Lorne took out a rock fragment that glowed dull yellow from his pouch.

This was a 'body part material', very different from ordinary rocks.

The Stone Skin Poison Toad beside him jumped in front of Lorne. Its dark green eyes landed on the rock fragment, as if it knew that it was a good thing.

Lorne shook his head and smiled.

Don't look at how naive this fellow was. At this moment, it was really smart. It actually took the initiative to run up and ask for a reward.

But Lorne did not agree, for the fragment was too rare.

When he created the Stone Skin Poison Toad, he had used five rocks to give it the [Stone Skin] skill.

If he wanted to increase its defense again, he had to accumulate at least five 'rock fragments'. Otherwise, there was not much meaning in fusing them.

There was also the fear that the merging would cause its [Spew Poison] to be replaced.

Without it, the toad would lose its value.

Therefore, he did not want to test such a pointless attempt.

"Let's get to work first."

"After completing the mission, I will reward you."

With a wave of his hand, he led the group deeper into the valley.

...

In the following period of time, with his pets, Lorne repeated his strategy.

The Two-Headed Demon Hound was responsible for attracting the monsters to gather, the Stone Skin Poison Toad was responsible for the main battle, and the Vitality Slime was responsible for providing continuous healing.

As for himself, because he was a Summoner and did not have any [Intelligence], his damage output was too low. Therefore, he became a useless onlooker in the entire battle.

Fortunately, the Stone Skin Poison Toad's farming efficiency was quite good.

It could kill five Stone Beetles in about five minutes, gaining 140 EXP.

The other gains were also very generous.

Despite a lack of materials, a Stone Beetle would drop 12 bronze coins, which was a considerable amount.

In addition…

Stone Beetles had a higher equipment drop rate than other pets.

This might be because the stone beetles were too hard to kill. When ordinary teams encountered such monsters, they would basically avoid them.

After all, the magic damage dealt by players was low and the cooldown was long. It would take too long to kill a Stone Beetle.

...

"Ding!"

"Congratulations on reaching Level 8."

"Congratulations on reaching Level 9."

"Congratulations on reaching Level 10."

"Warning! As you are a Summoner, your level has been locked. Please raise your pets to Level 10 and enter the main city to complete your Class Advancement."

In the three hours of fighting, three golden lights fell on Lorne.

His level had reached 10.

This was the highest level that one could achieve in the beginner village.

If he wanted to continue leveling up, he had to go to the main city of the game and find a professional mentor to change his class. After changing his class, he could obtain experience points again.

There was still a gap between the Summoner class and other classes. After the Summoner reached Level 10, they had to increase their pets' levels.

Otherwise, the player's level could not be unlocked.

He knew that rule.

However, the demand for pets to level up was too high, making him feel a little depressed.

In the "Divine Realm", pets also needed experience points to level up, and the requirement for level-up was higher than players.

This was especially so for high-quality pets.

Take the three pets of Lorne as an example.

[Vitality Slime] (Elite), [Two-Headed Demon Hound] (Elite), [Stone Skin Poison Toad] (Elite)

All three pets were of Elite quality.

However, due to their different strengths, the EXP requirement was also different.

Among them:

[Vitality Slime] required twice the experience of Lorne.

[Two-Headed Demon Hound] required four times the experience of Lorne.

[Stone Skin Poison Toad] required thrice the experience of Lorne.

For a player, Level 1 → Level 2 required 100 experience points.

Then, in their case, it was: 200, 400, and 300 experience points respectively.

It was a huge problem that could not be solved easily.

Just looking at the experience data in front of him made him feel despair.

However, many people still chose the Summoner, simply because the future belonged to them.

After all, the attributes of pets were higher than players. Moreover, they had more skills and a larger attack range.

Although they needed to level up several times more than the players, based on their combat strength, one would realize that their strength would also be several times that of the players!

Most importantly, a Summoner could also carry many pets!

Once in the later stages of the game, the quality of the Summoner's pet would increase, and the ability of the Summoner players to suppress other professions would increase significantly.

"Then, which pet should I raise first?" Looking at the three pets fighting, Lorne fell into deep thought.

Firstly, the Stone Skin Poison Toad was not suitable for leveling up.

It was designed to target the Stone Beetles.

In the Rock Valley, it was more useful than any pet.

However, against other monsters, the Two-Headed Demon Hound's farming efficiency was clearly much higher than it.

Secondly, the Vitality Slime was not very suitable too.

Its quality was too low. Even if he raised its level, the attribute growth would not be very high.

Of course, low quality meant that the need to level up was small and could quickly increase its level.

Unfortunately, that was not what he sought.

What he wanted was enough combat strength.

Neither the Stone Skin Poison Toad nor the Vitality Slime could achieve this.

Even the Two-Headed Demon Hound was barely passable.

After all, it was a monster formed from a level 3 demonized wild dog. Its attributes were limited.

There was no way for it to deal with battles involving Level 10 and higher.

"It looks like I need to change a batch of pets as soon as possible. It'd be best if it's a Level 10 high-quality monster."

Lorne had already figured out the rules of the 'Monster Merging Simulator'. Under normal circumstances, the higher the level of the prototype monster and the 'body part material', the stronger the monster would be.

This was an iron rule.

However, he did not have a good direction now.

In order to choose which monster to merge, he had to explore a higher-level map and obtain the final conclusion after encountering the monster.

But now, he had to return to the village first and take what the missionary had called a difficult task.

But as he prepared to leave…

Suddenly, a grand system notification sounded in the sky.

"Ding!"

"Beginner Village Notification: Due to the appearance of the first Level 10 player in Beginner Village No.2451, the Boss [Slime King] has arrived. All players from Beginner Village No. 2451, please head to the entrance of the village to assist in guarding against it."

"Beginner Village Notification: All players from Beginner Village No. 2451 will automatically receive the limited-time mission [Protecting the Village]!"

"Mission Success: All players in this Beginner Village will receive a large amount of rewards."

"Mission Failure: All players in the Beginner Village will lose one level of experience and receive a debuff of -50% EXP gain. Duration: 6 hours."

"..."