“I’ll finish this round,” Tang Rou refused to give up.

Ye Xiu smiled, knowing that this girl was bothered by his earlier judgment that she wouldn't be able to finish, so she was determined to complete the solo run. Ignoring her, he left a sentence, "Call me when you're done," and dragged his stool back to his own spot.

Hearing Ye Xiu's tone, completely unconcerned about whether she could finish or not, Tang Rou felt a bit deflated. But she wouldn't give up on the resolution she had made in her heart and continued her solo run of the Frost Forest.

Forgetting to take potions to replenish is a common mistake for new players. Tang Rou was now aware of the problem and wouldn't be careless again. She paid attention to the amount of mana recovered by the mana potions and didn't wait until her mana was completely exhausted before using them. Tang Rou felt that she was already pushing herself to the limit, but she still ran out of mana several times and had to rest and eat something after finishing the battle.

During her breaks, she looked back at Ye Xiu, who was completely engrossed in leveling up, puffing away on his cigarette, not even glancing at her.

"Hmph!" Tang Rou's fighting spirit wouldn't disappear because of this. She continued to play, stopping and starting, eating and replenishing. The difficulty of the Frost Forest dungeon was evident from her potion consumption. She had soloed the three dungeons in the beginner village, but when had she ever worked so hard?

Especially when it came to the final Boss, Frost Saen, who undoubtedly had the most health in the entire dungeon. Tang Rou's fully replenished mana, plus mid-battle potion refills, still weren't enough to take down Saen. In the end, she was stuck in an awkward output situation: one potion every minute, skills for 10 seconds, and no skills for 50 seconds.

She was only able to manage because she had listened to Ye Xiu's detailed explanation of Frost Saen's characteristics and how to deal with them during the last dungeon run. Otherwise, if she had rashly attempted a solo run, she would definitely have fallen here.

In this battle, Tang Rou fed Frost Saen a lot of red and blue potions, finally managing to defeat him and let out a long sigh of relief.

The dungeon statistics showed a time of 1 hour, 33 minutes, 24 seconds, and 49 milliseconds.

Although she had finally completed the solo run, Tang Rou didn't feel any sense of victory from this result. She was too embarrassed to challenge Ye Xiu and simply sent him a message telling him that she was out.

"Oh? You're done?" Ye Xiu received the message and turned around.

"Yeah."

"You brought enough potions!" Ye Xiu laughed.

"..."

"Get up, I'll demonstrate for you," Ye Xiu said.

Tang Rou silently dragged her stool to the side. She wanted to see how Ye Xiu played. She secretly noted how many supplies she had used and how many she had left.

Ye Xiu dragged his stool over, sat down, and immediately sent Soft Mist into the dungeon again. While going over to pull the monsters, he began to explain, "To truly reach the limit of sustain, you need to be extremely meticulous in many aspects. The theory is the same, but the tactics used will not be exactly the same in different dungeons."

"First of all, the most basic thing is to always know how much mana you have left," Ye Xiu said.

"Yeah, I pay attention to that," Tang Rou said.

"Then, you also need to know how much mana each skill consumes," Ye Xiu said.

"Uh..." Tang Rou couldn't answer. She was quite familiar with skills like Sky Strike, Dragon Tooth, and Triple Shot, but she had never really thought about memorizing how much mana each skill used.

"Then, we need to use the least amount of mana to deal the most damage output. First, you need to understand the hidden effects of each skill. You should have seen this in the guides, right?" Ye Xiu said.

"I've seen it!" Tang Rou replied.

"Then, have you tried to use the maximum damage output every time? For example..." Ye Xiu performed an action, and Soft Mist jumped into the air, thrusting her spear into a monster, then swung it around, using a Circle Swing.

"Yeah, I know that the hidden attribute of Circle Swing is that it deals extra damage when the swing arc exceeds 180 degrees, and I try to do that as much as possible," Tang Rou said.

"Then, have you made full use of the AoE effect of that attack?" Ye Xiu said. On the screen, the goblin that was swung down by the Circle Swing knocked down a bunch of its companions.

"To maximize output, you must consider the AoE effect of each skill." Ye Xiu explained as he demonstrated, "Dragon Tooth and Triple Shot are single-target skills, but if we start with a launch, attack in the air to create a knockback, and cause a collision, we can also create an AoE effect."

"Falling Flower Palm is a frontal attack, but its range is small. The palm force can hit up to three monsters at the same time. But the knockback effect is strong, and aerial attacks have a knockback bonus. When creating collisions, try to create as much air time as possible. It's impossible to launch three monsters at once with a normal launch attack. You have to use the oblique Sky Strike launch, which you should have seen in the guide, right?"

As Ye Xiu spoke, Soft Mist stepped forward diagonally and performed a Sky Strike from a side angle, launching three goblins side by side into the air, but with obvious differences in height and timing. Soft Mist quickly turned around and, before the goblins' air time could increase further, unleashed a Falling Flower Palm. The three goblins happened to be within the range of this palm and were blown away together, slamming into a pile of goblins.

"After this series of attacks, do you know how much health each of these goblins has left?" Ye Xiu asked.

"..."

