The Ice Crystal World. The Great Ice and Snow Rift, a forbidden zone of life.
In the snow-blanketed valley, freezing gales howled unchecked. Any player without cold resistance standing here would find the bitter wind alone lethal. Even with sufficient cold resistance, fighting here drained a player's stamina several times faster than in the outside world.
And yet, the number of players present in the Great Ice and Snow Rift was surprisingly large.
From the mountaintop, one could see wave after wave of players grinding and fighting, as if they had long grown accustomed to battling in this place.
"We've only been gone a short while — I can't believe so many people have come here to grind and level up?" Yan Ya murmured with slight astonishment, gazing down at the crowds fighting below. She held an emerald crystal staff in one hand and wore an elegant deep-blue mage robe.
The lowest-level players here were all at least Level 50, with most at Level 51. Some of those directing the battles had actually reached Level 52.
In any empire, that level would place a player comfortably among the top thirty. Yet here, the number of players who had reached Level 52 far exceeded thirty...
They had been adventuring in the Divine Realm this whole time, and with Shi Feng personally leading their grind, their current level was only 54. Yet so many independent experts here had already hit Level 52.
"There are plenty of powerful monsters in the Ice Crystal World, and the experience they give is quite generous, so leveling speed here is noticeably faster than in the Divine Realm," Shi Feng said with a smile, not particularly surprised. "The major guilds are already approaching Level 50, so it's only natural that players here have reached 51 and 52."
The last time he'd visited the Ice Crystal World, players here had already been generally higher in level. Now that Divine Realm players were nearing Level 50, it stood to reason that the mainstream level here would surpass 50.
What truly surprised Shi Feng, however, was the equipment these players wore.
The drop rate for weapons and equipment in the Ice Crystal World was extremely low. Most drops were materials, and players relied heavily on crafting professions to produce their gear. As a result, their equipment significantly lagged behind the Divine Realm's — but the skill level of their crafters was noticeably superior.
Among these Level 50 players, quite a few wore Level 50 Iron Rank equipment, and some even sported Level 50 Mythril Rank gear. This equipment standard was in no way inferior to what the Divine Realm currently offered.
After all, the drop rate for Level 50 weapons and equipment had dropped sharply, and the quality of drops had declined as well.
The Level 50 twenty-person team Dungeon was the current target for independent players' raid progression. The best equipment such a Dungeon could drop was Level 50 Mythril Rank, but the drop rate was abysmal — only Hell Difficulty offered a somewhat better chance. However, a twenty-person team Dungeon on Hell Difficulty was too much for current independent players to handle.
So among the many players who had reached Level 50, most only wore Level 50 Iron Rank equipment. Mythril Rank was rare, and as for Gold-grade equipment above that — only major guilds could hope to obtain such things.
Crafting high-quality Level 50 equipment was no easy task either.
Once equipment reached Level 50, not only did the crafting difficulty increase dramatically, but the success rate dropped considerably. It was precisely because he himself had reached Master Blacksmith rank, along with a stockpile of rare auxiliary materials, that he'd managed to produce a number of high-quality Level 50 items.
It was hard to imagine that Cold Wind City's crafters could produce Level 50 Mythril Rank weapons and equipment.
If they had truly reached that level, then Cold Wind City's forging capabilities were at least one tier above the Torchfire Trading Firm.
Don't be fooled by that single-tier gap. The Torchfire Trading Firm possessed numerous secret forging techniques, plus the Titan Holy City to elevate its crafters' skills, and the high-magic environment of Zero Wing City — none of which was inferior to Cold Wind City, and might even have been slightly superior. Yet Cold Wind City still managed to surpass Torchfire by a tier. How could Shi Feng not be surprised?
"Captain, those over there look like members of our Shura Party," the Shield Warrior Gu Jiuji said with a faint smile, pointing toward a fifty-person team battling a Level 56 Grand Lord in the distance.
Six Level 51 tanks were struggling to hold the line against the Level 56 Grand Lord — the Frost Giant Ape. Every casual swipe of the beast forced the three tanks blocking together to stumble back several steps, over ten thousand damage points popping up above their heads. Then the other three tanks would step in to absorb the next attack, the two trios alternating back and forth.
Ten thousand points of damage was nothing to Level 51 tanks. The real trouble came from the freezing effect that accompanied the Frost Giant Ape's attacks. Once struck, a player's body began to slow. The more hits one took, the slower one moved — and the higher the damage received.
Despite the Frost Giant Ape's formidable strength, facing fifty members of the Shura Party, its HP was steadily declining. Being taken down was merely a matter of time.
Hearing Gu Jiuji's words, Jing Wuming, Mu Xiaoxiao, Anye Kuangxiang, Yan Ya, and the other members of the Shura Party all looked over, a wave of emotions washing through them.
The Shura Party members currently fighting had decent strength and levels, but in their eyes, they still looked awfully green.