Everything was ready except the crucial element.

I observed my surroundings for a moment until I found the spot I was looking for. I pointed at the needle bushes to our south east and said, "How’s that spot for a choke point?"

Lin Yixin glanced at it before replying, "I don’t like it. It can be used as a choke point, but it’s extremely tight. If our formation gets hit harder than expected, the players at the back will be knocked into those needle bushes. It will hurt…"

Murong Mingyue and Beiming Xue nodded at the same time. "We strongly disagree to be poked!"

I smiled. "Eve, I and Yiyi all have high Strength, and those Vine Flowers only have 1000 Attack. There’s no way they can knock us over, so you two have nothing to worry about!"

He Yi said, "Let’s clear out the Vine Flowers at the choke point and lure the rest with the Dark Wasp after we’re done!"

"Yeah!"

……

Three Vine Flowers were occupying the choke point we chose, and we had to deal with them first before we could AoE them down. I chose this attack method because the earlier test revealed to me that the Vine Flower’s root effect didn’t affect my ability to attack or interrupt my skills. This was good. The Vine Flower’s Attack was average at best, and all three of us frontliners had good equipment and good defensive skills such as the Ghost Deity Soul and Rock Shield. Our enemies wouldn’t be able to pierce our Defense, so all we needed to do was maximize our damage output.

By now everyone knew just how powerful my Thousand Mirage Slash, Purgatory Slash and the 20% splash damage were. It was the perfect counter to tanky mobs such as these. Had I chosen to fight the Vine Flowers one at a time, the girls would probably mob me themselves, especially after they experienced the thrill of AoEing down the Mountain Spiders and soaking up experience like crazy.

I charged the first Vine Flower!

Whoosh!

Once it was stunned, I executed Ice Ray and Slayer Slash to remove a huge chunk of HP from its health bar. The Vine Flower immediately rooted me with Wrap after it recovered its poise, but it didn’t matter because Beiming Xue had fired two arrows at it. Surprisingly, overtaunt happened, and the Vine Flower charged toward her instead. I could do nothing except watch because I was still rooted at the spot!

"Fuck, don’t attack yet Lil Beiming! Wait until I take its aggro back again…"

It took three seconds for rooting to finish and for me to rejoin the battle. On the other side, Lin Yixin and He Yi were dealing with a Vine Flower each. A couple of minutes later, all three Vine Flowers died and dropped a couple of Rank 8 alchemy ingredients. After I used Death Plunder on all of them, I got another extra 5 Vine Flower Petals. Lin Yixin was positively beaming at my success.

"Lu Chen, your Golden Right Hand is truly amazing!" Lin Yixin showered me with rare praise.

But Murong Mingyue immediately turned around to look at me and Lin Yixin. Then, she said something ridiculous, "Lu Chen, did you touch Beauty Lin just now?"

Lin Yixin turned completely red. She was no match for the invincible tease master. I rolled my eyes at Mingyue and said, "Fuck, sis, you’re really…"

"Yeah, yeah. Now go lure the mobs with your Dark Wasp already!"

"Why should I do it? You guys have Wasps too, right?"

"Because we might party wipe if we do it wrong!"

In the end, I couldn’t refute the statement. Lin Yixin’s Fire Blade couldn’t fly high enough to escape being hit, and He Yi’s Firelight Mouse was Level 3 and ground-based. It was the last pet we should send to lure the mobs to our choke point.

I took a couple of steps toward the sea of Vine Flowers and released the Dark Wasp from my pet space. Then, I took control of it and made sure that it was flying about 2 meters away from the ground. It was just low enough to draw their attention. Not long after, the entire "forest" started chasing after it!

"Heavens!" He Yi’s mouth fell open. "I thought there was a forest there, but… the whole area was made up of Vine Flowers!"

I was pretty astonished myself. I counted thousands, if not tens of thousands of Vine Flowers as they chased after the Dark Wasp. Our joy was equal to our shock, however. The more Vine Flowers there were, the more experience we were going to get. This was going to be a good day for sure!

A beautiful smile blossomed across Lin Yixin’s lips as she watched the shuffling sea of Vine Flowers. "Oh my, would you look at these walking bags of experience! It looks like I’m going to hit Level 82 today. Lu Chen, this quest of yours is seriously fruitful!"

"Mn!"

I nodded. We wouldn’t have come this far to grind if the quest hadn’t pointed out this location for us. Thanks to the quest, we were now treated to a feast of experience that would drive a normal person to madness!

He Yi smiled a little and walked up to me. "Right now, the only thing I’m worried about is our supplies. Are we sure we have enough pots? It would suck if we ran out of them halfway…"

I checked my bag and said, "I have 70 sets of Rank 7 Magic Consumables. We ain’t running out of MP in the next two weeks at minimum. What about the HP pots?"

Lin Yixin replied, "We’re fine. I brought 40 sets of Rank 7 Health Potions with me, the kind that restore 2000 HP in one go. Anyone who runs out of pots can come to me for more!"

"Mn!"

I stared at the Vine Flowers and said, "Now I’m worried about something else. What if there are so many mobs that our weapons run out of durability?"

