I looked over Zephyr Valley from the sky. It looked like a toad-shaped basin filled with the aura of death. At the center of the basin was the necropolis I was looking to enter, but it was protected by a giant red force field. Clearly, it was some sort of a defense system the great undead magus had set up. To get at the Zephyr Ironbone Warhorses, I must kill the mage first. I could hardly wait if only because the mount had an awesome-sounding name.

……

I made the Ancient Divine Dragon descend at the valley entrance even though I could’ve landed deeper. Part of the reason I came here was to grind anyway, and it wasn’t like there was a time limit on the quest. I had more than enough time to grind this whole map.

My mount hovered about one meter above the ground with its talons brushing against the grass on the ground. Clouds naturally clung its body and gave it a divine appearance. If I dyed my hair white and put on a blue robe, I bet I could cosplay as Murong Ziying.

The little wolf yipped softly next to the Ancient Divine Dragon. I also summoned the apparition because why not? Its cooldown was only 20 minutes. I could easily summon it again if necessary.

……

I walked in. The grass looked like they were covered in a sheen of blood. The undead energy in the air grew thicker and thicker. There was a huge lumberyard not far away from the valley entrance, but it had obviously been abandoned for years. Many of the houses had collapsed, and there was a huge tree with a rusted axe stuck in its trunk and a pile of bones beside it. The clothes had rotted a long time ago.

There were bite marks on the bones. Clearly, a Corpse Eater had killed this woodcutter. Death was bad enough, but to have one’s flesh consumed after death was just horrific.

As I thought, not long after I approached the lumberyard, I saw a group of Corpse Eaters next to a rotten stump with wood ears growing all over it. They were no ordinary Corpse Eaters either. The stooped monsters had cyan scales growing over their skin, which made them look like some sort of mutated creatures. I had never seen Corpse Eaters like these anywhere.

I used Dark Pupils to read the stats of the closest Corpse Eater.

Cyanscale Corpse Eater (Fiend)

Level: 245

Attack: 13700~19500

Defense: 19000

HP: 1900000

Skills: Bite, Claw Swipe, Speed Up

Introduction: A terrible monster that resides in Iron Skull Wilderness. The Cyanscale Corpse Eaters used to be humans living in Zephyr Valley until a plague robbed them of their souls and turned them into walking corpses. If their tragedy wasn’t enough, Great Undead Magus Juve arrived, researched a special concoction and caused them to undergo a mutation. As a result, they grew cyan scales that gave them incredible defense. The Cyanscale Corpse Eaters are low-rank guardians of Zephyr Valley, but what they lack in quality they make up for in quantity. They are a main force among the undead legions and a terror to all human armies.

……

I hummed to myself. Offense-wise, the Level 245 fiend-rank mob was weaker than the Venomous Scorpions. However, not only did it have a ton of Defense, the lumberyard was positively drowning in red dots. Heaven knows how many Cyanscale Corpse Eaters there were in this valley. This was a good opportunity to grind though. Fiend-rank mobs were so rare that none were discovered at Dragonbone Mountain Range up until this point. I wouldn’t have found any myself if I hadn’t flown all the way to this god-forsaken wasteland.

Currently, most of the playerbase was grinding the instances from F all the way to S and enjoying the hell out of the new content. They might even outnumber players who grinded leveling maps like me because the instances reset every week, meaning that they needed to finish the instances they wanted to, and could, do at least once a week if they didn’t want their pass to go to waste.

Anyway, back to the present. I aimed at the closest Corpse Eater and used Dragon Slaying Slash + Coiling Dragon Revolution!

133838!

163727!

After receiving the attack, the mob howled in pain and charged me immediately. It swiped at the Ancient Divine Dragon repeatedly, but unfortunately it only managed to deal 8k+ damage per hit. Its Attack was slightly lacking compared to its Defense. I could literally lifesteal all the HP I had lost in a single hit.

I experimented a bit to figure out the mutated Corpse Eater’s capabilities. Its Bite skill dealt around 12k damage, its Claw Swipe didn’t even do 10k damage, its basic attack did less than 9000 damage, and Speed Up only increased its attack speed. Therefore, I determined that I could fight 3 to 5 Corpse Eaters at once while being relatively safe. I was wearing a full set of OP equipment, and I had a total HP of 500k. It would be troubling if I couldn’t wreck a common mob with this level of advantage.

The Sunchaser Cloak flapped behind me as I slashed horizontally and dealt septuple damage to the Corpse Eater, one-shotting it. Thank you for revealing all your tricks to me. Now then, it is time to grind them all!

The good thing about solo grinding was that I only needed to consult myself when making a certain decision. It was very convenient.

First things first, I looked around for a choke point. I found a large pile of logs and ruined houses that formed a 75-degree angle that could be used as a choke point, so I moved the Phantom Wolf King and the apparition into position before aggroing the mobs myself. The poor Cyanscale Corpse Eaters didn’t have any ranged attack or skill, so there was absolutely nothing they could do as the Ancient Divine Dragon flew over their heads. They chased and screamed like crazy, but all they managed to do was make it look like I was the leader of an army of Corpse Eaters.

It didn’t take long before the swarm of Corpse Eaters grew to a thousand. There were many things in life that should be done in moderation, and grinding was one of them. So, I returned to the choke point and turned around to attack the mobs!

