MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

The first level cap within King of Pantheon was at Level 100. Once players reached Level 100, they would receive no more EXP even if they farmed monsters, dungeons or even missions. Furthermore, their levels would be locked, and they would be unable to level up any further. The only way for the restriction to be waived is for the system to increase the level cap.

The level cap was implemented in order to appease future players. At the end of the day, King of Pantheon only had one server, and it would be released globally. If they had allowed the first batch of players to grind levels without any restriction, it would undoubtedly cause the newer players to lose their motivation to level up, as no amount of effort would enable them to catch up with the veteran players.

By implementing the level cap, they would be able to mitigate the problem by a great deal.

Since Li Yi was the first player to reach Level 100, he had received rewards worthy of his accomplishment. Among them included 20 Skill Points, zero EXP loss on death, and no equipment loss within dungeons, all of which were extremely hard to obtain.

The game world was in shock, nobody had expected that Li Yi’s reason for abandoning the dungeon to be this.

“Level cap? What’s that? Perverted Wing, why did you leave the party again?”

“I’ve already reached the level cap, I don’t receive EXP anymore. You guys can carry on, pay no mind to me.”

Li Yi flashed a faint grin and proceeded to the other small room.

“Is that a good or bad thing?” said Jiaojiao worriedly.

Li Yi indulged Jiaojiao, “Of course it’s a good thing. How can being the Best within the Continent, losing no EXP on death, and losing no equipment within dungeons be a bad thing?”

“So, should we continue leveling?” Little Elf from the Magical Realm inquired.

“Why of course, the level cap rewards are only reserved for 10,000 players per continent. Don’t come crying to me if the rewards get taken due to your procrastination.”

“Understood.”

Li Yi did not need to explain further as the three girls had already understood. They needed to rush their levels and reach the level cap…

Although he could no longer level up, Li Yi did not loaf around. He went to the center of Naga Altar and attempted to bait over the small monsters there. Following that, he used ‘Mislead’ to bug out a few of them, and then he attacked them until their health was low. Once that was done, he brought them to Jiaojiao’s side and allowed her party to finish them off.

By doing so, he had tremendously improved their leveling rate.

A while later, the Xu Sisters had come online. After numerous days of grinding, the pair of sisters had learned to replicate the bug. Now that the sisters were here, Li Yi could confidently hand over the task of bugging the Nagas to them and he went back to the city to learn new skills.

With the 20 Skill Points he had obtained, he was finally able to max out Piercing Arrow.

Once he reached Shattered Frost City, he immediately went to converse with the Archer Skill Mentor. By doing so, he had replaced the Level 20 Piercing Arrow with the Advanced skill, Evil Piercing Arrow.

[Level 1 Evil Piercing Arrow: Additional 150% ATK and strips the target of all their buffs. Furthermore, the target is unable to receive any buffs within the next 10 seconds. Skill cooldown: 3 minutes]

Now that he had learned Evil Piercing Arrow, the next time he encountered Classes that could use Fusion like Alex, he would be able to dispel them in one shot.

After learning Evil Piercing Arrow, Li Yi hastily made his way to the Celestial Capital and claimed a combat mount, Black-feathered Golden Eagle from the National Quartermaster.

Black-feathered Golden Eagle was a custom mount for players from the Invincible Continent, and it was available for free to any players who had reached the level cap.

[Black-feathered Golden Eagle (Gold Quality): Aerial Movement Speed: 230%. Passive: Increases HP threshold by 5%]

The stats of Black-feathered Golden Eagle were simple but practical. The passive HP boost by itself would already drive people crazy over it, much less its high movement speed that boosted its performance in sky battles.

This was the best flying mount he could use before obtaining the Black Dragon Princess, Onyxia.

With Black-feathered Golden Eagle in tow, Li Yi’s gear score was now at 231 points. Although he had not touched Instance Dungeons for a month, his gear score was still ahead of a huge majority of players.

Currently, the 5-man Instance Dungeons of the Light and Dark Instances have been grinded to the bone and there was a vast supply of Light and Darkness Pearls. Tier 2 Equipment had long appeared among players, but since the pearls could only be exchanged for two pieces of untradeable equipment, and they would disappear permanently once they dropped out, they were regarded as temporary equipment to most players. The true grind lay in getting their hands on the Tier 2 Equipment from the Group Instance Dungeons.

Flying on Black-feathered Golden Eagle had allowed Li Yi to experience the beauty of flying mounts. Unlike the clunky Horned Griffin, his new mount was fast and steady and allowed him to swoop several hundred meters in a blink of an eye.

Li Yi flew past the Abyssal Canyon and headed straight towards Wailing Grotto.

With his level maxed and serving no role for Jiaojiao and the others’ leveling needs, he decided to get his hands on the Overlord Arrow Skill Tome that was sold by the Frogman Quartermaster.

He had maxed out his levels, gotten his hands on decent equipment, completed most of his skills, but he still lacked the powerhouse that was called Overlord Arrow. This did not sit well with Li Yi, as the main reason he chose to play the Archer class was due to it having Overlord Arrow.

By borrowing Black-feathered Golden Eagle’s speed, Li Yi reached the western entrance of the Wailing Grotto in no time. It was there that Li Yi spotted two parties engaging in furious combat.

