Chương 52: Immersion Mode

The desert stretched ahead, pale gold and too open. Wind carried sand across the broken stone outside the dungeon entrance. Farther off, dunes rose and fell in long curves, hiding monsters, players, quest traps, and probably several NPCs waiting to ambush him with quests. Meno checked his Level 36 bar, then rolled his shoulders.

"Okay," he said.

"More data time. Full speed, no looting." loot Bradbaron crying what about materials unhinged route NO LOOTING???

"I'm going to run around the dunes and spam projectiles into everything to see how long a level takes," Meno said.

"Need at least 100 Normal monsters. I haven't seen a Moderate threat monster in ages, which is weird. It's always Normal or High for some reason." He started down the dune at a jog, then slowed enough to finish the thought.

"Moderate would still be worse than High, but way better than Normal. If it exists, I want to know where the AI hid it." loot slows? loot is money you just said you need money"If I loot, I stop. If I stop, this test takes twice as long," Meno said.

"We're here for XP. Maybe I even find a Sleepwalker. Great. Start the timer." timer started yesterday countdown to regret sleepwalkers? he wants to die again Meno ran. He pushed toward the center of the Melrai Dunes, using the slope instead of fighting it. Every time his boots sank too deep, he jumped, let False Wings catch beneath him, and kicked across the sand in long shallow arcs. The airborne shield flashed around him with each jump, thin silver around his avatar, then vanished the instant he landed.

The movement felt clean. Better than it had any right to after a dungeon clear and too much public humiliation. The first pack appeared on a flat stretch between two broken sandstone teeth. Five sand-twisting elementals spun in place, bodies made of grit, bone dust, and thin blades of wind. Their lower halves drilled into the ground, pulling rings through the sand around them. [Hostile: Dune Spiral | Type: Elemental | Threat: Normal | Trait: Erosion Body]"Good. Pack of five." Meno stopped just inside medium range.

He knew medium range now in his hands instead of his head. It was the distance where Hundredfold projectile still reached cleanly but melee monsters had to spend real time closing. Too close and the burst became a trade. Too far and the skill broke apart before doing anything useful. He activated Panic Pump. [Compound Swing | Chain: 100 | Damage: +1000%] [Current HP set to 1] He swung the Rune Spire, unleashing Hundredfold Cleave. A silver arc tore into the lead Dune Spiral and burst through the pack.

[Break Surplus: Chain Break Prevented] [Compound Swing | Chain: 110 | Damage: +1100%]"Oh, it counts." BROKEN Panic refreshed? TRY IT TRY IT NOW Break Surplus value Panic Pump had refreshed. The chain had not broken, but the attempted Hundredfold break had still satisfied the Titan Variant's reset condition. Disgusting. Meno activated Panic Pump again. [Compound Swing | Chain: 210 | Damage: +2100%] He fired the second Hundredfold, but without Break Surplus to carry it, the chain snapped apart.

[Chain Broken: Hundredfold Cleave] The pack dropped below 40% HP, and Meno was already moving. He ran sideways along the dune and fired another combo, this one without Break Surplus since it only reset after combat. Then another. The two silver arcs carved through the pack before the Dune Spirals could grind close enough to matter. The five elementals burst into sand and dim wind.

[Kill Confirmed: Dune Spiral] [Kill Confirmed: Dune Spiral] [Kill Confirmed: Dune Spiral] [Kill Confirmed: Dune Spiral] [Kill Confirmed: Dune Spiral] Meno did not stop for the drops. no loot pain left money? he hates gold STOP Bradbaron heart attack XP TIMER He jumped over the fallen dust and kept running as a ripple crossed the sand ahead. The sandworm surfaced wrong-side first, thorny plates sliding under the dune before a long mouth split the ground open.

Smaller than the evolved nightmare BrineSaint had once been fed into, but still big enough to make Normal feel like the system was being rude. [Hostile: Melrai Sandworm | Type: Desert Beast | Threat: Normal | Trait: Burrow-Lunge] Meno pulled it with a Hundredfold from medium range and kept moving while it tunneled after him. The first projectile drew it up. The second hit during the lunge.

Break Surplus let him chain the opening harder than the worm deserved, and the next two projectiles finished it before it could complete a clean burrow cycle. [Kill Confirmed: Melrai Sandworm] Meno crossed the dune without slowing.

"This is the farm test. Can't stop, won't stop," he said.

"Trading loot for XP efficiency." boring but fast normal monster genocide mom watching? Oxide moving to Vernova timer do not mention that Meno's foot sank too deep, but he kicked off with False Wings and turned the stumble into speed. The shield flared, then vanished. His HP sat at one more often than it had any right to. Running circles through an open zone while spamming a skill that dropped him onto death's front porch was not exactly relaxing.

