As for the arguments raging in the World Channel,
the true protagonist, John, paid them no attention at all.
What he needed right now was to properly sort through all the talents he had acquired.
After fighting his way all the way to Level 50, John had already plundered so many talents that he had long since lost count.
He found a quiet spot, sat down, opened his personal panel, and fixed his gaze on the Talent section.
In Apocalypse, there was no hard cap on how many talents a player could carry.
Instead, talents were divided into different sequences.
At present, John's talents fell into six major sequences:
Special Sequence, Cooldown Sequence, Recovery Sequence, Range Extension Sequence, Shift Sequence, and Attack Sequence.
The Special Sequence referred to talents like [Wrath of the Raider] and [Universal Synthesis], talents that did not belong to the other major sequences.
Basically, almost all talents of S-rank and above belonged to the Special Sequence.
Of course, there were exceptions.
For example, the SSS-rank [Absolute True Damage] belonged to the Attack Sequence.
These were all among John's core talents.
And within their respective sequences, their index numbers were all ranked near the very top.
John carefully reviewed the talents in the other sequences aside from his core ones.
He wanted to see whether there were any that could be synthesized into even stronger talents.
"Let's see..."
John's eyes swept downward.
Range Extension Sequence:
No. 145 — A-rank [Boundary Break]
No. 856 — B-rank [Long Shot]
No. 987 — B-rank [Hawkeye] ...
There were more than thirty-seven talents in the Range Extension Sequence alone, most of them B-rank.
He had probably obtained them from the ranged undead he had just killed in the catacombs.
"If I synthesize them now, it probably won't be all that useful.
I might as well wait until I've stored up ninety B-rank talents, then synthesize them all at once into nine A-rank talents.
That way, I can combine them together with the A-rank [Boundary Break] and directly produce an S-rank talent from the Range Extension Sequence."
John quickly formed a plan in his mind.
Just as he was about to continue checking the remaining sequence talents,
another server-wide announcement rang out.
But this time, it was somewhat different from before.
What sounded was a cold and solemn voice.
[Global Server Announcement: A player from Zone 4 has used a special consumable S-rank item on Zone 5: Acceleration Token!
Target of acceleration: the arrival time of the monster tide in Zone 5's world-level quest, "Defend Novice Village"!]
In the next instant,
the sky over all of Zone 5 abruptly shifted from clear to overcast.
Just moments ago, the heavens had been bright and cloudless.
Now, layer upon layer of black clouds spread across the sky, as though the end of the world were descending.
Boom!
A bolt of lightning tore through the heavens.
[Acceleration complete. The monster tide originally scheduled to descend in 7 days will now descend at 5:00 AM tomorrow morning!
All players in Zone 5, please make your preparations. Good luck!]
The announcement ended.
As they stared at the black clouds pressing down like a collapsing city wall, ten thousand mythical beasts seemed to stampede through the minds of Zone 5's players.
What the hell did it mean for the monster tide to arrive six days early?
How had Zone 4 managed to get such an absurdly powerful item?
It could actually accelerate an event in another Zone?
Even John was somewhat shocked at this moment.
Nothing like this had happened in his previous life.
Just how had Zone 4 silently come up with something as outrageous as an Acceleration Token?
And at this moment,
the emotions of the other players in Zone 5 were the most complicated of all.
First, they fell into a brief dead silence.
Then they realized just how disastrous this acceleration would be for them.
For a moment,
the World Channel of Zone 5—which just moments ago had been filled with praise for John and people begging to ride his coattails—
suddenly turned on him, and everyone began furiously cursing him out.
[X]: "Fuck! The first monster tide is coming at 5 AM tomorrow morning, and I'm not even Level 10 yet.
How the hell are we supposed to play like this?"
[Mia] (Zone 5): "We only have one day. How are we supposed to develop?
Tomorrow, we're definitely going to lose a ton of players.
With that death penalty, we won't be able to respawn for three days, and we'll even lose a piece of equipment.
This is practically designed specifically to cripple Zone 5's development!"
[Ilan] (Zone 5): "Isn't this all because of John?
If everyone had just developed steadily together, then with the strength of the major guilds, we could've naturally taken first place.
But no—he just had to play the lone hero and level up so fast by himself.
And in the end, it's ordinary players like us who have to pay the price!"
[Matthew] (Zone 5): "No helping it. We ended up with a jinx like him.
If he had spared even a little thought for ordinary players like us, he would've known not to push progress this fast.
Now look at this. He had his fun, and tomorrow we're the ones who are going to suffer."
At a glance,
the players from the other Zones had not even started attacking John yet.
But the players of Zone 5 were cursing him more viciously than anyone else.
The flood of ugly comments left players from the other Zones utterly dumbfounded.
Of course,
there were also rational players in Zone 5.
[Helos] (Zone 5): "Enough. Can you all calm down for once?
If this world-level quest had arrived seven days later as planned, it would've been an incredible leveling opportunity for us.
Shouldn't the real culprit be Zone 4?
If they hadn't used the Acceleration Token, how would we have ended up in such an embarrassing situation?"
[Ares] (Zone 5): "Exactly. I've realized some people's brains really aren't working.
Zone 4 is obviously the one to blame, yet you insist on cursing someone from our own Zone.
Just think about it—why are we ranked first in the first place?
Isn't it because Boss John is here?"
However, the words of this small minority were quickly drowned beneath all kinds of emotional attacks.
[Mia] (Zone 5): "At a time like this, you're still thinking about licking John's boots?
Wasn't he just lucky enough to awaken a relatively powerful talent, which is why he developed so fast?
Zone 5 has the largest population out of all the Zones, and we also have the most top-tier guilds.
With top-tier guilds here, it was only a matter of time before our Zone reached first place in the combat power rankings!"
[Luca] (Zone 5): "Hmph. Did John give you something? Is that why you're defending him so hard?
The rules of the Power Ranking are written crystal clear—it calculates the total combat power of all players in the Zone.
As long as all of us level up, our total combat power can still rank first.
How much difference can he make by himself?
If he's so capable, then let him go hold off tomorrow morning's monster tide alone!"
[Lise] (Zone 5): "Exactly right!
That John clearly swallowed all of our rewards and EXP for himself.
If you ask me, he should be the one to face tomorrow's monster tide alone.
And afterward, he should return all the rewards he got to the rest of us!
That was something he owed us in the first place."
The vast majority of Zone 5 players vented their emotions with all kinds of outrageous remarks.
In order to find an outlet for their anger—
and at the same time, to gain greater benefits for themselves—
John had all but become public enemy number one in Zone 5.
In the eyes of the other Zones, this was nothing less than a colossal joke.
The strongest player in Zone 5 was now being attacked by the very players of his own Zone.
What a bitter irony.
But the overwhelming majority of people in Zone 5 did not care in the slightest how they looked.
They only wanted to use this method to find a morally self-righteous outlet for their own weakness—
and for their jealousy of the strong.