Ashen God
Chapter 152 - 151 D-class Talent [Ant Power]

Chapter 152: Chapter 151 D-class Talent [Ant Power]

But no matter how he thought about it, such type of choice would consume a large amount of Energy Value, and it was even possible that due to his Energy Value limit being too low, he would be unable to make a choice.

Regarding this autonomy in choice, Zhang Yanhang had already experimented many times when he was idle before, so after gaining a certain amount of experience in using it, Zhang Yanhang had also summarized a few patterns concerning autonomous choices.

Firstly, Zhang Yanhang couldn’t make some choices with more ambitious goals, or ones that vastly exceeded his ability limits, like choosing world peace, or making his deceased relatives come back to life, or becoming the strongest person in the Empire, or becoming the Husband of the Empire’s princess.

Such choices were obviously not within the capabilities of the current Zhang Yanhang, so the Multiple Choice would simply not respond at all to these kinds of issues.

Then the second pattern was, as long as he successfully triggered the textual option box, whether Zhang Yanhang made a choice or canceled the choice, he would be forcibly deducted a portion of Energy Value. Then, when he actually made a specific choice, he would be deducted Energy Value again according to the different options.

In other words, compared to the completely free Passive choices, when making autonomous choices, Zhang Yanhang not only couldn’t get it for free, but he even had to pay twice, one for the Energy Value needed to realize the options and another as a service fee.

Lastly, the third pattern was according to the difference in the options he wanted to fulfill, the Energy Value consumed also varied, with more powerful options needing more Energy Value to be expended.

For example, choices like whether to step with the left foot or the right foot or what to have for dinner, these kinds of low-level choices would only symbolically deduct a point of Energy Value.

The range of choices that cost just a point of Energy Value was extremely wide, basically all sorts of mundane little things could be resolved with just one Energy point.

For instance, Zhang Yanhang suddenly found his cellphone had stopped service due to lack of payment, and when he was idly bored, he casually made a choice, one of the options being credited with an erroneous mobile phone top-up. After selecting it, a message immediately arrived on his phone, saying that a hundred yuan of credit had been successfully added.

Or, for example, the faucet at home was broken, and he was too lazy to fix it himself, so he made a choice, and after a while, a property maintenance worker directly arrived at his door, offering free repair service. Mundane little things like this all required only one Energy point to accomplish, which was very convenient.

For the more difficult tasks, such as picking up Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures or Spiritual Artifacts, these types of choices generally started at tens of Energy points.

Therefore, for tasks that were more difficult to accomplish, Zhang Yanhang usually wouldn’t make choices, because with his current mere limit of two hundred and fifty Energy points, it likely wouldn’t be enough.

Wanting to obtain a heavy machine gun was clearly a choice of higher difficulty, after all, one would think such a choice couldn’t possibly be among the mundane little things that could be accomplished with just one Energy point, because although Zhang Yanhang said he wanted a heavy machine gun, what he wanted wasn’t just any heavy machine gun.

He wanted a heavy machine gun that could be used in the Ashen World and it would also require a large number of accompanying bullets, at least tens of thousands, and then he would also need a corresponding automatic loading machine for the machine gun bullets.

Only when all the above conditions were met, would it count as Zhang Yanhang obtaining the heavy machine gun he truly wanted. It was because of the multiple requirements that it belonged to the choices which were more difficult to complete.

The above were the patterns about autonomous choices that Zhang Yanhang had summed up. It could be said that Zhang Yanhang had almost completely mastered the usage of autonomous choices, but limited by his currently barren Energy Value limit, he really couldn’t make any too powerful choices.

Zhang Yanhang estimated that once his Energy Value limit increased in the future, he should be able to create a girlfriend perfect for his preferences with just one choice.

Hmm, she should also be powerful, and able to accommodate all his little caprices and naughtiness, and forever remain loyal to him; and then every time the holidays came around, she would also prepare some little surprises and gifts for him.

Once he had such a girlfriend, Zhang Yanhang could pretty much step directly into retirement life, living a decadent daily routine of "Spring nights are short and the day rises high; henceforth the king will not start early court sessions."

