40 of the Top 50 Spots

After clearing Giant Bear Cave, Lucas continued to lead the team through the other two dungeons in Bear Forest.

\[Congratulations to players: Azure, Dauntless, Bella, Winter for clearing the Level 15 Nightmare Difficulty Dungeon - Dread Bear Forest]

\[Congratulations to players: Azure, Dauntless, Bella, Winter for clearing the Level 16 Nightmare Difficulty Dungeon - Dim Bear Den]

Winter tagged along and once again freeloaded on two dungeon first clears.

Unknowingly, Winter's skin had thickened a bit, and she was mingling a little more freely.

The feeling of being carried to victory wasn't bad either.

And on the way to the next dungeon, Azure didn't act like a big shot at all, teaching Dauntless how to operate in a simple and easy-to-understand way.

"Dauntless, you must always remember to connect basic attacks during the skill process to maximize damage."

"The scaling of your Majestic Five-Stage Slash is 6, and the scaling of basic attacks is 4."

"If you can connect basic attacks during the Majestic Five-Stage Slash, it's equivalent to increasing your output to 1.6 times its original value."

"And if you start with Dragon Soaring, then continuously use Five-Stage Slash to connect to basic attacks, you can immediately reset the cooldown of Dragon Soaring Sword Draw."

"But if you only follow up with Five-Stage Slash, there's no way to immediately reset the cooldown of Dragon Soaring. The difference in output efficiency between inserting basic attacks and not inserting basic attacks is at least twofold."

...

Lucas explained the operating techniques to Dauntless.

Dauntless wrote down the techniques that Lucas taught.

In addition to this superficial understanding of damage with inserted basic attacks, Azure occasionally talked about deeper understandings.

Even a master like Winter felt enlightened after listening to Lucas's explanations.

At the same time, Winter had a rough understanding of Bella and Dauntless's abilities.

Dauntless's most important ability seemed to be the ability to cast charged skills without charging.

And Bella's most important ability should be storing skills, and the skill effect was amplified, but she didn't know how much the amplification was.

Compared to them, her assassination-type talent didn't have much advantage in dungeon runs.

As for the person named Azure, his talent ability was unknown.

But he seemed to have an ability similar to \[Copy], which could borrow the equipment and abilities of teammates. If he could always cooperate with holders of S-rank talents, he would indeed be S-rank, and even have a higher upper limit.

Along the way, in just twenty minutes, Winter's level had risen to 16.

Lucas and the others had risen to level 18.

It didn't take much time to run dungeons; most of the time was wasted on the journey.

However, at this rate, the dungeons near Maple Leaf City might not be enough for them to clear.

This team had no intention of repeatedly running dungeons. After clearing one dungeon, they would directly switch to the next one.

Every dungeon was cleared on the first try.

There were only 11 dungeons below level 20 around Maple Leaf City.

Now, Godslayer Guild had cleared 6, and the number of remaining dungeons was less than half.

Judging by this progress, it was estimated that in another half hour, the dungeons around Maple Leaf City would all be marked with the name of Godslayer Guild.

According to normal development, these dungeons should be a diverse landscape for major guilds, competing with each other.

But now, it had completely turned into a one-sided situation.

In the guild rankings, Godslayer Guild's score had reached 10,000 points.

World First Clear +5000 points.

After that, each dungeon first clear earned 1000 points.

After Godslayer Guild, the second place was \[Shining] with 1000 points, third place \[Drunken Moon], fourth place \[Gentle Mire]… These guilds all had 1000 points, having achieved one dungeon first clear. Godslayer Guild's ranking could be called a landslide victory.

As for what the guild points were for, there were many uses: upgrading the guild, exchanging for prizes, opening the guild skill tree; all required points.

\----------------------------------------

**Outside Maple Leaf City - Bear Forest**

A team from Hidden Origin Guild was still searching for Azure's whereabouts.

Following the dungeons along the way, they were met with Godslayer Guild's clear records.

13 seconds, 21 seconds, 15 seconds, 9 seconds...

Looking at these records, \[Black Crystal] swallowed a mouthful of saliva. "Hey… Isn't Godslayer Guild a little too outrageous?"

\[Obsidian Stone], who was on the mission with him, responded, "S-ranks should all have this level of skill, right?"

