Starting Unlimited Evolution from Grinding

Once the battle began, humanity’s side immediately showed a one-sided trend, effortlessly crushing the goblin horde.

The goblins charging at the front were the lowest of the low—the opponents newcomers faced. Their overall combat power couldn’t compare to ordinary human youths.

These weak goblins, facing the allied human forces, were naturally no match, falling like cut wheat, wave after wave.

Lin Mo didn’t choose to wait any longer. He strode forward and snapped his fingers as he walked.

Shadow Split activated, creating three clones that dispersed in different directions.

In a situation like this, Shadow Split was unbelievably useful. Against these low-level goblins, having three extra clones—without even saying it tripled efficiency—was enough that the three clones together could easily double his output.

At the same time, Shadow Split itself, and the assassin skills used by the clones, all gained proficiency increases.

Yes, Lin Mo had already tested this before.

After Shadow Split advanced to Shadow Kill, his clones could now use assassin-class skills. If those assassin skills used by the clones killed monsters, they still gained corresponding skill proficiency.

So Lin Mo basically didn’t need to worry about the assassin skills being less efficient for monster killing—he could just hand those tasks off to his clones.

Then he personally pulled out the Ice Soul Bow, notched several arrows at once, and drew the bowstring to the limit.

Swoosh—

With the sound of arrows tearing through the air, each arrow pierced through more than a dozen goblins.

Some arrow trajectories passed through dozens of goblins, even killing dozens with a single shot.

Lin Mo kept drawing more arrows from his Portable Space stash. He didn’t bother aiming; he shot at random and whole swathes of goblins fell.

At the same time, the proficiency for his skill Multi Arrow increased.

Although each goblin killed gave very little proficiency, the sheer numbers made up for it. Each volley fired several arrows, and each arrow averaged to kill twenty or thirty goblins. Accumulated over time, proficiency rose noticeably.

Before long, the skill leveled up.

Lin Mo did not combine assassin and ranger skills to use the Night Hunter class’s combo skills—there was simply no need.

Theoretically, using combination skills to grind could increase proficiency gain efficiency and raise two skills’ proficiencies at once, but that also greatly increased qi and blood consumption. This was shaping up to be a long war, so even though Lin Mo currently had abundant qi and blood, conserving what he could was sensible.

The same logic applied to mage and warrior skills later—better to use them separately.

If he encountered a nasty opponent later, he’d consider combo skills. But judging by the goblins’ battle plan, at least in the first days, that was unlikely.

—! —! —!

Although ranger skills didn’t have as high single-target efficiency as mage skills, they were still decent. With sufficiently large goblin numbers, it didn’t take long before the points accumulated on Lin Mo’s wristband reached 20!

From this I also discovered some rules about the points.

Those extremely special goblins gave lots of points when killed—about a hundred kills for one point.

It wasn’t that in these few moments the goblins killed by Lin Mo hadn’t exceeded two thousand; of course, many of them were slaughtered by his eight clones.

The steady increase in skill proficiency made Lin Mo even more motivated; the more he shot, the more excited he became, the bowstring almost smoking from strain.

Soon a notification popped up:

Skill Multi Arrow Lv6 (300/300) Upgraded!

Current skill Multi Arrow Lv7 (MAX)

Gained base attribute Agility +5!

Automatically evolved into a new skill—Chaos Arrow Rain!

Learned skill Chaos Arrow Rain! Gained base attribute Agility +5!

Chaos Arrow Rain Lv1 (0/20): Infuse an arrow with qi and blood; after firing, the qi and blood disperse into many arrow-like projectiles that fall and strike targets within range!

An excellent-grade skill smoothly promoted to epic.

Lin Mo’s eyes lit up. He took out one arrow to test the newly acquired skill.

The arrow flew in a standard arc. High in the sky, the strong qi and blood it carried were triggered, dispersing into numerous qi-constructed “arrows” that rained down.

No need to fire multiple physical arrows. With the qi and blood boost, a single arrow acting as the carrier produced the arrow-rain effect.

This volley alone killed at least hundreds of goblins!

Nice!

Lin Mo smiled and immediately used the skill repeatedly, each use felling a large patch of goblins.

......

Unnoticed, the battle had already lasted two hours.

Nearby, several major powers’ upper ranks gathered inside a lavish tent, watching the battle while chatting.

Right now the situation wasn’t yet one that required their intervention.

Although these powerful figures could easily annihilate tens of thousands of goblins with a single spell, it wasn’t cost-effective.

Even if their magic wiped out tens of thousands, from a macro perspective it was still a loss.

Large-area spells consumed massive mana; using dozens of mana might already be severe. The result might be solving a million or two million ordinary goblins, but against an enemy numbering in the tens of billions, that’s nothing.

If they expended too much mana, and then powerful goblins or gnomes appeared, no one could stop them—and the damage to the allied forces would be devastating.

