A full moon hung in the ashen sky, casting a faint silver glow over the quiet forest. Frog calls echoed across a shimmering little lake, and fireflies drifted through the trees, making it look like a dreamlike fairy tale.
This was the Moonlight Woods — also known as the players' "final resting place."
The moment Shi Feng arrived, he pulled out a Concealment Scroll and activated its magic without hesitation.
Gorgeous magical runes flew off the scroll, and Shi Feng's body immediately became somewhat blurred. From a distance, it would be extremely difficult to notice his presence.
A single Concealment Scroll cost 40 copper coins — practically an ordinary player's entire fortune.
The price was steep, but the effect was remarkable. A Concealment Scroll drastically reduced a player's presence, making them much harder for nearby enemies to detect. It lasted half an hour and was essential gear for dangerous areas.
It wasn't as good as an Assassin's Stealth, but for classes that had no stealth ability, it was more than good enough. What more could you ask for?
With the Concealment Scroll active, any normal monster below level 15 would have an extremely hard time spotting him within 30 yards — unless he did something suicidal like attacking them directly.
Shi Feng slipped into the woods, heading for the central zone of the Moonlight Woods to find a Moonstone and break this annoying curse as soon as possible.
The Moonlight Woods was a level 9 monster zone located not in the Star Moon Kingdom but in a separate spatial pocket. Every major city had a teleportation gate leading to this version of the Moonlight Woods. In his previous life, over ninety percent of players came here to grind and hunt for treasure. Even at level 10, they'd get slaughtered over and over, because the monsters here roamed in packs of three to five and hit devastatingly hard. One mistake and the whole party would be wiped out. And yet, players kept charging in, dying again and again as if possessed, which was why the place earned the nickname "the final resting place."
The main reason players kept coming back was that the monsters here dropped gemstones — and not at low rates either. Treasure chests were especially plentiful, and eighty percent of them contained gemstones.
Gemstones were extremely valuable in the Divine Realm because they boosted stats, with different colors providing different bonuses. Red gems gave Strength, yellow gave Agility, blue gave Stamina, purple gave Intelligence, and green gave Spirit. Even first-tier gemstones added 2 points each. It didn't sound like much, but a piece of Bronze Equipment could socket one gem, a Black Iron piece could socket two, and when every piece of gear across your entire body was socketed, the accumulated stat bonus became terrifying.
Demand for gemstones was enormous, which kept prices consistently high and drove countless players to risk their lives here farming for them.
The Moonlight Woods also held all kinds of resources — ore, herbs, rare ingredients, and more. The most famous attraction was the fifty-man team dungeon "The Slumbering Castle," which was also the best place to obtain Deck cards. However, to exchange for Deck cards, a team had to clear the dungeon first, which would then unlock access for all players in the zone.
But Shi Feng wasn't after Deck cards right now. He needed a Moonstone, and those could only be found in the core zone of the Moonlight Woods. The problem was that he was only level 3, deep in a level 9 monster zone — and the Moonlight Woods was notoriously dangerous on top of that. He had to proceed with extreme caution.
If he died, all that effort farming 200,000 experience points would be wasted, and he'd have to start from scratch. He hadn't reached level 10 yet, so he couldn't unlock city teleportation gates. Dying meant spawning back in Red Leaf Town, and the only way to return was to grind up more experience — there was no alternative.
He already had a significant level gap compared to the first-tier experts. Dying and having to farm another 200,000 experience points was a nightmare he didn't even want to imagine.
After just a few steps through the forest, he could spot level 9 Shadow Panthers hidden in trees or crouching in the undergrowth, ready to ambush. Without the Concealment Scroll, he would've been detected long ago at level 3.
Facing level 9 monsters head-on was out of the question — he simply couldn't win a direct fight. Besides, his goal wasn't to kill monsters, so there was no reason to engage the Shadow Panthers at all.
Shi Feng carefully skirted around one Shadow Panther after another, spending over an hour before he finally reached a broad expanse of towering stone pillars.
A colony of belligerent creatures called Mountain Beast Warriors inhabited this stone formation. They were stubborn fighters who embraced hardship, loved battle above all else, and grew fiercer the longer they fought. They also guarded a massive hoard of treasure that included rare Moonstones.
The stone forest was patrolled by hulking beasts clad in armor, each carrying a spiked club taller than two men. There was no way to sneak through — stepping inside meant a hundred percent chance of detection, followed by a swarm of Mountain Beast Warriors rushing in, each swinging their club to smash him into paste.
Mountain Beast Warrior. Normal type. Level 9. HP 1100/1100.
"Looks like I'll have to clear them out one by one." Shi Feng searched for a while but couldn't find any safe way through. The only option was to fight his way forward.
He had to admit, Epic-tier quests were brutal. This was only the beginning, and he was already facing level 9 Mountain Beast Warriors at level 3. He didn't want to think about what awaited him further in.
Fortunately, he was intimately familiar with the Moonlight Woods and knew several tricks for dealing with Mountain Beast Warriors.
Despite their fearsome power — even same-level Shield Warriors and Guardian Knights couldn't survive many of their blows — Mountain Beast Warriors were large and slow. In his previous life, many Elementalists used Ice Arrows to slow them down, then exploited the unique terrain to dodge their spiked clubs and kite them to death.
The stone forest had become a grinding paradise for ranged classes, with Mountain Beast Warriors being kited all over the place.
Shi Feng had no slowing skills, but he could make up for it with other tools. As for kiting the Mountain Beast Warriors, he had Sword Control Return to Heaven, a supremely rare skill that significantly extended his attack range. He refused to believe that a Sword King veteran couldn't match a level 10 Elementalist at using terrain to dodge.
After carefully studying the terrain, he mentally rehearsed the fight five full times.
The difference between an unrehearsed and a rehearsed approach was night and day. Mental simulation was something virtually every expert did — and did regularly.
The reason experts were experts was that they prepared more than everyone else.
Ordinary players often envied top-tier Divine Realm experts, lamenting that their own skills could never measure up, never realizing how hard those experts worked and how much more effort they put in than everyone else. That was what made them shine.
After completing his simulation, Shi Feng pulled out a Black Iron Beer and a Speed Scroll.
Black Iron Beer lowered a monster's effective level by 2. Combined with the Abyssal's stats, he wouldn't suffer any level suppression against a level 9 monster and could deal normal damage. The Speed Scroll cost 25 copper coins each and boosted movement speed by 25% for 10 minutes — an excellent lifesaving tool in the field. He'd bought a full twenty of them specifically for situations like this.
Any ordinary player hearing this would call Shi Feng a reckless spendthrift. Who burns a Speed Scroll on normal mobs? That was absurdly extravagant. But Shi Feng used one without hesitation.
Without the curse, his base stats would've been enough to kite comfortably. But with a 50% stat penalty, the suppression was too severe. Using a Speed Scroll was the safe play.
If he messed up, it wouldn't just mean losing a level — it meant 200,000 experience points down the drain.
Spotting the nearest Mountain Beast Warrior, Shi Feng took several deep breaths to steady himself. Then he exploded off the ground and charged straight at the closest one.