Worldwide Class Change: Minimal Effort, Maximum Reward!-Chapter 155, Locating Thunder Dragon, Endlessly Leveling Up! (2)
He mounted the qilin and they continued upward.
The traversal carried him cleanly through the transition zone between the mid-tier island clusters and the upper atmospheric formations. The shift was immediately visible in the character of the terrain. The islands here were larger, more defined, and far less numerous than the dense, tightly packed clusters below. The spacing between formations widened noticeably, leaving open stretches of air that felt almost deliberate, while the monsters that occupied this layer appeared less frequently but carried significantly higher individual classifications.
At the same time, the ambient energy density rose in a steady, almost measurable gradient as the altitude increased. Astral rivers cut through this layer at their fullest, no longer thin streams but thick, flowing currents of condensed energy weaving between the islands. The spiritual concentration continued to build with each passing moment until it reached a point his Celestial Absorption passive no longer registered as increasing, but as fully saturated, as if he had entered an environment where the surrounding energy had already reached its natural limit.
He then released Celestial Sword Qi on every population he could reach from traversal altitude as they moved, each release converting the traversal time into productive output rather than dead transit.
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[Voidclaw Ravager ×8 | Level 162 — passing overhead]
[Voidclaw Ravager ×8 Defeated]
[EXP Gained: +44,400 × 8 = +355,200]
[Amplification: ×10,000]
[New EXP Gained: +3,552,000,000]
[Level Up! — Level 228 → Level 229]
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[Starborn Predator ×13 | Level 165 — passing overhead]
[Starborn Predator ×13 Defeated]
[EXP Gained: +49,200 × 13 = +639,600]
[Amplification: ×10,000]
[New EXP Gained: +6,396,000,000]
[Level Up! — Level 229 → Level 230]
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Level 230. He opened the panel briefly to confirm the threshold.
---
[Level: 230]
[EXP: 4,230,890 / 28,400,000,000]
---
Twenty-eight point four billion required for the next level. The cost curve had continued its acceleration, the gap between 229 to 230 and 230 to 231 wider than any previous adjacent pair. The 10,000x amplification was still producing meaningful progress, but the speed at which the threshold walls were growing was communicating the system’s structural intent with increasing clarity.
He closed the panel.
The upper atmospheric layer opened ahead of them as the Greater Qilin completed the final Heaven Step of the ascent sequence. The island formations here were different in character from everything below. Larger, the surfaces measured in kilometers rather than meters, their materials incorporating the high-grade mineral compositions that only formed under sustained exposure to the expanse’s concentrated upper-layer energy. The spacing between formations was wide enough that the traversal between them was a significant journey rather than a short hop.
The astral rivers ran at their heaviest concentration up here, the silver and violet and gold currents moving through the air at a density that made them semi-visible even to unaided perception, the spiritual energy pressing against everything that passed through them.
Lin Yi had been in the upper atmospheric layer before, briefly, during the early reconnaissance of the expanse in the first few days. He had not stayed. The monster classifications up here were different from the mid-tier zone, the entities operating at levels that the mid-tier identification framework did not adequately describe. He had noted that and filed it for the stage he was now in.
The Greater Qilin moved through the astral rivers without adjusting its pace, the evolved form’s energy absorption operating at maximum intake as they passed through the dense concentrations. Its scales shifted through their color spectrum more rapidly in this layer, the multicolored light responding to the higher-grade energy available.
Then Lin Yi heard it.
Not heard, exactly. The thunder dragon’s presence communicated itself through channels that were not entirely acoustic, the deep resonance of its passage pressing through the surrounding space as a physical force that the body registered independently of the ears. He had felt it before from a distance, the first days in the expanse when the creature had been visible in the upper sky as a streak of lightning-scale movement.
At this altitude, in the upper atmospheric layer, the resonance was immediate and full.
He looked up.
The Greater Qilin had stopped. Not from hesitation. From the same registered presence, the spatial awareness it had developed providing a read of what was approaching from the direction the resonance indicated.
The astral rivers ahead of them parted.
They were pushed aside in the way that things are pushed aside when something very large moves through a space that is not quite large enough to contain it without disturbance. The silver and violet currents bent around the approaching form, bending in advance of the visual contact, the energy displacement preceding the visible arrival by several seconds.
Then it appeared. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞
The thunder dragon. Its body filled the upper atmospheric layer from current altitude to a height that vanished into the upper layers above, the scales formed of condensed lightning flickering continuously, each scale discharging faintly as it moved, the collective discharge building to arcs that jumped between scales as the creature traversed the space at its traversal pace.
From this distance, at this altitude, without the perspective distortion that viewing it from the island surface had imposed, the scale was different than he had processed it in the early observations. Longer than the horizontal distance between many of the island formations in the mid-tier zone. Wide enough that the air displacement from its passage was registering against his perceptive range as a steady pressure.
The system prompt appeared.
He looked at it.
The level number was visible in the prompt’s header.
Lin Yi looked at the thunder dragon itself, moving through the upper atmospheric layers on its patrol path, the lightning arcs playing between its scales, the astral rivers flowing around its passage.
"There you are," he said.
The Greater Qilin looked at the thunder dragon and then at Lin Yi with its evolved steady awareness, the specific quality it brought to situations it was assessing as the next objective.
Lin Yi mind then reeled,
What a sight..