After all, the allied forces’ numbers were far fewer than the goblins’. The goblins could afford to lose tens or hundreds of millions. For humanity, losing even a hundred thousand was serious.

If losses reached the millions, the front line could collapse.

So the strong who couldn’t act yet could only sit and observe, wary of goblin tactics, while talking among themselves.

It sounded leisurely, but everyone present wore serious expressions.

They all knew the current advantage was expected. The Gnome Kingdom never relied on ordinary goblins to pose a real threat; the true test hadn’t arrived yet.

“Has the rotation schedule been arranged?” asked an old man with white hair and a face full of wrinkles.

“Don’t worry, old sir. It’s all settled,” replied a middle-aged man in standardized armor, his face heroic and his tone respectful.

The reason was simple: he commanded the Roxez Empire’s Third Infantry Guard and was a descendant of the Danlo family. The old man before him was his grandfather.

Each empire’s situation was similar—big nobles held important military and political posts. Over long history, the empire and these families became entwined; the families relied on the empire’s strength, and the empire relied on the families’ stability.

If the empire were to fall, these families, with long-standing foundations, could continue to survive.

It was a bit like the ancient “aristocratic houses” of Blue Star, but these noble families’ positions were even more secure.

Those ancient houses lasted because of accumulated wealth and monopoly on knowledge, which powerful external forces could break. But the noble families in this world were different.

This was a transcendent world; they possessed real power.

Families capable of reaching ducal status had strong inherited talent. Their resources could find and cultivate suitable youths in each generation into at least high Heroic Realm experts, and some to Heroic Realm peaks.

Royal Duke families like Oxivis even had more than one Heroic Realm peak-level expert.

Although still not on par with the royal family, if a huge upheaval hit the empire, their power was still significant bargaining chips—no one could ignore them.

“Good that it’s arranged. This war will be protracted. Make sure personnel rotate for rest and recovery. Also—”

After giving orders, he looked at the magic display showing the Genius Gathering points.

Reading from the top, the name in first place was exactly as everyone expected.

“Lin Mo.”

He murmured, “This kid… is he really as strong as rumors say?”

“Almost certainly. The lead is ridiculous!” responded a nearby elder from the Serea Empire’s Tori family.

On the list, second place only had 290 points—about 29,000 goblins killed—which was already fast.

Third had 287, fourth 279—the gaps weren’t large.

But the first place gap was chasm-like.

493 points!

More than two hundred points ahead of second—over twenty thousand more goblins killed!

In just two hours, nearly half a million goblins had fallen by his hand.

Some were amazed, others skeptical: “Progress so fast—did he forget to conserve mana?”

In fact, these results didn’t fully represent the geniuses’ total strength. No one was foolish enough to expend large amounts of mana or qi at the start to boost kill efficiency.

So far, the enemies were ordinary goblins, lacking even a full level of strength difference. Killing many of them wouldn’t grant huge points.

The right move was to wait for higher-value goblins or gnomes to appear, then go all out.

Opinions divided among the onlookers.

Some argued that even if Lin Mo was a historical-level prodigy who might grow into a Legendary Realm powerhouse, given his age he shouldn’t outperform thirty-something top geniuses by this much.

To be comparable with those over thirty whose strength had reached the latter Transcendent Level was already absurd.

He wasn’t even twenty!

Not even the long-missing Lorenth Valania or the former Saintess Joan were this exaggerated in their youth.

Amid the discussion, the woman dressed as a maid present said nothing.

She was, in fact, Shirleyas’ mother, Nuolun’s aunt, and Elara’s personal maid. Though dressed as a maid and performing maid duties, no one dared treat her as a simple servant outside the family.

Everyone knew that Oxivis household personal maids were of the same bloodline as their masters—half-sisters closely connected to the family.

Within Oxivis, she was Elara’s personal maid; outside, she was the family’s “Second Madam,” an exalted position.

Since everyone knew Lin Mo had close ties to the Oxivis family, they wanted information from the maid, but she didn’t speak up, and no one dared to address her first.

Finally the Danlo elder broke the stalemate: “Enough. Let things play out. We’ll see later. For now, have patience.”

The old man’s prestige and strength quieted the crowd. They ceased arguing and focused on watching the battlefield and glancing at the points board from time to time.

..........

Lin Mo was thoroughly enjoying himself.

This massive goblin army was like an all-you-can-eat buffet to him. The “menu” might be monotonous, but the quantity was huge!

And unlimited time and amount—just “filling his belly” and growing stronger—this was perfect.

Level up!

A level-up notification soon floated before him.

Universal promotion conditions met: Assassin profession (lv22) promoted—Current Assassin profession (lv23)

Gained profession attribute bonuses: Strength +12, Agility +18, Constitution +5!

