[Night Fell]
[In the Wilderness North of Inferno City]
[Level 80 Demon King Valley (Platinum III)]
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whooshn
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A Soul Archer and an Elemental Mage.
The two figures stood in this valley filled with demonic energy, attacking from both sides.
Meow~
Accompanied by cries of agony, one Level 80 cat demon after another fell under the combined assault of the two SSS-rank talent holders, Lin Mo and Ning Xi.
[Ding~ Ah Li's sixth-stage growth quest, S-rank hidden quest Seize the Core, quest progress: 80%!]
Looking at the quest progress notification that had popped up before her, they still needed another 20% to complete the quest.
Ning Xi lowered her head, somewhat unhappy, "I'm sorry, Brother Lin Mo. If I'd known Ah Li's growth quests would be this complicated and take so much time, if we'd just attacked the Snake Tribe instances directly back then, maybe we would've already taken all five of them by now…"
As it turned out, without realizing it, the four stages from Ah Li's third stage to her sixth stage, divided into the four Celestial Fox Tribe chain hidden quests of C-rank, B-rank, A-rank, and S-rank, had already taken the two of them four days.
And throughout these past few days, they had been completely focused on Ah Li's growth quests. Whenever they logged on, aside from doing the Super God Arena, all their remaining time was spent on this.
This gave Ning Xi a deep sense of guilt.
After all, all of this had been done to improve her Ah Li.
Lin Mo, however, smiled indifferently, "It's fine."
"Those five Snake Tribe instances correspond to Gold I through Gold V respectively. Right now, our rank has only just reached Gold V."
"Even if we forced our way through them, it would still have taken us until today. Besides, that Snake Tribe lord, Queen Medusa, has a petrification talent that can be shared by the entire tribe. Without Ah Li's true damage, we might not have been able to force our way through."
"Besides, once Ah Li completes all her upgrades, she won't only be able to easily help me clear the Serpent King Island secret realm. From now on, she'll also be able to protect you better."
Ning Xi looked up, her pretty eyes fixed on Lin Mo, "Brother Lin Mo doesn't want to protect me anymore?"
Lin Mo coughed lightly, "Of course I'll protect you, but there will inevitably be times when I'm not by your side. At those times, Ah Li can protect you in my place."
Ning Xi looked downcast, "Then can't Brother Lin Mo always stay by my side?"
Girls really were the most mysterious creatures in the world.
Even the number-one female empress of Dragon Nation was no exception.
However, Lin Mo felt that compared to the lofty, ice-cold empress of his previous life, this version of the empress was much more approachable.
Much cuter.
"The quest progress is already at 80%. We only need the final 20% to complete it."
"Once we complete this final quest, Ah Li will be able to grow into the highest grade, Ancient Immortal-grade Heavenly Bewitchment · Fox Clan Empress!"
Thus, they sped up their progress and continued hunting cat demons in Demon King Valley, the core territory of the Cat Demon Tribe.
The quests to find tribe members, choose a territory, and rebuild their homeland had all been completed. Now they had reached the final step.
On the Oracle Continent, every race had a core that affected the rise and fall of that race.
So the objective of Ah Li's final-stage S-rank hidden quest, Seize the Core, was this: Peach Blossom Mountain still needed a core to maintain its operation and protect the Celestial Fox Tribe.
But the Celestial Fox Tribe's racial core had been destroyed when the tribe was wiped out.
So they could only seize a core from another race.
It seemed somewhat cruel and selfish. After all, taking another race's core was equivalent to destroying that race.
But the ones that had destroyed the Celestial Fox Tribe back then were the three major races led by the Cat Demon Tribe.
Afterward, the Cat Demon Tribe occupied the Celestial Fox Tribe's territory and even captured the surviving Celestial Foxes and enslaved them.
Looking at it this way, the Cat Demon Tribe deserved to die.
As long as they eliminated all the cat demons in Demon King Valley, they could obtain the Cat Demon Tribe's racial core and complete the quest.
These past few days, while carrying out Ah Li's growth quests, Lin Mo had also been keeping an eye on the situation in the four secondary main cities of Shadowless City, Rakshasa City, Bloodmoon City, and City of No Hope.
