Chapter 169: The Underground World

"Is this the underground world?"

Standing on a slowly descending platform, Sword Citadel and the others looked in astonishment at the scene below. The entire underground world glowed with a fiery red hue and stretched endlessly beyond the horizon. As far as the eye could see, all kinds of battle souls populated the terrain. Without exception, even the weakest among them were of rare grade. Bronze battle souls were far from uncommon, and scattered silver battle souls even roamed among them.

"Wow, look over there! What kind of battle soul is that? It actually has cat ears and silver hair. It looks so cute and adorable! Is that a beast-clan battle soul?" Li Yutong pointed to dozens of wandering humanoid battle souls off to the front right and cried out in surprise.

"That's a cat-girl assassin. You can tell at a glance that she's an agile-attack type battle soul, perfect for thieves following the attack-and-agility route. Little Liu Liu might want to consider that one." Ye Chen had done his homework on the battle souls near the entrance of the underground world, so he naturally recognized it at a glance.

"You can see that far?" Li Yutong stared at Ye Chen with wide eyes.

Ye Chen nodded calmly and casually fabricated a lie, "I have an ultra-long-range reconnaissance skill."

"I'm jealous." Li Yutong didn't doubt him and instead pointed to a group of battle souls on the left wearing bamboo hats and holding thin rapiers, asking, "What about over there? What kind of battle souls are those? They look so mysterious, just like assassins in martial arts movies."

"Heh, pretty much exactly what you said. Those are shadow assassins. I saw an introduction to this type of battle soul in *Battle Soul Legends*. The shadow assassins are pure attack-type battle souls, and they even come with combo skills. They are absolute top-tier choices for a violent combat route." Ye Chen unhurriedly introduced the characteristics of the shadow assassins.

Upon hearing this, Sword Citadel's eyes lit up instantly, and she pressed further, "How many stars is the attack growth? Can it exceed four stars?"

"Definitely. This is a top-tier attack-type battle soul. Its attack growth has to be higher than the Headless Horseman's; it might even be five or six stars." Ye Chen's words immediately had Sword Citadel rubbing her hands in eager anticipation. If the platform hadn't been in mid-air, she probably would have already rushed over.

"Don't just talk about the physical-type ones. Tell us about the magical types! Our studio has a full six magical-type sisters here, and you said magic battle souls are trash. Which kind should we capture?" Intoxicated Acacia noticed that the physical-type sisters had all found promising options and grew somewhat anxious. The remaining female mages and priests also stared wide-eyed at Ye Chen, waiting for him to offer some ideas.

"Do you see over there? Those battle souls wearing white cloaks and general's helmets, holding long swords and looking like honor guards?" Ye Chen smiled and pointed toward a group of battle souls in the distance.

"I see them. Those are physical-type ones too, right? How do they help the magical classes?" Intoxicated Acacia asked with some hesitation.

"Those are Temple Guards, a dual magic-and-physical hybrid. Once they possess you, they not only enhance your magical survivability but also boost your magical attributes. They are top-tier for the magic classes at the current stage, and you can't find them anywhere outside." While they were talking, the platform slowly touched down, and Ye Chen stepped off. Not far away lay the boundless ocean of battle souls.

***

"Ye Chen, you know this underground world better than we do. Tell us how we should tackle it."

Once everyone had stepped down from the platform, Sword Citadel had the women stay put and turned to ask Ye Chen for his plan.

Ye Chen pondered for a moment without declining. Besides, he had already formulated a plan, so he nodded and said, "Although there are many battle souls in the underground world and it looks boundless, their distribution isn't actually all that dense. I believe you all noticed that just now."

The women all nodded. The battle souls in the underground world indeed could not be considered dense, and since those battle souls wandered around, the same types usually kept a certain distance from one another.

"Not being dense means squad-based operations are viable. My suggestion is that we scatter out to farm battle souls. Each of the four heavy-armor players will lead a squad, and we shouldn't farm the same type. We'll farm according to our respective needs; that way, the efficiency will be much faster," Ye Chen continued.

"That sounds reasonable, but there's still another problem to solve," Sword Citadel slightly furrowed her brows as she said, "According to what you said, we'll have to cross through the territorial ranges of many different battle souls. Along such a long route, even if the battle souls aren't dense, it's very easy for trouble to arise. If everyone kills their way through together, it's naturally not a problem, but for small squads, the pressure is simply too great."

"That's not a problem. I copied a tattered map of the underground world at the library. The map around the entrance here is very detailed, and it marks the safe routes between different battle soul populations. As long as we follow those routes, we won't be attacked." With that, Ye Chen took out the maps he had prepared in advance—four copies in total—and casually handed them to the four heavy-armor players, including Sword Citadel.

A map? A map of the underground world?

Sword Citadel and the others were somewhat dazed, staring blankly as Ye Chen thrust the maps into their hands, unable to process it for a moment.

"Acacia Sister, what's wrong with you guys? Isn't it just a map? You're acting like you've been dazed." Lin Ziyi didn't quite understand and vigorously shook Intoxicated Acacia's arm.

Acacia let out a small gasp and snapped back to her senses, a look of lingering shock still lingering on her face. She then said, "Little Ye is getting more and more incredible. He even managed to get a map of the hidden environment within the Battle Soul Realm. Right now, he probably has the only copy of this map in the entire Lesser Mountain City. If the major guilds found out, they'd probably fight to the death to snatch it."