The Ancient Divine Dragon’s body was so long that its lower half was literally suspended above the pile of logs behind me. Like a man relaxing with their legs on the table, it looked both carefree and at ease. Its colorful clouds also brought a trace of liveliness to this dark, deathly Zephyr Valley.

The sight of the massive group of Cyanscale Corpse Eaters charging me filled me with joy. Killing undead creatures gave me a ton of experience and undead soul sparks. Obviously, I wasn’t satisfied with just being an Asura King. Once I set my mind to something, I wanted to become the best. In this case, the royal road was to become an Asura God!

……

I raised the Purple Ying Sword and launched a triple-hit Burning Blade Slash at the nearest Cyanscale Corpse Eaters. The flaming sword auras easily tore through the mobs and dealt a ton of damage. The weakest hit dealt at least 100k damage, a critical hit usually dealt close to 300k damage, and the septuple damage hit dealt close to a million damage. If a critical hit stacked with the septuple damage effect, then it could deal over 2 million damage, and that was before factoring the splash effect. Long story short, the single skill deleted at least 30% of the horde I had aggroed to myself and left everything else at low HP. It was partly thanks to the Ghost Chariot Card I had used, a card that made my attack ignore a certain percentage of Defense. As a result, Cyanscale Corpse Eaters’ signature trait, high Defense, posed no challenge to me.

Thick streams of white light flowed into my body. There were few things more pleasurable than absorbing experience like crazy...

That wasn’t all. Some of the Corpse Eaters dropped equipment, and I already knew that a fiend-rank mob had a super low chance of dropping Immortal-grade items. The hope that I might obtain another Immortal-grade item made the normally tedious grind look incredibly rosy.

Next, I made my mount use its skill, Summon the Storm. The Ancient Divine Dragon raised its head and let out a mighty roar, and the area in front of me was immediately struck by lightning bolts, wind, and icy blades. Had I mentioned before that the skill also enjoyed the splash effect of the Purple Ying Sword? The one-sided slaughter filled me with dark joy as tons of Cyanscale Corpse Eaters turned into experience. The Ancient Divine Dragon’s Summon the Storm skill counted as a magic attack, so it dealt even greater damage than normal to a heavy-armor type mob like the Corpse Eaters, high Defense or not!

Chiang chiang chiang...

That being said, the enemy horde was too huge, and some managed to make all their way to me and gnaw at my Dragon God Shield, Heaven-burning Armor and even my Sunchaser Cloak. And yeah, they absolutely did onto my dragon’s back just to gnaw at me. I took a moment to roll my eyes at the absurd scene before using War Crush, clearing out all the mobs surrounding me and regaining the 100k HP I had lost instantly. Around 4 or 5 Cyanscale Corpse Eaters could reach me at a time, so I lost HP almost as quickly as I regained it. Why bother defending when you could just regain your health by attacking harder? This was why lifesteal equipment was adored as much as it was.

By the way, there was a short, ugly and poor Wind City student who found an Earth-grade ring that gave 9% lifesteal and managed to sell it to a not-very-smart coal mine owner for a whopping 2.7 million RMB. The next week, the student drove the campus belle to a Motel 168 hotel in a Porsche Cayenne and… Do I even need to finish

This is why a person should never not have a dream. As long as you don’t give up on yourself, brand cars and cute girls will come to you one day.

……

Five minutes later, all 1000+ Corpse Eaters were dead in front of me. They dropped a ton of equipment, but I only picked up those that were Earth-grade, Heaven-grade or Immortal-grade, or had super effects like +30% Attack or Defense or higher, lifesteal or armor penetration. It probably took me more time to look through all the loot and find those that fit my criteria than it took me to kill the Corpse Eaters. Unfortunately, I only had 3 Heaven-grade items to show for it in the end. These mobs were easier than the Venomous Scorpions to kill, but they were all penniless good-for-nothings!

Onto some good news, killing fiend-rank mobs gave me a ton of experience. This one fight alone filled my experience bar by 7%. By the time I’m finished with this lumberyard, I reckon that I can hit the 50% mark. Barring any accident, I should make it to Level 209 by the end of the day.

Another ten minutes later, I finished absorbing all the undead soul sparks and felt my chest bursting with undead energy. Although I was still a long way from evolving to an Asura God, as the saying goes, persistent effort overcomes any difficulty.

I smiled to myself and repeated the motions, luring another horde of mobs to my choke point and killing them all. Any fight where I didn’t have to worry about a ranged enemy shooting me from afar was a joyous one!

……

Almost two hours later, I successfully killed every Cyanscale Corpse Eater in the lumberyard. Speaking of which, the mob’s unique card increased attack speed by 25% and Defense by 10%, which was pretty trash compared to the Ghost Chariot Card or Fire War God Card, so I didn’t pick them up. Also, I had 900 stacks of Sealing Crystals sitting in my bag right now, so I literally had no space to fit in some useless cards.

"Growl…"

Suddenly, the Phantom Wolf King looked down a certain direction warily, turned toward me and wagged its tail. I already knew what it was warning me about. A super boss waiting for us to challenge.

"Let’s go!" I ordered while patting the Ancient Divine Dragon’s head.

With that, one man, one dragon and one wolf ventured deeper into the dangerous valley.