Ashen God
Chapter 544 - 543: Spell Library

Chapter 544: Chapter 543: Spell Library

"And moreover, do you know how much psychological trauma and severe damage a brain-buster combined with a big pocket attack could inflict on a seventeen-year-old and thirty-two-month-old child like me?

I’m afraid from now on, every time I dream at midnight, I might be suddenly awakened by the horrifying event I experienced today!"

With an expressionless face, Zhang Yanhang ’tearfully’ accused Zhao Yalan of the ’inhuman, utterly cruel’ criminal acts she had just committed against him, with a voice devoid of any fluctuations or emotional undertones.

"..." Zhao Yalan originally wanted to fiercely criticize Zhang Yanhang’s utterly emotionless reading behavior, but considering that one must bow one’s head when under another’s eaves, she eventually chose to remain silent to prevent Zhang Yanhang from doing something even more twisted.

"Moreover, it took me half a month to advance to the Second Tier, and you call that fast? Are you mistaken about what ’fast’ means?"

Zhang Yanhang, looking at Zhao Yalan’s smooth, pale face, thought about adding another big pocket attack, wondering, since she was so cute, wouldn’t she cry for a long time? Just the thought was somewhat exciting.

"Half a month?! I think you’re the one who’s mistaken about what ’fast’ means! Do you really think you could have advanced to the Second Tier in just one week?"

Zhao Yalan couldn’t hold back her urge to sarcastically comment, remembering that when she had first met Zhang Yanhang, he seemed to be just a newbie Awakener, but now he had already surpassed her months of power in rank.

She was experiencing for the first time what ’disparity’ and ’extreme disparity’ really felt like.

"No, I’m not thinking about advancing to the Second Tier in a week. I’m thinking about using another week to advance to the Third Tier. That is my current minor goal."

There were thirty-one days in October, and it was only the twenty-first today. Zhang Yanhang felt that the remaining ten days should undoubtedly be enough for him to smoothly advance to the Third Tier.

After all, cleaning the northern forest, at most three or four days should be enough to accomplish it, roughly one teleportation cycle.

"Do I look like a total fool to you?" Zhao Yalan couldn’t help but gaze at Zhang Yanhang as if he were an idiot. She could perhaps believe that he had achieved the Second Tier in half a month, considering he was now at the peak of the Second Tier, but advancing to the Third Tier in another week was an outright insult to her intelligence.

"You don’t believe it, it doesn’t matter." Zhang Yanhang expressed indifference, as he would inevitably turn it into a reality anyway.

"Who exactly are you? We have no grudges, so why do you keep targeting me like this?"

Zhao Yalan finally couldn’t hold back and asked about the real identity of this bizarre individual. While the videos from each of their encounters did go viral, allowing her to gain many followers and rapidly enhance her strength, she always felt there was something odd about being randomly targeted by a stranger.

"I am who? If I say I’m just a passing Jedi Knight, would you believe me?"

Zhang Yanhang instantly used a Flash Transformation Technique to don white armor for himself and also pulled out a baton from his waist bag, using it as a medium to emit a Blazing Beam simulating a Light Saber.

"You dressed like that, it’s really hard for me to believe you... even though I haven’t actually seen the movie, but that’s clearly Empire recruit armor, not remotely related to Jedi Knights!"

Though Zhao Yalan felt Zhang Yanhang might have used some special power just to fool her, the intense heat waves emanating from the fiery red Light Saber made it feel incredibly real, and she didn’t doubt its power for a minute. She was afraid that if that sword actually struck, she would be split in half on the spot.

"Actually, I am currently controlling you with the Force, and next, I’ll show you Force Transmission!" Having glanced at the time and realizing he would be late if he didn’t leave soon, Zhang Yanhang quickly teleported away after finding an excuse.

"Where is he? Where is he?! WHERE IS HE?!" Zhao Yalan widened her eyes, looking forward; the living person who had just been talking there had disappeared in the blink of an eye— he had really teleported away!

"Why did you just leave like that, what am I supposed to do now?! At least turn off the Force Control before you go! Ahhhhhhh—" In despair, Zhao Yalan couldn’t help but shriek like a groundhog.

Just as Zhao Yalan thought she might end up cosplaying Little Dragon Girl, left for dead on the mountain top, she suddenly discovered that her body had gradually regained its ability to move.

"Hmph! At least you had some conscience!" Zhao Yalan moved her stiff limbs a bit and then directed the Hummingbird-class reconnaissance drone, which had been hovering on the sidelines, to fly back in front of her.

...

Since Zhang Yanhang had already scanned and found the dormitory still empty, and with class about to start, he teleported directly to the classroom and specifically chose a corner seat in the last row, considering he planned to conduct some experiments which were not suitable for a conspicuous position.

"Right, I have to deal with that matter regarding Li Zerui too, but I don’t have time now, better to help him resolve it after school in the afternoon." Thinking this, Zhang Yanhang immediately sent a message to Li Zerui, telling him to wait at dormitory 604 in the afternoon.

Considering that the task he was about to undertake would consume Energy Value, Zhang Yanhang immediately started running the Limitless Universe Skill to recover Energy Value, as it was still partly depleted.

During this Energy Value recovery process, Zhang Yanhang also carefully experienced the differences between recovering Energy Value in the Ashen World and the Main World.

Because of the difference in Spiritual Energy concentration between the Ashen World and the Main World, Zhao Yalan had previously managed to achieve twice the panel-labeled data while operating the Limitless Universe Skill in the Main World, which was quite good. Only with the aid of the Gathering Spirit Jade and Ice Silk Cool Mattress could he reach about four times that rate.