Still, the shield made it survivable when a stray projectile clipped him, or a sandworm erupted under his route. Monster density, unfortunately, was terrible. The next camp had five Sunken Bone Hexers arranged around a half-buried pillar, chanting at nothing useful. Two players were already fighting them: a Level 32 shield user and a Level 31 caster with a crooked staff.

[Hostile: Sunken Bone Hexer | Type: Undead Caster | Threat: Normal | Trait: Withering Chant] If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Meno slowed, judged the distance, and kept running. If he fired Hundredfold into the pack, he would clip somebody, flag for PvP, and turn the XP test into a negative karma farm.

"Occupied," he said.

"Skipping." good citizen arc he learned from Karmabeast flag coward steal camp normal gamer etiquette???

"I am not losing ten karma to someone named GoblinBlaster." GoblinBlaster in shambles respect goblins PvP avoider The next hour became worse by repetition. Meno found another worm, then three Dune Spirals, then nothing for almost two minutes except sand and a friendly-looking caravan that screamed quest content from two hundred steps away. An old man sat up front with two guards flanking the wagon, and Meno angled around them before anyone could offer him a problem.

Then a pack of bone jackals came over a ridge, ribs exposed, black sand leaking from their jaws. [Hostile: Droughtbone Jackal | Type: Undead Beast | Threat: Normal | Trait: Pack Gnaw] They died in three projectiles. The next monster was a glass-backed scorpion half-buried beside a stone arch, its tail glowing with heat.

[Hostile: Glassback Scorpion | Type: Desert Beast | Threat: Normal | Trait: Venom Glass] It survived the first double-burst better than expected, so Meno spent an extra Panic Pump cycle and jumped away from the tail stab. Sleepless Grip resisted the venom when a splinter clipped him anyway, which made the fight look cleaner than it felt. He left the drops and kept moving as fast as he could without breaking into an exhausting sprint.

The pace carried him another ten minutes before a bird made of dust and sun-baked feathers screamed down from the sky. [Hostile: Dustwail Harrier | Type: Flying Beast | Threat: Normal | Trait: Blinding Cry] Meno almost missed the first Hundredfold when the thing dove under the projectile, and the near-whiff made him regret every smug thing he had said about Chadculator. He corrected with a jump, used the airborne shield to eat the edge of its cry pulse, and fired upward on the next pass. It died.

this is bad content this is great content he keeps abandoning money"This is awful," Meno said at the forty-one-minute mark. It got worse. The oasis appeared over the next dune like a trap drawn by someone who believed in color. Palms leaned over bright water. White cloth tents sat in a neat half-circle. Friendly NPCs waved beside crates, shaded tables, and a cooking fire that smelled like spiced meat even from a distance. A woman with silver bracelets lifted one hand.

"Traveler! The dunes have been cruel today. Might you—" Meno turned left and jumped over a rock. quest dodge FLOWERS talk to her NPC romance route he fears women AND quests"No." He found a huge hole eight minutes later. It sat in the center of a shallow basin, perfectly round and too dark for the sun overhead. Sand slid over the edge without making a sound. Broken bones and old spears ringed the outer slope, and nothing spawned nearby. Meno stopped on a ridge and stared down at it.

"That's a boss hole." jump in content finally trigger boss sleepwalker cave world event free loot"That is not free anything. That is where a zone event spawns something with too many legs." He went around it. The detour cost him time, and the next two monster pulls were interrupted by player groups. Level 30 to 34 players moved across the dunes in loose parties, pulling camps Meno wanted, asking questions he did not answer, and staring too long when they recognized him.

A level 33 archer waved, and Meno jumped past before the player could start a sentence. antisocial farming say hi collab with randoms he has no time for NPCs or people"I'm on a timer." At the one-hour mark, the test had become obvious. Zone farming without quests was trolling yourself. Monsters were too far apart. Packs were too small. Player overlap slowed every route. Friendly NPCs kept trying to grab his attention. Landmarks might hide events, but checking them meant gambling against death, quests, or both.

There was a reason BrineSaint farmed dungeons. They were dense, predictable, repeatable, and miserable in the efficient way. Open-world farming was miserable in the scenic way, which made it a different kind of punishment. Meno found a half-finished camp of Zubras near an old stone road that disappeared under dunes. The zebra-headed gnome-things ran in circles with crates, rope bundles, and metal parts. A wooden frame stood at the center of camp, angled toward the sky.

A catapult stood ahead, half-built in the sand. One Zubra with a red scarf sprinted past Meno carrying a wheel twice its size, squeaking in furious little syllables, and Meno slowed despite the timer.

