"Boss, what happened? Did you check out the quest? Was it of any help?" Shin Soo ran over to Liam as soon as he and Luna landed.
Everyone else as well finished off their current target quickly and regrouped around Liam.
"Brother, guess what level I am right now? He He He." Mei Mei arrived first as right now her speed was faster than everyone except for Liam and that was because of the level difference.
"36?" Liam smirked.
"Nope! He He. Wait, yes 36." Mei Mei pouted realizing that her brother did not let her show off.
Liam chuckled, "Anyways…" He then looked at the other party members, "How would you guys like to level up just as fast as her?"
"Huh? Boss, are we really going to do that herb quest?" Shin Soo was the first to put two and two together.
"Yup." Liam then started taking out all the herbs that he had collected or rather stolen from the earth golems while the famous four were busily fighting with the boss.
He also took out some of the reserve herbs he had in his inventory emptying out all of his stock supplies.
Soon, there was a huge pile of all sorts of valuable herbs on the ground. Everyone looked at Liam dazedly. Just how on the earth did he manage to collect so much?
His personal collection of herbs was probably bigger than an entire guild's collection.
Where did he even find time to collect these many herbs and also level up and hone his fighting skills at the same time?
"If anyone else has other herbs feel free to throw it all onto the pile." Liam stepped back and the others as well took turns emptying all of their stocks.
With everybody's herbs in the mix, there was now a giant pile. Shin Shoo couldn't help but gulp in anticipation.
If they actually turned in all of these herbs… just how many experience points they would get… but was it really wise to do something like that? It would be such a waste.
But then again, it would be good to level up fast so that their guild could be a step ahead of the other guilds.
Once they were ahead they would be able to go to the higher leveled zones and using that advantage, they could always be ahead of the other guilds.
After all, everything was a chain reaction in 'Evolution Online'.
A few minutes later… Seeing that all the herbs were collected, Liam clapped his hands loudly, "ok, now everyone should equally split up everything."
He did not take any himself and stepped back.
"Oh, and after splitting up, everyone should follow Shin Soo's lead and do the quest. Don't worry about the herbs. Exchange everything you have and enjoy the break."
His words shocked everyone because it was extremely foolish to exchange all of these precious herbs for experience points, but Liam calmly smiled and reassured them.
"I have a plan. Alright. Let's go. Chop. Chop."
With this, no one hesitated any longer. The group quickly moved and everyone started hurriedly putting away their portion of the herbs.
Since they were short on time, they did not bother going about this in an organized way and it soon became a first come first serve basis instead of even splitting.
Whoever got to the herb first, it was theirs.
Especially, with the legendary item constantly dangling in front of their eyes, everyone was over-enthusiastic.
Liam also did not say anything because some amount of competition within the group was healthy. Otherwise, everyone's growth will stagnate.
So just like that, the pile of herbs ended up getting cleaned out within minutes.
The party then walked over to the city together, all disguised in various shapes and in various colors and their inventory slots full of herbs.
They were not going to enter too deep into the city and considering the population of a typical demon city, they were able to walk in and mingle alongside the demons unnoticed.
The group then gathered around the hawkers on the street, directly jumping into the business without wasting any time.
"Hello, demon sir. I have some herbs with me here." Shin Soo waved his hand clutching a bunch of plants.
"Give me. You did well." The demon grunted and quickly grabbed the bundle from Shin Soo's hands.
Almost instantly, the notification sounded as well.
[Ding. You have been rewarded 10000 experience points]
"Hell yes! This is what I am talking about!" Shin Soo grinned and started quickly emptying out all of his inventory slots.
Following his lead, Derek, Mei Mei, Shen Yue, and everyone else as well did the same.
[Ding. You have been rewarded 10000 experience points]
[Ding. You have been rewarded 10000 experience points]
[Ding. You have been rewarded 10000 experience points]
…
…
…
The group started handing out all the herbs with them and their experience bars as well began filling up quickly.
Especially, Shen Yue because of her charm seemed to be receiving more rewards for the same amount of herbs so she was the first one to level up in the group.
Quickly, everyone else also started leveling up one after the other.
Before this, they had only heard about games having loopholes and such, but this was the first time for most of the group to experience one such loophole, and… it was glorious!
"Here, take some more."
"I got some more."
"Herbs for you, demon sir."
Grinning ear to ear everyone emptied out their wares.
In all honesty, the group expected the quest to get saturated after a while but to their surprise, the demons continued shouting without showing any intention of stopping.
In fact, the group of peddlers looked more energetic because they had managed to collect an unusually large quantity of herbs today.
So they kept on hawking for more even when the entire party ran out of their herb stockpile.
"This is…" Shin Soo and everybody else were speechless, but their job got done so they quickly got the hell out of the demon settlement before their jig was up.
Everyone almost leveled up twice just from this single trip so their faces were full of smiles.
Although this smile faded a little when they turned around and saw that all of their group's herbs were now gone, neatly bundled up into 20 huge sacks by the demons.
But there was nothing they could do about it now.
They could only silently walk out and distance themselves from the city as per their leader's instructions. Almost all of them had long faces. They had leveled up but at what cost?
And just as this group was departing from the city, suddenly a familiar figure walked past them.
"Huh?" Mei Mei was the first one to respond as she swung her body around to see a cloaked figure entering the city. "Brother?"
Though he was completely covered in a black robe with a hoodie, being in the same group, they were all able to see his player name tag clearly. So they had no doubts about who he was.
"Ha Ha Ha! Boss already told us he had a plan! Of course, he is not going to let go of all those herbs that easily!" Shin Soo fisted his palm in excitement. Only now everyone felt relieved.
They did not dare linger around in case they spoil his plan and quickly evacuated the place, heading back to their meet up point.
And once they were there, the group again started grinding the mobs on the spot.
Now that they had tasted the sweet joy of leveling up casually, they were fueled to the brim and hunted with vigor.
Soon a couple of hours passed by when suddenly the familiar white fox descended from the sky.
And sitting atop the fox was Liam giving everyone a thumbs up!
"All done."
