This is kind of interesting.

But opening this thing on the upper level seems pointless, and if there are no Enchanting Demons and Dream Demons as staff, it would just turn into a pure haunted house.

While Luo Yan was perfecting his plan in his mind, he dismantled the mechanisms on the tables and chairs one by one.

After busying himself with these trifles, Luo Yan took out his magic notebook from his luggage to review the steel-grade Spells he had learned in class but had only recently started to use.

Additionally, he needed to record a few "public lessons" and upload them to the system to provide some guidance for players who wanted to follow the path of spellcasting...

Meanwhile, on the first floor of the maze, in the "Blood Palace."

Players who had regained action from the cutscene were whispering among themselves, sharing the shocking discovery they had made not long ago with those who had missed the "main plot."

"Did you see it just now? After the Lizardmen, it seems someone else has come to bring warmth!"

"What the fuck? What happened?"

"I heard it from someone else, it's supposed to be a low-level Demon! She came in and bowed her head immediately, babbling a bunch... Pity I didn't understand what she was saying, subtitles weren't made."

As people whispered, someone suddenly stood up and shouted, pushing the rumor to a new climax.

Pig-headed Knight: "What low-level Demon? It was clearly an Enchanting Demon!"

The crowd was immediately startled upon hearing this.

"What the fuck?!"

"For real?!"

"Is the development team that generous?!"

Basking in the limelight, the Pig-headed Knight continued boastfully.

"It can't be fake!!! I guarantee it with my brother's balls—"

Before he could finish his sentence, he received a slap on the back of the head from a Minotaur Warrior.

"All day long Enchanting Demon this, Enchanting Demon that... hurry up and go do your quest! I'm almost Black-iron! If you don't do quests, you'll be a skeleton soldier for the rest of your life!"

Pig-headed Knight: "QAQ"

...

It's been three days since the game launched, and although many major events have happened, the vast majority of players are still wandering below Black-iron level.

Even those players who were among the first to enter the game will take another day or two to reach Black-iron level.

But these were just the average grinders.

For those players with not only decent skill but also good teamwork, leveling up was naturally not comparable to ordinary players.

As players of various sorts speculated about what the next update's species would be, Hu Wan finally became the second player after Yiye Zhiqu to advance to Black-iron level across the entire server and unexpectedly unlocked a server-wide announcement.

To stimulate players to level up, this announcement seemed slated to continue until the tenth Black-iron player emerged.

And it wasn't just Black-iron, subsequent ranks like Bronze, Steel, Silver, and so on were the same.

At the moment of advancing to Black-iron, Hu Wan's overflowing experience reset to zero, and he leveled up from LV3 to LV4.

As previously decided, he spent an extra 100 Contribution Value to reincarnate as a Black-iron Undead Rat.

Unlike the common Undead Rat (1/2/3/0/0), the initial stats for a Black-iron Undead Rat were (3/3/6/1/1), a full 8 points more!

These attributes were slightly lacking in strength and constitution compared to the two newly-updated Black-iron zombies but both totaled 14 attribute points nonetheless.

It seems that the attribute disparity isn't significant among Undead of the same level; it's just the animal series that tends to have superior models.

"So that's how it is... Reincarnation doesn't directly reset points but applies a new template directly."

After learning Hu Wan's attributes, Yiye Zhiqu pondered for a moment and said,

This appeared to be a hidden game mechanic.

"Plague Online" didn't specify in detail that the lowest level at which one could turn into a skeleton soldier was common, but that didn't mean only common souls could become skeleton soldiers.

Black-iron players could also turn into skeleton soldiers, only they would apply not the "common skeleton soldier" template but a specific "Black-iron Skeleton Soldier" template.

Hu Wan stroked his chin and pondered,

"If reincarnation comes with a point reset, then isn't thinking about how to allocate points pointless?"

"You can't say that, many things aren't apparent at low levels; they might differ as the levels go up," Yiye Zhiqu shook his head and continued, "Plus, a character you've leveled up yourself will definitely be more to your liking than a template."

"But if you botch your point allocation, reincarnating to reset them during advancement could also be an option."

