### Chapter 131: A Different Tune
Yuliya was making her way towards Black Raven City, casually passing through a few small exploration points, snatching some monsters on the way, and wiping them out like they were just pesky flies.
If an elite monster popped up, she’d take care of it without breaking a sweat. If nothing interesting happened or some other inconvenient mechanic showed up, she’d just roll out without a second thought.
As for diving deep into an exploration? Nah, that wasn’t necessary; she was in a position to say she was lacking nothing.
Skills? Check. Equipment? Double check. Health potions? Oh, tacos and a side of charisma too!
What more could she possibly need? A bicycle? Please.
The crux of this event dungeon was all about gaining exploration points. The higher the points, the fancier the rewards. So getting those points was the name of the game!
Even if you maxed out a small exploration point at 100%, you’d be lucky to scrape together four or five hundred points. Medium exploration points? Oh, those could yield points that were several times greater, if not dozens! Don’t even get started on the large exploration points!
So, objectively speaking, if you were all set up, marching towards the bigger exploration points was definitely the smart move.
Of course, if you weren’t set up and ready to roll, then it was best to stay in your lane and not get too adventurous. Nobody wants to be the hero that goes down in flames for no reason.
Bigger exploration points naturally meant bigger dangers.
As Yuliya rushed along, the live room decided to shift its focus to other players.
Right now, the scoreboards showed four Huaxia Server players in the top ten, sitting pretty in third, fifth, and ninth places.
But really, their points barely held a candle to the first player, who had over a thousand points—what a difference a few measly tens made!
So the camera zoomed in on the fifth place, Fiery Conflict Across the Sky. Yeah, third place had more points, but come on, Fiery Conflict was practically a legend!
After all, this dude was like the top player under the Wind God, you know? He had once gone head-to-head with the Wind God himself!
But nobody was talking about that right now. The three commentators went with a basic rundown of the player stats.
At that moment, Fiery Conflict was teaming up with two other players to tackle a tiny grove.
In a hushed voice, he instructed, “Follow my lead. Longevity Owl is on monster-dragging duty—ideally, just one at a time. If he has to grab two, no more than three. If it gets messy, we withdraw.”
“Got it.”
“Meatball, you’re on standby for Owl. If things go haywire, you take some heat off him to let him bail.”
“Roger!”
“I’ll be over there charging up. If all goes according to plan, we’ll take them down one by one. We’re in a team setup, splitting points evenly. Let’s do this!”
Owl was the mage, so he had it easier pulling monsters than the two melee fighters. Meatball, bless him, was the tank—that’s right, the muscle of the operation.
And Fiery Conflict himself was more of a damage-dealer, having snagged a unique ability: Charge Slash, which boosted damage based on charge time.
If he charged long enough, he could indeed take down a monster with one swing!
The trio rolled out their plan.
All three experienced players, they were practically a point-collecting machine—until more monsters started piling up, making the pulling part increasingly complicated.
Pulling two was manageable; Fiery Conflict took out one and the trio battered the other.
Three was pushing it, but they managed: after taking one down, a melee fighter could hold one monster while the mage dealt damage from the back.
But once they hit four, everything went south!
Meatball took ages to down a monster, and while Fiery Conflict got one with his Charge Slash—which took a lot of effort to regain hate on another monster—finishing the fight quickly was just not in the cards.
Result? The poor mage was left getting chased around like a piñata.
Now, it wasn’t that Owl couldn’t handle a monster on her own; it was just that… all her grabbed skills were those obnoxious five-plus second casting kind.
With her low skill proficiency, sometimes it was even ten seconds—ten seconds! Who has time for that in a scuffle?
What kind of nonsense was this?!
Sure, she could basic-attack, but doing so slowed her down. Mages already had sluggish movement speed, and adding that slow? She might as well have set up a tent for the monsters!
Plus, trying to whittle down a few thousand HP with basic attacks? Talk about pulling your hair out!
“Retreat! Fall back!” Fiery Conflict shouted without hesitation.
Finally, the trio escaped the grove, running a few paces before breaking the monster aggro radius.
“This won’t cut it; the monsters are too dense! We’re outnumbered!” Meatball complained.
“Our gear isn’t up to par; our skills are so-so. Taking down this grove will be tough. We should stick to non-exploration points and pick off some stray monsters instead,” Yuliya suggested.
But Fiery Conflict shook his head. “No way! That’s way too inefficient. And if we don’t hit places like these, how do we expect to gear up? How do we get powerful skills? You think strolling down the street is gonna hand you hotcakes from the sky? Just opening a random chest doesn’t always net you a Golden Legend!”
“Be realistic, dude. With my experience, these kinds of dungeons require you to take risks and start farming exploration points after reaching a certain level. Grind those points to get stronger, then tackle bigger exploration spots. It’s a snowball effect, baby!”
“If you just hang around outside, while everyone else takes off and you’re just left picking at scraps, what do you think you can compete with?”
Meatball slapped his forehead. “He’s got a point! Just look at the Wind God! That’s definitely how he leveled up! He’s already at over a thousand points!”
“Seriously? Get outta here!”
“Check the scoreboard yourself. Remember when we glanced at it before we started? It was only about five hundred, and now look—over a thousand! Crazy, right?”
Fiery Conflict took a quick peek at the leaderboard and promptly closed it. “Chill, don’t panic. We’ve got chances too. This event is just getting started; temporary leads mean zip. Let’s keep pushing!”
“Righto! So, what’s the plan, Team Leader?”
“Find some folks.” Fiery Conflict nudged his air glasses. “Every few minutes, send a big signal to attract players. Once we get enough people together, we can steamroll anything!”
“But won’t that attract more monsters?”
“Let them come! We’ll adapt. Monsters we can take down, we smash; the ones we can’t? We retreat.”
“Team Leader, you’re a genius!!”
This whole scheming operation was broadcasted to the live audience in full HD, much to their delight.
In commentary, Teacher Wang Xixi exclaimed, “Clear thinking, logical strategy, and long-term planning—Fiery Conflict’s performance is commendable!”
Ai Kun added, “Indeed, commendable.”
Moonlit Crescent chimed in, “Commendable!”
The barrage of comments surged:
“Wait, why does it feel like they’re playing a different game than the Wind God?”
“This vibe is totally different, right? On one side, it’s a hack-and-slash, while the other is a brain-teaser!”
“C’mon, let’s not toss shade. Each style has its pros and cons. Sure, slaying things left and right is super thrilling, but this meticulous planning and teamwork has its draw too.”
“Which side do you prefer, then?”
“I’m a simple guy; I can’t appreciate finesse, give me the chaos of slaying things!”
“Same here!”
