Starting Unlimited Evolution from Grinding

After bidding farewell to Noren, Lin Mo wasn’t in a rush to arrange his next “chance encounter.” After all, this cat-and-mouse game wouldn’t be any fun if it ended so simply. He needed to let the other side feel they had a chance to win, so the game could play out better.

So next, he continued following the Association’s guidance, carrying out emergency rescue operations.

His speed, surpassing that of an average Heroic Realm expert, allowed him to reach the scene shortly after receiving news, then quickly resolve the crisis with overwhelming strength. As a result, while information integration and reasonable distribution hadn’t yet been sorted out, many adventurers who received the same message would arrive at the scene only to find the problem already solved.

Similar situations weren’t unique to Lin Mo. Most of the other geniuses were doing similar things, all competing fiercely for points.

Although most of them fell far short of Lin Mo in both strength and speed, they could still achieve similar effects. As for Yiyi, there was no need to mention her...

After all, the age limit for this Genius Gathering was under thirty-five. At that age, if someone was a top-tier genius on the continent, reaching the Heroic Realm wasn’t anything strange.

One or two times was fine, but as it happened more often, the rescue teams developed some resentment. This put considerable pressure on the Association staff responsible for releasing information.

But overall, it proved that the goblins’ current point-breakthrough tactics hadn’t had as much impact on the front lines as expected. The human side still had ample mid-to-high-level combat power to handle the situation.

So, after the goblins’ tentative attacks continued for over half a day, they reduced their use of this tactic.

The battle continued day and night.

Time passed bit by bit. Apart from rest periods, Lin Mo didn’t waste a single minute, tirelessly killing monsters from start to finish.

However, after the goblins reduced their deployment of high-level goblins, his progress naturally slowed. Taking this opportunity, Lin Mo could focus on practicing his Knight class skills, lest that class’s level fall too far behind.

Two days passed in the blink of an eye. During these two days, because the Roxez Empire’s main army had joined the fight relatively late, the battle hadn’t lasted too long for them. Combined with their sufficient numbers, they unexpectedly suffered no major losses, their resource consumption was manageable, and their morale remained quite good.

Even though the goblins noticed this and tried to increase pressure, it didn’t affect the big picture.

At the end of the day, the Gnome Kingdom’s advantage lay in its massive numbers of ordinary goblins that could serve as cannon fodder. But setting aside that advantage, they were inferior to humans in mid-to-high-level combat power, let alone facing not just a single human empire, but a coalition of numerous continental powers, along with the Elven race and the Roxez Empire’s army.

Among these forces, the proportion of mid-to-high-level combat power was significantly higher than in a typical garrison structure. So, the point-breakthrough tactics that should have worked had difficulty achieving results.

Logically speaking, the Gnome Kingdom was only at this level. That was why the Roxez Empire hadn’t taken them seriously before.

In continental history, goblins had indeed caused humanity plenty of trouble, but that was all—just trouble.

Among the major disasters recorded in history books, some were caused by the undead, some by orcs, but never by goblins.

The extent of a goblin calamity was, at most, wiping out a medium-sized human kingdom. Even a large kingdom was difficult for them to completely overrun.

After all, facing a goblin army, even a small kingdom could hold out for some time, and that time was enough to send requests for aid to distant kingdoms or empires. Though the kingdom might be severely weakened, it wouldn’t be entirely destroyed.

If nothing unexpected happened, as the war continued like this, before long, the goblins would be forced into a corner and launch a general offensive. Then, after being thoroughly defeated, they would scurry away in disgrace.

For the Gnome Kingdom, this wasn’t a significant loss. After all, in this war, most of what they had consumed were useless ordinary goblins. If those creatures were too numerous, they would negatively impact the Barbarian Forest’s ecology, which wasn’t good for the population’s sustainable development.

Aside from plundering human lands, resources, and containers, the war’s purpose also included culling the excessive number of ordinary goblins—a very important reason.

So far, not a single gnome had appeared on the battlefield.

