Infinite Trial from the Giant

Loki.

This is the name, or game ID, of Xia Tian’s first teammate in this Sword Art Online world.

Without much pause, after Loki recovered, the two of them started to clear their respective missions in the forest as a team. Xia Tian also got some relevant information from Loki that he didn't know.

Right now, almost all of the players are centered around the Horenka stronghold. After all, this is the first place where players can receive large-scale subjugation missions. In addition to being able to quickly gain experience points and money through these subjugation missions, they can also obtain corresponding enhancement materials from mission rewards and subjugated monsters.

Yes, like most MMORPG online games, Sword Art Online also has the element of strengthening.

Sharpness, speed, accuracy, weight and durability, these are the five major attribute parameters of weapons in Sword Art Online, and players can strengthen the materials and enhance any attribute of the weapon. Each time it is strengthened, a +1 suffix will be displayed on the weapon name. For example, if the sharpness is strengthened to two levels and the accuracy to one level respectively, then the weapon will have a +3 suffix. Of course, if you don't click on the weapon details to view it, you won't know which attributes the weapon has strengthened.

In addition, each weapon has its own number of enhancement attempts. For example, the novice curved sword in Xia Tian's hand has only two enhancement attempts. In other words, his weapon can only be enhanced to +2 at most. Moreover, if the enhancement is successful for the first time and becomes +1, but fails for the second time, then Xia Tian's weapon will regress due to the failure of enhancement and become the state without enhancement at the beginning. Moreover, since the number of enhancement attempts has been used up, there is no way to enhance it again. Therefore, unless you have a mysterious confidence in your luck, otherwise, in general, if you want to enhance successfully, you must prepare high-level materials that can increase the success rate.

As for the source of high-level materials, they are naturally the rewards for certain missions and materials with low drop rates from monsters.

Of course, Xia Tian also asked Loki what would happen if he continued to strengthen a weapon that had no more strengthening attempts. The answer he got was that it would not work and it would only be a waste of strengthening materials.

Based on the change in the black beetle's attack method and the replacement of the Kobold Lord's weapons seen in the anime, Xia Tian is skeptical as to whether the current settings after the official launch will remain the same as the closed beta.

As for the method of strengthening, it can be entrusted to NPCs or players with forging skills. However, now is the early stage of the game. Even if there are players who have mastered forging skills, the success rate of strengthening brought by his skill proficiency may not be as high as that of the old blacksmiths in the village of Horenka.

To sum up, Kell and strengthening materials have become the two most important things at the moment. Almost every closed beta player is constantly completing tasks to accumulate Kell and strengthening materials to strengthen their equipment.

"Is it because if novice players reach this level, the resources will be divided up faster, making it impossible to quickly improve their strength? Have you ever considered going to the next village or stronghold to avoid the newcomers? Is it because the level of the monsters behind is too high?" Xia Tian asked during the break.

After hearing Xia Tian's words, Loki sighed and replied, "The goal given by Kayaba Akihiko is to clear the game before letting us out. To clear the game, we must defeat the bosses on each floor of the maze area, all the way to the 100th floor. But in fact, there are bosses not only in the maze area in the game. The bosses in the maze area are generally called floor bosses, and in the non-maze area, that is, in the wild of each floor, there are also what are called territory bosses. Although these territory bosses are not as strong as floor bosses, they are definitely not much weaker. More importantly, the positions of territory bosses are fixed, and they will block all necessary paths."

As he spoke, Loki stretched out his hand and pointed towards the front of the forest.

"After passing through this forest, you will reach a lake area. There is only one way to pass through the lake, and the territory boss is blocking that road. Unless you successfully kill it, there is no way to pass through it."

"Territory BOSS." Xia Tian followed Loki's finger and looked forward, and said thoughtfully: "I see, it's not that you don't want to go to the next village, but because your current equipment and level can't defeat the territory BOSS, so you gather here to level up, right?"

"Yes." Loki nodded, "But it shouldn't take a few days to gather enough people to defeat the territory boss, and then we can continue to move forward."

Can we gather enough people?...How many people can we gather?

After seeing how Loki nearly died at the hands of the black beetle because he trusted his experience during the closed beta test too much, Xia Tian's ratings of these closed beta test players dropped a lot in his mind.

There is a saying that goes, those who drown are those who can swim. Although the closed beta players have much more experience than the novice players, compared to those novice players who are cautious because of their lack of experience, if these closed beta players overly rely on and trust the experience during the closed beta, then they will face the same fate as Loki did before. Just a slight difference that is completely different from the closed beta can lead to the death of these closed beta players who "can swim".

As he was thinking, another person's name flashed through Xia Tian's mind.

Kirito.

If the closed beta players are currently blocked in this Holenka stronghold, then Kirito may be the same. Similarly, the fighter who got there first should also be here. As long as Kirito is found, the identity of the fighter will be known. By now, Xia Tian has no intention of teaming up with Kirito. After all, apart from himself and the fighter, it is unclear whether there are other fighters left. In this case, Kirito himself is the best beacon. Anyone who is next to Kirito is most likely a fighter. Xia Tian does not want to expose his identity as a fighter too early.

What's more, it may not be a good thing to always team up with Kirito. If you are labeled as a cheater and attract hatred, it may cause some obstacles to completing the additional goals. It is a good choice to get to know Kirito as a member of the front-line strategy team.

"In that case, let's strengthen our own strength before attacking the territory boss."

"Ah."

Listening to Xia Tian's words, Loki gave a firm response.