Chapter Fifty-Four: Wolf Ridge

Having mastered a powerful life-saving skill, Zhang Shan was brimming with delight. He glanced at his merit points—2584 in total. This single event alone had earned him over a thousand points, bringing him halfway to the rank of Centurion.

With the event concluded and all chests opened, the Monster Siege had yielded considerable rewards for their group. They had obtained two skill books—one for Zhang Shan’s Berserk, the other for Wind and Cloud Blade’s Dual Wielding—plus a blue cloak. Though not many in quantity, each item was currently top-tier and exceedingly practical, the sort of treasures money couldn’t buy.

The group prepared to disperse, each returning to their respective monster hunts to level up.

“Brother Blade, are you sure you don’t need our help?” Zhang Shan asked, concerned.

“No worries,” came the reply. “The little Heaven and Earth Guild isn’t worth troubling the artifact master. My team can handle them.”

“Alright then, I’ll go grind some monsters. Hope I can reach level twenty-one today.”

He’d already hit level twenty during the Demon Suppression Platform instance. Afterward, he’d defeated the gatekeeping boss, and during the evening event, he’d slain four more bosses—his experience bar was halfway to the next level.

But he dared not grow complacent; other players were catching up fast. Many in his guild had already reached level sixteen. In two or three days, they’d likely hit twenty. If he stood still, he’d be overtaken in no time.

“Are you planning to hunt alone?” Wind Chime asked.

“Yes. I’ll look for maps with monsters between levels twenty and thirty, see if there are any suitable for me.”

“Check the forums. There’s a lot of map information posted by others. The layouts between cities aren’t too different.”

“Got it. Call me if you need anything. I’m off.” With those words, Zhang Shan teleported away.

“Artifact Bro is a real grinder. He just can’t stop farming,” someone remarked.

“I’m going to work hard too—gotta level up and equip my level twenty gear as soon as possible.”

“Let’s head to Bowang Wasteland and farm demon militia again. That spot is great.”

“Party up, let’s go.”

Zhang Shan teleported to the general store, stocking up on bullets and pet food for several days. As for healing potions, he didn’t bother—he always carried a few, but rarely needed them. His boots now provided health regeneration, making them even less necessary.

He teleported to the city gate, got his bearings, and set off toward the area with level twenty monsters. The maps in New World were vast to an almost absurd degree. Even with his fast movement speed, running to the level twenty monster zone would take twenty minutes. The higher the monsters’ level, the farther away they were. He wondered, when he eventually needed to hunt level seventy or eighty monsters, would he have to run for half a day?

It was somewhat absurd that there were no teleportation arrays in the monster zones. Orienting himself, Zhang Shan jogged while checking the forums for useful map information. There were countless posts about monster map distributions—over ten pages of results after he filtered them.

The forum was bustling with activity. Some posts were clickbait, but most were genuine efforts. Many rogues enjoyed map exploration and treasure hunting; some had even posted information on level fifty monster zones. These people really got around, Zhang Shan marveled—there was a player for every playstyle.

He focused on threads about monsters between levels twenty and thirty, especially the thirties. With his current attack power, fighting low-level monsters was wasteful—too much damage overflow.

He browsed every relevant thread, ignoring the minor forum fees. Valuable information rarely made it to the public forum anyway.

Hmm, this is interesting—one post described Wild Wolf Slope, a level thirty monster area where the wild wolves had an abnormally high critical hit rate. The poster, a rogue, hadn’t paid much attention when passing through; the wolves looked similar to those near the starter village. But when he accidentally aggroed one, he discovered these were level thirty monsters—extremely strong, with every attack a potential critical. He barely survived the first hit, chugged a major healing potion, but was crit again and killed. Only after checking the monster’s attributes did he realize these wild wolves had a passive skill that greatly increased their critical rate.

He estimated that even level twenty players would struggle to survive, and warned others to be cautious. The post included a screenshot of the monster and its stats:

Demonized Wild Wolf: Level 30, Attack Power 920, Health 7000, Skill: Wolf’s Instinct (Passive).

Wolf’s Instinct (Passive): Wild wolves are naturally keen, striking at enemy weak points with a high chance of dealing double damage.

Not a bad passive—similar to special effects on accessories. If he could acquire this skill, he wondered how high the crit rate would be. Hopefully not just one percent. If it was only one percent, it wouldn’t be worth the extra effort.

No use overthinking it. He’d treat it as normal grinding and see what skills dropped over time.

After checking the map location, Zhang Shan closed the forum and headed toward Wild Wolf Slope.

At first, he still encountered a few players along the road, but as he ventured farther, the landscape emptied and not a soul was in sight.

Currently, players’ gear wasn’t good enough to fight monsters above their level—at least, not efficiently. His secretary had enough health and defense, but damage output was too slow, and when monsters exceeded a player’s level by five or more, a level penalty reduced the player’s damage. These demonized wild wolves were ten levels higher than Zhang Shan; the suppression would be significant. He wondered how much damage his attacks would actually do.

He passed through several level twenty-something maps, encountering all sorts of unfamiliar monsters along the way. Occasionally, some would attack, but Zhang Shan was unconcerned—a couple of shots would finish off a level twenty monster without slowing his progress.

After nearly half an hour, he finally arrived at his destination: Wild Wolf Slope.

Stepping onto the map, Zhang Shan felt a headache coming on. The poster hadn’t mentioned how many wolves there were—turned out the place was absolutely swarming with demonized wild wolves, packed as densely as pigs in a pen.

Ordinary players couldn’t even get close—attack one wolf and a whole pack would rush. Who could survive that? The map was also enormous, even larger than Bowang Wasteland. With such a huge area, there might even be a red boss lurking; he’d need to be careful. If he accidentally provoked a level thirty red boss, there’d be no escape.

Zhang Shan summoned his panda cub, set it to guard mode, and cautiously approached the wolf pack, intending to test his damage output.

He fired a shot at one wolf, and instantly four or five wolves charged at him. He sighed in relief—at least it wasn’t dozens at once. Otherwise, he’d have to run for his life.

A single basic attack dealt 2351 damage, as shown above the wolf’s head. The level suppression had slashed his damage significantly. His current attack was nearly 3500; with the Demon Nemesis title, he should be dealing almost 4000 with a normal hit. But against these wolves, he barely managed 2400—almost half his damage lost.

Still, it didn’t matter. Three shots would kill one; not a problem.

This map was great for grinding—plenty of monsters, barely any need to move. Unless something unexpected happened, he planned to stay here and grind for a good week or more, hoping to obtain the wolves’ passive skill.