After all, goblins were worthless, even Bronze-rank or Silver-rank ones. Gold-level goblins were slightly better, but they were still just low-level creatures.

But gnomes were different.

Gnomes were the upper echelon and rulers of the goblin population. They didn’t care how many ordinary goblins died; before long, a new batch would be born in large numbers. But gnomes themselves were a different story.

They were noble, born destined to be different from those lowly goblins.

Only in the final desperate struggle would these gnomes take the field, seeing if they could snatch some benefits.

If not, they would give up. Once casualties reached a certain number, they would immediately retreat, ensuring that “their own” didn’t suffer too many losses.

Based on past experience fighting goblins, this was the most likely outcome.

The senior leaders of the major powers currently making decisions naturally understood this. They were all waiting and on guard for the goblins’ final wave of attacks. At that point, they would no longer hold back and would step in to resolve this incident in one fell swoop.

But...

Lin Mo recalled a piece of information he had learned before the war broke out:

The Gnome Kingdom seemed to have mastered some special power.

Yet, up to now, throughout the entire war, he hadn’t found anything suspicious.

Would the war’s future course really be the same as historical goblin campaigns?

Lin Mo was skeptical about this.

But for now, aside from waiting, there wasn’t much he could do.

Oh, wait—there was actually something he could do...

Lin Mo remembered his agreement with Noren. Two days had passed, and he hadn’t taken any action. By now, Noren was probably starting to relax, even getting smug, wasn’t she?

He was completely right.

Noren was indeed very proud of herself.

“That guy is a complete and utter fool!”

Noren said so.

“He actually voluntarily proposed a game that offers him no benefit at all. When he could have just done nothing and forced me, Lady Noren, to shamefully offer my body, he wants to use this method to try and win me over? Does he think I’ll be moved by that?”

“Hmph! As expected, anyone hanging around an idiot like Finnie can’t have much of a brain... It’s been a full two days now! That bad guy has lost for sure!”

“Is that so?”

Just as Noren finished speaking, Lin Mo’s voice suddenly sounded from behind her.

“Then why don’t you look behind you?”

Noren’s entire body stiffened. She swallowed hard and slowly turned her head, seeing Lin Mo’s face with a faint smile.

That “friendly” expression made Noren’s heart skip a beat.

“What... what a coincidence, brother-in-law.”

This guy was practically a chameleon; even Sichuan opera face-changers weren’t as smooth as her.

Lin Mo wasn’t angry. He simply reached out and ruffled her hair. “That’s the first time, little Noren. You’ve still got two chances left.”

With that, he didn’t say anything more and directly turned to leave.

Shirleyas, standing beside Noren, watched Lin Mo’s retreating back, shock evident in her eyes.

When had he...

Lin Mo had approached without her sensing a thing.

“Damn it!”

Noren stomped her foot hard on the ground, as if venting her anger. “This time, he got lucky. Next time, there’s no way he’ll find me!”

Hearing this, Shirleyas opened her mouth slightly, as if wanting to speak but hesitating.

Aside from falling short in her maid duties, Shirleyas was nearly a perfect guard—gifted, powerful, and possessing no small amount of wisdom.

She could faintly sense that this encounter wasn’t a matter of luck.

It was all probably under that man’s control, wasn’t it?

But should she tell Miss Noren this?

Shirleyas looked down at her sister beside her and ultimately shook her head almost imperceptibly.

Under normal circumstances, Miss Noren shouldn’t have failed to realize this.

Perhaps the family’s orders had unsettled her? In any case, she was in a very strange state right now. Better not say anything.

Besides, maybe it was just her imagination?

As Lin Mo’s figure finally disappeared into the distance, Shirleyas withdrew her gaze and returned to her professional maid demeanor.

After putting enough distance between them, Lin Mo directly swapped positions with his clone.

That’s right, Shirleyas’s intuition was spot on.

Lin Mo certainly wouldn’t leave everything to something as intangible as luck. He had been playing dirty tricks on Noren from start to finish.

