The Era of Gods

Lin Xiao breezed through the fourth floor of the six dungeons in one go, amassing a total of six thousand experience points, sixty points, sixty thousand gold coins, six hundred units of wood and minerals, as well as sixty Rifleman Cards, thirty Archer Cards, one hundred and twenty griffins, twelve Archer Barracks Fragments, and six points of Cathedral prestige.

Setting other things aside for the moment, he first combined ten Archer Barracks Fragments into one Archer Camp Card and loaded it into a Nest Slot. The combined First Level Archer Camp Card can produce one hundred Archers per week, which is just the equivalent of one Archer Card, totaling four hundred a month.

The output isn’t much, but the camp can be upgraded to increase production.

Next, he merged sixty Rifleman Cards into fifteen Elite Rifleman Cards at a rate of four Rifleman Cards for one Elite Rifleman Card, adding these to the eight surplus Elite Rifleman Cards from before for a total of twenty-three Elite Rifleman Cards, as well as one Veteran and one New Soldier Gunman Card.

Thirty Archer Cards were combined into seven Elite Archers and one Veteran Archer, and together with the surplus one Elite and one New Archer Card from before, there are now a total of eight Elite Archers and one New Archer Card.

The one hundred and twenty griffins are put aside for now, as occupying four population slots is somewhat unnecessary for a First-Level hero.

After that, he spent twenty thousand gold coins plus fifty units of wood and minerals and fifty thousand gold coins plus two hundred units of wood and minerals to upgrade the First Level Archer Camp to a Level 2 and then to a Level 3 Archer Camp.

The Level 2 Archer Camp produces two hundred Archers weekly, and the Level 3 produces three hundred, totaling one thousand two hundred over four weeks.

“Not bad at all!”

Putting everything else aside, now that Origin has a steady supply of Archers to recruit, small gains can add up.

Arriving at the same crossroads as before, and seeing signs pointing to the City of Glory, Barbaric City, and the Undead Relic, Lin Xiao, without looking back, turned right and walked toward the direction of Barbaric City.

Of course, he’s not going into battle, just heading to the battlefield area to exchange some items.

He doesn’t dare go to the Sacred Gate at this point, but he has to trade his surplus resources for something else. Currently, only that site under the City of Glory’s control has a large gathering of heroes, and the two players who performed the True-Body Descend are still grinding dungeons in the Sacred Gate area and haven’t arrived here yet, so it’s relatively safe.

Following the main road for about ten-plus kilometers, he arrived at the pass of a small mountain range of unknown length. Passing through this gateway to the other side, he entered the contested territory, and the Power Castle with its gathering of heroes is situated not far beyond the pass.

Inside the castle, he sawYi Lei and others present, probably here for the same reason—he didn’t dare stay over there and fled here instead.

Upon his entry into the castle, Yi Lei and his group huddled together, surreptitiously observing him, whispering amongst themselves.

Here in the Power Castle’s trading area, Lin Xiao sold all the surplus New Soldier Gunman and Archer Cards for gold coins, then traded ten Elite Rifleman Cards for five Griffin cards using an exchange of goods.

Typically, it takes ten Rifleman Cards to exchange for one Griffin card, but the value of Elite Rifleman Cards is much higher.

Next, through the Creation Rubik’s Cube, he fused four Griffin Cards to create one Elite Griffin card.

An Elite Griffin’s combat power is second to none compared to any Level 4 troops, which is already the limit of what a First-Level hero can command. Elite troops beyond this point are much rarer to come by.

The sheer fact that he has held on to so many Elite troop cards for so long without managing to develop any special unit is proof enough of their rarity.

A griffin is a winged beast, lion-like in appearance, with a typical body length of about three meters. The size of an Elite Griffin increases to around four meters, greatly enhancing its combat power.

One hundred Elite Griffins’ fighting power is sufficient for Lin Xiao to be willing to allocate four hundred population slots for their summoning, since one hundred Elite Griffins are much stronger than four hundred Riflemen.

But when he was about to load them, Lin Xiao paused for a moment, struck by a sudden idea—could he fuse two different types of Soldier Cards?

After all, he was quite familiar with the magical abilities of the Creation Rubik’s Cube; he had attempted even the most difficult of fusions, so it made no sense for this operation to be incompatible.

No sooner said than done, he took out one Elite Archer Card and the newly fused Elite Griffin card and placed them both in the Magic Cube Space to merge. The Magic Cube Space immediately responded with feedback-it needed Creation Energy.

emmm..

Lin Xiao hesitated.

He only had one unit of Creation Energy left; was it worthwhile to use it now?

But the Creation Rubik’s Cube promptly provided feedback again, indicating that this fusion would only require a very small amount of Creation Energy. He made up his mind on the spot and went for it.

With a thought, the two cards turned into a ball of white light, then a thread… about a tenth of a unit of Creation Energy flew out of the Cube into the ball of light. The light began to shine with a pale silver glow, growing brighter by the moment.

