Worldwide Class Change: Minimal Effort, Maximum Reward!

[Starborn Predator]

Threat Level: 156

HP: 124,600 / 124,600

Physical Attack: 2,640–3,020

Physical Defense: 2,240–2,580

Magic Resistance: 1,980–2,280

One strike.

[Starborn Predator Defeated]

[EXP Gained: +38,200]

[Reward Amplification Triggered — ×1000]

[New EXP Gained: +38,200,000]

[Crimson Tide Drake ×2]

Threat Level: 158

HP: 136,800 / 136,800 each

One arc of Celestial Sword Qi, wide mode, both targets in range.

[Crimson Tide Drake ×2 Defeated]

[EXP Gained: +42,600 × 2 = +85,200]

[Reward Amplification Triggered — ×1000]

[New EXP Gained: +85,200,000]

Then multiple batches of Crimson Tides were within Lin Yi’s celestial sword qi reach, then—

One strike. That’s all it took!

[Crimson Tide Drake ×2 Defeated]

[EXP Gained: +42,600 × 2 = +85,200]

[Reward Amplification Triggered — ×1000]

[New EXP Gained: +85,200,000]

[Crimson Tide Drake ×2 Defeated]

[EXP Gained: +42,600 × 2 = +85,200]

[Reward Amplification Triggered — ×1000]

[New EXP Gained: +85,200,000]

[Crimson Tide Drake ×2 Defeated]

[EXP Gained: +42,600 × 2 = +85,200]

[Reward Amplification Triggered — ×1000]

[New EXP Gained: +85,200,000]

[Crimson Tide Drake ×2 Defeated]

[EXP Gained: +42,600 × 2 = +85,200]

[Reward Amplification Triggered — ×1000]

[New EXP Gained: +85,200,000]

[Level Up! — Level 171 → Level 172]

[Level Up! — Level 172 → Level 173]

The cluster’s deepest interior island was larger than the others, the stone surface wider, the energy concentration denser. The monster occupying it was not one he had seen before in this exact form. The system prompt registered it as he landed on the island’s near edge.

[Heaven’s Warden]

Threat Level: 164 — Cluster Guardian

HP: 248,000 / 248,000

Physical Attack: 3,840–4,420

Physical Defense: 3,620–4,080

Magic Resistance: 2,940–3,360

[A guardian-tier monster stationed at the heart of high-density island clusters in the Allheaven Expanse. Possesses cluster guardian authority, which means defeating it triggers a cluster reward in addition to standard drops. Its body is composed of layered celestial stone reinforced by ambient dao energy. The layered structure distributes incoming force across multiple strata, reducing the effectiveness of standard penetrating techniques. Effective approaches include sustained high-output pressure or techniques that bypass surface strata entirely. Weak point: the central dao core located at the chest’s geometric center.]

Cluster guardian. The designation was new. The implications were clear. A harder target with an additional reward for defeating it. He read the HP total. 248,000. The highest single-entity HP he had encountered in the expanse so far. The layered structure that reduced penetrating technique effectiveness meant Resonant Strike’s secondary burst, which detonated from within the target rather than from the surface, was the correct approach rather than Celestial Sword Qi’s external arc.

He moved.

The Heaven’s Warden registered him immediately and responded with the authority of something that was designed to control the space it occupied. Its first attack was not a charge but a release, a wave of compressed dao energy emanating outward from its body in a sphere, the kind of attack designed to establish perimeter control before an attacker reached close range.

Lin Yi stepped through it. Not around it. Iron Body Fortification absorbed the physical component. Celestial Armor handled the residual energy component. The wave passed over him and registered against both passives without producing meaningful effect.

The Warden recalibrated. Its second response was direct, a closed-fist strike with its dominant arm carrying the full weight of 3,840 to 4,420 physical attack against its own layered celestial stone construction as a delivery medium.

Lin Yi stepped inside the arc and drove the Celestial Lord Blade into the geometric center of its chest with Resonant Strike active and Void Severance layered on top, the spatial energy component of Void Severance bypassing the layered strata entirely to reach the dao core directly.

The initial strike. The resonance burst 0.5 seconds later from within. The Void Severance penetration ignoring defense percentage scaling from Spirit 4,818.

The Warden’s HP dropped by forty-two percent in a single exchange.

He reset, read the Warden’s recovery pattern, and went back in.

Three total exchanges. The third finished it.

[Heaven’s Warden Defeated]

[EXP Gained: +94,000 — Rare Elite Bonus Applied]

[Cluster Guardian Bonus Applied — ×2.5]

[Total EXP Gained: +235,000]

[Reward Amplification Triggered — ×1000]

[New EXP Gained: +235,000,000]

[Cluster Reward Triggered]

[Celestial Jade ×1 — Cluster Guardian Drop]

[Amplification Applied — ×1000]

[Celestial Jade ×1000]

[Level Up! — Level 173 → Level 174] 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

[Level Up! — Level 174 → Level 175]

[Level Up! — Level 175 → Level 176]

[Level Up! — Level 176 → Level 177]

Lin Yi looked at the jade notification. A thousand celestial jades from a single cluster guardian, his first jade acquisition in the expanse since he had made the deliberate choice to prioritize leveling over collection. He noted the number and noted the source. Cluster guardians dropped jades. The expanse had thousands of island clusters. Each cluster with a guardian of equivalent or higher caliber.

The Greater Qilin stepped onto the guardian’s island beside him, its evolved eyes looking at the space where the Warden had dissolved. Its presence carried the specific quality it developed when something significant had occurred that it was processing.

Lin Yi looked at it. "There are more of these," he said.

The qilin looked back at him.

"We’ll find them all," he said.

He turned toward the next cluster visible through the ambient haze. Level 177. The panel showed the EXP bar at just under twenty percent of the 177 to 178 threshold. The four-level jump from the cluster guardian’s amplified experience had been the largest single increment since the Celestial Dreadhorn’s rare elite bonus.

If every cluster in the expanse had a guardian of equivalent or higher tier, and the jade drop amplified to a thousand per kill, and there were thousands of clusters across ten thousand islands, the collection pathway that emerged from that math was not subtle.

He had planned to spend the first month leveling and the second and third months collecting. The cluster guardian drop suggested the two activities were not as separate as he had structured them.

He filed the adjustment and kept moving.

The Allheaven Expanse stretched ahead.

Level 177 and climbing.