Universal promotion conditions met: Ranger profession (lv22) promoted—Current Ranger profession (lv23)

Gained profession attribute bonuses: Strength +11, Agility +19, Constitution +3, Spirit +2!

Assassin and Ranger both promoted to level 23.

Because Lin Mo mainly used Ranger skills while his Shadow Kill clones used Assassin skills, both professions’ skills granted Agility as a base attribute increase.

It was worth mentioning that to minimize qi and blood consumption, every hour Lin Mo would reapply Shadow Kill to create fresh clones.

After an hour the original clones’ consumption increases, so renewing them saved resources.

With Agility-based professions now at level 23, he couldn’t let the other professions lag.

By convention he should grind Knight next, but he didn’t want to.

Knight skills lacked the thrill—less satisfying in combat.

The war had only just begun; he hadn’t had his fill, so...

Lin Mo moved farther from the defensive line, where he wouldn’t risk hitting allied troops.

Seeing goblins gather around him, he smiled brightly.

Flames rose in his palm.

Flame Chain Star!

This was a blue exceptional-grade magic. After obtaining more powerful skills, he had used it less and less, eventually shelving it.

Using an epic mage spell now would be wasteful. Exceptional-grade magic was more suitable and this skill was ready to level.

It had been a while since he last used it. During that time Lin Mo’s mana had changed dramatically, so the same skill produced vastly different effects now.

Several “fireballs” flew from his hand. Though called fireballs, each was nearly ten meters in diameter—like giant meteors—hurtling toward the goblins.

Boom—

Explosions roared and dazzling flames filled the air; countless goblins were melted by the intense heat without leaving a trace.

The spectacle drew attention from many nearby adventurers, prompting exclamations.

Holy crap! That mage is powerful!

Although Lin Mo’s ranger skills also caused heavy damage, in terms of scale and visual effects, the mage still had the edge.

Mages were envied for good reason—powerful and flashy. For young people, casting dazzling magic was irresistible.

Proficiency notifications arrived in rapid succession. Lin Mo kept casting the same skill while moving outward.

The explosions kept roaring for a long time.

Then a skill evolution notification appeared.

Skill Flame Chain Star Lv6 (300/300) Upgraded!

Current skill Flame Chain Star Lv7 (MAX)

Gained base attribute Mana +5!

Automatically evolved into a new skill—Meteor Fall!

Learned skill Meteor Fall! Gained base attribute Mana +5!

Meteor Fall Lv1 (0/20): Condense mana to resonate with extinguishing element, forming a massive fire elemental energy body that soars skyward and then rapidly scatters, inflicting damage and burn to touched targets!

Just from the description it was clear this was an excellent large-area damage skill.

Although epic magics weren’t generally appropriate right now, the newly acquired skill was an exception.

Lin Mo raised his hand and the massive fire elemental quickly condensed in his palm, shooting into the sky.

The clouds above turned a fiery red as if dawn had arrived, illuminating the dark battlefield.

Then countless ember spheres rained down like a dense meteor shower.

Goblin screams were swallowed by flame and explosions.

Not bad.

Lin Mo nodded in satisfaction—the skill was perfectly suited to this huge battlefield.

Still, he could hold off until goblin quality rose, since epic skills consumed enormous mana. One epic could cost as much mana as several exceptional spells.

Although epic magic covered a larger area, after quickly clearing the area it could become wasted continuous effect, essentially burning mana needlessly.

Exceptional magics were less prone to that problem.

Even sustained ones, like Ice Spire techniques, consumed much less and wasted little.

So in the following time, Lin Mo repeatedly used his exceptional skills and also upgraded some spells still at the excellent grade.

Like Great Water Orb, Rock Spike Combo, and so on.

These low-grade magics suffered no proficiency decay when killing ordinary goblins, so their upgrade speed was very fast—often just minutes to reach exceptional.

Progress for exceptional magics wasn’t slow either—quantity again made the difference.

By dawn, Lin Mo had promoted several skills from exceptional to epic.

For example, the Great Water Orb’s evolved form Impacting Water Flow had surged to epic Water Dragon Shot.

Rock Spike Combo had thoroughly advanced to the epic Splitting Earth Thorn Array.

Epic skills seemed to come in wholesale—one after another.

With so many skill promotions, Lin Mo’s base mana attribute rose quickly. The Mage profession, previously only five base points from leveling, jumped two levels to 23!

Universal promotion conditions met: Mage profession (lv21) promoted—Current Mage profession (lv22)

Gained profession attribute bonuses: Strength +2, Agility +3, Constitution +3, Mana +15, Spirit +7!

Universal promotion conditions met: Mage profession (lv22) promoted—Current Mage profession (lv23)

Gained profession attribute bonuses: Strength +2, Agility +2, Constitution +3, Mana +20, Spirit +7!

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!