Ashen God
Chapter 546 - 545: Special Talent [Gathering Power]

Chapter 546: Chapter 545: Special Talent [Gathering Power]

"I’m guessing you must be a sophomore," said Zhang Yanhang. "Freshmen who have just started school not long ago would listen carefully to any class, let alone an open lecture. So, someone like you skulking in the corner slacking off has got to be a seasoned sophomore."

Speaking of which, Zhao Yalan suddenly realized that the Awakener on stage was somehow moving his lips without making a sound. Just earlier in the hallway, she could hear his voice very clearly.

"Congratulations, you guessed right. Didn’t you say earlier that you had no classes this morning, so you went hiking and took the opportunity to look for Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures? Why are you back now?" Zhang Yanhang had indeed not expected to bump into Zhao Yalan once again.

"That’s because I already found the Thunder Attribute Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure. Then I saw a message from my counselor telling me to come listen to the lecture, so I came back." As Zhao Yalan spoke, she pulled out a purple, pear-shaped Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure and showed it to Zhang Yanhang.

"You actually managed to find a Thunder Attribute Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure? Does that mean Thunder God Mountain isn’t just made up?"

Zhang Yanhang looked at the Thunder Attribute Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure in front of him and began to doubt whether the last twenty years of his life had been lived in vain. Why had he never heard of the so-called Thunder God Mountain?

"Oh, that," Zhao Yalan said, "is indeed made up on the spot, and this Thunder Attribute Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure wasn’t found on that mountain, but rather on a smaller hill next to it." After displaying it, she promptly put the Thunder Attribute Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure away again, planning to exchange it with other Awakeners for something useful later.

"What a farce!"

It was the first time Zhang Yanhang had encountered such an outrageous situation, and he even began to wonder if Zhao Yalan opposite him might just be the so-called Heavenly Destiny’s Daughter.

Oh wait, that sounded a bit weird, since if he was the Heavenly Destiny Master, wouldn’t that make Heavenly Destiny’s Daughter sort of like him suddenly becoming a dad?

"Indeed." Zhao Yalan couldn’t help but nod her head; she herself felt that it was outrageous. But as the saying goes, reality needs no logic, so even the most outrageous things can happen.

Viewing it from this angle, Zhao Yalan suddenly didn’t think the situation was that outrageous after all. Compared to a true Luck System Awakener, her bit of fortune was nothing special.

"Moreover, what’s more outrageous is, how did you suddenly advance to Second Tier? Weren’t you at the Peak First Tier just two hours ago?" Zhang Yanhang noticed this highly irregular anomaly as soon as Zhao Yalan arrived.

"Isn’t it normal to advance since I’ve had my Awakening Ability for several months now?" Zhao Yalan thought that compared to the person sitting next to her who had advanced to Second Tier in just two weeks and boasted of reaching Third Tier in another week, her rate of progression was really not worth mentioning.

"Completely abnormal," Zhang Yanhang insisted. "What extraordinary experience did you encounter in these two hours? Otherwise, why would your strength increase so rapidly?"

Zhang Yanhang was becoming more and more curious about Zhao Yalan’s abilities. Although she couldn’t compare to him, the Heavenly Destiny Master, in terms of luck, she was definitely an anomaly compared to other Awakeners.

"About that, I just edited the video I took earlier and uploaded it to TikTok. Then I naturally advanced to Second Tier.

The video inexplicably went viral. When I last checked, it had two hundred thousand likes in just two hours, and I’m sure I’ll get at least five hundred thousand likes before the hype dies down. This is likely going to be my first video to break half a million likes."

Zhao Yalan showed Zhang Yanhang the video on her phone, which had already increased from two hundred thousand to two hundred and thirty thousand likes. A quick refresh added another ten thousand, bringing it to two hundred and forty thousand likes.

"What in the world did you awaken as an ability? Could it be that your TikTok account has gained sentience? Posting videos can directly increase your strength?"

Zhang Yanhang thought his Multiple Choice was outrageous enough, but he didn’t expect that there could be even more incredible abilities out there. Being able to enhance one’s strength through posting videos was just too overpowered.

If such an ability fell into the hands of big capital or relevant departments, with relentless propagation of resources, it wouldn’t take long to raise a Fifth Tier Awakened.