One minute later, the white light turned into a silver radiance, and the fusion was successful.

Special Troop Card: Griffin Archer, a Third-Level Rare troop.

A rather straightforward introduction: the troop class was still rated as Level 3, but with a rare prefix, which I guessed could have some advantages.

However, this doesn’t mean it would definitely be stronger than a griffin, as rare denotes scarcity, not necessarily superior strength.

Of course, generally speaking, those with this prefix tend to be a bit stronger than the common ones.

Now wasn’t a good time to try it out, so once the preparations seemed adequate, Lin Xiao left the City of Strength.

No sooner had he left than a shadowy figure quietly appeared at the city gate. After a while, several more appeared at the same spot, quickly following him once his figure was barely visible.

Upon leaving the City of Strength, he stopped at a nearby junction and took a turn down the road.

Going up meant entering the contested territory and battling heroes from Barbaric City, while heading downward also led to contested lands, but not battlefields—instead, it was other wilderness areas.

After lengthy consideration, he decided to explore the wilderness instead of the battlefields.

Although the elite warriors he had accrued would fare well on the battlefield, becoming a target of the crowd if he kept winning was all too easy—it was too conspicuous and could attract unwanted attention, such as from those True- Body Descend players, so venturing into the wilderness was better.

There weren’t few heroes with the same thought. Passing a piece of ground frequently trodden bare by large troops, several heroes were seen stopping at the edge of the woods, seemingly looking at something; without a trace, Lin Xiao veered off the main path to keep his distance as he entered the woods.

Fortunately, he was overthinking it. Those heroes merely stopped there with no other intentions, and they didn’t make any moves even after he entered the woods.

Soon after his departure, Yi Lei followed with three companions. The heroes looked over with odd glances, as if sensing something, and once Yi Lei was gone, the leader of the heroes made a signal to the others, and they too discreetly followed along.

This stretch of woods was close to the Power Castle, and heroes constantly entering and leaving had thoroughly scoured the area countless times, leaving nothing alive here except for poisonous insects and the like.

Deep into the woods, once the City of Strength was out of sight, Lin Xiao stopped and withdrew his two hundred elite archers. With a recruitment cost of fifty gold coins per griffin archer, he spent a total of five thousand gold coins recruiting the entire Elite Griffin Archer card.

A regular griffin measured three meters in length with an approximate wingspan of six meters, sporting a lion’s head and eagle-like talons that were both hefty and sharp; to be caught in these hooks would be nothing short of unpleasant.

Normally, griffins are melee troops utilizing sharp talons and ferocious bites, rendering them quite powerful in combat and placing them near the forefront among Level 3 troops.

Yet, seated upon the backs of his griffins were archers, clad in fine leather armors, who could look down from above and rain arrows from the sky—a formidable tactic in actual combat.

Although the rules of this world were very game-like, combat followed reality. The chance for ground units to hit airborne units wasn’t as easy as in games, where one has to consider wind direction and gravitational drop, among other factors—meaning, aside from massive coordinated ranged fire, the hit probability was considerably low.

But for archers shooting downward from the sky, the advantage was significant

—it was incomparable at the same level.

After a brief glance, Lin Xiao made a decision in his heart—to combine a gryphon barracks card with this archer camp card to create a Gryphon Archer Barracks.

Constant slow merging was too troublesome, getting a Gryphon Archer card in one go was the best approach.

Besides, in the future, there would be opportunities to try fusing different troops to create new, more powerful ones.

To stand out in the Ruins of Myriad and to defeat True-Body Descend players and seize treasures, mere growth would not suffice-one must take a unique approach.

Letting these one hundred elite griffin archers, whose fighting power could rival Level 4 troops, circle in the sky, Lin Xiao led his troops deeper into the forest.

Hours later, he arrived at a river in the forest. Having entered the deep woods, he followed this river, three to four dozen meters wide, upstream for a few kilometers, until he came across a circle of abnormally thick and tall trees, fifteen to sixteen feet in height.

He gestured and his troops halted.

These were not real trees, but rather fifteen Level 5 tree spirits from the forest faction, commonly known as tree demons in other worlds.

These beings were notably the toughest and most difficult to kill among Level 5 troops.

Thanks to his subordinates’ cues, Lin Xiao spotted a chest in the midst of the tree spirits.

However, as he climbed a nearby tree, only to see that the chest in the center was empty, he slid down disappointedly, ready to leave.

According to the rules of this world, when powerful monsters spawn in the wilderness, there’s a chance they will be accompanied by treasure chests. The stronger the monster, the better the contents of the guarded chest. The group of tree spirits had indeed guarded a chest, but it had already been taken.

It was puzzling that the chest was taken without killing the guarding tree spirits.

Nevertheless, he didn’t dwell on it much. If there was nothing there, then there was nothing there, and exploring further was the way to go.

The further his troops moved past the tree spirits, the wider the river grew, with calm waters, but an increasing presence of monsters within it became evident.

Walking along the riverbank, he could occasionally spot