After reaching the agreement, he used the [Shadow Split] skill to create a clone, then entered Stealth mode and trailed them from a distance.

Whenever he wanted, he could appear not far behind Noren and them, then use Flash to suddenly pop up in front of them.

As for the increased consumption caused by maintaining the clone for too long...

Lin Mo had already figured out a solution.

When the time reached a certain point, he would simply create a new clone right where he was, then swap positions with the clone tracking Loren and them, dismiss the old clone, create a new one, and finally swap positions back with the clone left at the starting point, returning to his original location.

It sounded a bit troublesome, but it wasn’t actually complicated. Using this method, he could maintain the clone forever with minimal consumption, keeping them under surveillance.

With Lin Mo’s current Assassin class level and attributes, he could easily hide his presence so that Noren and her group couldn’t detect him.

So, the so-called agreement of three chance encounters was, at the end of the day, just a matter of how long he wanted to play this cat-and-mouse game. Whenever he got bored, he could end it anytime.

Having put the game aside for now, Lin Mo returned his focus to the ongoing battle. He glanced at the progress of his Knight class skills and shook his head.

Knight class skills were still too hard to improve. Even in a large-scale war like this, they weren’t progressing much faster.

But to achieve his goal of universal promotion for all classes, he couldn’t just abandon this class. Otherwise, once the other classes’ levels were high while the Knight class remained low, it would only become more painful later on. At that point, he would again fall into the dilemma of being afraid to freely use high-level magic or even other physical class skills.

So, now that it was a good time to practice Knight class skills, he couldn’t slack off. He had to put in overtime.

These past few days, he had hardly any time to rest, stuck in a cycle of grinding monsters, grinding monsters, and practicing [Life Contract].

If there was any real rest, it was only the brief meditation sessions after practicing [Life Contract].

Fortunately, with his current strength and constitution, he didn’t really need sleep anymore—at least not in the short term, so there was no issue.

And those meditation sessions were enough to relieve some physical fatigue while also speeding up mana recovery.

So, after so many days of battle, his mana was still essentially full.

His Qi and Blood, however, weren’t at full capacity, mainly because he’d been practicing physical class skills lately. Maintaining combat for proficiency and sustaining the clone tracking Noren and her group also required some Qi and Blood. Even using the bug-like method to keep the skill’s consumption at a minimum, this was still a Legendary-level skill. Even at the lowest consumption rate, it was still relatively high.

But overall, it wasn’t a big problem. Lin Mo’s combat power hadn’t been significantly affected.

Before anyone knew it, the war had been going on for nearly ten days.

The Gnome Kingdom still used the strategy of massing numbers, supplemented by small-scale incursions of high-level goblins. Admittedly, though this strategy seemed ineffective in the short term, like cutting flesh with a blunt knife, it did have an effect over time.

When the Roxez Empire’s soldiers first arrived, they were all full of confidence and energy. But after a few days of continuous fighting, they gradually grew tired, weary, and even fearful.

After all, the combat intensity they faced was indeed very high—and it was only increasing, with less and less rest time. This unreasonable, continuous pressure, combined with the fact that the war showed no sign of stopping, was truly easy to break someone’s spirit.

By now, compared to the beginning, the front line had retreated dozens of kilometers.

In the past two days, local breakthroughs on the front had become frequent, and the fighting was getting harder and harder...

But the good news was that the goblins’ mid-to-low-level combat power had also been greatly depleted.

The frequency of Silver and Gold-level goblins had peaked again two days ago and was now showing a clear decline. This time, it wasn’t a strategic contraction by the Gnome Kingdom—they really didn’t have many left.

If this continued, before long, they would find it hard to maintain this sustained pressure offensive. As the number of high-level goblins dwindled, the pressure on the front lines would inevitably ease.

So...

A white-haired old man sat inside his tent, reading the latest battle reports.

He put down the documents in his hands, raised his head to look at the people before him, and said slowly, “The final battle should be coming soon...”

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