Chapter 52 : Chapter 52
Chapter 52: An Invitation from South China’s Number One! Only One Minute?
"Oh, right. Even if you go to No. 19 Contaminated Land, do not take it lightly!"
"It is completely different now from when you went there last time!"
Liu Boyan gave that reminder because the effects of No. 17 Contaminated Land had already spread to the other nearby Contaminated Lands.
Hearing that, Ye Ze smiled. "It is fine, Teacher. My strength is a little different now too compared to last time!"
"Oh, right. You do not still not know about my first clear of the group dungeon, do you?"
Before leaving, Ye Ze casually mentioned it, leaving Liu Boyan somewhat dazed.
A first clear? What kind of group dungeon difficulty would even require one?
He had originally thought that, with Ye Ze’s strength, clearing an Advanced difficulty should not be a problem, and that if he pushed himself, clearing a Difficult difficulty would also be understandable...On top of that, the Investigation Division had far too much work, so he had not paid much attention to the group dungeon matters.
At that moment, he opened a news page in disbelief, and the very first thing that entered his eyes was a report about Ye Ze getting the first clear on Hell difficulty...Liu Boyan’s eyes widened into perfect circles.
"Hell difficulty again?!"
...
In the wilderness outside Linyuan City, a lavishly equipped young man and woman were heading toward the Scout Camp. One of them, a lively girl in green who was an Archer-type class user, asked tentatively:
"Are we really going to be fine sneaking out like this? If your father finds out..."
"We came out for real combat practice! What can he even say!"
The other was a blue-haired boy with an imposing bearing, speaking with utter confidence:
"With our strength, we might even bring back a medal from the Contaminated Land!"
The girl in green gave a helpless sigh, then asked again, "What about teammates? It is too risky for just the two of us to enter a Contaminated Land!"
"I, Fu Wanjun, am the number one high school student in the South China Region! What is there to worry about!"
Although the blue-haired boy named Fu Wanjun said that, his body was much more honest than his mouth.
The moment he spotted a black-robed youth with spirit patterns on his robe, his eyes lit up and he called out decisively: "Hey, brother!"
"You are going to the Contaminated Land too, right? Want to team up?"
The girl in green looked at him in surprise and whispered, "Hey, even if we are looking for teammates, we cannot be this casual about it, can we?"
Just grabbing a random person off the road and forming a team?
Fu Wanjun’s eyes flickered. "I can vaguely sense that his mental power is very strong!"
"Either he is a top-tier caster class, or he is a Summoner!"
The girl in green was slightly surprised when she heard that.
She knew very well just how strong Fu Wanjun was in the South China Region. For him to call someone very strong was genuinely rare.
And the person standing before them was Ye Ze, who was on his way to No. 19 Contaminated Land.
Sensing that the two before him were no weaklings, Ye Ze quietly examined them.
Fu Wanjun, level 13, rare class—Thunderblade.
Song Qiaoqiao, level 11, rare class—Windstrider.
Moreover, both of them came from extremely wealthy families. They had most likely been power-leveled by Class Users arranged by their families in rotation, which was why their levels were so high.
Even Zhao Xuan, the young master of the Zhao Guild, looked insignificant compared to these two.
Although the pair were already top rookies of the South China Region, Ye Ze still shook his head. "No. I am not teaming up."
There was little benefit in teaming up with them, and they would only split the experience.
Watching Ye Ze turn and leave without hesitation, Fu Wanjun was so annoyed that arcs of lightning began crackling through his hair.
"Damn it! Could it be that this guy looks down on me?"
"It would be one thing if I looked down on him!"
"If this were South China, even if he begged to team up with me, he would not even get in line!"
Song Qiaoqiao sighed and comforted him, "Maybe... he just does not know who you are?"
Fu Wanjun was still displeased. "Just wait until the special training camp tomorrow. I am definitely taking a top-three spot. Then I will see who in the whole country still does not know me!"
"Stop complaining and hurry up!"
"Right, let us catch up and show him a speed he could never match in his whole life!"
A bit of mischief suddenly rose in Fu Wanjun. He wanted to recover some of his pride through Ye Ze.
Song Qiaoqiao could only follow him with a helpless expression.
But in the very next moment, Fu Wanjun froze.
Ye Ze’s figure vanished from where he stood in an instant, leaving behind only a squirrel-shaped shadow.
Then the shadow squirrel likewise dispersed.
"What the hell! What kind of skill is that?"
"He vanished? I cannot sense his presence anywhere within several kilometers!"
Fu Wanjun grew even more irritated. "That is a displacement skill! That is cheating!"
...
It was not as though Ye Ze had completely ignored them.
He had simply sent the squirrel ahead first, then used his skill to swap positions with it, saving himself part of the travel time.
After arriving at the Scout Camp, he went straight to find Commander Xu Feng.