But compared to using a choice to create the perfect girlfriend, Zhang Yanhang still preferred to transform himself into an undying and immortal ultimate life form through his own efforts. By that time, without the need for reproduction, he probably wouldn’t think about finding a girlfriend anymore.

...

After picking up the treasure box, Zhang Yanhang once again sensed the movements of the surrounding Crimson Iron Worker Ants and discovered several squads of the ants were heading towards him, very close, about to arrive in front of him. Hence, Zhang Yanhang decided to stand in place and wait for them a little longer.

Sometimes, even a very brief moment of time could feel particularly long to those waiting. Zhang Yanhang, standing in the corridor with nothing to do, also fell a bit into this erroneous sense of time, so he decided to find himself something to do during this short break.

"It just so happens that I picked up five Crimson Iron Worker Ant treasure boxes before, why not open a treasure box..." Zhang Yanhang wasn’t in urgent need of whatever was inside the box. After all, they were just five White Treasure Boxes. What he was mainly curious about was what changes would occur after upgrading Talent E-level "Ant Power" to D-level.

"I hope that after the upgrade of Ant Power, there will be some useful changes." Zhang Yanhang said while taking out a Treasure box from his waist bag.

[Do you want to open the ’Drop Treasure Box (Crimson Iron Worker Ant)’?]

"Yes, initiate." The familiar time pause descended once again, but this time, Zhang Yanhang didn’t need to explore the ant nest any further, as he had already completely explored the outer zone of the Crimson Iron Ant Nest.

"Please select the specific content of the ’Drop treasure box (Crimson Iron Worker Ant)’:"

"Item One: ?"

"Item Two: ?"

"Item Three: ?"

"Item Four: ?"

"Item Five: ?"

.....

After opening the white treasure box dropped by the Crimson Iron Worker Ant, Zhang Yanhang’s hands held five Crimson Iron Rings and five crimson little light balls. He couldn’t wait to burst three of the crimson little light balls.

"Detected that your Talent list contains an E-rank Talent ’Ant Power’ of the same rank, would you like to merge the Talents?"

"Yes, merge." Zhang Yanhang couldn’t help but start silently praying, hoping that the ’Ant Power’ would become much more potent after upgrading to D-rank.

"Merge complete."

"You have gained the D-rank Talent ’Ant Power.’"

"Ant Power? This name sounds a bit unpleasant, though the original ’Ant Power’ was not any better."

Zhang Yanhang remembered that ’ant’ seemed to refer to a larger species of ant, so as an upgraded version of ’Ant Power,’ it was quite fitting, akin to leveling up from a small ant to a big ant.

After the Talent upgrade was complete, Zhang Yanhang immediately opened the Talent effect of the D-rank Talent ’Ant Power’ to have a look.

"Ant Power"

"Quality: D (0/9)"

"Ability One: Robust and Powerful—Strength +1 (+1)."

"Ability Two: Double Strike—There is a 1.2% chance of triggering an extra attack with 25% of the Attack Power upon attacking."

"Ability Three: Powerful—Strength effect +25% (+15%)."

"If I want to upgrade ’Ant Power’ to the next level, I would need nine ’Ant Power.’ This Talent’s upgrade requirement is about the same as what was needed for ’Slow Corrosion.’"

Zhang Yanhang felt much more relieved seeing that the upgrade requirement for ’Ant Power’ was still just a standard triple increase.

There are a five-digit number of monsters inside this small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu. If he could exterminate all of these five-digit monsters, perhaps he could raise the Talent Level of ’Ant Power’ to an S-rank or higher.

"After the upgrade of the ’Ant Power’ Talent to ’Ant Power,’ indeed a new effect was added, increasing one point of Strength..." Zhang Yanhang’s favorite were such simple attribute-improving Talent effects because they’re genuinely practical.

"Besides adding a point to the Strength Attribute, the Strength effect has also increased by another 15%, which seems like a decent boost. But this ’Double Strike’ seems a bit odd after the Talent upgrade."

Zhang Yanhang remembered that the chance to trigger ’Double Strike’ before was 0.1%, but now it had directly risen to 1.2%, an increase of 1.1% in the trigger chance, which is equivalent to an 11-fold increase.