Sword Saint Academy, the last area of the War God Academy.

Whoosh whoosh...

It felt as if there were sword auras mixed within the warm wind because my face hurt every time a gust blew against my skin. A bunch of tightly-packed training grounds appeared before our eyes again as we walked across the leaf-covered floor and decrepit buildings. I smiled because it meant that we would get to grind a ton of “buffer” experience to lose when we fought the final boss later. Compared to other parties, we were far more composed because we were mentally prepared to drop levels from the start. In fact, if the Sword Saint turned out to be weaker than expected and failed to kill us, we might even be disappointed enough to Leeroy Jenkins it.

……

“Is this the extent of your high-rank Fire Sword Art? Hah!”

On a training ground, an armored youngster with blood-red hair was swinging around his sword and laughing at the student in front of him. “Have the instructions our teachers left you all turned to the sweet whisperings of young wives? Where is your power, Naik? You are ridiculous. Do you really think you have any chance chasing after our academy’s prettiest and strongest female student as you are right now?”

Enraged, the other student lowered his center of gravity and abruptly rammed into the redhead’s waist. “Wild Collision! I’ll show you that I have other consummate skills besides my sexual skills…”

“Before that, how about you try harder, you trash!” shouted the redhead and brought his sword down, ruthlessly crushing the other student’s back with his sword’s pommel.

……

For a time, we felt as confused as the chaos that was happening on the training ground right now. That being said, none of these melodramatic bullshit had anything to do with us. Our goal was to defeat the final boss of War God Academy, the Sword Saint president who also wielded the Guardian Blade. Becoming the first party to defeat the S3 instance and nabbing the Guardian Blade from his cold, undead hands was why we came here!

“Time to grind…”

Lin Yixin said, “These undead are all advanced students, and they’re Level 260 heavy-armor monsters who can use all the common skills of the fighter classes, including Barrier Break. No matter how strong our Defense is, Barrier Break will still be able to pierce it. Have you decided on the method to grind this, Lu Chen? Do we kill them one by one, or do we AoE them?”

I clenched my fists. “We AoE them, of course. We’ve been online for ten hours or so, and we have to log out eventually. Let’s finish this instance in four hours, log out, rest for a bit, and turn in our quest later!”

“Yeah!”

……

Clad in almost a full set of S3 equipment, He Yi moved to a corner of the map and pointed left and right with her thumb. “This place seems like a good choke point. It allows us to go all out while minimizing the amount of damage we take at the same time…”

I smiled. “Very well. Get into position while I aggro the mobs!”

“Mn!”

The girls did as I said and saved some space for me. I flew toward the undead students and aggroed them all; exploiting my speed advantage to zigzag between them without getting caught. Very soon, The 400+ advanced senior brothers and senior sisters on this training ground were chasing after my back screaming bloody murder. Their Attack, Defense and other stats were higher, but their experience yield was generous as well. Very few leveling maps outside this instance had Level 260 fiend-rank monsters, so this wasn’t an opportunity we could afford to miss.

Almost all of the resources in Dragonbone Mountain Range had been excavated, and it was confirmed that the monsters at its highest peak were only Level 255. Moreover, it took two whole hours just to get there on foot. No one without a mount would bother to make the trip.

After I returned to the girls, I directed the Ancient Divine Dragon to squeeze into the space between Lin Yixin and He Yi. Then, I unsheathed the Purple Ying Sword and said, "Let’s go! Don’t hold back on my account!"

Both of them smiled and unleashed their Ice Flame Slash and Godslaying Blade before the monsters even got close. I also executed Burning Blade Slash + Thousand Ice Slash combo that froze many of the students in place, allowing me to follow up with Myriad Swords Obliteration. A ton of 150k+ damage numbers immediately rose above their heads. With damage like this, it was no wonder that the girls treated me like their must-have talisman in grinding!

……

"Your death is upon you, you damned adventurers! In the name of the elite warriors of the empire, I declare that your time to die is now! Perish!"

The students wore brutal expressions as they kicked off their assault with the skill we feared the most, Barrier Break. The skill was just too good at armor penetration, and even with our Defense we still lost almost 100k HP with every slash. This time, Murong Mingyue was the most stressed player of us all. She had to keep us all alive with AoE healing spells and refresh the Pool of Life beneath our feet from time to time.

"Gulp!"

Lin Yixin and I happened to gulp down a potion at the same time. The enemy’s DPS was too high to leave all the healing to Murong Mingyue. Otherwise, we would wipe before we even meet the final boss.

When the fight was over, everyone at the frontline was left with HPs of various shades of yellow and red. It was a terrible experience to say the least. The good news was that the 500+ Level 260 fiend-rank mobs we cut down more than made up for the experience we lost during the second boss fight and even pushed me close to Level 216.

Swhoosh swhoosh!

Beiming Xue and Lin Yixin had leveled up to Level 212 as well. This instance was truly an experience gold mine.

