Is this really a Game?!

In the following days, with the increased risk in their world due to the emerging chaos in monster territories, the team realized that a defensive strategy was crucial. They began by bolstering their base in Doncaster, enhancing its fortifications, and expanding their resources for emergency situations.

The system played a vital role in coordinating these efforts. The network of safe zones was upgraded, and communication within and between territories was improved. The teams of players proved invaluable in identifying the new, more formidable monsters that had started appearing. This allowed the team to adapt their strategies and increase their chances of survival during their hunting expeditions.

The team decided to increase the frequency of their hunts to keep the monster population in check. It was a dangerous endeavor, but they needed to protect their territories. They devised new tactics, shared their knowledge, and optimized their approach to face the stronger and previously unknown adversaries.

The cooperation between the territories was also another thing they placed great importance on. The alliances they had formed allowed them to share resources, information, and manpower more effectively. This collaboration provided an added layer of protection, and the territories were becoming more interconnected, forming a unified front against potential demonic incursions.

The players in the territory were strong, but it was now that the difference in innate talent had started really showing as many were now stuck in Tiers III and IV. There were some that had come close to reaching the peak of the Tier and were close to the evolution challenge, but compared to the past, when the players would have already received their challenges or were already doing them after Reign and the others had evolved and come back, none had done so right now.

Even Elijah and the other players who were considered as the 'elites' of the territory were finding it difficult.

It wasn't only because of innate talent as they were quite talented and hadn't really come across any bottlenecks so far, but mostly because of how difficult and dangerous hunting Tier IV monsters was. It was very easy for a larger group to get alarmed by a battle and come over to fight them after all, and since Reign and the others had dealt with the issues on the mountain range, there were barely any Tier IV monsters there.

It seemed that the system had started placing some monsters after what had happened, but the players were forced to go to other areas in order to hunt. Luckily, with their alliances and the humble network of portals they had, it wasn't too difficult to go to areas that were far away.

Even with the disappearance of the barriers, many monsters still preferred staying in the areas they had been present for months now. It was mostly the weaker monsters that would go to lower-ranked areas since they could gain more territory and be safer there, which did make those areas dangerous, but that was mostly for the lower-level players.

Reign had also gone to Adrian.

He had given the mysterious rock to Adrian, who was able to easily identify it. As expected, it was quite valuable and would be enough to actually turn Reign's rank SS sword into an SSS rank.

SSS-ranked items actually went through a qualitative change compared to other items. They didn't gain a huge increase in power compared to rank SS items, but they were usable by all tiers above Tier IV, even if one reached Tier X, they would get some bonuses from such an item.

Rank Z items were a different story altogether as the best rank Z items were even usable by Transcendents and could be immensely powerful. With two swords that were rank SSS with him, Reign didn't need to fear lacking a weapon in the future.

His power had drastically improved thanks to his new weapons as he was previously using a Rank S and a Rank SS sword, but now both were Rank SSS.

Upon reaching Rank SSS, the new Sword of Dominance was now able to summon two clones who had 70% of Reign's stats. Of course, the more powerful Reign became, the less of a percentage the clones would be able to have. That was what happened before as at the beginning, the clone had 80% of Reign's stats, but the more powerful Reign became, the less the clone was able to copy.

He could also choose whether to summon both of them or only one, if he summoned one, he could then summon another the same day. Furthermore, the length of time the clones would be active had increased, from the previous 20 minutes, the clones could now exist for 30 mins.

They had still not gone to the desert, however.

It was still too dangerous, even for them. The sheer number of Tier V monsters made it impossible even for Reign and the others to go there during the night and level up, it was simply far too much.

If they all went all out and used everything they had, including Reign's transformation, they could actually slaughter quite a lot of monsters in a short period of time, potentially leveling up multiple times, but that was not something they were even thinking of doing.

Using all of their strength like that was something they could only do once every couple of days, even once a week depending on what they used, and it would make them vulnerable until the cooldown was over as they wouldn't be able to use their full strength if something dangerous suddenly happens.

Of course, they were planning on going to the desert later in the future as the number, as well as the concentration of monsters, made it a perfect place to level up quickly. To those powerful enough, the desert was the perfect farming spot.

'Have you gained anything from the ship, Jared?'

"A bit, I have managed to gain a deeper understanding of the civilization's technology and how it functions, but I'm afraid that that is all, compared to my makers, they are at the same time more and less advanced, I'm not certain how exactly I would rank them without being able to see much more."

'I see, can the ship be repaired and used in the future?'

"Yes, but I am not sure if you truly want to do that, you could very easily find yourself targeted by the system for that, without sufficient strength, you should not do such things if we come face to face with similar pieces of technology, if you are interested in them, you can store them in the base, we have more than enough space inside anyway."

"The storage space is only one of the functions, over time more shall be revealed to you master, the first one will be shown to you after you step into the Power Realm, the makers have found that strength sufficient for one to know a bit more and have a deeper control over the base."

"That is also when you will be able to control the snakes, keep in mind that although the base can repair them, we cannot make more, if one is completely destroyed, we have the full code and its AI, but without sufficient materials and power, we will not be able to create their bodies again."

'Understood.' Reign said as he nodded his head inwardly.

"How did your investigation go?" Reign then asked Shadow who shook his head.

"Still too dangerous, even by air, the monsters there are strong, I don't think we should attempt to go over before Tier VI, hopefully, the aerial monsters won't become a lot more powerful before we reach that tier."

Shadow had gone together with Beast and Wolf to try and fly over to New York.

They all knew that it was too dangerous to try and use a boat of some sort to get there as the aquatic monsters present were simply too powerful. One player had been standing and looking at the sea one day when he saw a boat coming from New York, he got excited by seeing people, but when they were only halfway there, a giant monster leaped out of the water and swallowed the small boat whole.

Its size alone was massive, reaching the same size if not even above that of the blue whale, but compared to the gentle giant that was the blue whale, this one had a huge mouth that was filled with razor-sharp teeth. That alone made everybody understand just how dangerous the water currently was.

Shadow and the other two tried flying over slowly, they had only flown a bit before seeing the powerful monsters that were around New York, plenty of which were Tier V and a danger to them and their flying beasts. They had quickly returned, unwilling to fight the monsters that could prove to be a great danger to their lives.

"So, I guess we should be looking around to find a new hunting spot." Reign said with a chuckle as the others nodded.