"Bullshit. When we were competing for the records in the second server, Shadow's Twilight didn't have such terrifying records, right?" Black Crystal was a veteran player who had accounts in both the first and second servers, and was considered a veteran player of Hidden Origin Guild.

Shadow's Twilight was the S-rank player that Hidden Origin Guild recruited in the second server.

"I remember it was around a minute at the time."

"A minute and 9 seconds? That's too far off."

Obsidian Stone hummed in agreement. "That person named Bella's talent should be very suitable for dungeon runs, but it's a little terrifying that they can make such records at this time."

At this time, a newbie who was following them asked, "Don't we have such 10-second-level records?"

Hearing this question, Black Crystal sneered. "Ten seconds? Our records are all at least a minute or more."

The newbie was a little puzzled. "Ah? Why? Aren't we all S-rank?"

"There are gaps between S-ranks. Moreover, the primary task of S-rank talent holders is to level up first."

"Overlay, you're new to Epochal World, right? It's normal not to understand."

Black Crystal thought for a while, thinking about how to explain. Then he said, "Like this, I'll ask you a question. Do you think S-rank players level up faster, or ordinary players?"

Overlay didn't think and immediately replied, "That must be S-rank! They use all the resources of the entire guild."

"Hehe, then where does their equipment come from?" Black Crystal asked again.

Overlay touched his chin and thought, "Equipment… the guild buys it from other players…"

"Oh, I understand what you mean, senior!"

"Hehe, good that you understand." Black Crystal explained, "There's a gap between S-rank players and ordinary players, and this strategic existence can't lower their level just to break a dungeon record."

"Just like Ashwood Forest, they reached level 10 after clearing it once. After that, they lost the qualification to clear Ashwood Forest."

"Even if they have better equipment, there's no way to come back and break the record."

"Other dungeons are the same. Although S-rank talents are strong, without good enough equipment to match, they can't exert their best strength after all, and the records naturally won't go up."

Good records required to be made with good equipment. The eight major guilds all had S-rank talent players.

If their equipment was maxed out, the records they made wouldn't be too much worse than Bella's.

But the problem was, it couldn't be maxed out.

Who the hell could take out gold-quality equipment and custom-made exclusive weapons at level 10?

Nightmare difficulty dungeons only dropped silver-quality equipment at most.

To get gold-quality equipment, you needed to run Crazy difficulty dungeons, or world bosses could drop them.

At this stage, compared to the equipment of Godslayer Guild, the equipment of other players was like the difference between a modern army and primitive people.

Therefore, the records set by Bella were simply an insurmountable legend for other guilds.

While they were talking, another world announcement popped up.

\[Congratulations to players: Azure, Dauntless, Bella, Winter for clearing the Level 16 Nightmare Difficulty Dungeon - Raging Bear Cave]

Seeing this world announcement, sweat dripped from everyone's foreheads. "Hey hey… another one, hey."

"They've already taken six first clears in twenty minutes."

"Raging Bear Cave is in front, speed up and rush over there. We should be able to intercept them. Prioritize completing the task the guild leader gave us."

\----------------------------------------

**Bear Forest Dungeon - Raging Bear Cave**

Lucas and the others came out of the Raging Bear Cave dungeon.

In just ten minutes, Azure, Dauntless, and Bella had been geared up with silver equipment.

Head, bracers, belt, pants, clothes, two rings, one necklace, boots, weapon.

A total of ten equipment slots, all full of silver equipment, and all silver equipment above level 10.

The equipment leaderboard had even been dominated.

Nearly 40 of the top 50 equipment belonged to them.

The first and second equipment were naturally the two special weapons.

They didn't hide it, and Lucas didn't ask them to, anyway, this thing couldn't be hidden.

It was fine as long as you could see the name but not the effect.

The third, fourth, and fifth equipment were their gold equipment.

Further down the list was a row of silver equipment. Looking around, the entire leaderboard was filled with the names of the three people.

Fifth Equipment Holder: Azure

Sixth Equipment Holder: Bella

Seventh Equipment Holder: Dauntless

...

Even some of the equipment that had been phased out was still on the leaderboard.

Winter had certainly heard of dominating a list.

Occasionally, a certain guild would directly occupy three or four positions in the top ten of a certain leaderboard.

But Winter had never heard of such domination.

In one guild, only three members occupied more than forty positions in the top fifty.