About an hour later, Kael returned to the same spot and found nearly three hundred ants gathered there again.
He grinned, raised his bow, and happily helped himself.
Another 300,000,000 EXP.
This time he was careful. He stayed on his side of the boundary, and he didn't so much as pick up a gemstone that had dropped on the other side's turf.
After he left, the rogue who had dragged the ants over arrived once more.
And once more, his brain simply stopped working.
By Kael's third visit, the other side had gathered more than two hundred monsters—but this time, a full team stood waiting over them.
Kael's heart sank.
Damn. No more sneaky mob stealing.
Then an idea clicked into place.
He turned and ran back the way he'd come.
A short while later, he returned with an Ant Captain hot on his heels. He didn't rush to kill it. Instead, he led it all the way to the boundary line.
Then he turned to face the Ant Captain and drew his bow.
[Phantom Barrage]!
Somehow, the shot went just a little wide—and landed squarely on the swarm the other side had gathered.
The Thaloria players started shouting at him immediately.
"Gralaka! Ruk talaka!"
"Rukruk! Talaka grak!"
Kael quickly raised his hands in apology.
"Sorry about that. My aim slipped. I'll be more careful next time."
The ants, of course, had no interest in accepting his apology. With a chorus of furious screeches, the whole swarm charged him.
Kael feigned panic and shouted, "Oh no! So many monsters! I'm dead! I'm totally dead!"
Even as he yelled, he kept fighting the Ant Captain—while his [Splintering Arrows] and his clones' [Splintering Arrows] reaped the smaller ants around him.
Across the boundary, the players were livid. They screamed and cursed, itching to come over and have it out with him.
Unfortunately, Kael's [Splintering Arrows] didn't have eyes. Two players wandered into his attack range and were shot dead on the spot.
Kael offered them another apologetic gesture.
The players on the other side were seething, but there was nothing they could do. Since they couldn't handle it themselves, they reported it to their guild leader.
But when Nymeria heard what Kael was up to, she didn't come for revenge. Instead, she ordered them to withdraw and told them not to provoke him.
The team could only choke down their anger and leave—abandoning the two corpses of their fallen teammates where they lay.
Kael swung by twice more after that, but the other side never lured another swarm. He could only sigh and move on.
By day's end, Kael had farmed more than 2,000,000,000 EXP in Tydrisa's Quarry and reached level 30.
Beyond the scaling gains from his two Ascendant items, [Elven God Bloodline] awakened two new skills.
[Frenzied Volley]: 5 Skill Points.
Unleashes a storm of arrows in a 45-degree cone, dealing 120%, 110%, and 100% damage to enemy units within the area.
Cooldown: 20 seconds.
A god-tier AoE skill. No explanation needed.
[Moon Goddess Arrow]: 5 Skill Points.
Lock-On Form: Locks onto one unit within 100 yards and fires a tracking arrow. On hit, deals damage equal to attack power multiplied by distance divided by 10 and stuns the target for up to 10 seconds.
Cooldown: 20 seconds.
Blind Shot Form: Fires one arrow straight ahead up to 3,000 yards, dealing up to 20 times damage and stunning the first target hit for up to 20 seconds.
Cooldown: 20 seconds.
A god-tier PvP skill.
A god-tier boss-killer.
[Moon Goddess Arrow] flew blindingly fast, and in Lock-On Form it tracked its target. Dodging it with ordinary movement was next to impossible.
At level 1, its range was already 100 yards. If the skill leveled up, the eventual range would be terrifying.
Miana's [Moon Goddess Arrow] had a lock-on range of 100,000 yards.
A hit at that distance meant 10,000 times damage.
What kind of nightmare number was that?
No wonder High Druid Maervan had been one-shot by her.
Kael had planned to activate [Moving Shot], but with these two skills on the table, he had no choice but to shelve it for now.
The only drawback: both were active skills, which meant his clones couldn't inherit them.
At level 30, Kael could finally equip the [Primal Core Arrow]. His attack jumped by another 10,000, and it added [Explosive Blast], pushing his AoE damage even higher.
The bad news was that Tydrisa's Quarry no longer had enough monsters to feed him.
Ten minutes later, the surrounding players could only glare at Kael, furious but too afraid to say a word.
Kael knew this couldn't go on, so he left Tydrisa's Quarry for the time being.
With nowhere to vent his frustration, he opened his friend chat with Elon.
"Elon, close Tydrisa's Quarry for three days. Let me grind there alone."
"Sure."
Kael had expected Elon to refuse. Instead, he'd agreed on the spot.
Kael was delighted.
Then Elon sent over a string of numbers.
"Current ticket revenue is 20,000,000 per day. Three days comes to 60,000,000. Since you're booking the whole place, I'll give you a 20% discount: 48,000,000."
Kael had no words.
But after everything that had happened today in the Land of the Behemoth and Tydrisa's Quarry, he gritted his teeth and agreed.
"Fine. I'll have Isolde coordinate with you."
Truth be told, Kael no longer even knew how much money he had. He'd have to sit down with Isolde one of these days and go through it properly. When he did, he'd cut her in on the business too.
After leaving the grinding grounds, Kael went straight to the Arena.
Everyone had assumed that with Kael dropping to level 0 yesterday, his Arena points were theirs for the taking today. No one expected him to hit level 30 in a single day.
More importantly, his strength in the Arena was barely diminished.
That held true right up until he entered the 20v20 [Fair Play] mode.
Kael's team was made up of guild leaders—the arrangement Isolde had proposed a few days earlier: organize by guild, and let the top sixty-two guilds each choose one player to team with him. The top nineteen guilds claimed the 20v20 slots.
Because Kael had spent most of his previous Arena points on level-40 Ascendant equipment, all he could exchange for now was a full set of level-30 Legendary gear. Even so, his equipment was still the best among all the guild leaders.
But as gear attributes rose across the board, the edge from Kael's original 2,200 points in each of his five core stats grew less and less pronounced. He had no choice but to summon his clones to boost his damage.
And that clone skill was exactly what cost him dearly.