Ashen God
Chapter 501 - 500: Avoiding Rank Penalty

Following that in second place were the Goblin Wolf Cavalry. As a high-end First Tier Three Stars goblin unit, they forcefully elevated Zhang Yanhang’s soul points gain with their number of around two thousand two hundred.

Then in third place were the First Tier Two Stars Elite Monster Goblin Spear Throwers. These somewhat annoying ranged units were nearly three hundred taken down by Zhang Yanhang this time.

Next, the second to last were the Second Order One Star Big Goblins. Since ten were defeated earlier, this time Zhang Yanhang only defeated the remaining one hundred and thirty, and finally, the Second Order One Star Elite Monster Goblin Shaman, a total of fifty, were all wiped out by Zhang Yanhang in one fell swoop.

Since now all of the monsters in Goblin Plain, except for Goblin Chief Shaman Maka Baga and Goblin Chief Nu Shan, had been defeated by him, Zhang Yanhang estimated that his completion percentage for the region was at least over ninety percent, or perhaps over ninety-five percent.

As for how much higher, he decided not to check, planning to wait and see after he had also taken down Goblin Chief Shaman Maka Baga and Goblin Chief Nu Shan.

After reviewing the soul points gain from his kills, Zhang Yanhang immediately started to count the number of treasure boxes he had obtained this time. After a quick tally, Zhang Yanhang found he had gotten a total of three hundred and ninety-four treasure boxes.

Among these were three hundred sixty-seven Green treasure boxes and only twenty-seven Blue treasure boxes, the difference being a staggering fourteen times. However, this was normal, given that the difference in numbers between the First Tier goblins and Second Tier goblins he had defeated this time was even greater, at a whopping forty times.

The proportion of Green treasure boxes was almost the same as Zhang Yanhang had predicted before. The boxes provided by the Goblin Wolf Cavalry were far more than those from the Goblin Spear Throwers. The Goblin Wolf Cavalry in total had contributed one hundred and thirteen Drop treasure boxes, while the Goblin Spear Throwers had only sixteen, almost seven times the difference.

Then, naturally, the largest proportion was from the Drop treasure boxes of the Big Saber Goblin, with a total contribution of two hundred thirty-eight Green treasure boxes this time.

Next were the Blue treasure boxes; the Big Goblins provided a total of nineteen Drop treasure boxes, while the Goblin Shaman provided a total of eight Drop treasure boxes. Since one of these came from the First Kill Drop treasure box, in reality, only seven were normal drops.

Since Zhang Yanhang had wiped out all the Second Tier Goblins such as the Big Goblins and Goblin Shaman in one go, he could also conveniently calculate the Treasure box drop rate for the Big Goblins and Goblin Shaman.

According to Zhang Yanhang’s calculations, approximately every seven Second Tier Dragon Vein Goblins would drop a Blue Treasure Box, with a drop rate that was even slightly higher than that of Raccoon City.

Although since the Big Goblins and Goblin Shaman had all been defeated, this calculated drop rate was no longer useful.

However, Zhang Yanhang was crunching these numbers mainly to understand why Goblin Swordsmen, Goblin Spear Throwers, and Goblin Wolf Cavalry—all with First Tier strength—could achieve a treasure box drop rate where only killing nineteen would yield one treasure box.

Clearly, whether it was in Raccoon City or the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu, it took killing twenty First Tier monsters to drop a treasure box.

"Looking at it this way, perhaps the monster’s inherent drop rate does affect some of the efficiency of rank penalty, but unfortunately, monsters like the Dragon Vein Goblin, which drop a treasure box after only seven kills, are probably not common."

As for monsters that drop a treasure box after only six or even five kills, those were even more so a pie in the sky, the kind you could not seek out but only stumble upon by chance. Zhang Yanhang estimated that even if his Luck Value were maxed out and he had multiple choices to assist him, he would still hardly encounter such good fortune.

"So, if I want to circumvent part of the rank penalty, perhaps the best way is to increase my Luck Value further. This way, it should at least have some influence on the treasure box drop rate."

An increase in the treasure box drop rate meant that Zhang Yanhang’s rate of return would be higher, and it also meant that the efficiency of his strength growth would become higher. Thus, it really was an important matter for Zhang Yanhang, but regrettably, he had not found any way to continue increasing his Luck Value at the moment.

"It seems that I’ll need to think of a way to further increase my Luck Value in the future. Although, by rights, my current Luck Value already surpasses 99.99% of Awakeners, continuing to enhance it would definitely be a good thing after all, as the saying goes, ’as one strives to make progress, one should never be satisfied with current achievements.’"

Zhang Yanhang felt that in the future, he should pay more attention to this aspect. Of course, as Luck Value itself is very difficult to increase, Zhang Yanhang regarded the continual growth of his Luck Value as a long-term goal, not one to be rushed for the time being.

After counting the number of treasure boxes, Zhang Yanhang immediately picked up a Blue Treasure Box from a Goblin Shaman. Since it was a new box, he was quite looking forward to the new items that would come out of it.

Considering that the Goblin Shaman’s treasure box drop was of Blue Quality, it meant that at the very least, the items that came out would be of Purple Quality. In this way, he could potentially fuse them as easily as he did with the Barbaric Stone Bandage that came out of the Big Goblin’s treasure box and directly upgrade it to Dark Purple Quality.

After opening the treasure boxes of the Big Saber Goblin, Goblin Spear Thrower, Goblin Wolf Cavalry, and Big Goblin, Zhang Yanhang was now somewhat experienced with the Dragon Vein Goblin’s treasure boxes.

He felt that if he could still pull Purple Quality Equipment from the Goblin Shaman’s treasure box, it might yet be another new product developed by the Red Dragon Salcano.

In that case, for this new product from the same Alchemist, Zhang Yanhang estimated that it would likely maintain a high degree of homogeneity with other equipment. Therefore, the new equipment from the Goblin Shaman’s treasure box might also offer the kind of inheritance of percentage-based bonuses.

Since all the main Attributes had already reached fifty points with the help of equipment, Zhang Yanhang naturally favored equipment that could break through the attribute limits and provide percentage bonuses over those that provided attribute bonuses.