New Map

Although she sighed, Chen Zixuan was not too discouraged. After all, she had a very leisurely afternoon ahead and did not mind spending all her time here.

She might as well kill as many as she could.

Even if the experience wasn’t much, at least there were plenty of materials and white weapons dropping. With the [Lawrence’s Merchant Writ] item in hand, she could set up a stall and make a good amount of money later.

Being her own boss was far better than toiling away for a capitalist.

When her weapon durability was spent, she switched to a new one. At that moment, Chen Zixuan suddenly recalled that her pet was still only level 1.

In certain situations, the Darkwing Demon Bat’s [Scout] skill was extremely useful, able to clearly and directly mark all enemies within a one-kilometer radius. Combined with Chen Zixuan’s high agility, her crowd-control ability was almost unbeatable.

It just so happened that now was a good time to level up the Darkwing Demon Bat.

Once the mount function was unlocked on the Darkwing Demon Bat, she would never have to waste time running across maps again.

A flying mount—just the thought was exciting.

With a flash of light from her backpack, Chen Zixuan summoned her level 1 Darkwing Demon Bat.

Since it was still at its base level, the Darkwing Demon Bat’s attack power was very low and it stood no chance against the level 3 water ghosts in the Mired Swamp.

Thus, Chen Zixuan had to take a more troublesome approach: first, she would whittle the water ghost down to its last sliver of health, then order the Darkwing Demon Bat to finish it off.

-113!

With a slash, a water ghost in front of her was left staggering, its health almost depleted.

Seeing this, Chen Zixuan quickly pointed at the heavily wounded water ghost.

“Little bat, charge it for me!”

The small black bat perched on the silver-haired girl’s shoulder immediately squeaked twice, then flapped its wings and shot out like a black bolt of lightning, directly penetrating the hapless water ghost.

-18!

With a splash, the water ghost’s corpse fell into the swampy mud, and both Chen Zixuan and the Darkwing Demon Bat gained 23 experience points.

At Chen Zixuan’s current level, this amount of experience was almost negligible.

However, for the level 1 Darkwing Demon Bat, killing a level 3 monster gave a generous amount of experience, instantly filling its experience bar. With a flash of light, it rose to level 2.

“System prompt: Your pet [Darkwing Demon Bat] has reached level 2. HP +30, all attributes +3, Agility +10, body size increased by 1.5 times (with an upper limit).”

A 1.5 times growth was very noticeable.

It was easy to see that the originally palm-sized Darkwing Demon Bat had suddenly grown, now as large as a dinner plate.

Seeing her bat’s transformation, Chen Zixuan was delighted.

She wondered if her assisting attacks had something to do with it, as both the pet and its owner received equal experience for pet kills.

If this was really the case, then once the Darkwing Demon Bat leveled up, she could command it to hunt in the wild, with both gaining shared experience. In effect, their leveling speed would basically double.

Pets currently did not have a stamina value, and Chen Zixuan suspected this might be a bug the game developers had yet to fix. Realizing this, Chen Zixuan had an even bolder idea.

Since there was no stamina limitation, why not have the Darkwing Demon Bat grind monsters for her 24/7?

With this method, reaching level 15 in a week would be no problem.

Although she verbally cursed capitalists every day, sometimes Chen Zixuan’s heart seemed even blacker than the cruelest capitalist.

Thus, in the battles that followed, Chen Zixuan was full of enthusiasm, scouring the swamp for freshly spawned water ghosts.

Whenever a water ghost poked its head from the mud, before it could even climb out, a certain silver-haired girl would excitedly run over and stab it to near death.

Then, with a shout of “Little bat, go!”, the black bat perched on her shoulder would dive down to finish the monster.

Repeating this process, it took less than ten minutes for the Darkwing Demon Bat to reach level 4, its size now comparable to a wok.

As it grew, the Darkwing Demon Bat’s weight also increased, so it could no longer rest on her shoulder.

Left with no choice, Chen Zixuan let it circle her overhead at low altitude.

As the bat’s level got higher, it needed more experience to level up, and soon the number of water ghosts in the area was obviously not enough.

This wouldn’t work much longer; she would need to find a higher-level hunting area soon.

Just as Chen Zixuan was thinking this, a commotion suddenly came from behind her.

She turned to see a large group of players—about a dozen—coming through the distant jungle.

“That’s strange, there’s usually no one here,”

Chen Zixuan murmured in surprise.

But she quickly understood.

Previously, no players came because the monsters were too high-level; with only level 2 or 3 characters, no one could handle the level 4 or 5 water ghosts.

But after the midday “monster siege” event, while most players died, a small group of skilled survivors greatly benefited, reaching level 4 or 5 and able to challenge the [Mired Swamp] map.

“Whatever, I’ll leave it to you guys…”

Chen Zixuan gave the group a deep look, then led the Darkwing Demon Bat deeper into the swamp.

According to standard MMORPG logic, the farther from cities and the wilder the area, the higher the monster levels.

Chen Zixuan had never been to the deepest part of the Mired Swamp; who knew, maybe it was an even higher-level hunting area.

What she lacked most now were higher-level monsters.

After she left, the group of players arrived at the swamp.

They stared blankly at the empty marsh, puzzled, each with doubt in their hearts.

Wasn’t this map supposed to have lots of water ghosts?

Where were the water ghosts?

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

After venturing deep into the Mired Swamp, Chen Zixuan kept moving forward, getting further and further from the Main City.

On the way, she encountered many more water ghosts, which she dispatched one by one.

A dozen minutes later, she finally emerged from the swamp and found herself before a tropical rainforest-style forest. Deep within the jungle stood a small house overgrown with vines.

“System prompt: You have unlocked a new map [Mutant Jungle]!”

“Mutant?”

Chen Zixuan caught onto the word instantly.

Usually, that wasn’t a good sign—often it meant something terrifying and twisted.

So, what exactly had mutated: the jungle, or the monsters within?

Just then, Chen Zixuan spotted an NPC slowly walking out of the small house deep in the jungle.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep