Worldwide Class Change: Minimal Effort, Maximum Reward!

The primary zone’s density had reset fully, the secondary zone’s suppression field was the same weight pressing against everything that entered it, and the monsters moved with the same patterns as before.

What was cleaner was the execution.

Shen Rou had spent some time updating her floor mapping data and recalculating the optimal path through each zone based on the reset timing she had tracked during the first run through the primary zone. She had the revised route documented and distributed to the group channel before they re-entered the primary zone.

Wang Hao had read it on his datapad while walking toward the primary zone. "You mapped the entire floor from memory during the first run," he said.

"The academy’s raid tracking system provides movement data in real time," Shen Rou said. "I annotated against it."

"In real time. While also maintaining formation positioning and calling out density projections."

"The Archivist class processes concurrent information streams efficiently," she said. "It’s the primary function."

"That’s genuinely impressive," Wang Hao said.

"Thank you," she said. "The revised route saves approximately fourteen minutes of clearance time in the primary zone and allows two additional secondary zone descent cycles before the extraction timer expires."

"Two additional cycles," Wang Hao said. He looked at Lin Yi. "That’s significant."

"I know," Lin Yi said.

Lin Yi then moved through the dungeon instance before Wang Hao had finished adjusting his grip.

Celestial Sword Qi swept outward in the first arc and the nearest three clusters dissolved simultaneously. The score notifications appeared before the monster dissolution animations had completed.

[Underworld Crawler ×9 Defeated — Score: +162]

[Bone Shade Wolf ×7 Defeated — Score: +161]

[Underworld Crawler ×11 Defeated — Score: +198]

[Sect Distribution: +521 each]

Wang Hao read his datapad notification and looked at the empty space where three clusters had been.

"Right," he said, to no one specifically. "We’re doing this again."

They were.

The revised route moved through the primary zone forty percent faster than the first run. Shen Rou’s density projections were accurate to within one cluster of her stated estimates, which Wang Hao commented on and she dismissed as basic applied tracking. The secondary zone descent happened eleven minutes earlier in the raid window than it had in the first instance, which gave the secondary zone clearance more time than before.

In the secondary zone’s deeper sections, Lin Yi pushed past the level two suppression threshold that had been marked as the effective ceiling for most participants. The suppression at level three of the secondary zone was substantially heavier than level two, the kind of weight that pressed against decision-making as much as physical capability, a sustained cognitive pressure that compounded with the physical. Most hunters who encountered it turned back. The monsters at that depth were level 48 to 52, at the outer edge of what the dungeon classification had listed as its secondary range.

He went in anyway.

The Underworld Wardens at level 50 were genuinely different from everything in the primary zone.

They didn’t cluster.

They operated in pairs, positioned with tactical spacing that accounted for most conventional attack approaches, and they had reactive speed that was considerably faster than the Sentinels two levels above them in the zone hierarchy. One of them tracked the movement pattern of his first approach and adjusted its positioning to cut off the optimal angle.

He noted this. He adjusted. He came from above instead.

SLASH.

The Celestial Lord Blade’s output at close range, without the arc projection of Celestial Sword Qi, was a different expression of the same scale. The Warden’s armor, substantial by any reasonable measure, parted with the specific result that mythical-grade output at his current strength produced against level 50 resistance. Both Wardens in the pair fell within four seconds of each other.

[Underworld Warden ×2 Defeated]

[Score: +148]

[Sect Distribution: +148 each]

Shen Rou’s annotation pinged the group channel immediately.

Shen Rou: Level 50 Wardens in secondary zone level three. Score per kill is higher grade. Recommend clearing all accessible pairs before timer forces ascent.

Shen Rou: I count six pairs within accessible range from current position. Estimated clearance time at current pace: eighteen minutes.

Wang Hao: Do we have eighteen minutes

Shen Rou: Twenty-three minutes remaining on the extraction timer. Yes.

Wang Hao: Then let’s clear all six

They cleared all six. Then two additional pairs that Shen Rou identified from her tracking data as positioned just outside her initial count. Then the extraction timer appeared with eight minutes remaining and Lin Yi pulled the unit back toward the ascent point, running the primary zone’s reset cycle one final time on the way out.

When the dungeon system extracted them and the exterior air of Celestial City replaced the underworld dampness, Shen Rou already had the combined score total open on her datapad.

She looked at it. Then she looked at Lin Yi. "The combined output from both instances," she said. "I need to say this number out loud to confirm I’ve calculated it correctly."

"Say it," Lin Yi said.

She said it. Wang Hao stopped walking. He stood completely still on the extraction point’s stone surface and processed the number.

"That’s," he said. "That’s more than Crimson Vanguard generates in an entire month of sect activities."

"Approximately two months, based on their published session output from last year," Shen Rou said. "If we extrapolate from the previous session’s data."

"We generated two months of Crimson Vanguard output in one dungeon event," Wang Hao said. He looked at Lin Yi. "Brother Lin. Do you understand what the ranking update is going to look like tomorrow."

"Yes," Lin Yi said.

"The academy is going to notice this."

"They already noticed the expedition," Lin Yi said. "This is the same thing."

"The expedition moved you from eighth to first individually," Wang Hao said. "This is going to move Celestial Legion from unranked to." He stopped. "Where are we going to land?"

Shen Rou was already running the projection on her datapad.

"Top fifteen for certain," she said. "Possibly higher depending on how the weighting calculation applies to the dungeon event scoring versus standard expedition scoring." She paused. "The academy’s sect ranking weights dungeon clearance at a higher coefficient than wilderness expeditions because dungeon environments are classified as higher-risk assessment contexts."

Wang Hao turned to look at Lin Yi. "Higher coefficient," he repeated. "Brother Lin, we might break into the top ten from a standing start."

"Let’s find out tomorrow," Lin Yi said.

He was looking past Wang Hao toward the crowd of participants dispersing from the extraction zone. Most students were moving toward the transit vehicles, the specific tiredness of people who had spent several hours in a hazardous-tier dungeon environment visible in the way they moved. Sects were consolidating around their leaders, comparing notes, calculating their own outputs.

He was doing the passive scan that had become habitual, reading the crowd the way he read most situations, not actively, just maintaining awareness.

He then saw Han Yue before Han Yue spoke.

Han Yue was standing approximately twenty meters away from the extraction point’s edge, not moving toward the transit vehicles like most other participants. He was standing still, watching the extraction zone with an attention that was specifically directed rather than general.

When Lin Yi’s group cleared the extraction zone, Han Yue walked toward them.

"Lin Yi," Han Yue said. He stopped at a comfortable conversation distance. He looked at Shen Rou and Wang Hao briefly, acknowledging their presence, then returned to Lin Yi. "Good dungeon run?"

"Yes," Lin Yi said.

"Ours was strong," Han Yue said. "Secondary zone level two, full clearance. My arrows handled the Sentinels efficiently." He paused. "We pushed into level three for the final window. The Wardens were interesting."

"Your now in a sect?" Lin Yi asked, as he remembered Han Yue was marked as a solo participant.

"Yes," Han Yue confirmed. "Saw it as a more effective move than participating solo."

Lin Yi looked at him. The warmth in Han Yue’s expression was genuine, Lin Yi assessed, which made it worth understanding.

"I’ve been thinking about the regional examination since we got back," Han Yue said. "You and I were in the same assessment hall for the written component. We cleared the tower on the same two-day window."

"I came fourth. You broke the record." He said both facts with the same tone, neither minimizing his own result nor inflating Lin Yi’s. "I’ve been running the Mountain Range expedition data since the results posted. Your clearance interval was two minutes per kill in the upper plateau sectors."

"Wasn’t it?"