[The first floor of the Divine Might Tower]
In the endless, open rainforest...
Snap!
Lin Mo crushed a ticket in his hand.
Whoosh!
A beam of white light fell in front of him.
The next second, a saber-toothed tiger appeared before his eyes.
Lin Mo recognized it immediately. It was the Brutal Saber-Toothed Tiger from Tiger Forest, the level 53 monster zone east of Inferno City.
"So the monsters in the Divine Might Tower aren't created out of thin air. It simply selects level 51-55 monsters from within Inferno City based on the floor's level to serve as players' opponents."
ROAR!
The level 53 Brutal Saber-Toothed Tiger let out a roar, opened its bloodstained jaws, and charged straight at Lin Mo.
The moment Lin Mo raised Phantom World: Wrath of Thunder, a normal attack shot out with a whoosh and pierced straight through the tiger's head.
-90,486 (Critical)!
He hadn't activated his equipment set skill.
He didn't have Seraph Siya's Divine Descent buff.
He hadn't even used a skill.
Just one plain normal attack was enough for Lin Mo to kill the saber-toothed tiger with ease.
This was the power of a Black Dragon artifact.
The authority of the Black Dragon Emperor Ring, an SS-grade artifact.
With the Black Dragon Emperor Ring's normal attack damage bonus, Lin Mo's basic attack dealt over 300% attack scaling, making it comparable to an A-grade skill.
Awoo!
With a mournful cry, the saber-toothed tiger collapsed.
[Ding! You killed a Level 53 Brutal Saber-Toothed Tiger. Reward: EXP +100,000!]
Hearing the battle notification, Lin Mo was slightly surprised, "How is it not affected by the level difference?"
In the World of Divine Oracle, players receive bonus experience for killing monsters above their own level.
Likewise, killing monsters below their level reduces both experience and drop rates.
Lin Mo was already level 68.
Normally, killing a level 53 monster should have reduced his rewards to the minimum, just 10%.
Yet the system had still awarded him the full experience for killing a level 53 monster.
There was even a pile of copper coins beside the tiger's corpse. Lin Mo picked them up and counted twenty-six.
It was also the normal drop amount for a level 53 monster.
Lin Mo thought to himself, "Looks like killing monsters inside the Divine Might Tower isn't affected by level differences when calculating rewards."
That was definitely an advantage.
At the current stage, many level 56 or 57 players weren't strong enough to fight monsters above level 60.
But they also didn't want to lose rewards by farming level 51 or 52 monsters.
As a result, they were stuck in an awkward position.
The Divine Might Tower completely solved that problem.
It let them farm lower-level monsters easily without reducing their rewards.
At that moment, Ning Xi happily said, "Then we can list this as one of the Divine Might Tower's advantages in its description."
"Mm," Lin Mo nodded, "That'll help attract players."
It seemed coming here personally to test it had been the right decision.
Unfortunately, killing this saber-toothed tiger hadn't given Lin Mo any reputation.
Then he remembered the tower's settings.
Players only had a chance to receive bonus reputation when killing monsters inside the Divine Might Tower. It wasn't guaranteed.
Thinking that through, he accepted it.
If every small monster guaranteed reputation, that would be far too overpowered.
After all, even Ning Xi's artifact Destiny Token: Heavenly Might only had a 1% chance to grant reputation when killing ordinary monsters.
So Lin Mo crushed the remaining nine tickets in his hand.
Nine ordinary monsters of various kinds, ranging from levels 51 to 55, appeared at once.
Apocalypse: Storm Arrow Rain!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
With one SSS-grade ultimate skill, Lin Mo instantly wiped them all out.
At the same time, Ning Xi also used ten tickets at once to summon ten monsters.
Then she used her own SSS-grade ultimate, Apocalypse: Frozen World, to instantly kill every one of them.
After unlocking her SS-grade talent, Ever-Changing, Zhao Lingyun's strength had increased tremendously.
Using the tier-four purple weapon Lin Mo had given her together with her talent: Mass Transformation and Mass Damage.
She didn't have the overwhelming burst damage that let Lin Mo and Ning Xi instantly wipe out an entire group with one skill.
But after using several skills, killing all ten monsters was no problem.
Compared to before, when even killing a level-50-plus ordinary monster took her forever, Zhao Lingyun was already more than satisfied with the strength she had now.
Then they compared their results.
All three were stunned to discover that after killing thirty monsters in total, they hadn't gained a single point of reputation.
"I refuse to believe it!"
Lin Mo returned to the Divine Might Tower lobby and bought three hundred tickets from Wuna in one go.
Then he returned to the first floor.
Using all three hundred tickets at once, he instantly summoned three hundred monsters.
The monsters summoned inside the Divine Might Tower didn't belong exclusively to the summoner. Other players could also help kill them.
However, unlike teaming up outside, where everyone shared the rewards, inside the Divine Might Tower, only the player who landed the killing blow received the full rewards. Everyone else who participated got nothing.
At this point, they no longer cared about the monster rewards.
The main goal was to test the reputation drop rate.
So Zhao Lingyun used her illusion techniques to control the entire battlefield.
Lin Mo and Ning Xi unleashed a relentless barrage of attacks together.
Before long, all three hundred monsters had been wiped out.
Just then, a system notification sounded beside Ning Xi's ear.
[Ding! Honorable Lord, congratulations! Player Rulebound has fortunately obtained 1 Reputation while killing monsters in your territory. You automatically receive a 10% commission reward: Reputation +10 (100x Reputation Bonus activated)!]
Lin Mo killed 133 monsters.
Yet he only gained 1 point of reputation.
Ning Xi killed 167 monsters and only gained 2 points of reputation.
"It looks like on the first floor, killing monsters only has a 1% chance to award 1 reputation point."
Lin Mo frowned slightly, "The drop rate is too low."
Even though Ning Xi's gains weren't actually bad, her SSS-grade talent, Supreme Emperor, increased reputation gains by one hundred times.
Normally, when someone earned 1 reputation inside the Divine Might Tower, the lord would only receive 10% of it, that was just 0.1 reputation.
But Ning Xi received 10 reputation directly, a full ten times the player's gain.
As long as one person earned 1 reputation inside the Divine Might Tower, Ning Xi would receive 10 reputation as a reward.
If one thousand people each gained 1 reputation, Ning Xi would receive 10,000.
Ten thousand people would mean 100,000.
One hundred thousand people would mean 1,000,000.
And Ning Xi didn't have to do anything.
The reputation was awarded automatically. All she had to do was sit back and collect it.
But the problem Lin Mo was most worried about was, "An average player might need half a day, or even a full day, just to kill a hundred ordinary monsters."
"After spending that much time, they'd only get 1 extra reputation point. I doubt many people would stick with it."
As for the advantage that monster rewards inside the Divine Might Tower weren't affected by level differences, it only barely offset the disadvantage of having to spend money on tickets, which was basically paying to spawn monsters.
Just as Lin Mo and the others were thinking about how to solve this problem, notifications began popping up nonstop in front of Ning Xi.
[Ding! Honorable Lord, a visitor has entered your territory's Divine Might Tower!] (Notifications can be disabled.)
[Ding! Honorable Lord, a visitor has entered your territory's Divine Might Tower!]
"Let's stop worrying about that for now."
Lin Mo said, "Let's see how things are going first."