Imagine, if he didn’t have the SVIP player identity, and hadn’t chosen the Dao environment origin for this instance, it would probably have been much more difficult to reach his current status, perhaps even utterly impossible.

After all, this instance’s world is full of indigenous experts, divided into numerous factions, making it exceedingly difficult for an outsider to infiltrate the core circle.

Simply having strong abilities is not enough; there are many identity-related issues that are tough to solve, and he might end up being surrounded and attacked as some evil being.

However, with the identity of someone from the Dao environment, everything was different.

Wang Zhifan wouldn’t be troubled by instance identity issues from the start; his identity was even more prestigious than most of the natives, giving him a natural advantage in social interactions.

Because the Dao environment is one of the upper heavens, being from there basically makes one the core and direct line of the Dao sect, making it almost unobstructed to navigate in the Dao sect’s territory. Moreover, with Wang Zhifan’s own sufficient strength, he seemed like a fish in water, advancing by leaps and bounds.

"Friend of the Martial Venerable, apart from one corpse being devoured, the charred body was also searched by your two subordinates from the hall. They once asked me for the most intact corpse, but I refused them, asking them to await your decision."

Qingyangzi finally brought this up, letting Wang Zhifan know that his three player partners were secretly making small moves, scavenging the three player corpses. Without Qingyangzi’s intervention, he might not have been able to see even a hair.

"Qingyang, I appreciate your thoughtfulness. These corpses were indeed my friends in life. Please allow me to arrange their burial personally to express my condolences."

Approaching, after focusing on the tall, sturdy white man’s body and confirming the quality of the equipment on him, Wang Zhifan replied thus.

He found that the equipment on this white man was mostly of rare grade, with only two of excellent grade: an outer coat called "Wanderer’s Protective Cloak" and a tie inside known as "Weber’s Defiance."

Both pieces of equipment had defensive attributes.

In terms of features, the Wanderer’s Protective Cloak had a limited-range random teleportation function, while Weber’s Defiance tie had a rechargeable death-immunity mechanism.

These were fairly practical pieces of equipment, but unfortunately, they didn’t suit Wang Zhifan, and he didn’t think much of them.

As someone with the epic Blank Winding Belt, the small range random teleportation of the Wanderer’s Protective Cloak seemed of low value to Wang Zhifan, far inferior to his Blank Belt’s flexible and controllable spatial movement.

Needless to say about Weber’s Defiance tie’s rechargeable death-immunity mechanism, compared to the legendary capability of the Perfector power similar to his, it was like comparing heaven and earth.

Otherwise, why would this white man have already died? It shows that immunity to death once in a short period is not reliable. If death is meant to happen, it still will.

Of course, excellent-grade equipment is not mundane, even if just for collecting, Wang Zhifan would take them all.

He would also take the rare-grade equipment from this white man, not letting them accompany their original master into the sunless world.

However, such corpse looting was commonplace for Wang Zhifan, yet he now had to maintain some dignity. He couldn’t start stripping the corpse’s clothing right in front of Qingyangzi, or else it would affect his respectable Martial Venerable reputation.

That’s why he proposed to take charge of burying these corpses, letting Qingyangzi hand over the troublesome matter to him.

Understanding this, Qingyangzi naturally wouldn’t oppose. In fact, not long ago, Qingyangzi routinely checked the Demon Sealing List and found that the Martial Venerable before him was nearly in the top ten. With such an expert in his own ranks, naturally, he had to look after him well and wouldn’t create discord over small matters.

Thus, when Wang Zhifan left Qingyang Palace, he carried away the two unfortunate players’ corpses and the weapons left by the Otherworld players using his Space Ring.

He then personally flew outside the city, found a place to bury the corpses, and before burying the white player, he lightened his load of equipment to prevent him from being too burdened on his way to ascending to heaven.

As for the weapons left by those Otherworld players, after pondering their attribute types, he destroyed them on the spot, burying the remnants in the earth.

The main reason being that these items were basically not intact, with quality at most being rare grade, and were all technological side items, lacking special value.

For someone owning an urban planet, there’s no need to collect them; he could visit the urban planet to order higher-grade similar equipment, available nearly in any desired quantity.

To put it plainly, given his current situation, he kept many laser weapons in the black tower and had no demand for technological side equipment.

"It seems most of these Otherworld players follow a technological development route, but their average strength is not very strong, somewhat weaker than our players here...

Except for the metal ring that killed the white player, which seemed interesting, other items were basically withstandable for me with a Biological Force Field...

However, it is advisable to remain cautious as there might still be hidden experts among them."

After dealing with the spoils Qingyangzi helped secure, Wang Zhifan returned once again to the Martial Venerable Hall at Celestial Essence City.

He summoned the Xia Country sunglasses youth, the island girl, and the eerie white girl, to learn about the events of last night from their side.

He then asked them to pay more attention to the Otherworld player aspect in the coming days, to be wary of these enemies launching another surprise attack, and to assist in defending the Martial Venerable Hall if necessary.

He didn’t mention anything about distributing the equipment from the three player corpses, tacitly allowing everyone to take away what they already got, to avoid unnecessary unpleasantness that might affect the newly established atmosphere of unity.

Now, he valued these few people quite highly, relying on them to help protect the main base when he leaves Celestial Essence City to battle the Demon Venerable.

He didn’t care about them privately taking equipment; even if they might have acquired great gear, it didn’t matter to him.

Given his situation, any good equipment would eventually fall into his hands as long as he continued to grind instances.

There’s no need to be overly concerned with immediate gains and losses; the primary goal is still to pass the instance successfully.

Hence, in the following days, Wang Zhifan repeated almost the same daily routine. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

He focused on combating the Demon Realm’s forces, spending most of his time away from Celestial Essence City, either hunting lone Demon Venerables in the Calamity Realm alone or joining listed experts in key cities to fight the invading Demon Army.

He often succeeded in individual hunts, with few Demon Venerables able to withstand his towering personal strength and dazzling high-end equipment. Only some strong Demon Venerables who knew of his fierce reputation managed to escape his grasp by using various magical abilities in advance.

In battles against the Demon Army, the results were mixed because in large-scale battles, a single genius can hardly determine the outcome. Wang Zhifan could not truly fight dozens or hundreds of Demon Venerables on his own, and when the overall situation turned unfavorable, he would teleport and retreat with allies, just as the Demon Venerables would collectively flee using teleportation nodes when suffering excessive losses.

These battles, if detailed, could not be explained in one or two days. In general, it’s a mutual depletion between the Calamity Realm’s forces and the Demon Army, where neither side can resolve the other, relying on continuous reinforcement from respective backers to gradually elevate the war to a climax.

The Calamity Realm’s backers were naturally the three upper heavens—Dao environment, Confucian environment, and Buddha Realm, each sending new super-innate experts daily to assist Calamity Realm.

The Demon Army maintained the capability to transport their forces into the Calamity Realm, continuously summoning new Demon Venerables and Demon Armies from the Demon Realm’s main base, swearing to take over the entire Calamity Realm at all costs.

In this prolonged war, Wang Zhifan performed exceptionally well, but after all, he was just one person. Facing the suspected two thousand strong Demon Realm Demon Venerables, he could only proceed gradually, doing his best to make the Demon Realm suffer continuous losses.

This undoubtedly caused his merit points to accumulate more and more, becoming a leader charging into the top ten of the Demon Sealing List in just two days, and a few days later, reaching the top five.

He had become a famously strong expert on the Demon Sealing List, drawing attention from both the Calamity Realm and the Demon Realm, alongside super grinders like the Demon Tathagata.