Chapter 192: Group Grinding

After leaving the Kaldi Blacksmith Shop, Nie Yan took out the level 20 Rogue Golden Set he had tempered—originally obtained from the Withered Leaf Workshop—and sent a message to Tang Yao: “Come back. I’ll take you leveling up.”

“Alright, I’ve been grinding scale frogs here until I’m bored out of my mind,” Tang Yao immediately became excited upon hearing Nie Yan’s invitation to level together and began reading a recall scroll.

Nie Yan walked to the teleportation circle and met up with Tang Yao.

“Didn’t Yaoyao and Sun come with you?” Nie Yan asked, noticing only Tang Yao.

“They said that if they came with us, they’d slow down our leveling speed. They can grind scale frogs on their own now,” Tang Yao replied.

Nie Yan thought for a moment. If Yaoyao and Sun joined, the experience would be divided among four people, which would be significantly slower. It was better for them to grind scale frogs independently. At their current level, their leveling speed was decent. Although it was expensive—requiring large amounts of money to purchase Mist Dust—their income from the equipment dropped by scale frogs far exceeded their expenses. Selling the gear to the guild provided them with sufficient funds to cover the cost of Mist Dust.

“That works. Grinding scale frogs isn’t that slow.”

“Yaoyao wants to help Yulan and others level up, bringing their levels up as well.”

Nie Yan nodded. After the incident outside Black Flame Forest, Yulan and the others had become core members of Niu Ren Tribe. Boosting their levels meant enhancing the overall strength of the guild.

“You’d better prepare yourself. We’re leaving right away,” Nie Yan said. Breaking the Sky had already reached level 26 on the leaderboard. He wasn’t sure how much experience he was behind Tang Yao, but he couldn’t afford to fall behind.

“Okay, I’ll be ready in a moment,” Tang Yao replied, storing his loot in the guild warehouse, purchasing some consumables from the apothecary, and buying several recall scrolls.

The two met at the teleportation point in Carol City and each paid fifteen silver coins to teleport to the Komondor Village.

Kemengduo Village was desolate, with only one or two NPCs wandering the streets. The area around Kemengduo was filled with high-level maps, so players rarely came here.

In Nie Yan’s previous life, Komondor Village had been the most bustling gem trading hub. Several nearby high-level maps were abundant with gems, especially Eternal City, which produced the largest quantity and highest quality of gems. Almost every day, numerous gem crafters came here to frantically buy gems.

After leaving Kemengduo Village, Nie Yan and Tang Yao headed south. After traveling across the plains for more than ten minutes, a magnificent golden castle appeared in the distance.

Tang Yao opened his mouth in awe. This golden castle was even more spectacular than the central district of Carol City, covering a vast area. Inside stood towering domed buildings, exuding a golden brilliance.

Eternal City was a relic from the Dark Age, when the dragons’ tyranny forced many races to seek self-protection. The goblins, for example, built this impregnable fortress and created many powerful mechanical beings to defend themselves. Even at the height of the dragons’ power during the Dark Age, dragon armies failed to conquer these fortresses, hence the name Eternal City.

After the Dark Age, humans gained control of this land. Due to the goblins’ grotesque appearance, humans expelled them. Although Eternal City was never conquered, human ingenuity was boundless. They deployed griffins to rain down alchemical toxic fumes from above, eventually wiping out all the goblins in the city.

When one race conquers another, it is always through brutality and violence—not only dragons, but humans as well!

This was the background of Eternal City.

For players, it was a level 40 grinding spot, where mechanical golems—mechanical units—spawned.

Nie Yan and Tang Yao arrived at the foot of Eternal City. The city gates were tightly shut, and the massive iron doors, five to six yards high, gave off an oppressive weight.

Nie Yan slowly pushed open the iron door. Inside were neat, wide streets, about ten yards wide. Occasionally, a skeleton could be seen on the ground—about the size of a child. These were the remains of dead goblins, silently accusing humanity of their crimes.

“Stay still. I’ll pull and kill the mobs,” Nie Yan instructed. Tang Yao’s attacks were completely ineffective against the golems. He could only rely on area-of-effect magic bombs to level. Moreover, Tang Yao’s movement speed was too slow to use area-of-effect magic bombs effectively, so he was just here to gain experience.

“Where does the charging crystal drop?” Tang Yao asked.

“Normal mechanical golems don’t drop it. Among these level 40 mechanical golems, occasionally a blue mechanical golem—a level 50 normal mob—will spawn. They drop charging crystal fragments. However, it takes 100 fragments to synthesize one charging crystal.”

“So isn’t that easy?”

