Two days had passed since the Outer Corrupted Forest dungeon had opened, and just last night, Ryan finally hit level 15—the minimum requirement to enter it. He'd logged off right after, exhausted but satisfied.
Now, though, each level required a staggering amount of experience. At level 15, Ryan needed 110,000 XP just to reach level 16. And with how slowly monster experience scaled, it felt like a grind. A level 15 monster only gave around 150 XP, which meant he'd need to kill over 700 of them to level up once. Worse, each fight took more than ten seconds now—far from the days of slicing through level 10 mobs like butter.
Even with quests factored in, his best XP rate barely reached 20,000 per hour. It was a slow, uphill climb.
That morning, Ryan woke up early—not to dive back into the game, but for something far more pressing. He had to go house-hunting.
