67: Powerful soloing ability

Xu Shian stood in the middle of his team, watching his underlings each choose their own opponents for one-on-one combat.

Xu Shian held his bow and arrow, using Arcane Shot and Rapid Fire Arrows to finish off any that were struggling!

Among Xu Shian's underlings, the strongest was undoubtedly the Wild Boar King, Pigsy.

Once it started moving, it could basically take down these level four or five Wildcat Cubs in a single hit!

It had a base attack power of over three hundred, and triggering Serrated Fangs meant over 450 damage.

If it used Savage Charge as well...

But in reality, it provided the least help when it came to helping Xu Shian practice his lifesteal skill.

Level five Wildcat Cubs only had an attack power of 60 points.

With Xu Shian's buffs, the Wildcat Cubs couldn't even break through Pigsy's defense!

How could it lifesteal if it couldn't even break defense?

Although green lifesteal numbers would pop up overhead, in reality, for the Lifesteal Aura skill, this healing was ineffective and did not count towards the upgrade amount.

There was no helping it; the team had only just reached the area with level five monsters.

Xu Shian had made up his mind today to venture deep into the North Mountain.

He wanted to grind all the way to the area with level ninety monsters to see what was going on!

When they reached the area with level six monsters and fought the Gentle Treant Saplings, Pigsy finally started losing health.

This thing clearly belonged to the Druid faction.

The skills it knew were all nature-attribute magic damage...

Although the Treant Saplings' spell power wasn't very high, the Wrath they released carried additional nature damage.

That naturally made the attack power high!

Losing health made things easier!

Level four Pigsy had 341 attack power!

One percent lifesteal meant it could only absorb three or four points of health at a time...

But every little bit helps, and many drops make an ocean!

"Ding, congratulations on killing the level 6 monster 'Gentle Treant Sapling', obtaining EXP +12 and extra lifespan +6 days."

"Congratulations on obtaining Silverleaf +2."

Holding a Silverleaf in his hand, Xu Shian was clearly a bit at a loss!

What was going on?

Could I get herbs dropped from killing monsters?

Looking at the Treant Sapling's corpse again, it was actually harvestable...

Holy moly, it had this function too?

From the moment he entered the mountain, Xu Shian had been alternating between his Find Herbs and Find Ore skills!

Because North Mountain required climbing and there were no ready-made paths, not many players came here!

After all, most places visible after leaving the East Gate were plains.

Heading south was mostly woodland and similar areas.

Wasn't that easier than climbing mountains?

energy points couldn't be wasted either...

This was also the main reason he hadn't come to North Mountain when leveling up initially.

If he made Hu Beiyu pull monsters here, wouldn't he be worked to death?

Playing like that, one could grind monsters for at most four hours a day, no more!

The main reason Xu Shian dared to play like this alone was that he didn't need to climb up and down here; with his underlings attacking indiscriminately in front, he just needed to advance slowly!

"Ding, congratulations on killing the level 7 monster 'Fierce Treant Sapling', obtaining EXP +14 and extra lifespan +7."

"Congratulations on obtaining: Equipment 'Digging Shovel', Black Iron Tier."

"What the heck?"

While harvesting the Fierce Treant Sapling, Xu Shian checked the attributes of the 'Digging Shovel'.

The name was strange, but it was actually a good item.

[Digging Shovel]

[Black Iron Tier]

[Weapon, Two-Handed]

[Requirement: Level 5]

[Attack +22]

[Agility +4]

[Durability: 40/40]

(Don't look down on it just because it's a Black Iron weapon; it's especially good for hoeing the ground!)

Two-handed weapons naturally had the highest attack power among weapons of the same tier.

And this Digging Shovel could be considered a top-tier item among the two-handed weapons Xu Shian had encountered!

Although the design was a bit weird, in the early stages of the game, everyone only cared about practicality...

Keep it, and throw it into the Auction House once he went back!

Delayed by this little interlude, Xu Shian began to take stock of his gains during this period.

Starting from the level five monsters, he had killed a total of 206 monsters, obtaining 2472 EXP and 1236 days of extra lifespan.

You ask why Xu Shian remembered so clearly?

Just look at the weapon skill proficiency...

