"Not bad."

After looking over the attributes of the Mist Set, John nodded slightly.

As an SS-grade piece of equipment, it could barely be considered acceptable.

Afterward, he used his modification points and casually extended the duration of Mist State to one hundred minutes.

John then looked toward the other four.

All of them had excited smiles on their faces.

Clearly, this first-clear mission had brought them a plentiful harvest.

"It’s time to head back."

With a thought from John, the group immediately left the dungeon.

They returned to the City Lord Mansion in Zone 5’s Overlord City.

The moment the five of them appeared, the surrounding players immediately erupted into cheers.

"Big Boss John is awesome!"

"Thank you so much! Without you guys, we would never have gotten this buff!"

"I was worried before that my development speed was too slow and that I couldn’t catch up to the other Zones.

But now, looking at it, we’re the strongest!"

"Big Boss John, without you, we really don’t dare imagine how big the gap would become if this buff had fallen into another Zone’s hands!"

A crowd of players excitedly gathered around John, thanking him for his last-second Baron steal.

John waved his hand slightly.

"Since we now have this one-month buff, focus on developing properly.

One month from now, I hope I won’t see a single player below Level 40."

"Yes!"

Once John gave the order, the other players did not dare slack off. They immediately left the city one after another to grind monsters and level up.

After watching the players leave, John did not think about resting. Instead, he left the city as well.

Because now, he was going to the next mission location to obtain the Codex of Priest.

"World Tree."

John looked at the coordinates on the mission panel.

This was the clue he had obtained after killing the boss in the Dungeon Creation Scroll earlier.

According to the clue, as long as he killed all the monsters and bosses in the lower level of the World Tree Dungeon, he would be able to obtain the Codex of Priest.

"It shouldn’t be a very difficult dungeon."

John’s figure flickered repeatedly.

Before long, he arrived at the World Tree described in the mission location.

"So it really is a giant tree capable of supporting the world."

John looked up at the towering tree before him, whose top could not even be seen among the clouds.

Even a single exposed root hair was thicker than a circle formed by ten burly men holding hands.

The entire World Tree was shrouded in an invisible membrane.

When John tried to approach, he discovered that one actually needed the corresponding mission to enter.

Without the relevant mission, other players would not even be able to get close to the area around the World Tree.

"This dungeon is quite strange."

John sighed inwardly.

Immediately afterward, his figure flashed, and he quickly passed through the membrane, entering the range of the World Tree.

[Attention. You have entered the special dungeon: World Tree!]

[You have activated the Codex of Priest dungeon mission. From this moment onward, all living beings within the World Tree will be hostile toward you!]

[Before killing all living beings in the lower level, you will be unable to leave this place!]

John listened to the notifications ringing in his mind.

He was somewhat surprised.

"It’s actually trying to forcibly trap me here."

Although he was not afraid, he still disliked this feeling of being confined.

"This dungeon is really disgusting."

John closed the mission panel.

He looked toward the trunk of the World Tree before him.

A passage gradually extending into the depths of the trunk appeared in front of him.

The interior to which the passage led seemed to contain an enormous space.

There should be many monsters unique to the World Tree living inside.

John chuckled softly, and his figure flashed.

In the next moment, he appeared inside the tree.

Just as he had expected, the inside of the World Tree had already been hollowed out.

All kinds of wooden buildings clung to the walls of the tree like an ant nest.

The light source came from countless pieces of luminous wood carved into shape.

They illuminated the entire interior with an eerie green glow.

John activated Phantom Blink and silently approached the nearest wooden building.

At the entrance stood two strangely shaped trees.

The two trees were entwined with each other, forming a natural protective net.

The moment John got close, the two trees actually began to tremble.

It was as if they had sensed his presence.

"Hm?"

John paused.

Before he could react, a brown face suddenly grew out of each of the two trees.

"Enemy invasion! Enemy invasion!"

The two trees immediately opened their mouths and shouted loudly.

John’s expression darkened. He directly revealed himself and raised his hand, sending out two streams of dragonflame that burned the two tree demons to ashes.

[You have killed Tree Demon Lv. 40. EXP +1,000,000, gold coins +10,000, Fame +10,000!]

[You have killed Tree Demon Lv. 41. EXP +1,020,000, gold coins +10,000, Fame +10,000!]

...

He did not enter stealth again. Instead, he silently watched as large numbers of tree demons surged out from the wooden buildings.

John swept his gaze across the entire space inside the tree.

"There must be some creature here with an SS-grade detection skill.

It can even share that detection ability with these ordinary tree demons."

Otherwise, with the grade of his Phantom Blink, it would have been impossible for him to be discovered.

However, the current situation did not give him much time to think.

"It’s a human! Another hateful human!"

"Kill him!"

"He actually dares invade our home again!"

These tree demons seemed to possess extremely strong hostility toward humans.

The moment they appeared, they howled and charged over.

A large number of vines grew throughout the interior of the tree, transforming into bridges that surrounded John from every direction.

John remained expressionless and raised the Dragonflame Staff in his hand.

Boom!

An extremely explosive mass of dragonflame suddenly burst forth.

In an instant, those vines were burned to nothing.

The tree demons standing on them also caught fire.

Large amounts of fire damage appeared above their heads.

[-400,000!]

[-400,000!]

[-400,000!]

Dragonflame naturally countered these wood-attribute creatures.

Now that it was burning them directly, it dealt double damage.

A large swath of tree demons was burned to ashes, and anguished wails rang out one after another.

"Run! He has fire magic!"

"Where is the priest? Come save me!"

"Evil human!"

Streams of dragonflame continued to surge out from John’s staff.

He was like a death god descending upon this world, harvesting the lives of the tree demons.

But very soon—

As waves of green light emerged, the corpses of the tree demons that should have been burned to death actually began growing green shoots again.

And in just a few short seconds, a large batch of new tree demons was born.

"What is this?"

John frowned and looked toward the center of the green light.

There, he saw a group of tiny green sprites standing.

Relevant information appeared before him.

[Life Sprite] Lv. 50

[HP]: 8,900,000 / 8,900,000

[Attack]: 800

[Defense]: 500,000 / 500,000

[Skill]: Light of Life

[Description]: A unique creature of the World Tree. They excel at healing anything that is dead or dying!

...

"Life Sprites..."

John looked at those tiny green figures, and a cold light appeared in his eyes.

They could actually revive dead tree demons.

It seemed that the skill level of these Life Sprites was not low.

"As it happens, I’m missing a skill that can perform mass resurrection.

I’ll take it from you."

John smiled faintly.

In the next moment, he instantly split into 999 clones.

Against Life Sprites with extremely high HP and the ability to revive their allies, he had to kill them in one strike!