Li Yi would not have bothered the PK of ordinary strangers. However, it just so happened that Li Yi recognized one of the parties.

There were 31 players in total. On one side was ten Paladins, whereas the other was filled with an assortment of classes. The other side was currently attacking the ten Paladins in a pincer attack.

The 10 Paladins were in a sorry state, as they died immediately after the resurrected. They fell one after another as if to replace the other as a meat bag. However, they were visibly agitated, and they immediately corpse-run after death, showing only defiance to their enemies.

Li Yi did not recognize anyone from the larger party, but he was well acquainted with the ten Paladin party. There was no mistaking it, as the plainly-clothed Punishment Paladin that was leading the party was none other than his classmate, Holy Pure Eh.

Holy Pure Eh had established his own guild, called Holy Light Glory Knights, and they only accepted Paladins, categorically rejecting other classes. It was quite a unique body, but regrettably, he did not manage the guild well, and since the classes within the guild were too monotone, they held no advantages, be it in clearing dungeons or grinding monsters. Although it was refreshing to new recruits, it quickly became unbearable after some time.

Nothing they did ever panned out, and they were bullied wherever they went. The guild’s future did not look bright…

More and more members left as time passed, causing Holy Light Glory Knights’ numbers to plummet. At its peak, the guild had over 300 players, but now, they were reduced to only 10 players.

Could Li Yi bear to see his old classmate get bullied?

Definitely not!

Li Yi privately messaged Holy Pure Eh, telling him not to resurrect, and following that, he launched Shoot at Random in mid-air.

Swoosh swoosh swoosh swoosh swoosh—

Li Yi’s body was enveloped in golden light, and he rained down countless arrows on them. Before the players had even registered what happened, half of them were already massacred.

“Meteor Arrow Skill! Evil Piercing Arrow!”

Tch tch tch—

Like a god of death, Li Yi descended from the heavens. When he finally touched the ground, all 21 of his enemies had been wiped out. It was then that Holy Pure Eh and his party decided to get up, and they were bewildered by the bodies littered on the ground.

They were all players from the Invincible Continent, and some of them had even partied up with Li Yi before. However, in a year’s time, Li Yi had become a god-defying one-man army, while they were still powerless against enemy ambushes.

“Guild Master Dark Wing, I would like to join your guild!” A Holy Shield Paladin spoke out.

“Me too. I can’t go on like this, if I did, I’ll never see the light of day.”

Out of the ten Paladins, seven of them had expressed their intention to quit, causing Guild Master Holy Pure Eh’s face to turn metallic green in envy.

“Holy Pure, it’s not like we don’t want to help, but there’s really no future for us if we carry on this way. We get killed wherever we go, and we’re even having a hard time doing a quest in the Southern Continent.” A Holy Light Paladin spoke hotly.

Without waiting for Holy Pure Eh’s reaction, the seven of them left the guild.

Li Yi smiled wryly as he shook his head. Under the current circumstances, he would not have accepted them even If they were the best players in the entire game.

After all, he had to show respect to his former classmate!

Holy Pure Eh heaved a sigh, “Those of you who don’t want to stay can leave. It’s as you say, my guild has no future, I’m sorry for wasting a year’s worth of your time.”

“Dark Wing! We’re from Reigning the World Guild, and we have a Secret Alliance. So, why did you kill us?”

One of the people on the floor yelled out angrily.

During Li Yi’s month of leveling, the System had made some minor adjustments that allowed corpses to speak directly again.

Li Yi pointed to Holy Pure Eh and gave a curt reply, “He’s my friend.”

“Friend? We were friends once too. Did you forget how Reigning the World helped you last time? Do you burn the bridges you cross? Is this the character of the best Archer within the Invincible Continent?” Each word of the corpse lying on the floor dripped with venom.

Li Yi chuckled, unperturbed. “Say whatever you want, but don’t you dare forget that as long as I’m here, I’ll kill you whenever you stand!”

Although there were 21 of them, when they saw that their opponent was Li Yi, none of them dared to resurrect.

Holy Pure Eh smiled bitterly, “We wanted to enter the grotto to complete a quest, but they barred our entry. Something about Night Moon occupying the place. In our fit of anger, we…”

Li Yi was surprised, “The Western Continent has occupied Southern Continent grounds?”

He suddenly realized that Night Moon was pretty brilliant.

“Guild Master Dark Wing, are you really rejecting us?” The seven Paladins that quitted Holy Pure Eh’s guild spoke up once more.

“Yep.” Li Yi shook his head.

Holy Pure Eh spoke up, “Please accept them. They’re the Elites from my guild and they’ve really wasted their potential in my guild. Please don’t hold it against them.”

“Hehe, I know, but no means no. Ultimately, I prefer those who are loyal and deem those who leave at the first sign of danger as unreliable. How would you feel if we faced real danger in reality, and although we could’ve weathered it out together, they left at first sight?”

Li Yi’s words were directed at both Holy Pure Eh and the seven Paladins that left.

“Ermm…”

Holy Pure Eh nodded his head, and after pondering, he decided to disband his guild.

“We are now guildless players, old friend, do you mind accepting us? You either accept all ten of us or none at all!”

Seeing Holy Pure Eh’s determination staggered Li Yi…

…