[Weapon Skill: Bow Mastery (Level 2)] Normal Skill

[Effect: Physical Attack +2, Physical Crit +2, Attack Range 30 meters]

[Upgrade Requirement: When equipped with a bow, kill life forms of the same level or higher!]

[Current Progress: 476/2000]

It had increased from 270 to 476; wasn't the data clear at a glance!

As for how many below level five he had killed?

Old Xu here was fuzzy on that; he couldn't remember clearly...

By this time, the Lifesteal Aura had already leveled up to level two!

[Lifesteal Aura: Level 2] Bronze Level Skill

[Upgrade Requirement: Effective Life Absorption: 1637/4000]

Effect: Normal attack damage heals the user, with healing amount equal to 2% of damage dealt. (Setting: levels 1-5, each upgrade adds 1%; levels 6-10, 2%; after 10, 3%!)

Team skill, effective range: circular area with a radius of 12 meters centered on the user. (Bronze skill buff.)

So, as long as there were enough underlings, this skill leveled up quickly!

Additionally, here, the Resistance Aura had finally leveled up to level two!

The pitfall of this skill was that it required resisting 5000 points of magic damage!

When fighting beasts on the plains, physical damage had long exceeded thirty thousand, but magic damage was still zero...

Looking at the time, it was four-thirty in the afternoon!

After all, there had been many things to do in the morning; by the time everything was handled and he arrived at North Mountain, it was already past eleven!

Because he carried three points of slaughter value, which he had obtained by killing an NPC player.

Xu Shian didn't know if there was any difference, and he dared not get close to powerful NPCs.

He could only come to North Mountain to grind monsters and wash away the slaughter value.

In this monster-grinding mode, Xu Shian didn't feel very tired.

However, having left the team system, the difficulty and speed of his own monster grinding had decreased.

He opened the voice chat and directly messaged An Xixi to chat.

"Busy man?"

Before Xu Shian could even speak, An Xixi's words left him bewildered.

"No... how did I become a busy man?"

"You don't even have time to come level up! If you're not a busy man, who is?"

Xu Shian was speechless and didn't intend to discuss whether he was busy or not with her anymore!

"How is the leveling going today?"

"It's okay. We're all leveling up using your grenades, and the efficiency can basically be maintained at that level... It's just that 'Tangyuan', who joined the group today, hasn't adapted to our rhythm yet!"

Xu Shian took out charcoal-grilled wolf ribs and chatted with An Xixi while gnawing on them.

"Tangyuan?"

"Her name is 'Dumplings Boil Tangyuan'! She's only fourteen this year and still a student. On June 1st, her parents weren't home, and she transmigrated while she was home alone... It was so tragic!"

"That's saying something. Can she still be tragic after meeting you? I don't believe it! However, what kind of way to eat is 'Dumplings Boil Tangyuan'? Is she really from the Magic City?"

"Hehe, not believing it is right. Little Tangyuan has already acknowledged me as her big sister! From now on, she's under my protection. As for the way to eat... oh, that's right, how can dumplings and tangyuan be cooked together?"

After chatting for a while, Xu Shian finished his afternoon tea, gave a perfunctory reply, and hung up the private chat.

After all, he needed to speed up his progress on this side and wash away his red name first.

Xu Shian kept an eye on his underlings engaging in a chaotic brawl with the monsters, while also needing to split his attention to keep track of Wu Lun's situation...

Especially after entering the area with red name monsters.

At level 6, Xu Shian and his underlings could still withstand the monsters' surrounding attacks and kill them.

But by the time the team advanced to the level seven monster area, the stamina was clearly struggling to keep up!

Even though he had leveled up once, the 2% lifesteal was completely ineffective.

When fighting one-on-one, Xu Shian's underlings were certainly not afraid.

The problem was that they wouldn't fight one-on-one with you...

Xu Shian's underlings were basically all melee. As soon as a fight started and they rushed in, it was very easy to attract three or four monsters to attack you at once...

Pigsy was undaunted, but the other underlings couldn't take it!

Thus, after entering the level seven monster area, this barbaric advancement mode was hindered.

He could only concentrate his strength and advance by using Pigsy as the core spearhead!