"Oh, that would have been useful." ZUBRA LAUNCH ARRAY 2 catapult route help them quest locked speak zubra launch yourself A prompt flickered over the camp marker, but it never fully opened because Meno refused to step close enough. Something about missing counterweights. Something about dune calibration. Something about "volatile volunteers." He moved away before the quest could become real.

"Event locked. Not touching it." coward launch content you love catapults Zubras remember you betrayal"I love finished catapults," Meno said.

"Important difference." He found no Sleepwalkers, and that bothered him more than the bad XP. The world event was still active, and the dunes had hosted one before, so maybe its respawn cooldown had not reset yet after they chased it off. He kept scanning the horizon for dream light, wandering humanoids, weird worship shifts, or monsters burning wrong, but found nothing while the XP crawled anyway. Normal monsters died fast enough that the bar moved despite the terrible route.

Dune Spirals, jackals, scorpions, worms, Hexers where unoccupied, one thorn-backed lizard thing that tried to bury itself under him and died before Meno learned its full personality. [Hostile: Salthide Basilisk | Type: Desert Beast | Threat: Normal | Trait: Dry Gaze] The Dry Gaze tried to slow him. Sleepless Script resisted it once, and the next gaze hit while the glove was down, making his movement sluggish for four seconds.

Meno fired from range until it died and spent the next minute complaining about how status enemies were rude even when irrelevant. At one hour and thirty-one minutes, he circled back near the Glassdry Catacomb entrance. A final pack of four Droughtbone Jackals came over the dune, and Meno killed them without stopping. [Level Up | Level 37] He landed beside the same leaning statue where the test had begun. Timer: 1: 32: 18. Meno stared at the number.

"This was awful," he said.

"Like, really bad." not bad level in 90 min open world projectile AOE broken normal players crying mages need mana breaks you are spoiled Meno planted the Rune Spire in the sand beside him and flexed his hand. His palm ached from gripping it through endless burst cycles. The Soma-X7 carried enough feedback to make the repetition feel real, though not painful.

Mostly, he was just tired in the small, annoying ways Veyrath seemed built to create, which made sense for a world designed around people running everywhere until someone finally figured out how to get a mount.

"Running around like this is annoying," he said.

"You constantly have to worry about other players, NPCs, camp ownership, random events, surprise holes, and the fact that I'm setting myself to one HP every pull." False Wings shield OP you never got hit nah man titan var is just crazy mages clear slower they need to add stamina bar mana regen tax projectile cleave farming broken"I'm relying on a 20% maxHP shield not to die while sprinting around with one HP. That is stressful," Meno said.

"A good mage might have downtime, sure, but they probably get bigger AOE burst, safer range, and maybe blink or teleport if that exists. I don't know. I'm not convinced this is better." He looked out over the dunes.

"Maybe another zone would be better." go north go east go capital hopping turn on zone names idiot ZONE NOTIFICATION ZONE NOTIFICATION ZONE NOTIFICATION Meno frowned.

"What?" zone notification you have it off exploration settings immersion mode noob how do you not know zone names rank 39 btw Meno went very still.

"Zone what?" Chat found blood in the water. Meno opened the settings panel, already irritated. The interface unfolded into layers he had mostly ignored because reading settings during launch felt like admitting defeat. He went through exploration, world labels, map assists, discovery notifications. Then he found it. [Exploration Notifications: Immersion Mode] Zone names, sub-region names, and discovery notices stayed hidden unless manually queried or acquired through maps or NPCs, and Meno stared at the setting.

His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"I had exploration on Immersion Mode." HAHAHAHA HE DIDN'T KNOW immersion gamer world first settings discovery Meno versus menu Meno looked up at the sky.

"I was wondering how people knew the names of zones." He changed the setting with the disgust of someone washing mud off his own hands. [Exploration Notifications: Assisted]"Why would that be default?" it wasn't you clicked it launch panic roleplayerbeadgod he wanted immersion"I did not click this." probably did skill issue settings boss wins settings boss undefeated Meno opened the forum overlay next and searched for a full world map. The public map was worse than he hoped.

Low-level zones around the four capitals were filled in with rough routes, dungeon markers, quest hubs, and monster ranges. Anything past the early 30s became fragmented. Anything high-value was marked by smug question marks or guild-watermarked screenshots with half the useful information cropped out. The guilds were not sharing full maps, and everyone else was mostly too low-level to know, so Meno closed the forum.

"Okay," he said.

"World tour." where first portal network time farm on the way no loot maniac"We'll farm on the way. Normal threat only. No loot like a maniac." Meno glanced at the dunes one more time, half hoping dream fire would finally appear and give him a better excuse. Only sand moved.

"Fine," he said.

"I guess I actually have to see the world."