By the way, just a short while ago, he also leveled up from LV5 to LV6.

As expected, due to frequent skill use, he had added another point to his Spirit attribute, and his attribute panel thus changed to 4/6/3/1/2.

He was quite satisfied with his own path of growth, so turning into a template or class-changing into a zombie would actually be a loss.

Unless the spell system racial talents updated later were good, and they could concentrate a large proportion of strength and constitution onto the intelligence attribute.

"I plan to update this information in the strategy guide...uh, do you mind?"

"Not at all, I've been following the updates lately, or rather, I wish you would update faster," Hu Wan said with a smile, then continued, "Aside from that, what do you plan to do today? Continue grinding Earth Cave Spiders? Or Lizardmen?"

Yiye Zhiqu gave an embarrassed smile, cleared his throat, and straightened his expression before continuing.

"Today I plan to take a look aboveground."

Hu Wan scratched the back of his head, puzzled.

"Aboveground? To chop trees?"

Yiye Zhiqu shook his head.

"To the south."

Hearing this unexpected suggestion, Hu Wan was stunned for a moment before speaking hesitantly.

"To the south? But...isn't that where the human towns are?"

Wouldn't Undead get mobbed if they entered a town?

He felt it was no different from seeking death, but Yiye Zhiqu shook his head and offered a different opinion.

"Disaster Online" doesn't expressly forbid players from going to human cities, my understanding is... as long as it's not blocked by an invisible wall, it's all explorable."

Hu Wan frowned.

"But there would be a spawn of super soldiers, right? Have you forgotten about that squad of soldiers before? And... dying out of range has additional penalties."

"Right," Yiye Zhiqu nodded, "The additional death penalties increase the cost of trial and error for players, but it isn't prohibited. Actual prohibited actions in the game don't deduct Contribution Value, they just throw you into the 'little black room'... My understanding is, the game officials don't not want us to explore outside the dungeons, they just want us to explore more cautiously. As for human towns, we obviously can't just walk in, but observing from the outskirts should yield some results."

According to the game's setting, "ownerless souls" in this world all have the chance to become Undead.

And it's not just the Undead invoked by the Undead Mage, there are also Undead with independent consciousness.

In other words, there's nothing particularly strange about being Undead, unless one appears in the dungeons as the servant of an Undead Mage, which would make humans nervous.

The solution is simple, just exit through an unpopulated dungeon entrance.

The North Peak Mine, for instance, counts as one.

Though it is a dungeon entrance, its remote location meant that both human city-states and adventurers have abandoned it.

Seeing Hu Wan still pondering, Yiye Zhiqu continued.

"Of course, exploring new maps is just my personal idea, and it might turn out fruitless... so if you have other plans, I won't insist that you accompany me."

The Contribution Value needed to rise from black-iron to bronze is 10 times that of "normal to black-iron."

In other words, that's 10,000 points of Contribution Value!

To accumulate that much Contribution Value solely by grinding Earth Cave Spiders and Lizardmen would take an eternity.

According to his conjecture, to gain Contribution Value faster, one needs to unlock more game content!

"What are you talking about," Hu Wan said with a grin, "How could I miss out on something so interesting. I was just considering what equipment to take if we're going to the surface...do you have any ideas?"

Yiye Zhiqu: "How about bows and daggers? By the way, do you know how to use a bow? I'm afraid the game doesn't have an auto-shoot feature."

Hu Wan said with a smile.

"I haven't tried, but I can learn, I'm quite confident in my learning ability."

"Thank you."

Seeing his buddy seriously saying thanks, Hu Wan couldn't help but retort with annoyance.

"Psh, what's there to thank for, I'm not doing this for you... The problem with you is that you're too polite."

Yiye Zhiqu made a helpless smile.

Indeed.

He was also aware of this problem of his.

Compared to the Wanli brothers, who were straightforward about owing others favors, he couldn't stand owing others, which resulted in him having fewer friends in real life.

But he had lived quite well over the years and had gotten used to it.

-

(Thank you "三生缘ε伊蕾娜з" for the grandmaster reward!!!)

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.