Ten Waves

Su Mu wasted no time.

He closed his eyes and quickly went through the strategy in his mind.

The rules for the first level are clear: kill the most monsters in the shortest time.

Simply put...

The first hurdle is a test of pure, hard power.

There is no room for shortcuts.

The stronger the cards you have, the more monsters you can kill.

There's very little room for tactical maneuvering; at most, you can intentionally leave one or two monsters behind in the late game to delay the next wave of monsters, but that's a last resort.

True masters never try to survive by procrastinating.

Su Mu held a very strong hand.

Little Drill Wind, SSS-level, level 17, base combat index of 540,000. Within the Lion Camel Ridge area, with the added bonuses of Glory and Mountain of Corpses and Sea of Blood, the actual combat index approaches 700,000.

White Bone Spirit, SSS-level, level 17, with a base combat index of 748,000. With the addition of the Bone Whip and the completion of the Three Transformations, her actual combat index exceeds 900,000.

As for the newly joined Benbo'erba and Babo'erben, they are currently only level 1 and have little effect.

The same applies to the Green Lion King, who has the highest potential, and he is not yet fully integrated, possessing only two-fifths of his strength.

But having the White Bone Spirit and Little Drill Wind is enough.

Two SSS-level cards are like two meat grinders in nests below level 20.

The White Bone Spirit, in particular, is best suited for dealing with such a wide range of monsters.

Su Mu opened his eyes and looked into the depths of the Dungeon Space.

A dark green crack is slowly opening; the first wave of monsters is about to appear.

With a thought, he simultaneously issued commands to Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit through their Soul Link.

"For the first wave, you're free to do as you please. Little Drill Wind will clear the front line, while White Bone Spirit will provide ranged support. When elite monsters or bosses appear, Little Drill Wind will prioritize eliminating them."

The two monsters moved at the same time.

Little Drill Wind sprang up from beside the stone tablet at Lion Camel Ridge, his short sword unsheathed, and his dark blue figure flashed towards the crack like lightning. White Bone Spirit descended from the mountain path of White Tiger Ridge, her bone whip twitching gently at her waist, and gray-white flame patterns lit up on the whip.

Countdown to zero.

The rift burst open completely, and the first wave of monsters surged out.

One.

A level 10 Goblin Skirmisher emerged alone from the crevice, its skin a greyish-green hue, carrying a rough wooden club, its murky eyes darting around blankly.

It didn't even have time to see its surroundings clearly.

With Little Drill Wind, the goblin's head flew off, its headless body tumbling forward, grayish-green blood seeping into the soil.

[Kills: 1]

[Current wave: 1]

[Integral coefficient: 1.0]

[Next refresh countdown: 3...2...1...]

Three seconds.

Su Mu noticed that there was a three-second respawn interval after the kill.

This means that if he wants to speed things up, he must be prepared before the next wave of monsters appears.

The second wave consisted of two goblins.

Little Drill Wind was already standing directly in front of the crevice's exit, his short sword held horizontally in front of him. The two goblins had barely poked their bodies out when the blade swept across, and both heads rolled off simultaneously.

[Kills: 3]

[Current wave: 2]

The third wave, four in total.

The fourth wave, eight in total.

The fifth wave, sixteen in total.

The Little Drill Wind's speed increased rapidly. It no longer waited for the monsters to fully emerge from the crack, but instead stood guard at the crack's entrance, slashing down as soon as a monster peeked out. Sixteen goblins were gone in less than ten seconds.

The White Bone Spirit stood a little distance away, occasionally flicking her bone whip to burn the goblins that scurried out from the edge of the crack to ashes.

The sixth wave, thirty-two birds.

The seventh wave, sixty-four birds.

The eighth wave, 128 birds.

By the eighth wave, the monsters had reached level thirteen. Goblin Warriors, Goblin Archers, and Goblin Scouts appeared in mixed formations, no longer just lone rangers. They began to consciously surge out from multiple directions, attempting to bypass the Little Drill Wind and break in from the flanks and rear.

But the White Bone Spirit's curtain of fire had already been drawn.

Grayish-white flames spread along the ground, covering all the passages on both sides of the crack. The goblins who tried to bypass the flames fell in droves the moment they stepped into the curtain of fire, their bones shattered.

The Little Drill Wind charged back and forth on the front lines, taking down one enemy with a single strike, sometimes even two at once. It was so fast that the level 13 goblins couldn't react at all.

The ninth wave, 256 birds.

The tenth wave, 512 birds.

The tenth wave was a watershed moment. The monster levels jumped to level fifteen, and an elite monster appeared in this wave... the Goblin Warlord, who was over three meters tall, wielding a giant axe, and leading more than five hundred goblins out of the crack.

Su Mu glanced at the panel.

[Current wave: 10]

[Total kills: 1023]

[Integral coefficient: 1.0]

[Core Card Status: In Good Condition]

From the first wave to the tenth wave, a total of 1,023 monsters were killed in less than four minutes.

This speed is absolutely top-notch in the entire examination hall.

But Su Mu down. After the tenth wave, the monster levels would continue to rise, and the number would continue to double. The eleventh wave had 1,024 monsters, the twelfth wave had 2,048, the thirteenth wave had 4,096, the fourteenth wave had 8,192, and the fifteenth wave had 16,384.

By the fifteenth wave, the number of monsters will exceed 16,000.

While Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit Demon have strong area-of-effect attacks, they cannot easily handle 16,000 monsters of level 15 or higher as they could in the first ten waves.

Su Mu quickly did the calculations in his mind.

If the number of monsters continues to double with each wave, by the twentieth wave, the number of monsters will reach 524,288. Even if all 520,000 level 20 monsters are cannon fodder, they can still overwhelm the enemy.

Therefore, the key to the later waves is not how many waves you can survive, but to kill as many enemies as possible before the core cards break.