"Perception: (Active/Passive) Primary. Passive: The degree of sensitivity to the surrounding environment. Active: Once activated, you can preliminarily detect some information about the target. The effect is reduced by 50% for targets more than 5 levels above yourself, and is ineffective for targets more than 10 levels above yourself."

Charles Bennett carefully studied his own attributes and skills, his mind swirling with all sorts of ideas and hypotheses.

……

The half-cut tree stump was huge, thick enough for five people to encircle it with their arms. Two people sitting on it didn’t feel crowded at all. Vanilla Sky calmly watched the crowd of players in the nearby village for quite a while before withdrawing his gaze. He turned to glance at Charles Bennett beside him and saw this druid meticulously checking his equipment. That focused expression gave Vanilla Sky a jolt inside, his eyes flickering thoughtfully.

After a while, when Charles Bennett had memorized all the attributes of his equipment and his own panel stats, and finally turned his gaze to the bustling crowd of players in the distance, the mohawk-haired warrior beside him could no longer hold back and was the first to break the silence.

"Hey! I say, friend, why aren’t you taking advantage of the server launch to hurry up and level? Don’t look at me like that, I’m just a solo casual player—no party, no guild, and as a level 1 short-legged warrior, trying to squeeze into the crowd with those ranged classes and rogues is just asking for trouble."

"I’m also a solo casual player. Now isn’t the time to do quests and level up."

Charles Bennett's calm reply made Vanilla Sky feel another stir inside, and he began to look at Charles Bennett more seriously. The mohawk-haired warrior knew these two sentences weren’t something an ordinary player would say.

If Charles Bennett had started complaining about how crowded it was to level up right now, and that even as a druid skilled in ranged magic attacks, it was hard to complete quests; or if he had simply asked to team up with the warrior to do quests and fight higher-level monsters together—if Charles Bennett had said any of that, Vanilla Sky wouldn’t have bothered with this druid any further, or at most would have brushed him off with a few words and gone their separate ways.

But Charles Bennett said, "Now isn’t the time to do quests and level up." This was exactly the conclusion Vanilla Sky had come to after much consideration before entering the game.

"Just for this insight alone, this druid is at least not your average player," Vanilla Sky concluded in his heart.

"Exactly! For us solo casual players, now really isn’t the time to grind monsters and level up." Vanilla Sky nodded silently, then asked, "So, friend, when do you think is the best time to start leveling?"

Charles Bennett glanced at Vanilla Sky and said, "There are a total of 8 million virtual game helmets issued in Yanhuang Nation, and the Order faction has 150 initial adventure zones…"

Vanilla Sky's eyes lit up and he exclaimed, "Great minds think alike, great minds think alike! Brother, just this level of insight is something most players don’t have."

Charles Bennett smiled slightly but didn’t respond. In fact, how would he know when the best time to start leveling was? He was actually troubled by this very question. But since Vanilla Sky asked, Charles Bennett naturally gave this answer. His intuition told him that the best time to do quests and level up could be deduced from this, but as for what the conclusion actually was, Charles Bennett hadn’t even come close to figuring it out—after all, he had too little information to work with.

However, pretending had long since become second nature to Charles Bennett. He rattled off those numbers smoothly, and his look of confidence was perfectly feigned.

Clearly, Vanilla Sky was not someone who could keep his thoughts to himself. Once he agreed with Charles Bennett, he couldn’t hold back any longer, and started talking enthusiastically while sitting on the tree stump.

"When it comes to the timing for leveling up right after a server launch, it really is ever-changing and fleeting. And this time, the launch of 'Night Lord' is different from previous large-scale games. Just as you said, brother, Yanhuang Nation has issued a total of 8 million virtual game helmets, and the Order faction has 150 initial adventure zones. The Chaos faction is about the same. Even if the 8 million players are evenly split between the two factions, that’s just over 20,000 players entering each initial adventure zone. Besides, this Wind Whisper Town, heh heh…" Vanilla Sky deliberately paused here, seeing that Charles Bennett's expression remained unchanged, and secretly nodded again before continuing, "Looks like you, brother, are like me—someone with some inside information! I did a lot of research before choosing Wind Whisper Town from among the 150 initial adventure zones of the Order faction. The three dukes, six warlords, and several core teams from famous gaming studios in Yanhuang Nation didn’t enter Wind Whisper Town. For us solo players, choosing this place as our starting zone means we can at least catch our breath a little."

"Three dukes, six warlords? Wind Whisper Town has only a little over 20,000 players?"

There were too many unfamiliar terms in Vanilla Sky's words for Charles Bennett, but the mention of just over 20,000 players struck him like lightning. A flash of inspiration hit Charles Bennett, and he immediately grasped the key point. He quickly calculated the time in his mind, analyzing when would be the optimal moment to start doing quests.