At that moment, Xu Feng was overwhelmed and visibly agitated.
"More Special Elites have appeared again? How much longer until reinforcements arrive?"
The Monitoring Division of the Scout Camp where Xu Feng was stationed had already entered wartime status.
Within the monitoring sand table before him, the black points representing high-level Fiends were growing more numerous by the moment.
"Commander Xu."
"Ye Ze! Why are you here!"
Xu Feng’s face lit up with delight when he saw Ye Ze.
Even though he knew he had no chance of recruiting Ye Ze anymore, that did not stop him from admiring him greatly.
But when he heard that Ye Ze wanted to enter the Contaminated Land again, Xu Feng refused him in a stern tone:
"Ye Ze, you have no idea. No. 19 is completely different now from before!"
"There are nearly ten more level-30 Special Elites alone! It is far too dangerous for you to go there!"
"That many?"
Ye Ze exclaimed, but not in alarm. He was delighted instead!
After clearing the group dungeon, the additional 5,000 experience points had already pushed his level 11 experience bar nearly halfway again.
And now, with this many Special Elites, it was possible that he might even level up twice today!
Xu Feng suggested, "No. 20 Contaminated Land is already close to forming. If you want to be a Scout, you can go there."
"No." Ye Ze refused decisively. "I came to be in a support role. Just leave all the high-level Fiends to me."
"A support role?" Xu Feng froze for a moment. "You?"
The Distress Talisman Ye Ze had been issued back when he was serving as a Scout was meant for calling in Demon Suppression Army support.
Put simply, any powerful Fiends encountered by the Scouts would be dealt with by the support role.
Every support role had to face powerful enemies. The work was dangerous, exhausting, and therefore severely understaffed.
It was not that Xu Feng looked down on Ye Ze.
It was just that every support role needed strength at least comparable to a third-advancement Class User.
Even in the entirety of No. 19 Contaminated Land, there were only six or seven such people.
After all, the Contaminated Lands farther ahead had stronger Fiends and an even greater need for experts.
And what level was Ye Ze now?
When he left the Contaminated Land the day before yesterday, he had only been level 7!
How strong could he possibly be now?
Yet Ye Ze merely smiled calmly. "Since there are so many high-level Fiends now, would letting me try not tell you everything?"
After saying that, before Xu Feng could object, he looked toward the image displayed on the monitoring sand table. "A level-30 Special Elite... right here!"
With the help of the Monitoring Division, the advantage was that he did not need to search for high-level Fiends himself at all. It saved a great deal of trouble.
Ye Ze had one squirrel Shadow Clone move to that location.
Before entering the Scout Camp, he had already had the squirrel spend half its Mana to create sixty Shadow Clones, all of which were moving through the Contaminated Land on standby.
That way, he could swap to the location of any high-level Fiend at any time, maximizing his grinding efficiency!
And so, in a single instant, Ye Ze abruptly vanished before Xu Feng’s eyes.
Xu Feng let out a puzzled sound. "Hm?"
He looked left and right, then finally lowered his head and saw a squirrel-shaped shadow on the ground.
...
On the other side, Ye Ze had already arrived at the location of the Special Elite.
【One-Eyed Lich (lv.30)】
Type: Special Elite
Attributes: Strength 200, Constitution 200, Agility 140, Spirit 280
————
"There should not be this many Special Elites in No. 19 Contaminated Land."
"So they all poured in from the nearby No. 17 and No. 18 Contaminated Lands?"
Contaminated Lands were like basins, and Fiends were like water. Once there was too much water to contain, it would naturally spill elsewhere.
Ye Ze made a casual guess, while beside him, the Martial Saint panda had already thrown a punch!
It was an ordinary punch, but once it was augmented by the Legend · Higher-order Martial Saint Aura, it became anything but ordinary.
Martial Saint Aura was a powerful inner force passively layered onto attacks, with damage equal to: (Strength + Spirit) * 300%!
Added to that were the bonuses from Legendary Renown, the attributes of the Spirit Pact equipment, the Storm Battle Robe, and more.
In theory, the panda in its current state...could kill a level-30 Special Elite with a sneeze.
"BOOM—"
With one punch, it blasted the upper half of the One-Eyed Lich into dust.
【Killed Special Elite—One-Eyed Lich. Gained Experience: 1050!】
【Level: 11 (6110/13100)】
"Done."
After the one-minute cooldown on swapping positions ended, before Xu Feng had even figured out what that squirrel on the ground was for, Ye Ze abruptly appeared in front of him again.
"You... why do you come and go like a ghost?!"
Ye Ze casually tossed half of the One-Eyed Lich’s corpse in front of him.
"There. That proves my strength now, right?"
The moment he saw the genuine half-corpse of a level-30 Special Elite lying on the ground,
Xu Feng was instantly stunned.
"A level-30 Special Elite, and you killed it in just one minute?"