The girls were still smiling from ear to ear after we swept the loot on the floor and moved on to the next training ground. The experience we got was amazing. Eternal Moon Corporation was as cunning as ever. By making Ochil, a super powerful boss, the boss of the first map, they were able to wreck 99.9% of the parties who tried to challenge this instance and keep them away from the experience feast that was the third area. At the current stage of the game, only a handful of the strongest players in the world would ever get to enjoy this.

……

While grinding, I asked the girls, "By the way, how is Warsky’s run going? Did anyone outside see anything?"

He Yi giggled. "They did, in fact. Chaos Moon just said in the guild channel that she saw Warsky, Song of Ice and Fire and God Bone corpse-running repeatedly like they’re in a relay race. No one knows how many times they’ve been party-wiped, but it is said that they still haven’t gotten past Ochil. Ochil’s attack power was so high that they just couldn’t live long enough to defeat the boss no matter what they tried. And after all the tanks had died, there was nothing Ringwraith and the priest could do except wait for Ochil to end them."

I shook my head. "Poor fellows. Their priest is so much weaker than sis that it’s not even funny."

Murong Mingyue waved her scepter. "That’s one factor, sure, but their biggest problem was that they lacked an absolutely broken player with super-high Defense and over 1 million HP like Lu Chen. Honestly, Ochil was almost easy with you as the MT—although your deaths in the hands of the Psychic could only be described as shameful, of course…"

Me: "You do know that you can live without taking a dig at me, right?"

Beiming Xue said, "Okay, enough chit-chat. We still have a ton of monsters to grind. At this rate though, Warsky’s party probably won’t be able to beat Ochil even after we beat this instance. They may even give up before the day is over because they still need to do their eighth promotion quests. The top two players of the Korea server have already undergone their class promotions, so they can’t fall behind even for a bet…"

"That’s true."

……

Pop pop!

Sometimes the mobs would drop a kind of golden card when they died.

Brave General Card: Increases user's Attack by 50%, and attack speed by 25%. Duration: 120 minutes.

It was purely a grinding card, and it dropped fairly frequently because all of our damage dealers had high Luck. We were all participants of various super competitions with Luck rewards such as the WEL after all. More importantly, card items were not one of the items that automatically bound to a player upon pick-up, meaning that we could sell them at the market when we went out. This meant that the cards were our most profitable reward of this instance. The Brave General Card could be sold for 100 gold at least, and there were many small guilds that would purchase cards like these in bulk when they were planning to defeat a boss or clear an A Rank instance.

Almost a year had passed since the opening of the servers, and players were still pouring into into the game. Countless financial groups and trust fund babies had become consumers of Heavenblessed as well. They must if they wished to invest in the game and establish gaming legends like Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, Snowy Cathaya and Candle Dragon. The good news was that people like them were never afraid to spend money, and top players like us got to benefit of of it.

Almost 4 hours of grinding later, we finally wiped out the last monster on the last area. After that, the only area we hadn’t explored was the backyard of the academy; a hill that was covered in swords. There was a single cobblestone road between the swords leading toward the distance. This backyard was almost certainly where the strongest Sword Saint of legends and the president of War God Academy lived.

……

Surprisingly, the backyard was quiet and almost relaxed compared to the training grounds. We took our time as we walked along the path toward god-knows-where.

I kept Dark Pupils active and kept a watchful eye on our surroundings, but couldn’t find a red dot anywhere. If the Sword Saint was hiding somewhere near, my Dark Pupils weren’t seeing it.

"Where’s the boss?" Murong Mingyue asked suddenly.

Beiming Xue pointed to the distance. "Maybe he’s in that small house?"

"Holy shit, I didn’t even see it…"

……

Lin Yixin suggested, "Should I head over and take a look?"

"Yeah, sure. Be careful!"

"Relax. There’s no boss in the world that can one-shot, is there?"

"That’s true…"

And so, Lin Yixin slowly approached the small house with her Seven Star Veluriyam Sword at the ready. However, right before she was going to push the door open, an abnormally strong wind suddenly pushed her and her mount backward.

"What—?"

Before I could finish my sentence, a cold light suddenly flashed out of the building and slashed Lin Yixin right across the chest armor. At the same time, a huge damage number rose above her head—

978824!

It was a critical hit!

……

Thud!

Lin Yixin slowly fell off her mount, transformed into a soul and returned to the graveyard.

"What the fuck???"

I unsheathed the Purple Ying Sword and swore, "What the fuck is that thing? I can’t believe it actually one-shot Yiyi!"

I threw my sword at the small house using Coiling Dragon Revolution!

Boom!

The spinning weapon pierced the house, but instead of the usual sound of metal sinking into flesh, I heard a metallic ping and saw my blade being bounced back toward me. The next moment, a white-bearded old man wearing a white robe jumped into the sky, stayed there and glared at us furiously, "Have you come to die, adventurers of the future generations?"