's heart swelled with lofty ambitions. Facing the fanatical and admiring gazes of the crowd, his desire to protect these people and play the savior actually began to cool down.

Everything that had just transpired pointed toward a single secret—

The drop rate of crystal cores from human players was a whopping 100%!

Whereas monsters like the fat bugs did not drop crystal cores 100% of the time!

Anyone with a brain could understand the implication!

The Killing Game wasn't just humans killing monsters and monsters killing humans.

In all likelihood, the true essence of the game was humans killing humans!

With the game having just begun, Yuan Feng's morality hadn't corrupted to the point of killing people right away.

However, allowing his fellow humans to be killed by monsters before going to collect their corpses was something he could do without any psychological burden whatsoever.

Thinking of this, while instructing Lin Chuan to burn the corpse of the fat bug Luan Yuling had just killed to check for a crystal core, he spoke to the crowd:

"I'm sure everyone noticed earlier that the ones appearing in the school are very weak fat bug monsters. Even classmate Luan Yuling's D-Class Talent could handle them with ease. In that case, I think everyone should part ways and level up on their own for now."

Hearing him say this, some of the more timid ones immediately protested, "Don't do that, Feng Ge! Our phones have no signal right now, so we have no idea what it's like outside! What if there are even stronger monsters out there?!"

"Yeah, Feng Ge, to be safe, it's better if we all stay gathered in the gymnasium and wait for rescue!"

"Exactly, Feng Ge! You're a super powerhouse who earned a global announcement. You're so strong, so you should..."

Before the moral guilt-tripping could be finished, Yuan Feng swept a cold glance over, instantly shutting the speaker up!

This was the intimidation factor of a powerhouse!

Although Yuan Feng with +1 to all attributes was nothing special in Lin Chuan's eyes, his attributes were almost double those of an ordinary person!

Such a presence naturally asserted a sense of pressure on ordinary people!

And Yuan Feng thoroughly enjoyed this feeling of being a powerhouse!

This unprecedented strength made him feel as though he could do whatever he pleased!

He was even contemplating whether he should just kill that trash who tried to morally guilt-trip him, making an example out of him to warn the others.

However, his Dragon Flame Burst was simply too powerful and consumed too much energy, so after some thought, he decided against it.