(Silently here at the beginning, Xiao Feng begged for a recommendation ticket with kelp tears on his face, and begged for a reward~~~~ The second watch was at half past ten)

Since the farce of Zmofert, Excellence has joined up with Kurokyukihime and the others, and he is not going to bother with the players led by Tilberu anymore. After all, excellence is incompatible with them.

As for Asuna's words, Excellence was still not at ease with letting her go on an adventure alone, so he still took her with him.

It's just that Excellence has made an agreement with her that when she is strong enough, he will let her leave.

And this time they met with Kuroyukihime, in fact, they had already found the location of the third-layer boss.

Since this is the case, Excellence also saves him from wasting time with the group of players who are a little annoying to him, and without saying a word, he directly sets off for the maze area on the third floor.

The boss on the third floor is called neriusTheevilTreant, which roughly means Nerius, the demon tree spirit.

With a large tree-like posture and the ability to unleash a wide range of poison skills, this excellence has been known before, after all, it is a traverser.

I have to say that after nearly half an hour of grinding blood, the group of outstanding people who had been prepared for a long time were finally killed.

Of course, the news of the floor strategy naturally spread to the majority of players, and the two guilds that are known as the strategy group and are gathered by most high-level players at the moment also naturally got the news.

"The third layer of Ayn Grant was successfully raided on December 7, 2022."

Seeing this news on the window, it also made them angry, obviously the strategy group with so many high-level players was not as good as the team with only seven people.

When they were still holding a strategy meeting, they just gave the floor boss without saying a word, and they didn't let people live?

And the excellent ones, at this time, dealt with the boss's drops, and began to set off to the fourth layer.

The seven of them have already eaten a lot of experience from the bosses on both floors, plus some mini-bosses in the mob area.

Their level is almost at the stage of level twenty-five, and you must know that Kirito, who is a cheater in the original book, is only level fifteen.

If they are outstanding, it is estimated that they are already among the best in SAO.

It's a pity that with the group of people who don't play cards according to common sense, it seems that he still has some hardships on the way to leveling, but at least he has one more Kiriko by his side, and it is estimated that he will not be much different from Asuna.

The pavilion enclosed the staircase from which they had just left, and towered over the top of a slightly raised hill, the ground covered with turquoise lichens.

After looking around from the pavilion without walls, there was only a huge tree in the back, and there were no monsters or nPcs.

The hill is thirty meters in diameter, surrounded by cliffs, but there is a slender mountain stream in the southeast and southwest that leads to the canyon elsewhere.

Clear water flows out of a mountain stream in the southwest, and after a week around the hills, it flows out of a mountain stream in the southeast.

"Hey, how long do you want to stand there?"

After receiving an elbow blow from Asuna, Excellence finally came back to his senses, and faintly turned his head to look at the girls behind him, and smiled.

"I'm sorry—I'm sorry—" scratching the hair on the back of his head, Excellence snorted, "I was a little too stunned just now." ”

"I don't need you to apologize, but if you don't hurry up to the main block to activate the portal, you'll make the people below wait impatiently."

Asuna said with her hands folded in front of her chest, with one eye open and the other closed.

"Yue, did you think of something?" Bai Xueji leaned back slightly to Excellence's side and asked with a little interest.

"Well—it's not that important." Shaking his head, Zhuo Zhuo swept into the canyon with a torrent that was enough to set off white waves, "In my memory, this side was originally a dry valley in the closed test, but it's really fast, and now it's the fourth layer." ”

"Eh-" Asuna tilted her head, "When the test is closed?" Excellence Jun is also a closed beta player, huh? ”

"Well, you can almost understand it that way."

"What—" Asuna pouted in displeasure at the Excellence's perfunctory tone, and pouted cutely.

In response to Asuna's somewhat angry words, Excellence smiled helplessly, did not respond, and then took a step.

"Let's go." With just one word, the girls behind them silently followed the footsteps of excellence.