But now it was different, Zhang Yanhang had previously obtained a Lightning Totem Pole that could enhance Energy Value Recovery Speed by 60% and a Magic Energy Totem Pole that could enhance Energy Value Recovery Speed by 90% on the Goblin Plain.

These two totem poles together provided him with a 150% increase in Energy Value Recovery Speed, causing a surge in his recovery efficiency while operating the Limitless Universe Skill.

According to Zhang Yanhang’s experience, while in the Ashen World, the high surrounding energy concentration meant that even without the aid of the Gathering Spirit Jade and the Ice Silk Cool Mattress, Zhang Yanhang’s recovery speed of Energy Values still reached 12.5 times the panel-labeled data, an increase of 7.5 times compared to before.

However, it was not the same in the Main World. After operating the Limitless Universe Skill for a while, Zhang Yanhang found that the recovery speed of Energy Values here was still as disappointing as ever, though it had increased from four times to ten times, it was still not ideal.

After all, if it was only this speed, it would probably take Zhang Yanhang more than five hours to recover Energy Values using the Limitless Universe Skill.

After fully recovering his Energy Values, Zhang Yanhang stopped operating the Limitless Universe Skill and started to think about what to do next. Honestly, he still had a lot of things he needed to do.

Zhang Yanhang could easily list several tasks, such as manufacturing Thermo-baric Bombs and integrating Thermo-baric Bombs +3 up to +5 and +7.

Moreover, using Magical Tattoos and the skin stripped from the Goblin Chief to create disposable Magic Scrolls, as well as utilizing Maka Bagga and various organs and tissues from the Goblin Chief to concoct Alchemy Potions.

Most importantly, Zhang Yanhang needed to spend time learning the spells in the Spell Library. Although he had already automatically acquired Flying Technique and High-level Invisibility due to the Spell List, he still lacked a Silence Spell, which could mask sounds, so he had to learn it from the Spell Library himself.

Moreover, this would definitely consume a lot of his time. Although his Memory and computing powers had increased due to the enhancement of his Intelligence Attribute, it developed his brain more towards a supercomputer, with little real boost in learning ability.

The reason is that the Intelligence Attribute ultimately only optimizes the brain incidentally, primarily enhancing attributes related to Energy, Energy Defense, and Energy Attack.

Therefore, Zhang Yanhang’s learning ability could only be considered relatively ordinary or within a normal range. Of course, this "normal range" refers to the group of Second Tier Awakened, compared to First Tier Awakened and ordinary people, his powerful Intelligence Attribute still gives him a significant advantage.

The current issue was that compared to his far superior combat abilities, his learning ability was quite mundane because he had not received any relevant boosts nor consumed any Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures that could play a similar role.

This ordinary learning ability would likely result in him needing more time to learn spells, and he happened to be quite short on time.

Thus, Zhang Yanhang figured that although he could learn a vast array of spells from the Spell Library, he probably didn’t have that much free time; he would likely only allocate some time to learn the most useful spells and would not bother to learn them all, as it would be a waste of time and pointless.

After all, most of the spells were of no use to him, for instance, spells like Tentacle Tongue or the low-level version of Flash, since he already had the High-level Flash Technique.

"So, the question is, what should I do next?" Zhang Yanhang thought. Perhaps he should first address the most crucial issue, the Silence Spell. Thus, he opened the Spell Library and began trying to learn spells.

The last time Zhang Yanhang opened the Spell Library, he briefly looked at it before closing it, thinking the various books inside were just decorative, and the real spell learning would perhaps occur directly in his mind like a PPT presentation.

However, when Zhang Yanhang actually started to learn spells, he found that these magic books seemed to be real, and if he wanted to learn spells, he needed to study the books like a traditional mage.

Of course, the overall process was somewhat similar to the PPT he had imagined initially, as the magic books in the Spell Library did not have a physical form, more akin to modern e-books. To read them, he would have to flip through the pages slowly, so the overall presentation was indeed a bit like a PPT.

Moreover, crucially, when Zhang Yanhang wanted to directly learn the High-level Silence Spell, he found it a bit too advanced for hs current knowledge, and he might not fully understand it at the moment. He needed to build some foundation first; otherwise, it might take two to three days of relentless, round-the-clock effort.

For example, this was like asking a primary school student who hadn’t clearly learned basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to start learning functions equations from junior high straight away—it wasn’t quite feasible. Though the Scroll Dragon Bloodline had infused him with some knowledge while teaching him spells, it certainly wasn’t comparable to a proper mage.

Incidentally, if you’re wondering how Zhang Yanhang knew how long hard-studying would take, that’s because, while the spell books indeed required self-learning, fortunately, they still had some digitized functionality. Zhang Yanhang could see the remaining learning time and overall progress bar below, similar to a download progress bar.

Right now, the spell he wanted to learn, named High-level Silence Field, a Fifth Tier Spell, would require 58 hours to learn if he ignored the prerequisites. That’s 2 days plus 10 hours, referring to a learning method without any breaks.

If he took breaks in-between, it would be about only four hours of rest each day, enabling him to complete this Fifth Tier Spell within three days.

However, if Zhang Yanhang first learned the prerequisite spells for this Fifth Tier Spell High-level Silence Field, it would somewhat reduce the learning time for the High-level Silence Field.

Zhang Yanhang briefly checked the specifics. There were two prerequisite spells for this Fifth Tier Spell High-level Silence Field, namely the Zero Ring Magic Soundproof Barrier and the Three Tier Spell Silent Field.

The Zero Ring Magic Soundproof Barrier would take an hour and a half to learn. If he learned that first, it would reduce three hours of learning time for the Fifth Tier Spell High-level Silence Field, effectively doubling the time spent on the prerequisite spells back to the high-tier spell.