"You also need to be familiar with the health of the monsters. When a monster only has a sliver of health left and can be finished off with a collision, why waste a skill that consumes mana on it?"

"Skills are powerful, but you can't use them without restraint. For example, with this goblin, if it were a one-on-one situation, with your current skill damage, you would need at least three attacks to finish it off. So, the first combination we prioritize is..."

"Sky Strike, Dragon Tooth, and then a normal attack?" Tang Rou said.

"Yeah, it seems you understand the idea, but your choice isn't the most correct one," Ye Xiu said.

"Why?"

"Because you forgot that Dragon Tooth automatically generates a Chaser when it hits a target, and generating a Chaser consumes mana. So, the best way is..." Ye Xiu flicked his fingers, "Normal attack, then Triple Shot to trigger the bleeding effect, and let it die from the bleeding damage."

"But the bleeding effect of Triple Shot is also a matter of chance..." The goblin on the screen did indeed fall after being hit by Soft Mist's Triple Shot and triggering the bleeding effect, but the bleeding chance of Triple Shot was only 50%, according to the guide Tang Rou remembered.

"We're pursuing the limit now, not stability," Ye Xiu said.

"Oh, I understand," Tang Rou nodded.

After that, Ye Xiu continued to explain all the way, covering skill damage, mana consumption, monster health, monster gathering, skill characteristics, and the pursuit of back attacks, knockbacks, aerial attacks, and so on. The so-called ultimate sustain was simply meticulous calculation to a demanding degree. Because Ye Xiu had to explain, he wasn't able to achieve 100% perfection, but even so, Tang Rou could clearly see that her mana consumption had significantly decreased, but the output she was dealing was in no way inferior to her own skill spamming.

In the end, when Ye Xiu completed the entire Frost Forest solo run in 1 hour, 12 minutes, 21 seconds, and 32 milliseconds, the dazzling 20-minute difference made Tang Rou's eyes sting. Not only the time, but Ye Xiu's potion consumption was also much lower than hers. Apart from using food once before Frost Saen, there were no other stops. She knew that this wasn't even his limit. Because Ye Xiu had to explain to her along the way, there were pauses and demonstrations. If he really concentrated on a solo run, Tang Rou suspected that it wouldn't even take an hour.

"Got it all?" Ye Xiu asked, turning back after coming out of the dungeon.

"Yeah!" Tang Rou nodded.

"Practice! Pay attention to everything I mentioned earlier. This kind of play is indeed quite tiring, but if you want to challenge the record, you need 100% concentration and effort," Ye Xiu said.

"Understood." Tang Rou sat back down after Ye Xiu gave up his seat.

"After you've finished your two runs later, use my account to play three times," Ye Xiu said.

"You didn't go to the dungeon just to save attempts for me to practice?" Tang Rou asked.

"Yeah. My account and your account have slightly different skill damage and consumption. Switching between them will allow you to adapt to this play style faster. Once you form this awareness, you can focus on familiarizing yourself with your own account and character," Ye Xiu said.

"Then I'll switch accounts every time I play," Tang Rou said.

"That works too."

"Then I'll start with your account! You three times, me two times, five times is perfect," Tang Rou said.

"Okay." Ye Xiu got up and gave his Lord Grim to Tang Rou.

Tang Rou sat down, looking at the equipment damage, skills, and personal attributes. Ye Xiu was very pleased. This girl had potential!

So the two of them took turns using accounts. Ye Xiu leveled up, Tang Rou practiced the dungeon, and Ye Xiu would occasionally look back and give some pointers. Tang Rou grasped it quickly. She had the mechanics, which was equivalent to having the hardware foundation. In this case, installing the software was relatively easy. If you only have the software and the hardware can't keep up, then the software can't run at all. And improving the hardware would require a lot of effort.

Seeing Tang Rou's rapid progress, Ye Xiu felt that this hired hand was quite reliable, unlike Bao Zi, who made him a little worried. What was worse, Bao Zi's level was high, unlike Tang Rou, who was only level 20 now and had plenty of leveling space to practice.

"But with just these two people, it might still be a bit lacking!" Ye Xiu sighed. Now that he knew who his opponent was and what their class was, he knew even more clearly what kind of power he needed on his side. Equipment didn't really need to be understood. Level 25, and in a new server, the equipment couldn't be too extreme. It would definitely just be a purple weapon to ensure output.

It took Tang Rou an hour for each solo run. After five runs, it would be dawn at the Internet cafe. When the night shift workers came to work, they saw that there were no other customers in the huge Internet cafe, just these two people sitting at the front desk and playing games like crazy.

"Wait a bit!" Seeing that the replacement worker had arrived, Tang Rou didn't even give up her seat. These precious dungeon attempts! How could she give them up now?

"Come, come to my place!" Ye Xiu gave up his machine instead.

"You practice, I'll make a phone call," Ye Xiu said to Tang Rou.

"Mm." Tang Rou didn't even bother to look up.

"Hello?" Ye Xiu got through to the phone, and the voice on the other end sounded a little groggy.

"Are you awake yet?" Ye Xiu asked.

"Ah??" The voice suddenly became clear. "Where are you?" Su Mucheng asked.