After stepping out of the stone pavilion, the group walked down the slope on the south side while stepping on the wet fresh moss.

While on the shore, Excellence stopped and peered into the gushing water.

The water is so transparent that you can see the bottom of the river, which is covered with white sand, and it looks like it is quite deep, and it must be more than two meters deep.

"Asuna, have you ever had any swimming experience here at SAO?"

With a metal cuirass and leather skirt and a dark red hooded trench coat on the upper body, Excellence glanced at Asuna's outfit and asked a question first.

"No, no," Asuna shook her head softly as she gestured as if she was covering her body with her left hand.

Seeing her move like this, Zhuo Zhuo almost thought that he had an ulterior motive for saying this.

Turning his head wordlessly, Zhuo Zhuo looked at a few of them with inquiring eyes, and then got a reply that he shook his head, which made him cover his face a little helplessly.

"So let me briefly explain that swimming in SAO is very different from the real world in terms of how you use your body. It takes a lot of practice to get good at swimming, and that doesn't mean you don't risk drowning anymore. ”

"What happens if you drown?" Kurokyukihime looked at the rough river and asked with some concern.

After all, even when she was speeding up the world before, she had only swam in the pool.

Looking at Kuroyukihime, who had a somewhat tense face, Excellence looked at the stream that flowed endlessly.

"Drowning, that is, after the head sinks underwater, hP starts to decrease from that moment on. If you don't return to the water for a long time, of course you will die. ”

Even when she heard this, Asuna only bit her lip slightly, and glanced at the blue river.

The hazel-colored pupils looked back at the remarkable face motionlessly, and the light that swayed on the surface of the river reflected in the pupils, and was hidden by the deep feelings.

"Well-" Excellence waved his hand very naturally, "The setting of this game is definitely not so unconceptual, if this game really wants us to die here, it is estimated that the first layer will be completely wiped out." ”

As he spoke, Excellence walked towards the slope until they all reached the top of the slope, and Excellence made a detour to the back of the pavilion, and when he found the root of the tree, he began to stare at the top branch.

"Look what's up there."

"Ah, there is fruit on the tree, and the shape is so cute!"

As Asuna said, there are several small colorful fruits hanging from the treetops of the broad-leaved trees. It is characterized by its shape, which is a round shape with a hole in the middle - in other words, the shape of a doughnut.

"yes, it's like a doughnut, like eating and seeing." There was a baa with shining eyes looking at the fruits on the tree.

"Youba-chan, this isn't for eating-" Looking at Youba's foodie-like appearance, Fengzi covered her mouth lightly and smiled.

"Bang-" There was a loud noise from the tree, and Excellence actually unleashed a sword technique at the broadleaf tree just now.

"Hey, hey—" Asuna, who was stunned, said very unhappily, "Even if this is just a game, please be kind to nature!" ”

It's just that seven fruits fell from the tree, which is just the right number of people, as if the game automatically decides the number of drops.

"Hey-" Excellence smiled happily as he took all the fallen fruits, "just enough for each of us." ”

After distributing the fruit to the girls, Excellence held a blue fruit in both hands, although the blue one was indeed completely unappetizing, but fortunately, these fruits were not meant to be eaten.

Excellence didn't answer the question, but brought the blue one to his lips.

And he sent a look of "just take a good look" to Asuna, who had "I still want to eat it" written on her face, and gently bit down on the part of the pedicle that protruded from the side of the fruit by nearly a centimeter, that is, the part of the pedicle that connected to the branch.

Just take a deep breath through your nose and blow air into the tubular pedicle with all your strength.

Although the resistance is felt at first, the feeling of blooming petals enters the fruit with air.

A loud cracking sound sounded, initially only seven or eight centimeters in diameter, but now it had reached a meter.

In this way, it is not a doughnut no matter how you look at it

"Huh———!!! Could it be that this is a swimming ring? ”

to be continued