But what puzzled him was this: the "Boss" had not made the slightest move.
After recruiting ten Heavenly Ranking players from each of the four major cities at great expense in Wang Junjie's name, under Wang Junjie's orders, the ten Heavenly Ranking experts from Shadowless City joined forces to attack the Level 75 Divine Forging Tower.
The ten Heavenly Ranking experts recruited from Rakshasa City concentrated on attacking the Level 75 Blackrock Hall.
The ones from Bloodmoon City attacked the Bloodmoon Castle.
The ones from the City of No Hope attacked the Isle of No Hope.
On the surface, everything seemed to be developing exactly as Lin Mo had expected. Through these Heavenly Ranking players, they would conquer these four locations and obtain the Divine Forging Cauldron map fragments buried within them for Lin Mo.
But this wasn't the result Lin Mo had expected.
"Why hasn't this Boss made a move yet?"
As soon as Lin Mo finished speaking, Ning Xi, who had just blasted a cat demon to death with an S-rank Fireball, turned back and said, "Brother Lin Mo, could it be that the fish never took the bait? Maybe they didn't notice this at all?"
Lin Mo shook his head, "Impossible."
"I deliberately had Wang Junjie post the high-reward recruitment notice across the entire internet. With such a huge commotion, there's no way the Boss wouldn't notice."
"Besides, Nether already went to question Mo Chen a few days ago."
Lin Mo said seriously, "Nether already knows that I'm also looking for the Divine Forging Cauldron."
It turned out that Lin Mo had always kept a clone secretly monitoring Mo Chen in Inferno City.
Not long after he had Wang Junjie post the recruitment notice, he saw through his clone's shared vision that Nether had gone to find Mo Chen. He had also learned that Lin Mo was looking for the Divine Forging Cauldron to repair the Eternal Heart for Divine Descent Seraph · Siya.
Of course, Mo Chen, who had been rescued by Lin Mo from the Dark Underground City and had also received kindness from Divine Descent Seraph · Siya, was not a traitor.
Lin Mo had instructed him beforehand that whenever anyone came asking, he was to say exactly that.
"With Nether's intelligence, he should be able to deduce that I'm secretly manipulating Wang Junjie to recruit these Heavenly Ranking experts from the four major cities to find the Divine Forging Cauldron for me."
"Logically speaking, things shouldn't be this quiet."
Although things had not developed in the direction Lin Mo had expected, it didn't really matter.
Because Lin Mo discovered that he had seriously underestimated the strength of the Heavenly Ranking players from the various main cities.
The Heavenly Ranking players recruited by Wang Junjie from those secondary main cities had actually been able to successfully conquer the four locations where the Divine Forging Cauldron map fragments were sealed when they joined forces.
Although their progress was somewhat slow, according to the information Wang Junjie had reported, they had already made considerable progress over the past few days.
At this rate, in Wang Junjie's own words, "Brother Mo! At most another day, they'll clear those four maps and get the items for you."
When Lin Mo received Wang Junjie's message, he was stunned.
After all, Lin Mo himself still had 0% progress on the Serpent King Island raid.
Of course, part of the reason was that those maps were relatively low in difficulty.
Whether it was the Divine Forging Tower, Blackrock Hall, Bloodmoon Castle, or Isle of No Hope, all four were Level 75 Golden-rank secret realms for ordinary races.
Only Lin Mo's Serpent King Island was an Level 80 Golden-rank secret realm for a rare race.
Clearly, Serpent King Island was the main target, while the other four were supplementary.
"If they can really successfully get those map fragments for me, that would be pretty good."
"Then we can directly take the Divine Forging Cauldron."
Just as Lin Mo was thinking this...
Ding!
Wang Junjie sent him a message.
["Brother Mo!"]
["This is bad!"]
["Something happened!"]
Seeing the urgent messages Wang Junjie had suddenly sent, Lin Mo wasn't worried in the slightest.
Instead, he was delighted.
"Looks like the fish finally took the bait?"
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