“Around the outer ring of Eternal City, only about 130 blue mechanical golems spawn. Once they are killed, they won’t respawn again. Finding 100 blue mechanical golems is very difficult. Moreover, blue mechanical golems have more than three times the health of normal ones. So in one or two days, you can’t get many charging crystal fragments—just depends on luck whether you can find 100 blue mechanical golems,” Nie Yan explained. Not to mention, unless you defeat a legendary mechanical golem—equivalent to a boss—then you might get a complete charging crystal. But for now, that wasn’t an option.

Nie Yan ran toward the distance, entering stealth mode. In the distance, there were five or six clusters of mechanical golems, each with about 20 to 30 of them, spaced quite far apart.

Most mechanical golems were constructed from gray metal, somewhat resembling a giant cylinder, like robots from a distant era. They were tall and clumsy, moving at a relatively slow speed. Occasionally, a completely blue mechanical golem would appear.

Nie Yan cast Detect on the mechanical golems.

Gray Iron Golem: Level 40, HP 3000/3000.

Blue Armor Golem: Level 50, HP 8000/8000.

Blue mechanical golems only appeared during the initial clearing of Eternal City, and they dropped better loot. However, once they were cleared, they wouldn’t respawn again. The first legendary mechanical golem would drop a complete charging crystal. If it was killed, the legendary mechanical golem wouldn’t respawn again. Thus, in the entire Eternal City, only two charging crystals could be obtained.

All were mechanical units, and only in the central area would elite mechanical golems appear. Therefore, using area-of-effect magic bombs to level here was ideal.

Nie Yan slowly stealthed in, bringing the distant cluster of mechanical golems within range. He shot three arrows at the golems. Ding ding ding—the three arrows simultaneously hit one golem, causing a -1 damage number to float above its head.

About 20 mechanical golems were drawn to Nie Yan and began chasing him. After all, they were level 40 mobs, and their movement speed was only slightly slower than his.

Nie Yan quickly ran, passing another cluster of mechanical golems, and shot three more arrows, pulling another group of golems.

Continuing this process, Nie Yan pulled about three to four hundred mechanical golems, with a dense swarm chasing behind him.

“Oh my god,” Tang Yao looked behind Nie Yan and saw a dark mass, which was absolutely breathtaking.

Nie Yan led these mechanical golems running on the wide street. He turned his head and threw a black iron-like object from his hand. The object soared high, following a parabolic trajectory, and landed among the mechanical golems.

BOOM! The area-of-effect magic bomb exploded, unleashing a wave of fire that engulfed over a hundred mechanical golems in an instant, then quickly dissipated, leaving a puff of black smoke. The scene was spectacular.

-600, -600…

A dense stream of damage numbers floated above the mechanical golems’ heads. Many of them turned black, as if scorched.

Their aggro became even more focused. Chasing Nie Yan, he saw that the area-of-effect magic bomb had cooled down again. He turned around and threw another one.

The magic bomb fell and exploded again, sweeping through the nearby golems.

After a while, he threw the third, the fourth, and then the fifth magic bomb. With a loud BOOM, another wave of destruction swept through, and a large number of mechanical golems collapsed. Scattered pieces of their bodies lay on the ground.

About 70 mechanical golems had been eliminated.

With a large number of golems falling, Nie Yan’s experience surged.

Two white lights shone over Nie Yan’s head, and two crisp system prompts sounded. Nie Yan checked his level—it had reached level 21.

“Holy crap, so much experience!” Tang Yao shouted excitedly. These mobs had pushed him past level 26, jumping directly to level 27 at 37%.

Mechanical golems had high defense and thick health, making them high-experience mobs. Nie Yan and Tang Yao were also grinding mobs above their level, which gave even more experience. Combined with the area-of-effect grinding, their leveling speed was extremely fast.

One after another, area-of-effect magic bombs were hurled into the sky and descended, detonating with thunderous booms, sweeping away the mobs like an autumn gale scattering fallen leaves—leaving only the wreckage of mechanical golems strewn across the ground.

Nie Yan leveled up to 23, and Tang Yao skyrocketed to level 28.

“Let’s loot the gear,” Nie Yan said to Tang Yao, who was still stunned. He checked his bag—only 39 area-of-effect magic bombs had been used, and it was just one wave!

Tang Yao looked at his level, still in disbelief. He had been grinding scale frogs for two days without leveling up. In just a short while, he had jumped from level 26 to 28? What an incredible leveling speed! Tang Yao could already imagine Breaking the Sky desperately chasing his level, almost catching up, only to see the opponent suddenly jump two levels, instantly widening the gap. What a despairing feeling that would be!