...
Starry Spears Mountain Forest.
This place was one of the natural regions of the game. It was not a super high-level map like the unexplored regions of the Frozen Kingdom, but it was at least a step lower than it.
This place was filled with rocky mountains that were close to being a barren land. There were multiple rock formations with towering heights. The grey walls of these mountains were like a series of rocks with rectangular shapes stacked together.
They were piling up in an irregular pattern. They were either vertically aligned with each other, horizontally piled together, or stacked diagonally with one another.
Looking at this place from a few distances away, these rocky mountains looked like spears that fell from the sky that gathered in one place.
Hence, the place was named as such.
This place was not as famous as the other high-leveled maps because of multiple reasons. One of them was because of its location.
This mountain forest was located at the far end of the continent. It was far and uninhabited enough to consider it one of the most secluded places within the game.
The nearest city or settlement from it was thousands of miles away. And travel from there to this place would not only take a player a very long time, but they would also need to go through a series of high-level maps along the way.
Those maps were already filled with high-quality resources and powerful monsters that were more than enough for the players. So, they would rather stay on those maps to grind than continue to travel to the Starry Spears Mountain Forest.
Those maps were also large. They were large enough to accommodate all the players that were from the nearby cities and villages. And since there were not that many players that were high enough to continuously grind in such high-leveled maps, the competition for spots and resources was not that intense.
Aside from those, the other reason why the Starry Spears Mountain Forest was not popular among the players stationed in the nearby cities was because of the monsters on the map.
The monsters here were all related to earth elements.
This was the main reason.
Monsters with high earth-elemental affinity were very hard to deal with. They all possessed high physical defense, which made it hard for physical-focused players to fight. The melee players were mostly countered by these monsters.
At the same time, these monsters could also produce a high energy barrier that could nullify most of the magical spells. Or at least most of the elemental magic that magic-related classes had such as Lightning, Fire, Wind, and Light Elements.
The only elements that were effective against these monsters were the Dark Element due to their corrosive nature and the Water Element, which could counter the Earth Element.
These monsters also had very high damage that could one-shot almost every player aside from the classes with heavy armor such as Knights and Shield Warriors.
They also have multiple skills that covered a large area, which made their attacks very destructive. And given the terrain of the place, which was very narrow for their sizes, their attacks almost covered an area that was impossible to escape from.
The only saving grace that the players could have would be the speed of these monsters, which was so slow that made it easier for everyone to dodge most of their attacks. Though, achieving such a feat was only limited to players with very fast movement and reaction speed.
After listing all of these and weighing the pros and cons, the players concluded that hunting in this place was not worth the trouble. The distance alone was already concerning, much less the difficulty of hunting just a single monster.
These were the information that Shin had gathered about this place. And he could not help but look weirdly at it before asking Arthur how he ended up discovering such a secluded map.
And when he got the answer, he did not know whether to laugh or cry about it.
Arthur went to this place because he thought a dragon with earth elements could be found there. He said that since the earth-elemental mana in the place was so high, an earth-elemental dragon would most likely be living in this place.
But even after searching through the entire map and almost literally flipping it, he still failed to find an earth-elemental dragon. At most, he saw rock salamanders and metal comodo dragons, but they were clearly not up to the standards that he was looking for.
As for how Arthur was patient enough to reach this place. He was not patient enough. He just rode on his golden dragon pet and flew over the multiple maps to travel the distance.
Not only it was very convenient, but it was also the fastest way to reach such a secluded map.
Fortunately, he did not waste his time coming to that place. His travel there did not come without any positive results.
Arthur found that that place was filled with mines. Mines without different varieties of ores and metals. He even found some special ores that he had used when he asked Black Hammer to craft him his current equipment set. Even the materials of his spears and shield were from that place.
That was also when he found some traces of meteorites in the mines. But since his mining level was not enough to mine those high-quality ores, he could only forget about them.
Then he found a way to seal the places where the meteorites could be found before leaving. He was planning to take them away once his mining level was high enough.
He first wanted to sell the information to Hand of Midas Trading Firm, but Shiella tried to bully him at that time, so he refused to tell her about it. Then he forgot about the matter altogether. If not for Shin mentioning that he needed some meteorites, then Arthur would most likely forget about them.
...
"D*mn! When will I get a flying mount too?" cursed Shin under his breath as he traveled through the multiple hunting grounds.
He might not have a flying mount, but his mount would not lose when it came to speed.
Before, his two tiger pets, Whitie and Blackie, were mountable pets. He used them as his mounts during his long-distance travel.
But after they turned into special elemental spirits and became his reaper's retainers, he nearly had forgotten that they used to be his pets.
If not for the two reminding him about it, then he would most likely treat them like 'normal' elemental companions.
When it came to speed, Blackie was most likely the one who had the edge, so Shin chose her to be his mount this time.
He originally wanted to go straight to the Starry Spears Mountain Forest. But after some consideration, he decided to hunt a couple of monsters along the way.
There was still a couple of leveling maps along the way that were high enough for his current level, so it would not hurt to grind a little during his travel.
He might not get the experience points from killing the monsters because he was already capped at level 150. But it would not be a waste since it would accumulate enough points that he could use when he finished his Tier 3 Class Promotion Quest.
Moreover, he was not grinding solely for the experience points, but also to make himself more familiar with the new environment of the game.
Aside from polishing his fighting style and experimenting with the set of skills that he rarely used now, he also had to get used to harvesting the materials from the corpses of the monsters.
Of course, he would not fight any common monsters along the way since they would not be beneficial for his progress. Instead, he would only fight monsters that were at Lord Rank and above.
If it was any other people, such actions would be insane. After all, the monsters around this place mostly surpassed the level 150 mark, which indicated that their strengths were in a whole other dimension.
Even the most common monsters here surpassed the Overlord Rank Monsters at the level 100-110 mark. Only Rankers could fight against them one-on-one.
Elite and Special Elites Monsters with a Level of 150 were comparable to King Class Monsters at 110-120 level and only Titled and Maverick Rankers were the only ones who would fight them alone.
Monsters with Level 150 and in Chieftain Rank would obviously be much stronger than those, much less those in Lord Rank and above.
Yet, here was a single player, treating those monsters as common mobs.
Well, that was to be expected since Shin was already a Godlike Player. And someone with a title at that!
He was one of those players who stood at the peak of the game, so such things were only natural for him. But for mainstream players, such a feat was something they could only dream of achieving.
…
There were only a very few numbers of players who would dare to venture to these high-level maps, but that did not mean that they were rare.
Right now, there was a group of unknown players watching an unbelievable scene a few distance away from them.
What they were seeing was a single player soloing a Lord Rank Monster that would require at least a whole expedition team from first-rate guilds to fight.
"D*mn! What a beast! We don't know who the real monster between them is," said one of the players while watching the battle from a safe distance.
Smack!
The other player hit the back of his head before saying. "Idiot! That is not important! We have to report this to the Guild Leader. This may affect our plans."
"Tsk! Tsk! Too bad. I really want to watch more," said the first player in a reluctant tone.
After that, the two turned around and left a few of people from their scouting team before retreating.
Normally, they could at least send a video to their guild leader to report such a matter. But since they had already isolated the space within tens of thousands of meters, sending messages through normal means was impossible.
They could only head back to their base and report this matter personally.
Unknown to them, there was a pair of eyes watching each of their moves from the darkness. And when they retreated and sprinted toward their main base, this person stealthy followed them without making a sound.
...
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