The special summer event that lasted ten earthen days and forty in-game days had finally came to an end quickly without anyone even realizing it.

Some were delighted, having struck gold with their coveted legendary golden equipment, while others, unfortunately found themselves empty-handed, succumbing to the curse of bad luck.

Overall, the players were quite satisfied with the event.

Especially after experiencing the double EXP gain boost all throughout the entirerity of event which led to a surge of many hard working players, with the vast majority of the playersbase gaining significant advancement on their levels and strength.

The Battle of Black Dragon Castle allowed high-level players to gain substantial EXP points they needed to advance in the next ranking.

Thus from this point on, the first batch of Peak Iron-Rank Players began to emerged in the server.

Most of them are first-beta players, starting with Boxlunch, followed by a small number of second-beta players. Generally speaking, many of the older players have finally broken through the bottleneck of level 30 and advanced to the final stage of Iron Rankings.

In addition, apart from these high-level players, the overall rankings of the entire playerbase have also surpassed level twenty, with most advancing into the intermediate Iron-Rank.

Except for a very small number of casual easygoing players who are still apprentices, it can be said that more than 99% of the players have been promoted to rudimentary experts.

However, while the players took this rapid advancement in rankings for granted as if it were nothing unusual, the native elves of Saigües were genuinely awestruck by the speed of their progression.

Witnessing such swift and explosive growth, the natives went from astonishment at the beginning to shock later on, and now finally to numb acceptance.

For the local inhabitants of Saigües, advancing from a mere apprentice to the Peak Iron-rank in less than a year was entirely unheard of, and even the geniuses of other factions could not achieve such feats.

It was truly frightening.

After all, there hasn’t been a single person that attained this kind of feat for many years, yet the Goddess has summoned a whole group of them…

Of course, it wasn’t just the players that improved in strength. The native elves were also gradually strengthening themselves as well.

The Elvenkind is inherently part of the Silver Lineage, and thus, elves originally advanced into Silver-rank upon reaching their adulthood.

Alas, the whole race was cursed by the gods from the opposing forces, leading to the natives decline in strength and being cut from their lineage.

However, after the revival of Evé which eliminated the curse, and the resurgence of mana in the realm of Saigües, it is natural that the strength of the natives experienced an elevated growth as well.

Nevertheless, with most of the surviving natives being born after the Thousand-Year Heavenly War, it is practically impossible for them to improve their strength in such a rapid manner, akin to the Chosen Ones.

However, the natives’ current state is still much better than before, especially after the War against the Half-Orcs, wherein the overall strength of the entire Elven faction has begun rapidly expanding.

All in all, Evé was quite pleased with her faction’s development.

As a meticulous planner who devoted herself to the well-being of these cheeky little leeks, Evé naturally ensured the equipment selection being sold in the exchange store was updated to appropriately handle and accommodate the players improvement in strength.

Generally speaking for awhile now, Eve’s inventory is gradually running low on stocks due to the ever-increasing number of players and their demand for equipment.

Most of the equipment in her inventory actually comes from the players themselves, with them offering the items they consider as junk, which are then repaired and refurbished by her before being sold back as high-quality goods at the exchange store.

Yet the items being offered to her so far isn’t adequate enough to create intermediate and peak-level Iron-Grade equipment.

Fortunately, nearly half of the tattered equipment obtained from the thirty-thousand Orcs on the recent War of Faith has been offered to Evé by the players.

Most of these offerings are in poor quality, but fortunately for her, many of these damaged items can still be improved to Peak-level Iron-Grade Equipment, thus providing Evé with a significant new stocks of goods for her store.

She wasted no time and skillfully refurbished and transformed most of the items offered to her as black and purple peak-class equipment, giving them a new look before putting them up for sale in the exchange store.

As for the prevailing lack of equipment for spellcasters…

Evé could only shrug her shoulders in dismay.

Simply put, there was just no easy way to go about fixing this long-standing problem of hers.

Essentially the problem is that there were no spellcasters among the orcs except for their limited number of priests. So in the end, Evé had no choice but to simply craft them herself using her own divine power.

Luckily for her, she now have a slight abundance of divine power at her disposal.

Therefore, she could in the meantime, mass-produce some low-level magic robes within her own Celestial domain to temporarily alleviate the issue of the lack of spellcaster equipment.

For this purpose, Evé even took the time to browse the internet for some attractive magic robe designs as a reference point for her spellcaster clothing line.

Of course, these spellcaster clothes which were personally crafted by her naturally had a slightly more higher price tag than the repaired equipment of the melee players.

After completing all these tasks, Evé casually listed them off into the exchange store.

“Hmph, these cheeky little leeks should be praising me for working so hard for their sake instead of making some dubious illicit fan works of me. Aren’t I such a kind and benevolent patron deity?”

The sudden appearance of these newly purchasable goods in the store inventory has caught everyone by surprise.

After all… it’s ridiculously expensive!

The starting price for the new peak purple and black epic Iron-grade equipment is a whopping fifty thousand contribution points!