"Is it really that exaggerated?" Lin Ziyi widened her mouth slightly, staring incredulously at the completely unremarkable map.

"Without a doubt. Ziyi, since this is your first time encountering *God's Descent*, you don't quite realize it. When pioneering a new environment, having a map gives you a massive advantage. Look at this map—it not only marks safe travel routes but also identifies the types of battle souls in each region. For those guilds, this is a strategic advantage. This Battle Soul Realm is a brand-new environment; knowing just a little bit more lets you gain more benefits than others and avoid a tremendous amount of danger. Look at this area here—we noticed it earlier, and aside from bubbling magma everywhere, it looked completely empty and seemed very safe. But the map marks the battle souls there as Magma Fire Fiends. Needless to say, they must be hiding inside the magma. If we had blundered in there without a map, we wouldn't even know how we died. Just now, I was even planning to use that place as our temporary resting spot. Without a map, those hard lessons would have to be paid for with our lives," Sword Citadel said, her heart still pounding with lingering fear. She then looked up at Ye Chen and said, "This map is too valuable to the studio. I honestly don't know how to thank you."

"It's not that exaggerated. It's just a tattered partial map; only the area near the entrance is detailed, and there's nothing further out," Ye Chen chuckled lightly. He had specially prepared this map for the studio. With this item, even if he left Lesser Mountain City, Sword Citadel and the others could still hunt battle souls in the underground world. One could easily imagine that in the near future, battle souls would become the hottest and most sought-after commodities in trade, and the studio could easily make a fortune relying on them.

***

"A partial map is already more than enough. We probably wouldn't be able to subdue battle souls located any further away anyway. Let's do this: we'll allocate one-tenth of the studio's earnings from the underground world to you as a reward for your contribution to the studio." Sword Citadel always advocated strict rewards and punishments, so this decision wasn't surprising. In fact, after the previous batch of bronze equipment Ye Chen had handed over to the studio, Sword Citadel had later paid him rent according to market value. After all, that belonged to Ye Chen's personal earnings rather than the studio's collective harvest. Of course, once that batch of bronze equipment was sold at its original price, the studio would still take a cut. From this perspective, this woman Sword Citadel was truly quite stubborn...

Knowing Sword Citadel's character, Ye Chen didn't refuse and nodded with a smile.

"Since that's settled, let's split up and farm battle souls according to our individual needs. The goal is for everyone to capture three: one for personal use, and the remaining two to take back and sell." Having set the tone, the women scattered in their respective directions. As for Ye Chen, he went alone. After all, faced with these sparsely distributed battle souls, he—a combination of tank and heavy artillery—was more than enough by himself.

...

Farming battle souls was an extremely tedious task. To get a single white-name battle soul to appear, countless red-name battle souls had to be slaughtered. For the entire afternoon, Ye Chen and the others continuously killed battle souls. Sword Citadel and the others had decent luck; basically, every single one of them managed to farm a white-name battle soul. Unfortunately, most of them were normal-grade. Only Lin Ziyi managed to farm a Level 1 Temple Guard. The overjoyed girl cheered and shouted for a long time before getting the battle soul to acknowledge her as master. Then, she let the Temple Guard trail behind her, showing off endlessly to the other magic-class girls until Intoxicated Acacia was driven to roll her eyes in exasperation.

Battle souls leveled up much faster than players. By evening, Lingyue's Headless Horseman had already reached Level 25. Its formidable attribute growth allowed this bronze battle soul to stand on its own; over two hundred points of attack and more than three hundred points of defense made it completely comparable to a regular heavy-armor player in their thirties.

When he wasn't mindlessly slaughtering battle souls, Ye Chen took the opportunity to explore the surrounding area. Regrettably, he didn't stumble upon a single naturally spawned white-name battle soul. With no other choice, he could only run back and continue his head-down slaughtering. It wasn't until past 10:00 PM that everyone finally gathered enough of three white-name battle souls per person. However, a few unlucky girls still failed to farm a Level 1 personal battle soul. When they wanted to settle for a normal-grade one instead, Ye Chen and Sword Citadel stopped them. Battle souls were a vital component of a player's strength; starting out with a subpar one meant losing right at the starting line. To become a top-tier expert, one could never compromise on their battle soul.

In total, they harvested forty-two battle souls. After deducting the eight Level 1 battle souls kept for personal use, the remainder could all be sold for money. Thirty-four normal-grade battle souls with outstanding attributes could conservatively sell for over thirty thousand gold coins. For Azure Feather Studio, this was a massive windfall, and a smile blossomed on every girl's face. Ever since the exodus incident involving Sword Heart and the others, this was the first time Azure Feather had earned so much money all at once. Though they didn't voice it out loud, the women's hearts were filled with deep gratitude toward Ye Chen.

"Let's go. Once we head back, we'll all be rich. Let's be generous for once and use Town Portal Scrolls to head back, haha!" Watching the smiles on the women's faces, Ye Chen felt a genuine sense of joy. Back when he was just a pathetic logistics worker surviving off the girls, he had always wanted to change the fates of these lovely young women. Today, he had finally taken the first step.

That's right, this was merely the first step. He would lead them even further, all the way to the absolute peak.