Worldwide Class Change: Minimal Effort, Maximum Reward!

[Killed Level 25 Monster, +500 EXP Gained!]

[Reward Amplification Triggered]

[New Experience Points Gained: 500,000]

[Killed Level 25 Monster, +500 EXP Gained!]

[Reward Amplification Triggered]

[New Experience Points Gained: 500,000]

[Killed Level 25 Monster, +500 EXP Gained!]

[Reward Amplification Triggered]

[New Experience Points Gained: 500,000]

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.

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The EXP bar moved. Not in the incremental way it moved for most hunters, a small segment at a time, accumulated over hours of sustained effort. It moved in large continuous jumps, each kill worth half a million points, the bar filling and tipping into the next level and filling again in a cycle that repeated every time a monster appeared in his range.

The intervals were approximately two minutes. That was how long it took to locate the next monster after a kill, close the distance, and execute. Two minutes per five hundred thousand EXP.

By the time the first hour ended, he had already gained seven levels.

By the end of the second hour, the numbers on the level counter had moved again, and the system panel whenever he glanced at it showed a strength value that would have seemed unreasonable to anyone who had known what level 79 looked like three weeks ago.

He moved deeper into the range in the third hour, past the lower forest sector into the mid-elevation terrain where the monster level bracket shifted upward. Level 35 to 45 range in the mid-sector. The Mountain Stalkers, larger and faster than the lower sector creatures, with natural camouflage that made them genuinely difficult for hunters operating below level 30 to detect at all. They registered as level 38 in his system assessment and were dead before the camouflage completed its deployment.

He found a Thornback Basilisk at level 42, which was the most interesting encounter of the day by a small margin because the Basilisk had a petrification aura that activated automatically when something entered its detection radius. The aura reached him and his Spirit stat absorbed the effect cleanly, because 236 points of Spirit was well past the threshold where a level 42 passive aura caused problems. The Basilisk was mid-petrification attempt when the Celestial Sword Qi ended the interaction.

[Thornback Basilisk Defeated]

[EXP Gained: +840]

[Reward Amplification Triggered — ×1000]

[New EXP Gained: +840,000]

In the fourth and fifth hours, he pushed into the upper sectors, the elevated plateau regions where the Grade 6 zone’s ceiling lived. Level 55 to 70 range. The monsters here were genuinely powerful by the standards that applied to most of the hunters in the expedition today. A pack of Mountain Wind Raptors at level 58 moved with the coordinated hunting pattern of creatures that had learned through experience that isolation and encirclement were effective strategies. They isolated him successfully. The encirclement was completed with impressive coordination for wild monsters. Then they discovered that encirclement only creates an advantage when the target is unable to exit the circle faster than they can close it.

Phantom Void Step. Celestial Sword Qi at maximum sweep radius.

Seven Raptors. One strike. Seven notifications.

The Spatial Storage Token accepted the amplified drops without complaint. High Energy Cores, level 58 beast cores, material bundles of a quality that the lower sector monsters couldn’t produce. All of it captured.

He noted, in the sixth hour, that the EXP requirement per level had begun increasing at a rate that was genuinely steep. This was expected. The system had never hidden the fact that exponential growth in requirements was the price of exponential growth in levels. Level 85 had required way significantly more than level 84. Level 90 had required significantly more than level 89. By the time the sixth hour was approaching its end, each level required a sum of experience that would have constituted a full day’s intensive hunting at his level 79 output rate.

He kept moving anyway. The monsters in the upper plateau sectors fell at the same rhythm as everything else. Two minutes. Five hundred thousand minimum. Often more in this level bracket.

When the expedition timer notification appeared on his datapad, he was standing at the edge of the plateau’s highest accessible point, looking down at the forest sectors below where he could see the faint movement of other student groups working through the lower terrain.

He opened his system panel.

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Host: Lin Yi

Class: Laborer

Rank: E

Level: 95

EXP: 765,890 / 945,000

[Attributes]

Strength: 598

Agility: 438

Constitution: 544

Spirit: 236

Free Attribute Points: 0

(All stat points fully allocated. Strength and Constitution dominate, ensuring overwhelming offense and durability, while Agility keeps his combat speed lethal and Spirit sustains skill usage.)

[Class Skills]

Titan Grip – Enhances grip strength and weapon stability, allowing the user to control heavier weapons and amplify close combat force.

[Acquired Skills]

Phantom Void Step – A spatial movement technique that allows the user to momentarily distort space and perform instantaneous step transitions.

Eternal Spirit Core – A passive spiritual cultivation skill that continuously regenerates spiritual energy over time while stabilizing the user’s inner energy circulation.

Celestial Sword Qi – Releases compressed celestial energy in a ranged arc, capable of wide-area annihilation depending on output.

[Equipment]

Celestial Lord Blade

Quality: Mythical

Attack Power: 405

Grand Defense Ring

Quality: Legendary

Physical Defense: +311

Magical Defense: +302

[Inventory]

Celestial Emperor Note

High Energy Core ×37 (Originally ×1 per drop → Amplified to ×100 stacks)

Advanced Energy Potion ×48 (Originally 1 → Amplified)

Superior Recovery Elixir ×22 (Upgraded drop tier via amplification)

Beast Core (Level 25–40) ×112 (Originally single drops → multiplied massively)

Rare Material Bundle ×19

Mid-Tier Weapon Fragment ×14

Spatial Storage Token

Empty Slots: 12

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Level 95.

Sixteen levels in six hours. The exponential cost curve was clearly present in the final hour’s progress, the bar moving more slowly despite the same kill volume and the same amplification, the gap between what each kill gave and what the next level required widening visibly. By level 100 the requirement per level would be something that could not be measured against today’s output without accounting for a significant increase in the monster level he was hunting.

He closed the panel. The extraction notification pulsed again on his datapad. Time to return.

He descended from the plateau at a pace that brought him back to the extraction zone with four minutes to spare. Other students were already assembled, sects and solo participants alike, the accumulated tiredness of six hours of Grade 6 wilderness hunting visible in most of the faces. Some wore the satisfied exhaustion of people who had done something difficult and done it well. Some looked like they had survived rather than succeeded. A few were being attended to by the academy medics stationed at extraction, minor injuries from encounters that had gone closer than planned.

Wang Hao was already at the extraction point when Lin Yi arrived. He was sitting on a supply crate, his abyssal blade across his knees, looking like a man who had worked hard for six hours in terrain that had genuinely tested him. He looked up when Lin Yi appeared, took in Lin Yi’s complete absence of visible effort, and shook his head.

Lin Yi then looked at the plateau one more time. Level 95. The cap was 250. The distance still ahead was longer than the distance already covered. The sect would come when the time was right. The leveling had to come first. Those were still the correct priorities.

He walked to the transit vehicle and boarded without further comment.

The Mountain Range receded behind them as the convoy moved back toward Celestial City. Six hours. Sixteen levels. The Spatial Storage Token full of things worth more copper coins than his classmates would accumulate in a session combined.

The first expedition was done, and the rest of the semester was still ahead.