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Zhong Qing decided to play as an Elementalist.

Although she was better at playing as a Berserker—more specifically, using a Berserker to beat Elementalists—her first choice for her second run, after achieving the "You Outside the Professional Circle" ending with Chen Guo, was to pursue the captain of the Misty Rain team, Chu Yunxiu, who matched her aesthetic preferences.

In the sixth run, Dai Yanqi was also an Elementalist.

In the main storyline of strategy games, giving gifts to ladies was less effective than accompanying them in the arena. However, due to the need for dungeon grinding, a Berserker didn't quite match up to the adaptability of an Elementalist.

Glory wasn't the type of game where characters could overlap and gather in a single spot; this was a significant advancement in the engine but truly a disaster for melee professions in terms of online gameplay.

Zhong Qing aimed to position herself as a gold team fighter or someone who could sell materials for profit, so she naturally needed a more versatile profession.

Zone 9 had been live for about seven months, meaning the newbie village wouldn't have the overcrowded scenes typical of fresh server launches, allowing her to smoothly complete quests and earn the foundational 340 attribute points without much hassle.

After learning the universal skills of Sprint and Roll, she proceeded to acquire the low-level Elementalist skills: Elemental Force, Electric Ring, Flame Bomb, Frost Snowball, and even leveled up her Healing spell to one for backup before level 20.

Though she hadn't played an Elementalist at a top-tier level, Zhong Qing was the type to use her brain over her hands when gaming. Among the Elementalist skills, she preferred Light and Ice elements, and even if the level 70 ultimate, Heavenly Thunder and Earth Fire, belonged to Lightning and Fire, it wouldn't affect her love for an Ice-centric control-oriented Elementalist build.

At her current level, having a Flame Bomb skill in her rotation was already quite good.

After clearing the basic skill point quests, her character had reached level 7. She used the coins from the quests to buy a green starter staff from the system shop, leaving her unable to afford armor yet, so she had to make do with her newb white gear.

During this questing period, she found her rhythm. Playing Glory in the real world was still a bit different from the holographic strategy games. No matter how much the promotional material touted an "absolutely realistic experience," the physical sensation of pressing keys, the mouse and keyboard setup, and the cramped environment she was in affected her performance, making it only slightly better than a veteran player who had played Glory before.

But that was fine; she had only been in the game for an hour.

Level 20 was necessary to unlock the world channel, allowing her to work on quests in peace without nearby chatter. However, now that she needed to grind dungeons to level up, she couldn't continue to block out the noise.

Just because it wasn't crowded didn't mean there weren't many new players.

Having played through the strategy game based on Glory, Zhong Qing knew well that as the advertising for Glory events reached a household level, the game itself attracted more traffic.

She clicked into a party looking for a "4-man output in the Green Forest, level 4." Not expecting to get into the first team she applied to, she was surprised when she was accepted immediately.

The minimap showed a teammate's position only ten squares away. When she turned, she saw a young man in heavy green armor, level 9, obviously the tank of the team, waving at her.

"Your level and gear suggest you're a returning player. Have you learned your skills?"

"Yep, all set," she replied confidently.

"Okay. We'll roll for rare materials, and gear will be rolled if someone in the team needs it."

Zhong Qing joined the young man and the remaining three team members, whose levels appeared to have just increased after finishing quests and running a dungeon.

With one tank, one healer, and two ranged damage dealers, the five-man team was experienced and didn't require additional instructions, diving straight into the dungeon.

The healer was a petite girl, but Zhong Qing could tell at a glance that her skill level was the highest in the group.

The aggro list showed a consistently stable output from her healing skills, even during the tank's strong aggro skill cycle, indicating she and the tank had likely worked together for some time.

Zhong Qing felt her Healing spell was going to waste, but it wasn't a bad thing.

"Are you slacking off, Lao Liu?"

After defeating the first boss and heading to the second, the knight glanced at the damage statistics and couldn't help but ask.

The "Lao Liu" he referred to was the team's swordsman.

Typically, mage-type characters had limited skills before level 20, making it impossible for them to out-damage melee characters, yet here she was, quietly outputting damage like a cannon.

Her manual skill usage targeted the boss's weak points, and Elemental Force served as an AoE skill, which became the first wave of AoE output after the knight gathered the mobs. The three-second wind-up time didn't hinder her timing; the instant-cast Electric Ring followed up with additional damage.

Her ugly green staff was certainly an upgrade from her white gear, allowing her to achieve much higher DPS than the swordsman in second place, who had invested in mobility stats.

All of this resulted in "Capture the Heart and Soul" securing a DPS position that significantly outperformed the others.

Before the damage statistics were revealed, the knight hadn't felt her presence at all, as all her high-damage cycles hit precisely when they needed to.

"You're really skilled, girl," the swordsman laughed, impressed.

As seasoned players, the knight wouldn't fail to notice that the swordsman performed normally, so it was clear this new addition to the team, who seemed ready to pursue the Elementalist path, was quite capable.

"Just an old player," Zhong Qing replied, relaxing her fingers for a moment before returning to the keyboard.

The first boss dropped light armor and a dagger, with the armor going to the swordsman. The dagger was merely green gear, intended for recycling in the system shop, while Zhong Qing handed the blue potion to the healer.

The second boss dropped a piece of cloth armor, which Zhong Qing rolled for successfully.

"How long are you online today? Want to form a fixed leveling team until level 20?" the healer asked as they cleared this dungeon.

Zhong Qing saw no reason to refuse. Her plan was to reach level 20, and finding an efficient team was certainly better than fumbling around applying for groups.

"Sure, but after this second dungeon, I need to learn some skills once I hit level 10."