Ashen God
Chapter 247 - 246: Rank Penalty

Chapter 247: Chapter 246: Rank Penalty

After launching the Death Wave Skill, it took less than a second for silence to envelop the area around Zhang Yanhang once again, while he himself was incessantly bombarded by the kill notification sounds.

However, Zhang Yanhang was not very concerned about the kill notification sounds at the moment. He stood anxiously in place for what felt like an unbearably long few seconds, then immediately began to scan his surroundings with the Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil Skill.

The Death Wave Skill Zhang Yanhang had just used had killed about two hundred Crimson Iron Ants, but when he scanned the number of Drop treasure boxes that had appeared on the ground, he discovered that there were only ten white Drop treasure boxes.

"It seems the drop rate of one box per twenty Crimson Iron Worker Ants has become the norm. If that’s the case, then the task of upgrading my B-tier Talent ’Power of Swallowing Sheep’ may become more difficult."

If Zhang Yanhang wanted to upgrade his B-tier Talent ’Power of Swallowing Sheep’ to an A-tier, he would need eighty-one E-tier talents ’Ant Power’, and according to the current ratio, it would roughly take him to kill about one thousand six hundred Crimson Iron Ants to gather these eighty-one E-tier talents.

"But why has the Treasure box drop rate suddenly halved? That’s really weird. Could it be due to my promotion in rank?"

Zhang Yanhang thought carefully and felt that it was indeed possible. After all, if the harvest of a high-level Awakened hunting low-level monsters were the same as that of a low-level Awakened, then the Ashen World would be too benevolent toward the Awakeners.

"Ah, this is also quite important, why didn’t the group leader give me a little reminder? Well, maybe the group leader, being an ordinary person, couldn’t imagine that I would still have troubles with this..."

Zhang Yanhang remembered that when he had asked the group leader about Talent before, the group leader had been quite disdainful, stating that unless it was a Talent dropped by a particularly strong monster, the Talents dropped by ordinary monsters were useless.

Since she had this attitude, she definitely wouldn’t understand Zhang Yanhang’s troubles with needing to upgrade his Talent.

Moreover, other than the issue of upgrading the B-tier Talent ’Power of Swallowing Sheep’, another even more important issue was also disrupted.

Since the Treasure box drop rate had halved, it meant that Zhang Yanhang’s Soul points income would also drop by more than one-third, which was quite disheartening.

Each monster’s Drop treasure box yielded Soul points approximately equivalent to killing thirty of the same monsters.

Therefore, theoretically, Zhang Yanhang used to gain a total of 4 times the Soul points by killing ten monsters, but now, this had become gaining 2.5 times the Soul points by killing twenty monsters.

Thus, Zhang Yanhang saying that his Soul points income had dropped by more than one-third wasn’t an exaggeration, but a very clear and understandable fact, which was nearly approaching a reduction of forty percent.

Moreover, aside from these issues, Zhang Yanhang’s plan to gather ten blue quality Crimson Iron Rings was also greatly hindered. One could say that because of the reduced Treasure box drop rate, many aspects had changed, even impacting Zhang Yanhang’s plan to clear the Crimson Iron Ant Nest significantly.

"At this point, it indeed seems likely that the reduced Treasure box drop rate was an unforeseen incident, as the effects of this are much greater than those caused by being ambushed by Crimson Iron Ants."

Though the impact was indeed significant, fortunately, after Zhang Yanhang advanced to the Second Tier, his efficiency in hunting monsters also improved significantly. As a result, compared to before, there was definitely still some improvement in his efficiency in gaining Soul points and Drop treasure boxes, and this improvement might even be substantial.

"I just don’t know whether this reduced drop rate for treasure boxes applies only to First Tier monsters or to all monsters. This might need to be verified later." The method of verification was quite simple—Zhang Yanhang would just need to hunt some Second Tier monsters later and see what their Treasure box drop rate was.

Logically speaking, if the reduced Treasure box drop rate was some kind of rank penalty, it shouldn’t logically appear on monsters of the same tier, otherwise, that would be too illogical.

"The reduction in Treasure box drop rate is something beyond my control, so in that case, I should just focus on hunting monsters..." Although the drop rate had halved, Zhang Yanhang’s hunting efficiency had indeed improved greatly, so it’s a case of gain and loss.

"But unfortunately, even though the hunting efficiency has increased, the total number of monsters remains constant. Even if they respawn, it would only be a slight refresh and it wouldn’t significantly impact the overall quantity.

Previously, I thought that with so many Crimson Iron Ants inside the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalaguli, it might be possible to raise the Talent level to SS-tier.

But now, it seems that I might only be able to upgrade it to S, although it’s not like further upgrades are completely impossible. If I can find other medium or large Crimson Iron Ant Nests, I should still be able to raise the Talent level to SS-tier or even SSS-tier."

Regarding the search for other larger-scale Crimson Iron Ant Nests, Zhang Yanhang was quite optimistic.

After all, this was a complete Crimson Iron Ore Vein, which meant that if Zhang Yanhang used Alchemy to dig here, as long as he headed in directions not previously excavated by the Crimson Iron Ants, there was a certain possibility of encountering other Crimson Iron Ant Nests.

As for why Zhang Yanhang suddenly thought of targeting other Crimson Iron Ant Nests while still clearing out the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalaguli, it was a no-brainer—before the Transmission Channel opened again, it was certain that he would clear it out.

After all, Zhang Yanhang had easily killed a Second Tier Four Stars Lord Monster Tracker when he was First Tier; it was impossible that he wouldn’t be able to defeat a Crimson Iron Ant Queen of the same strength after advancing to Second Tier.

So, as long as he could defeat the Ant Queen, then the other monsters within the Ant Nest hardly mattered to him anymore.

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