Ashen God
Chapter 539 - 538 【Trinity (Star Gathering)】

Chapter 539: Chapter 538 【Trinity (Star Gathering)】

After activation, Zhang Yanhang placed the full-coverage mechanical prosthetic into his waist bag, where it could still function normally.

By the way, when Zhang Yanhang logged into his account earlier, he found that the electronic brain of the full-coverage mechanical prosthetic actually came with an autonomous AI. So even if Zhang Yanhang didn’t resurrect on it, he could let the mechanical prosthetic move on its own and use it for odd jobs.

But Zhang Yanhang’s life was exceedingly simple and orderly, and he felt there was no need for such a robot to serve him, so in the end, he simply put it into his waist bag.

After dealing with the full-coverage mechanical prosthetic, Zhang Yanhang picked up the Divination Tarot Card - Chariot and started to check it out. Its overall specifications and materials were about the same as the other two Divination Tarot Cards he had obtained, so Zhang Yanhang focused on the image on the front of the Divination Tarot Card - Chariot.

Zhang Yanhang remembered that the original Chariot seemed to depict a prince standing on the chariot, pulled by a black and a white lioness, but those lionesses looked more like the Sphinxes of Egypt than actual lions. They wore Pharaoh-like headdresses, bared their chest, and looked up proudly.

The prince, clad in the old king’s armor, held a Victory Scepter and stood on the chariot, eagerly receiving cheers from the crowd. Behind him was a city that had just been conquered. Additionally, tied to the back of the chariot, there were a male and a female Egyptian slave, both with bare torsos and wearing Pharaoh headgear.

The Tarot Card of the Chariot indeed expressed a sense of power; after all, expanding territories is a deed that has always showcased one’s martial virtue, regardless of the era.

However, the Divination Tarot Card that Zhang Yanhang held was entirely different. First, the most important prince was completely gone. Second, the cheering people had also vanished. Third, the two Egyptian slaves behind the chariot had disappeared. And finally, even the city had disappeared.

On the whole image, only three things remained: the black lion, the white lion, and the chariot. Of course, they might not be suitable to be called lions or chariot anymore, since they had all become feminized.

First were the lionesses, directly turned into cat-eared girls - one a black-skinned, silver-haired cat-eared girl, and the other a white-skinned, black-haired cat-eared girl. Then the chariot itself became a mature woman draped in thick armor with a large cannon on her back.

"I can understand turning into cat-eared girls, and I can understand turning into a mature woman in black stockings, but what were they thinking when they feminized the chariot to include petting the cats? The artist hired by the underground black workshop has such a weird train of thought."

Looking at the two cat-eared girls crouching at the feet of the woman in black stockings, with their butts stuck up in anticipation, Zhang Yanhang couldn’t help but start to complain.

"Let’s forget about this, the most important thing is to activate the set effect." While saying this, Zhang Yanhang took out the other two Divination Tarot Cards from his waist bag, placed them together with the Divination Tarot Card·Chariot, and immediately began to check their attribute list.

[Divination Tarot Card·Emperor[Fake] (Gate of Truth)]

[Quality: Blue]

[Type: Equipment]

[Origin: Ashen World, Heavenly God Continent, Sizitak Empire, Akbar Village underground black workshop.]

[Durability: 37/37]

[Defensive Power: 25]

[Additional Attributes: Attack Power +5%.]

[Upgradable, Upgrade Conditions 1: Possession of ’Divination Tarot Card·Strength[Fake] (Door of Truth)’ (0/1), Possession of ’Divination Tarot Card·Justice[Fake] (Gate of Truth)’ (0/1), Possession of ’Divination Tarot Card·Hanged Man[Fake] (Gate of Truth)’ (0/1).

Upgrade Condition 2: Possession of ’Divination Tarot Card·Star[Fake] (Gate of Truth)’ (0/1), Possession of ’Divination Tarot Card·Moon[Fake] (Gate of Truth)’ (0/1), Possession of ’Divination Tarot Card·Sun[Fake] (Gate of Truth)’ (0/1).]

[Usage requirements: Possession of Alchemy skills or other related Alchemy abilities.]

[Score: 70 (Blue item score ranges from 31 to 70.)]

[Set Effect One: Power is Justice (Long live The Hanged Man!) - Power Effect +7.5%, Attack Power +7.5%.]

[Set Effect Two: Trinity (Star Gathering) - Power Effect +2.5%, Attack Power +2.5%, Attack Speed +10%.]

[Introduction: The Emperor is one of the 78 cards of the Tarot, ranked 4th among the 22 Major Arcana. The main source of his power is Wisdom, and he governs all creatures in the world with it. The Emperor’s position is supreme, and his authority is unquestionable.

However, all the above content has nothing to do with this counterfeit product manufactured by a small workshop with printing errors.]

"Trinity, Star Gathering, Set Effect Two really did not disappoint me, maintaining the same rate of increase as Set Effect One.

The 7.5% Power Effect and the 7.5% Attack Power Bonus of Set Effect One together make 15%, and the 2.5% Power Effect, the 2.5% Attack Power, and 10% Attack Speed of Set Effect Two also add up to a total multiplier rate of 15%.

It is only a blue-quality equipment, and yet it can provide such an impressive increase in bonus rates; this is truly a super set with twenty-two components."

Although he had just gathered three Tarot Cards and activated the set effect, Zhang Yanhang was already looking forward to the next set of Tarot Cards.

If he could acquire another set of three Tarot Cards, such as Strength, Justice, The Hanged Man or Star, Moon, and Sun, then he could upgrade the Tarot Cards to Purple quality. Surely by that time, the combined six Tarot Cards would definitely bring him a considerable and terrifying increase in bonuses.

"But unfortunately, the next Tarot Card is still nowhere to be found, not to mention gathering another three. For now, the Ashen Treasure Box is the only fixed source of acquisition, so all I can do is accumulate slowly."

Zhang Yanhang did a quick calculation and found that the three blue-quality Divination Tarot Cards, including the Set Effect One, had provided him with a 15% Strength Effect Bonus, a 15% Attack Power Bonus, and a 15% Attack Speed Bonus. These bonuses were comparable to three Dark Purple Achievements, which was very impressive indeed.

After reviewing the set effects, Zhang Yanhang immediately placed The Fool, Emperor, and Chariot Divination Tarot Cards into his Waist Bag.

"Now that I’ve gained an additional 2.5% in Strength Effect, should I test it out?" Zhang Yanhang thought for a moment; it wasn’t going to take much effort, and it seemed better to test it out.

First, he took out fifteen and a half tons of reinforced concrete from his Waist Bag and placed it on his right hand, and then stacked a small piece of reinforced concrete on top of that, which weighed at most about one hundred kilograms from his First Tier Period.

As expected, due to the overall boost of only 2.5%, the extra hundred kilograms of reinforced concrete immediately made Zhang Yanhang feel like he was reaching his limit.

"The 2.5% Strength Effect Bonus is indeed too small. Calculating this way, my current Strength is still around fifteen and a half tons. Of course, after rounding up, it barely counts as sixteen tons, but that’s not really meaningful."

After testing the Strength Effect Bonus, Zhang Yanhang let out a sigh and then turned his attention to the bonus effect of Attack Speed.

"With the 15% Attack Speed Bonus from Tarot Card·Chariot, the firing rate of my Six Roots Pure Soul Gun will increase by an additional 15 shots per second, raising it from originally 144 shots per second to 159 shots per second.

Furthermore, with the increased firing rate of the bullets, the time needed to empty the magazine will be further reduced, from the original 3.5 seconds to now only 3.1 seconds, which is almost a 0.4 second reduction. If this development continues, I should be able to reduce the time to clear the magazine to under three seconds very soon."

Besides the increased bullet firing rate, the Attack Speed Bonus also increased the bullet’s flying speed. The cannon bullets of the Six Roots Pure Soul Gun would increase from the original 4.3 mach to 4.8 mach, adding approximately 0.5 mach to the flying speed, which converted to meters, is an increase of 170 meters per second.

"I didn’t expect it to reach 4.8 mach so quickly. With this, I’m only 1.2 mach away from accomplishing the small goal of 6 mach. It’s making me feel as if I could achieve this target very soon.

It might seem like I’ve already completed 80% of the progress, but nothing below 3 mach actually counts towards the progress, so I still need to cover 40% of the entire target."

Zhang Yanhang resolved a large portion of the initial 60% of the progress quite easily, thanks to the Goblin Plain, but the remaining 40% will likely become very difficult. After all, not all areas can provide equipment or related achievements that boost Attack Speed.

However, since the 6 mach goal was a long-term one, Zhang Yanhang was not in a hurry.

After tallying the gains from Artifacts and Equipment, Zhang Yanhang then proceeded to count the gains from weapons. This time, the gain in weapons was nothing, hence, Zhang Yanhang immediately began to count the most scarce gains from materials.

"Besides the materials I initially chose out of curiosity in the Crimson Iron Ant Nest, it seems like I haven’t chosen any material options since then, mainly because the Quality of the materials was too low.

However, the Voodoo Red-faced Owl Skull was different; its high Quality is very attractive, especially a Light Golden Quality material."

Zhang Yanhang picked up the crimson-faced owl skull, which was larger than his upper body, and examined it closely. Overall, the shape was quite similar to that of an eagle’s skull, with a very sharp and long beak at the front, and a rather thick cranial part at the back, all presenting a reddish color. Moreover, there was a hole at the base of the skull just large enough for someone to stick their head into, serving as a mask.

"So, here comes the question, what should this thing be forged into? A bone staff? Or perhaps take inspiration from the bird’s head and craft a meteor hammer or a chain mace-like weapon?"

After some thought, Zhang Yanhang felt that melting it down completely and reshaping it might not be the best approach. It would be most suitable to make certain modifications while preserving its original form, as the resulting weapon’s score would likely be higher—at least it wouldn’t be downgraded to the dark purple quality due to incorrect forging.

After pondering for a while, Zhang Yanhang confidently placed the voodoo red-faced screech owl skull into the alchemy array. This time, he was planning to shrink the skull proportionally and then use the extracted bone material to connect to the skull and form a bone rod.

Ten minutes of patient sculpting later, Zhang Yanhang ultimately fashioned a crane-beaked shovel, or shall we say, a voodoo red-faced shovel. He elongated and sharpened the beak part, and eventually, this was the result.

Although initially doubting whether a farming tool could even be considered a weapon, the shape of the voodoo red-faced screech owl skull didn’t lend itself to any other weapon he could think of. All he could do was to give it a try—after all, if it failed, he could always reforge it. With alchemy, there were no material losses to worry about.

With an uneasy heart, Zhang Yanhang began checking the attribute list of the crane-beaked shovel. He had resolved that if it didn’t count as a weapon, he would further elongate and curve the beak to make a sickle. Okay, it would still be a farming tool, but at least it would be a niche weapon with a part-time farming tool identity.

After reviewing the voodoo red-faced shovel’s attribute list, Zhang Yanhang found that it indeed was a weapon of light golden quality, and moreover, the score was just slightly above the passing mark.

It must be because he had chosen to modify it along its shape, thus preserving a bit more of the original score—after all, the original voodoo red-faced screech owl skull had a mid-level score in the light golden quality range.

Yes, Zhang Yanhang’s efforts had only reduced the downgrade of the score by a slight margin. It wasn’t about boosting the score of material that was just borderline passing, that level of forging skill was unrealistic for him, and he hadn’t even considered it.

"After a week of effort, I finally gathered three light golden quality weapons. But before I upgrade the quality of the Four Great Emptiness Purifying World Fist, I need to first ask whether the multiple choice upgrade will exceed the second-tier limit and reach the third tier."

Zhang Yanhang immediately tried to make some choices. After several selections, he concluded enough information from the options and confirmed that after upgrading the Four Great Emptiness Purifying World Fist to golden quality, it should still be usable by someone at the second tier like him.

"Since it can still be used normally, then I can enhance the quality of the Four Great Emptiness Purifying World Fist without any psychological burden.

If the Four Great Emptiness Purifying World Fist is promoted to golden quality, the damage increase from All Four Elements are Void will surely surge once again. It was already at 699%, and with this upgrade, it should definitely break through 750% without a problem.

Then, with my own base damage of 100%, that would mean 850% damage. Moreover, besides All Four Elements are Void, the damage boost provided by All Things are Impermanent should also see another increase."

It was precisely because of the significant boost provided by the upgrade of the Four Great Emptiness Purifying World Fist that Zhang Yanhang was looking forward to the upgrade with such anticipation.