The girls burst into giggles. "That would be great, wouldn’t it? Literally running out of durability because there’s too much reward to reap…"

Finally, the Dark Wasp had successfully aggroed all the Vine Flowers. To say that there were too many of them would be an understatement!

I hastily pulled out my sword and backed a few steps. I ordered, "Get into positions, everyone! It’s time to battle!"

"Mn!"

We all retreated into the corner we had cleared out earlier. Lin Yixin, He Yi and I stood at the frontline, and Beiming Xue and Murong Mingyue stood in the back. He Yi also summoned her Firelight Mouse, and it just so happened to be standing right next to Murong Mingyue’s feet. When the mouse looked up, Murong Mingyue gathered the hem of her skirt instinctively and asked, "Eve, what is your mouse looking at?"

He Yi couldn’t help but laugh. Did she think that the Firelight Mouse was sneaking a peek at her underwear or something?

"You worry too much. This Firelight Mouse is a female…" He Yi explained.

"And how would you know that?"

"That’s because it’s been chirping all this time. It wouldn’t be making this kind of sound if it was a male…"

He Yi’s explanation annihilated everyone present. She turned slightly red when she saw our expressions and added embarrassedly, "Fine, fine, I’ll control myself. Please continue…"

……

The first group of Vine Flowers had arrived. I ordered the Dark Wasp to fly behind me while the aggro was still in effect. Then, Lin Yixin, He Yi and I attacked the mobs in front of us!

I raised the Purgatory Sword and unleashed Thousand Mirage Slash!

Boom!

All the Vine Flowers in front of me started shaking violently. The skill dealt around 3000 damage to all the mobs caught within the skill radius, but the splash damage hurt them even more and dropped their HP to 40% or so. In total, I dealt around ten thousand damage to each mob. It was pretty good damage considering how much tougher they were compared to the Earth Mice.

After that, I kept swinging my sword in hopes of triggering its Outstanding property. Purgatory Slash was even stronger than Thousand Mirage Slash, and it was the most powerful grinding skill I had right now.

Behind us, Beiming Xue drew her bow and unleashed an Evil Spirit Volley. The indiscriminate attack destroyed the Vine Flowers and caused their wilted jaws to hit the floor hard.

He Yi didn’t have any special offensive skill to speak of, but every time she swung her sword a Vine Flower was sure to scream in pain. Her Attack was now pretty high, and she was actively seeking out weak points to attack even though this was just a normal PvE battle. She quickly discovered that their eyes and mouth area were the best spots to inflict maximum damage to the enemy.

Murong Mingyue raised her staff, but instead of healing us she summoned a black cloud and a rain of stones from the sky. The meteors hit the mobs like crazy and dealt an incredible amount of damage even though Priest’s Magic Attack scaling was inferior to Mage’s.

703!

678!

724!

……

I had to keep my surprise from showing. Her skill was only at Rank 2, but it was already dealing around 2000 total damage to one target. If Murong Mingyue got her Hellish Rockfall to Rank 8, she could literally take over as a damage dealer of a party and delegate the healer role to Yamete.

Of course, there was another reason Murong Mingyue’s skill was dealing so much damage. Vine Flower was considered a heavy armor mob, so it took about 50% to 100% extra damage from magic attacks. That was why the Mage class would always be the king of farming. There were just way too many heavy-armored mobs out there!

To put this into perspective, Undead Swordsmen, Undead Knights, Stone Giants, Rhinos, melee players and even goddamned Goblins who were a tad bigger than their regular versions were considered heavy armor entities! It was why Mage was a blessed class, and those with AoE spells and high Magic Attack were beauties skinny-dipping in a sweet pool of happiness.

Of course, mages weren’t without a weakness. Their Defense was so fragile they could hardly take a hit. If a top-class melee fighter was able to close the distance between them, the only thing the mage could do was give up and die. This was why our Fruit Knife Goddess was able to one-shot God’s Dance, the strongest mage of Candle Dragon, at the Devil Spirit Hall. That being said, that hadn’t been a result of class advantage or power disparity. God’s Dance was just dead the moment she failed to escape out of Lin Yixin’s range in time. Lin Yixin was just that good.

The hilt of my sword turned cold in my grasp. Here it comes! Purgatory Slash!

Bang!

The blade aura hit the mobs like a truck and dealt ridiculous damage. At least hundreds of Vine Flowers had died under the skill like cut wheat. Everyone was pleased, to say the least, as countless streams of experience flowed into our bodies at once.

"Chirp chirp~~"

Meanwhile, the Firelight Mouse was chirping and firing a couple of Fireballs into the sea of mobs. To my surprise, it was able to do almost 100 damage per hit. It was thanks to the experience it had absorbed during this battle. It was now Level 20, and its Magic Attack was a lot stronger than before!

I smiled. "Eve, I think your Firelight Mouse will level up to 50 by the time we finish all of them!"

"Oh? That would be nice!" He Yi smiled back. "It’ll automatically learn a fire-attribute AoE skill at Level 50!"

"Yeah!"

Everyone wondered what kind of skill the Firelight Mouse would learn at Level 50. It couldn’t be deadlier than Murong Mingyue, right? Murong Mingyue herself was already a pretty deadly woman...