Deep within the Cold Spring Great Forest, the Zero Wing members advanced at a measured pace. Since the map had never been explored before, the number of draconian warriors they encountered along the way only increased. Fortunately, the draconian champion count didn't rise, so it posed no real threat to the team as a whole—on the contrary, it turned the area into an excellent grinding spot.
In the Divine Realm, the experience points granted by level-100 monsters were far greater than those from level-99 monsters. Shi Feng had previously led the group into a level-100 Forbidden Life Zone to grind, but at that time everyone's levels were far too low, and they had relied primarily on their Tier 3 Demons to fight. The grinding efficiency had been dismal.
Now, however, every member of the team had the strength to challenge a level-100 Lord. They slaughtered draconian warriors at an astonishing clip, and everyone's experience bars climbed at a visibly rapid pace.
In a mere six hours, everyone had leveled up once, reaching level 98. Experts like Yan Tianxing had even hit level 99, just a hair's breadth from the hundred-level milestone. Shi Feng himself had long since broken through to level 101, and the sight filled the group with a surge of excitement.
However, compared to the thrill of leveling up, the weapons and equipment dropped by the level-100 draconian warriors left everyone speechless.
Even when they killed high-grade Lords like draconian warrior captains, the best gear that dropped was nothing more than level-100 Iron Rank equipment. This was only because the first-clear bonus boosted the equipment drop rate—without that, everything would have been Bronze Rank, utterly incomparable to the drops from level-99 high-grade Lords.
Shi Feng was entirely unsurprised.
Once players in the Divine Realm hit level 100, even top-tier players generally wore nothing but a full set of Iron Rank gear. Obtaining Mythril Rank level-100 equipment from monster drops required a formidable party—without one, it was simply impossible. As for Gold-grade level-100 weapons and equipment, those were pure fantasy.
Only experts who had advanced to Tier 3 Classes could hope to get their hands on Gold-grade level-100 gear. Dark-gold-grade weapons and equipment? That came down to sheer luck.
This was precisely why the major powers in the Divine Realm went all-in on cultivating Tier 3 experts and Master-tier crafting professions as soon as their core members reached level 100.
Past level 100, sheer player numbers no longer mattered. Quality was everything. Tier 3 experts and crafting Masters were the true backbone of any major power.
Without Tier 3 experts and crafting Masters, acquiring Gold-grade or higher level-100 equipment was utterly impossible. And without top-tier level-100 weapons and equipment, how could any guild hope to grow?
It was worth remembering that monsters past level 100 were no joke. Particularly once they hit level 105, players who had been coasting on their pre-100 dark-gold-grade gear could barely manage against the monsters and bosses at the lower end of that range. Beyond level 100, every five-level jump in a monster's rank brought a significant spike in power. Without matching high-end weapons and equipment, Tier 2 players simply couldn't handle those monsters and bosses. After all, only a small minority of players could advance to a Tier 3 Class—most remained stuck at Tier 2.
Perhaps as those Tier 2 players continued leveling, the path to Tier 3 would gradually grow easier, but even then they needed top-tier equipment to support them.
"Guild Leader, I got an unidentifiable torn parchment drop here!" Hei Zi held up an ancient piece of sheepskin that had fallen from a draconian champion, handing it to Shi Feng with barely contained anticipation.
His Appraisal skill had already reached the Advanced tier, just a step away from Master level. If even he couldn't identify it, the item had to be something special.
"A parchment?" Shi Feng took it and used his Omniscient Eye to appraise it, breaking into a pleasant smile. "Not bad—this is a magic trap blueprint!"
"A trap blueprint?" Hei Zi's enthusiasm deflated instantly. "What a waste. I was hoping it'd be a weapon or equipment blueprint."
Traps were nothing special in the Divine Realm. Some players had tried setting them up against field bosses, but compared to magic formations, traps were sorely lacking—sometimes they didn't even work on Great Lord-class bosses. They were only useful against regular Lord monsters.
And Lord-class monsters posed no threat whatsoever to Tier 2 players even without traps, so why waste time and materials setting them up?
"This is actually a good thing," Shi Feng said with an amused chuckle. "Have everyone take a look at it first. If any more drop, bring them to me. Also, let Melancholic Smile know to start stockpiling the materials listed on this blueprint—buy as many as she can."
Traps had been the bane of Divine Realm players for a long time. Even many top experts had been killed by traps. But because players had found them consistently ineffective against monsters, the whole concept had gradually faded from memory.
However, in the numerous ruins scattered across the Divine Realm, traps were everywhere. How could something so prevalent be useless?
The reason was simple: all the traps players had been able to learn before were elementary traps. The materials and construction methods were rudimentary, so their effect on monsters was naturally poor. The Main God System had deliberately designed it that way—to let players slowly adapt to and learn about traps before they hit level 100.
Once players crossed the level-100 threshold, however, the Main God System lifted those restrictions. All traps targeting level-100-and-above monsters were fully unlocked, and Intermediate-tier traps became available. Both the material requirements and the construction difficulty increased significantly, but so did their effectiveness.
A level-100 Great Lord-class boss caught in one of these traps would suffer miserably—at best, it would enter a crippled state for a short duration; at worst, its combat power would plummet. Compared to the precious and rare magic formations, traps were far more accessible to the masses.
In his previous life, many Tier 2 experts had relied on these traps to take on high-level bosses and grind in the field. Without them, there would have been no room for Tier 2 players to survive.
The magic trap blueprint before him was the Reverse-Flow Swamp—a trap designed for monsters below level 120. Once triggered, it immobilized the target for a short period and reduced both its reaction speed and attributes by 15%. Naturally, the stronger the monster, the weaker the effect, but against a sub-120 Great Lord, it was still highly effective.
A level-100 Great Lord was already a bona fide boss. Even ordinary Tier 3 experts could only evade one—they couldn't solo it, merely hold their own.
With this magic trap in hand, a group of Tier 2 players could pool their strength and bring down a level-100 Great Lord.
"Got it, I'll spread the word," Hei Zi said, still lacking enthusiasm. In his mind, traps were a far cry from magic formations.
Subsequently, Shi Feng led the team in an all-out assault on the draconian army without rushing toward the central region of the Cold Spring Great Forest. After a full day of frenzied slaughter, Shi Feng obtained four more trap blueprints—two were magic trap Reverse-Flow Swamps, and two were physical trap Blaze Traps. The first-clear bonuses were proving quite generous.
Physical traps had many shortcomings compared to magic traps—flying monsters, for instance, were largely immune to them. But they had a clear advantage: they could hit groups of enemies and deal heavy sustained damage to anything caught inside.
With a proper combination of magic and physical traps, even Tier 2 players could live comfortably in level-100 neutral maps. They would still fall short of Tier 3 players inside Dungeons, but in the open world, the difference was far less pronounced.
And just as the team finished off yet another level-102 draconian champion, brilliant violet light erupted from numerous members' bodies. Chains of translucent energy shattered in the void with a thunderous crack, and one after another, they ascended to level 100.