Once the idea struck her, she got to work. It was time to put on a show!
“It’s nothing, just some skill effects,” Mo Shao said with a wave of her hand, acting as if it weren't worth mentioning. With her acting skills, this dismissive expression was about the extent of her repertoire.
Then, she proceeded to change her eye color—from gold to a blue-violet, and then back to her original grey. It was a gradual transition; as for what it actually meant, she would let the others fill in the blanks with their own imagination. As long as she could misdirect them slightly, it was enough.
In the future, she would occasionally and casually change her eye color to blue-violet. That would certainly fuel their various theories and speculations.
As for her figure... she would adjust that later. Regardless, ever since she arrived at the snow mountain, she had already put on loose-fitting outer layers. Clothes like these made it impossible to see the specifics of one’s physique.
When the time came, she would casually wander in front of them with different sizes a few times, and they would probably complete the mental gymnastics themselves. They would think she was indeed using some kind of "tech"... Though it felt a bit like she was becoming a gag character.
But no matter; the payoff was incredibly high!
Sure enough, after Mo Shao’s little performance, the gazes of a few people in the squad shifted noticeably, as if they had realized something.
Mo Shao didn't make any more moves. For the early stages, this was sufficient; doing too much would make them overthink it into a rabbit hole.
“See you later,” Mo Shao said with a simple goodbye before heading off. She still had things to do.
...
While farming monsters along the way, Mo Shao also made a detour to climb to the summit. The higher one climbs, the further one sees, and this also overlapped with the Feedback from the “climb high and look into the distance” tradition of the Double Ninth Festival.
Consequently, she was able to see even further than before!
To the far north was a forest of unknown origin. To the far east was the Skin-Stealer grassland. To the far south lay a boundless ocean.
She could only say that the topographical changes in this apocalypse were truly ridiculous.
To the west, where they needed to advance, aside from the majestic Seven Hills City, there was also a large island between the mountain and the zombie-infested city.
It was the Island map from 《Peacekeeper Elite》!
However, because this place had been inserted into reality, its ocean area was only a short one or two kilometers wide.
With firearms and weapons scattered everywhere, it was a perfect place to loot. Since they could craft Minecraft boats, crossing the water would be a breeze.
...
After she finished surveying the surroundings, she got down to the serious business of farming monsters.
However, there wasn't much to describe in detail regarding the farming. With her ability to fly and the enhancement from the Jewel of Life, she simply kited the monsters to death. It didn't take much time at all; that Electro DMG was truly through the roof!
To deal with the few Frostarm Lawachurls, she simply poured out a bucket of lava to melt their ice armor. After that, the rest was as easy as could be.
As for where the lava came from?
Naturally, she used her storage bag to keep such essential materials on hand.
The only annoyance was that she now had to carry a pile of storage bags on her person. She really wished a high-level storage item would fall from the sky!
However, not every Frostarm Lawachurl fell into her hands. There were still several groups of three or four squads working together to farm these large monsters. After all, most Frostarm Lawachurls guarded treasure chests or similar things. To get the good loot, they naturally had to kill them first.
It was the same story for those Ruin Graders and Ruin Guards; there were teams looking after them. These things had weak points; once their weak points were hit, they would become paralyzed. With archers present, they were indeed easy to kill.
However, they only beat them until they were crippled without actually killing them.
Wu Yingzhe and the others planned to spend the night at the peak of Dragonspine. After all, they could handle everything here. Moreover, the geographical advantage of Dragonspine was excellent, allowing them to completely shut out all sorts of external monsters—at least in the early stages.
Furthermore, they had made a clever choice.
They killed most monsters until they were crippled, severed their limbs, and then dug pits to trap them in order to suppress the 4:00 AM spawning!
For a Phantom Realm like Dragonspine, where the number of early-stage monsters was fixed every day, this was quite a brilliant move! At least for now, this tactic was completely viable!
...
As for the remaining few monsters that weren't treated this way, they were those that used elemental powers. Even if their limbs were broken, these monsters had ways to get out of the pits and launch all sorts of chaotic elemental attacks. They were the type that couldn't be contained, so they had to be killed.
Still, this was enough to drastically reduce the pressure at night.
As for whether the newly spawned monsters would go to rescue their teammates—the answer was that even if those crippled monsters were rescued, it would be useless! Eventually, before leaving, they would just clean up the trapped monsters and take all the treasure chests here.
This was a strategy Mo Shao hadn't even thought of—after all, in her past life, she had walked the path of a wandering survivor just trying to stay alive, so she never had to consider such things. This could be considered a blind spot in her thinking. This wouldn't do; she had to slightly shift her thought patterns in the future.
Because Mo Shao hadn't stayed with them at the start and this plan was only proposed later, quite a few monsters had already been killed even if she didn't count the ones she'd taken down. However, they had discovered the trick early enough. Since the monsters that could be killed easily first were quite weak, the nightly monster offensive was still heavily weakened.
...
However, there was one monster that couldn't be weakened, and that was the last and most difficult one to deal with—the “Cryo Hypostasis.”
Compared to the others that respawned once at four in the morning, this thing could respawn just minutes after being killed!
More importantly, it was an elemental lifeform. There was no way to sever its limbs, and even at low health, its combat strength remained just as high!
Fortunately, it was currently staying there quietly and inactively; it would only strike proactively at night. So, they could take their time to figure out a plan during the interval.
In the meantime, Mo Shao continued her collection work for Crimson Agate. It wasn't too difficult, as many were in high places and she could just fly up to grab them. The only thing that was a bit of a headache was that, not even counting now, she had already quit playing Genshin Impact for several years before the apocalypse! She didn't remember where the Crimson Agates were at all.
Luckily, she could fly and had an “expanded” field of vision today. So, she flew a circuit around the mountain, memorized the positions of the Crimson Agates she could see directly, and then used Pathfinding to get to them!
As for the hidden ones... those that required puzzle-solving or were in various tricky hidden spots, she would have to rely on the people in the team to find them. With so many people, they should be able to collect them all—building a faction came with many troubles, but it naturally came with its share of benefits! There was even a player who had just started playing Genshin Impact before the apocalypse. She had a good memory and directly led everyone to find the rest!
However, Mo Shao also received some bad news from her.
The Frostbearing Tree couldn't be raised to max level just by collecting the Crimson Agate found in the world; one had to do three weeks of “Crimson Wish” quests.
For players who didn't like grinding, that was a good thing...
But in reality, there wasn't that much time to slowly work on it. It seemed she would have no choice but to use some “tech and muscle” on the Frostbearing Tree!
Rate on N.U.
