After looking around for a while, he finally saw a pitiful knight shouting: “Level 8 knight desperately seeking any team, can tank, can deal damage, can heal, seeking care, seeking sponsorship...”

Heh, just as expected. What does it mean to be able to tank, deal damage, and heal? That’s talking about Druids! Being grouped with a Paladin is simply a tragedy. Human Paladins are also tragic—tanking is for warriors, damage is for mages, healing is for priests. Paladins can do everything but excel at nothing; it’s hard for them to find a job.

In his previous life, Jack Carter only started playing the game a year after launch, so he’d only heard a little about what happened at the very beginning. Now, seeing firsthand the Paladin’s weakness, his confidence grew even more. The Paladin class is tough in the early stages, flourishes in the mid-game, but as for the late game? There is no late game—they become power-leveling mercenaries by mid-game.

Great, fewer people competing for jobs is always a good thing. Maybe this life, he could catch the eye of a big studio and become their top power-leveler, heh heh.

Then he opened the in-game search function to check the player level rankings, to see just how far behind he was at the starting line.

1. Anonymous Player: Level 28 (Male, class unknown, race unknown) (Note: In the game, players can choose to hide their personal info on the rankings)

2. Samuel Wright: Level 26 (Male, Rogue, Undead)

3. William Clark: Level 26 (Male, Mage, Human)

4. Charles Bennett: Level 26 (Male, Warrior, Orc)

5. Evelyn Brooks: Level 26 (Female, Priest, Elf)

6. Edward Harris: Level 26 (Male, Druid, Elf)

...

Jack Carter couldn’t help but take a sharp breath—truly, heroes emerge from the young, and the strong remain strong. The top players from before his transmigration were all gathering at the top of the rankings again. Especially William Clark, known as the God of Mages. The William Clark pro player club he founded later became internationally renowned, and the William Clark studio under it was a peak existence in the game. That was a legendary figure whom Jack Carter had looked up to in his previous life.

But, only level 26 after a month? Haha, so it really is the traditional mode of grinding monsters and running dungeons to level up? As a transmigrator and a professional power-leveler, Jack Carter couldn’t help but feel a sense of superiority.

Well, after all, that’s the way most players think, and the official game info has always been tightly guarded. Players of this era can only figure things out on their own.

Luckily, he wasn’t too far behind. But who is this anonymous player ranked first? Actually stronger than these future giants by so much? Was there ever such a figure in this game? Maybe this person only played for a while and then quit, otherwise, they’d definitely be a legendary figure in the future.

Alright, time to get to work. As a professional power-leveler, there’s no way he’d just rush to the beach to kill crabs or accept every quest from NPCs like a newbie. Professionals have their own routines. The experience summed up by later studios is: questing in the early game, AFK grinding in the mid-game, and monster farming in the late game.

The real questing route is to do national merit quests and main city reputation quests, which have unlimited potential in the late game, but it’s not the fastest way to level up, so it was rejected by the power-leveling studios. For studios, there’s only one word: speed. If it’s not fast, there’s no way to satisfy clients. And for Jack Carter, who’s determined to make a living as a top power-leveler in this life, everything else is just fluff. Only having a level high enough to crush all the small dungeons is king, so fast leveling is everything.

The core of the studio’s questing route is focused on three NPCs in the local town, commonly known as the “three-stage rocket boost.” This was a leveling strategy accidentally triggered by bored players in later generations, then refined and perfected by professional studios (this strategy is only suitable for elf non-magic classes).

The general process is: win over the hunter trainer, then get introduced by her to her jeweler uncle, get the first rocket boost opportunity and his favor from the uncle, then at the ball, get introduced to the town clerk and one of the elf noble ladies, get a huge loan to quickly level up your jewelry skill to intermediate, then get a jewelry crafting quest from the uncle—that’s the second rocket boost. After these two boosts, your character will be strong enough to grind reputation like crazy. Once you reach exalted, go back to the hunter trainer, boost your agility to learn longbow mastery, and then get the third rocket boost. By then, you’ll be over level 40, all in less than 7 days.

As for AFK grinding, after level 40, you find the mayor to trigger the quest to be sent to the military academy. AFK in class for 10 days, and after graduation, you’ll be level 50. At level 50, you’re an adult, and all features are unlocked.

After level 50, it’s just going back to crush low-level dungeons for experience—no more skill involved.

Overall, the advantage of this strategy is that it’s bloodless and doesn’t require any fighting. The downside is you have to invest 250 agility points to learn longbow mastery, so it’s not suitable for magic classes.

Now, Jack Carter headed straight for the hunter skill training hall, as if he’d done it a hundred times.

The hunter trainer Audrey Collins said, “Paladin, it’s impossible for you to learn hunter skills, but we can still teach you some basic archery. But before that, I’d like you to do me a small favor. We’re running low on arrows at the training hall. Please go to the town armory and ask the quartermaster Saxon Reed for some. You’d better hurry, I need them urgently.”