Chapter 50: An Unbelievable Monster Farming Efficiency

Sterl had barely stepped into a civilian house when a system alert flashed before his eyes.

[You have entered the special zone: Village of Death.]

[Embrace this brutal pleasure!]

The latter message appeared in blood-red letters, unsettling him slightly.

Sterl felt a slight tremble under his feet, and then... nothing happened.

He wandered around the house for a bit, finding nothing of value—only seeing signs that no one had lived there for a long time.

Pots and pans that had weathered the years were now so brittle they would crumble to dust upon touch.

After confirming there was nothing to gain in the room, Sterl had no choice but to head back the way he came, pushing the door open to leave.

However, as soon as he stepped out, Sterl found the scenery around him had drastically changed. He was now in the center of a cluster of civilian houses, surrounded by buildings and streets swirling with yellow sand.

Looking far into the distance, Sterl realized he would have to traverse several kilometers to leave. Without hesitation, he took out the quest scroll he had obtained earlier and chose to use it.

Immediately, a new quest appeared in Sterl's quest log: [Death Slaughter].

[Death Slaughter]

[Type: Repeatable Quest]

[Description: Kill 200 units of enemies in the Village of Death to receive a trophy orb as a reward.]

[Note: This quest can be completed up to ten times, with an extra reward appearing upon full completion.]

[Time Limit: 10 hours.]

"2000 monsters in 10 hours?" Sterl frowned slightly, not because he doubted his combat skills, but whether it was possible to spawn that many monsters.

At this point, he could only hope that the Village of Death would live up to what the adventure team had said about its insane monster spawning rate.

Incidentally, Sterl's quest log also contained another quest—the [Smoke and Mirrors] quest he had taken on before.

However, Sterl didn't have the energy to learn another skill at the moment, having decided to skip learning the level 20 skill when he last returned to base.

His plan was to learn both skills after reaching level 40, then tweak and submit his quest to master the Smoke and Mirrors skill in one go.

Now in the Village of Death, Sterl looked around with curiosity. It was his first visit here. With his skills and boldness, he found everything intriguing.

Soon, he noticed a pair of decaying, dark green arms grotesquely stretching out from the front door of the house he had entered earlier.

Accompanied by a strange howl, a plague-ridden zombie with a contorted figure and crawling gait appeared before Sterl.

With the appearance of the first monster, it was as if a call to arms had sounded.

From about a dozen houses, monsters emerged. In less than five minutes after Sterl had entered the Village of Death, he was completely surrounded.

Sterl casually activated the detection effect of Star Insight.

He quickly assessed the strength of this horde of wild beasts. They were mostly between levels 35 and 40, not low in attributes, and could at least match a D-class professional. Moreover, they came with the skill [Rotting Plague]—

Units hit by the plague-ridden zombies would accumulate a layer of poison status. This effect could stack indefinitely, shared among all plague-ridden zombie units.

System notifications continuously rang in Sterl's ears.

[You have killed a level 35 plague-ridden zombie, earning 644 experience.]

[You have killed a level 37 plague-ridden...]

Sterl's experience bar slowly increased, and within his inventory, the power of blood within the Bloody Gem condensed another strand.

It's worth mentioning that after level twenty, the experience required to level up varies significantly between different classes. So Sterl had no idea how much experience he would need for future levels.

For him, advancing from level 20 to 21 required 100,000 experience...

Meanwhile, the stock of blood power within his Bloody Gem, including the newly acquired strand, totaled 27 strands.

Sterl estimated that after completing missions in Death Village, he should significantly accelerate the progress of accumulating 50 strands of blood power in the Bloody Gem.

Additionally, there were several other notifications.

[Your pet Starlight Dragon has gained 644 experience points.]

[Your pet Starlight Dragon has gained...]

...

Sterl's little pet, without doing anything other than sleeping, was leveling up.

By the way, pets are considered half a teammate. The reason they're only half is that when players carry pets, the experience gained decreases by 25%, and both the player and the pet receive 75% of the original monster-killing experience.

Clearly, the game system of [Transcendence] encourages players to train a pet.

However, the experience buff is independent for players and pets, which is why Sterl had also given the Starlight Dragon an experience potion.

Furthermore, pets also need to meditate to convert their experience into levels.

Back to the matter at hand, after Sterl had killed the first wave of monsters, he noticed a subtle change in the sky. What was once an azure sky, almost invisible due to the dense yellow sand, gradually darkened as it was enveloped by dust storms.

Then, over 30 plague-ridden zombies spawned at once, surrounding Sterl. Unfortunately for these monsters, they hadn't even had time to react before Sterl once again—

[Blaze of Bewilderment: Storm Form].

The first batch of six monsters hit by the skill were burned to death, followed by densely packed blue lines formed by Starlight Splash ricocheting through the surrounding space.

The remaining monsters were effortlessly cut into pieces. Despite the doubled number of plague-ridden zombies, it took Sterl merely five seconds to clear them.

Subsequently, the sky turned increasingly gloomy and dark, even showing a very peculiar blood-red color.

Sterl felt a bit uneasy. During his time with that adventuring party before, they had never mentioned such a phenomenon.

He felt a slight sense of discomfort.

As the blood-red in the sky grew denser, more and more monsters spawned.

From over 30 to over 40, to over 60...

After Sterl cleared several waves of monsters, he could hear continuous banging sounds coming from the nearby residential buildings.

Then—

A group of foul-smelling bodies forcefully squeezed out from those narrow doorways!