This contribution amount is almost on par with the value of a legendary golden equipment in the lower grade…

Of course, despite the exorbitant price tag, the quality of these new goods can be said to be exceptional.

Evé could even confidently vouch that anything produced by a true god such as herself would undoubtedly be a masterpiece.

Alas, a group of poor high-level players after tirelessly completing various quests to accumulate enough contribution points to graduate their old equipment and upgrade to a new set of gears, find themselves faced with a dilemma…

They took advantage of the double EXP boost in the summer event to stay up late and grind hard for days, to finally successfully broke through to the Peak Iron-rank.

However, just before they could savor their joy and breathe a sigh of relief, thinking they could finally ease up a bit and enjoy the scenery or interact with some local NPC sisters and brothers, they were then greeted with a system prompt, notifying them of new set of items being sold at the store!

Good news, more powerful, and even more better Peak Iron-grade equipment had arrived can now be purchased at the exchange store!

Players: “….”

What good news!?

The smiles upon their faces gradually vanished, becoming similarly like that of the meme, smile-gradually-disappears.jpg ¹

Even those few lucky players who had struck gold with legendary equipment on the lottery wore conflicted expressions.

Because, with the release of this new batch of equipment, came also a new set of Peak Iron-Grade legendary golden equipment!

Evé meticulously chose and repaired this limited collection of legendary golden equipment, with each piece possessing three extraordinary special properties. These items also showcase a magnificent and imposing appearance, making anyone who equips them appear formidable and challenging to be messed with.

However… they could only be bought by those with lots of contribution points.

“I knew it! Every reward in the lottery prize pool must be obsolete goods that was about to be phased out!”

Looking at the exorbitant price tag of the newer items in the exchange store, Ji Gang suddenly felt that the intermediate iron-grade golden shoes he had won on the lottery were not so appealing anymore.

With the arrival of the peak-iron gears, the lower-class equipment became entirely obsolete!

“Ah shiet, I can feel my liver aching once more…”

“Freakin’ dogshit devs! Do you really have to update the equipment catalogue so quickly!?”

This was the sentiment of every player upon hearing the news…

Of course, despite their complaints, most still persist on grinding nonetheless.

After all, the exchange store’s equipment inventory has been updated and has now have better purchasable goods. So, how can one become stronger if they don’t care about such things?

Furthermore, without getting stronger… how could one clear questlines and unveil the game’s lore even further?

By being stagnant, one would deprive themselves of being able to look cool, enjoy monster hunting or dungeon runs, while bringing along a fellow boy or girl happily, and proudly raise a flag…²

Essentially, the “True Fragrance Theory” boils down to nothing more than this…³

While the players currently experience a myriad of conflicting emotions—such as being happy one moment, dejected the next, followed by being relieved for a while before instantly becoming nervous or mournful all over again—the native elves on the other hand, found their strange rollercoaster of behavior quite odd.

However, one thing is for sure.

Most of the chosen ones nowadays seemed to be even more diligent and hardworking especially after repelling the invasion of the orcs.

“As expected of the divine envoys chosen by the Matriarch!”

Carlos, the elderly blacksmith, said in admiration as he observed the chosen ones diligently moved stones on Florence’s construction site.

Of course, this situation didn’t last for too long…

Because a few days later, the natives suddenly discovered that all of the chosen ones had collectively disappeared.

Or rather…they had all collectively fallen into a deep slumber.

This surprised many elves particularly those who have only just recently returned to the Elven Forest.

In contrast to the newcomers, the seasoned group of natives, akin to the Rageblaze Clan, displayed no surprise at all, given that it wasn’t the first time they experienced such events.

Moreover, every time that this happened, the actions of the chosen ones typically underwent significant changes not long afterwards.

As the authoritative figure for issuing and receiving quests of the Chosen Ones, the Saintess Alice possesses a deeper understanding of this occurrence.

And based upon her understanding and interacting with the Chosen Ones on a daily basis, this is happening yet again since the so-called ‘summer event’ has finally ended, and it is once again time for another so called ‘game update’…

Well…At least that’s how the Chosen Ones worded it, if I remembered it right?

She might’ve not really understood such foreign terminologies and what it actually pertains but she knew for a fact that the next few days would be really interesting once the Chosen Ones finally reawakens…

— 265 —

【 HOW CAN YOU BE STRONG IF YOU DON’T GRIND? 】

¹ 笑容逐渐消失.jpg – It is this,

² “Raising a flag” essentially means that you make choices that improve your standing with a particular character and which are more likely to put you on his/her route. This terminology is quite common in anime visual novels.

³ 真香定理 – True Fragrance Theory is used to describe situations wherein someone’s opinions drastically change, contradicting their previous stance—a behavior akin to “self-face-slapping.”

Since many individuals often go against their own proclaimed commitments or promises (referred to as “flag” here), this concept has evolved into a sort of unwritten rule.

This chinese internet slang originated from the term “真香” (Zhēnxiāng), meaning exceptionally delicious or satisfying.

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Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep