Ashen God
Chapter 541 - 540: Magical Tattoo

Chapter 541: Chapter 540: Magical Tattoo

After sorting out the matter of the Four Great Emptiness Purifying World Fist, Zhang Yanhang re-equipped it on his arm and immediately switched it back to its hidden state.

Zhang Yanhang glanced at the bare mattress. Of the four items he had generated from the Ashen Treasure Box, three, except for the consumed Voodoo Red-faced Owl Skull, were already tucked into his waist bag. Therefore, all the items from the Ashen Treasure Box were now fully accounted for.

"Now that the Ashen Treasure Box has been opened, what should I do next?" After briefly pondering, Zhang Yanhang decided to first open his data panel and take a look.

[Name: Zhang Yanhang (Second Tier)]

[Race: Human]

[Gender: Male]

[Age: 20]

[Profession: Heavenly Destiny Master]

[Level: LV.14 (0/8000)]

[Soul points: 6295]

[Shield Value: 5485/5485 (Life Value Limit ×210%, recovery speed: 20% per second.)]

[Life Value: 2612/2612 (Constitution × 21, current body has officially become data-centralized, life value recovery speed, 15 points per hour.)]

[Energy Value: 2560/2560 (Intelligence × 21, current body has officially become data-centralized, energy value recovery speed, 45 points per hour.)]

[Strength: 50 (+5[-6])]

[Agility: 50 (+5[-3])]

[Constitution: 50 (+5[-5])]

[Intelligence: 50 (+5[-10])]

[Charm: 46 (+19)]

[Luck: ??? (This attribute is hidden)]

[Talent: 1. Multiple Choice (???). 2. Longevity Mountain and Fortune Sea (SS-tier). 3. Bear Power (S-tier). 4. Mature Scroll Dragon [Bloodline Purification] (SS-tier).]

"Well, there seems to be no change at all. After all, none of the four items I got from the Ashen Treasure Box could be directly used to increase my attribute values or anything else, and I also don’t have enough soul points to level up my skills.

Even the desire to raise my profession level is unattainable because my soul points haven’t increased and still stand at the original 6295. I’m still short of 1705 soul points before I can raise my profession level to LV.15."

After a brief review of the data list and realizing he indeed had nothing else to do, Zhang Yanhang lay back down on the bed.

Lying on the bed, Zhang Yanhang checked the time on his phone. "It’s only 7:17 now, 23 minutes before the 7:40 when I need to leave. Twenty-three minutes, what can I do in such a short time? Catch some more sleep? Doesn’t seem enough. How about studying alchemy potions? Still not enough time."

Just as Zhang Yanhang was about to kill time by playing with his phone in bed, he suddenly remembered something—that after upgrading Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil·Original Scripture LV.6 in the Ashen World, he didn’t have time to test the additional properties it gained from the upgrade.

Of course, he had already thoroughly tested the straightforward properties like Penetration Power and Anti-interference ability. Now, he primarily wanted to test what exactly the ’more delicate perception of surrounding things’ meant.

Previously, when scanning the environment in the Ashen World, he felt there was no difference from usual and didn’t see anything special, so, having ample time now that he was back in the Main World, he definitely wanted to properly test it to understand the specific use of this ability.

Zhang Yanhang extended his perception range, directly to its maximum limit of 5500 meters, and began to diligently observe everything within his coverage area.

Fifteen minutes later, Zhang Yanhang had to give up on perceiving because he found that even in the Main World, after a continuous observation for a quarter of an hour, he still hadn’t spotted anything new that he hadn’t observed before. It could only be said that perhaps there was a problem with how he used the ability or some other aspect.

Of course, there was also a very small chance that this new additional property was genuinely useless, but as a skill of the Heavenly Destiny Master profession, Zhang Yanhang felt it was highly unlikely to be the case.

"By the way, Zhao Yalan isn’t home? I was going to check what color she... Holy shit! What the hell is this?"

Just as Zhang Yanhang was retracting his perception range, he suddenly discovered a golden thread, thin as a strand of hair, emerging from his body.

And it immediately tried to flee his body, or rather, it shot outward at high speed, and then there was no ’then.’...

The golden thread was blocked by the intelligent filter of the Technique Immunity-generated Energy Shield, but the weird thing was that although the Energy Shield stopped the thread and kept it within his body, it vanished upon contact with the Shield.

The emergence and disappearance of the fine golden thread happened extremely quickly, the entire process taking no more than 0.1 seconds. If Zhang Yanhang didn’t know that his body’s functions were exceptionally healthy, he would even suspect that the golden thread was a figment of his imagination due to scanning long-term without result.

"What the hell is this? Never seen it before, could it be that the additional property from Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil·Original LV.6, ’more delicate perception of surrounding things,’ is specially for detecting this kind of thing?"

Upon sensing the golden thread, Zhang Yanhang felt his already scarcely recovered physical strength wane slightly, and a similar change seemed to occur in his spirit as well.

"Could it be something is draining my strength from me? But that shouldn’t be possible. How powerful would something need to be to extract my strength through the protection of an energy shield, out of thin air? Could it be a fifth-tier Awakener? But that white-bearded old Taoist from Lao Mountain doesn’t seem like the type to do such a thing.

Or could it be some sort of special anomaly, or perhaps a high-level item that is draining strength over a wide area?"

The golden thread flashed and disappeared, and after thinking it over for quite some time, Zhang Yanhang still couldn’t come up with a plausible reason. To better observe, or rather to find the source of the golden thread that was draining from him, he decided to classify the golden thread as something not to be intercepted.

In this case, if his strength were to be drained again, he could trace the direction of the golden thread to approximate the source.

Although his current perception range was somewhat low, only 5500 meters, he believed that as long as he could find one direction and persistently scan all the objects in that direction, if the scanning distance was long enough, he was bound to find the location where his strength was being siphoned from.

"Although it could be a high-level Awakener or a special item capable of draining my power through an energy shield, logically, the range of this extraction couldn’t be too far.

After all, it’s not like there could be someone so powerful that they could stand in the Mongolian Prairie and drain the strength of an Awakener from Qin Island City across an entire empire’s borders, right? Since spiritual Qi recovery began only half a year ago, it seems impossible that such powerful Awakeners could exist."

For this reason, Zhang Yanhang thought the location of the drainer should be very close to him, at most within several hundred kilometers. Such a distance, he could fly through in at most an hour while simultaneously scanning.

So, in theory, as long as he could confirm the general direction, finding the one draining his powers should not be too difficult.

And even if Zhang Yanhang couldn’t handle it himself, he could report it to the relevant authorities after finding the target and let them deal with it, as their job was to manage all matters related to Awakeners.

"In theory, it’s unlikely that the other party could continue to drain my power in the short term, so, for now, I might as well continue playing with my phone."

Indeed, after pondering for a while, Zhang Yanhang resumed playing on his phone with composure, considering he still had nearly eight minutes to kill.

...

October 21, the thirteenth day after the end of the Mid-Autumn holiday and National Day holiday, and also the first day Zhang Yanhang left the Ashen World, at 7:40 a.m., Xingfuli District, apartment 505, bedroom.

When the clock hit 7:40 a.m., Zhang Yanhang sat up in bed on time and quickly headed for the bedroom door. This time he planned to take the stairs down normally and didn’t fancy the fanciful maneuver of flying out the window and then using Mage’s Hand to close it from the inside.

After all, even though he had eight free opportunities to use all spells daily, it would be better to save them since he needed to experiment with making magical tattoos later.

Speaking of the magical tattoo, Zhang Yanhang planned to try it out using the green skin peeled from Maka Bagga or Goblin Chief Nu Shan.

After all, from a theoretical perspective, these things typically can only be etched onto the skin; therefore, when using magical tattoos, besides a few zealous mages who would ink these tattoos directly onto their own skin, most sensible mages prefer to inscribe magical tattoos on monster skins.

As a result, monster skins with magical tattoos inscribed on them become akin to the spell scrolls found in various Western fantasy worlds—only with a limited shelf life, which means they can’t be hoarded by the hundreds and unleashed all at once when critically needed.

With limited production capacity and the additional issue of short shelf life, even with non-stop continuous work, one might only manage to stockpile a few dozen magical tattoos.

After freshly made magical tattoos begin to expire due to shelf life, even continued creation of magical tattoos only serves to fill the gaps left by those that have lapsed and cannot increase the maximum number of tattoos.

Perhaps it’s precisely because of this fatal flaw in magical tattoos that they’re merely classified as Second Ring Magic, readily mastered by novice mages who have only recently become mages.

However, Zhang Yanhang had already thought about this issue before. He intended to mass-store magical tattoos by utilizing the timelessness attribute of his waist bag’s space. After all, with eight free spells a day, and all of them can be cast eight times for free daily, he truly couldn’t use them all up.

Since they can’t all be used, it would be wasteful to ignore this fact—and waste is a grave sin. Therefore, out of thrift and frugality, Zhang Yanhang planned to diligently research magical tattoos and transform his daily free casts into magical tattoos.

It’s not like he had much else to do; finding something to occupy his time would also help pass the hours. Besides, if he didn’t engage in such activities, Zhang Yanhang would typically spend his rest time in the Main World glued to his mobile phone or computer.

With that in mind, instead of indulging in his phone or computer, it made more sense to allocate some time to creating magical tattoos. After all, this thing is an Instant Cast Spell and shouldn’t take up too much time.

Although he already has thirty-five spells in his spell list, and multiplied by eight, that amounts to 280 casting opportunities, Zhang Yanhang still believed making magical tattoos shouldn’t be too time-consuming.

Moreover, if it does indeed require a lot of time, then he could simply focus on storing the most useful spells—such as Frenzy Skill, Giant Transformation, and Mage’s Armor, while disregarding less essential spells like Magic Pet Pocket, Magic Pet Enhancement, and Li Ou’s Sanctuary.

Truth be told, Zhang Yanhang felt that spells like Magic Pet Pocket and Magic Pet Enhancement held little value for him since he didn’t have any pets. Naturally, without a pet, he would never need to use these two spells.

As for Li Ou’s Sanctuary, although genuinely useful, Zhang Yanhang estimated that he would at most use it once or twice a day. After all, it’s not like he would consecutively cast eight Li Ou’s Sanctuaries back-to-back for rest in the Ashen World, right? That would be madness.

He found even one too spacious, let alone eight or more. Therefore, spells that were likely only needed once or twice a day and would never exhaust the free attempts also fell into the category that didn’t need to be turned into magical tattoos—after all, if made into magical tattoos, they would still go unused.

Also, if one eliminated spells using this rationale, spells like Communication Skill probably also didn’t need to be turned into magical tattoos, since in the Ashen World, he had no one to communicate with regularly.

Thus, this spell was pretty much only for occasional use in the Main World, but the thing is, Zhang Yanhang, an introvert, often had days where the sum of his conversations with others didn’t even total eight sentences. Therefore, eight uses of Communication Skill were more than sufficient.

After all, it was a sustained spell, not one that had to be cast for each sentence; it’s possible to keep communicating with someone else until the energy (phone credit) runs out.

So, after excluding these less frequently used spells, Zhang Yanhang estimated that the time it would take him to inscribe all the spells would be further reduced.

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