Even Sixth Tier couldn’t be ruled out. After all, there are plenty of official media short videos with likes in the tens of millions, easily reaching hundreds of millions of views.

"The ability I awakened is called ’Gathering Power.’ It’s similar to the path of becoming divinely endorsed by faith in various Western fantasy worlds. Anyone who sees any medium storing my image, such as photos, videos, or statues (figurines), will passively provide me with a portion of Power of Faith.

Moreover, simply mentioning my name, or hearing about me from other channels, will offer me a portion of Power of Faith as well, though it’s a one-time deal. But these folks at best can only be considered Light believers, so there’s a cap on the Power of Faith they can provide me—typically no more than five portions per day.

But those who follow my account are different; once they follow, they become my Believers and will provide me with a fixed portion of Power of Faith daily. Also, when viewing relevant media, namely my short videos, they can supply additional Power of Faith.

Furthermore, aside from watching, each ’like’ can offer me five portions of Power of Faith, and the limit of Power of Faith provided will unlock from the original five portions per day to ten.

And if they can repeatedly watch and like my videos daily thus continuously providing ten portions of Power of Faith for over a week, these Light believers will evolve into True Believers.

True Believers will fixedly provide me with five portions of Power of Faith each day, and viewing and liking videos will double the Power of Faith they offer. In addition, each True Believer can provide up to fifty portions of Power of Faith every day.

As for higher levels like Devout Believers, Fanatics, and even higher rank Believers, I’m not sure yet, as I currently haven’t developed to that stage of followers. For now, I have only a few True Believers at most."

Zhao Yalan explained the conditions for acquiring the Power of Faith to Zhang Yanhang, and then the specific uses of it.

After listening, Zhang Yanhang summarized it. Simply put, Zhao Yalan’s "Gathering Power" Talent was essentially an entire list of mental powers in terms of its manifestation in attack.

So far, she had unlocked up to the Third Ring. To unlock each mental power, a corresponding amount of Power of Faith had to be consumed, and only by learning all the powers on the list could she unlock the next tier of mental powers and rise in rank.

Previously, Zhao Yalan had used the Faith Power supplied by the recent video to swiftly finish learning the remaining Second Ring mental powers and unlock the Third Ring ones, which in turn led to her promotion to Second Tier.

Zhang Yanhang had some understanding of mental powers. These were also part of the DND power system, or, to be more accurate, they were quite similar to Zhang Yanhang’s own spell list—only with many more mental spells included.

Specifically, the main reason was that the creator of this power system was rather lazy; he directly plagiarized the neighboring spell system with some alterations, then shamelessly added some mental spells and called it mental powers.

Most of the abilities in mental powers were actually spells from the spell list, but there were also powerful spells such as Assimilation Technique, Mind Swap, and Mind Demon Seed.

The Assimilation Technique allowed a biological being to be integrated entirely into the caster, from soul to flesh—thus the saying, "To love her is to become one with her."

Mind Swap functioned as a form of body snatching; when you feel your body is failing or your lifespan is reaching its limit, you can choose a young and robust body and start anew.

Moreover, since mind mages specialized in mental powers, the strength or weakness of their bodies had little influence on their full power. Once successful, they could immediately inherit all powers and return to the peak.

This ability was also very suitable for escape; as long as a seed was pre-planted, you could swap bodies instantly when facing death or in a near-death condition.

The so-called seed was the Mind Demon Seed. Once planted, it slowly assimilated the target into another incarnation of the caster, both in soul and flesh, transforming into an exact likeness of the caster.

This was the most suitable object for body snatching as there would be no resistance, and the adaptation process could be said to be practically non-existent.

Aside from spells like Assimilation Technique, Mind Swap, and Mind Demon Seed, basic spells like Memory Modification, Mind Split, and Mind Control were also readily available—these being Four or Five Ring Spells, while the aforementioned were Eight Circle Magic or Nine-cylinder spells.

As an aside, the Mind Power Rank also included Nine rings spells like Reality Modifier, True Creation Skill, and Create World—just hearing their names would suggest overwhelming strength.

In essence, they were not spells but rather used mental power to simulate similar functions, which is why they were referred to as mental powers, and their ranking was not from First Tier to Nine rings but Level 1 to Level 9. But in terms of manifestation, they were indeed quite similar to regular spells.

When Zhao Yalan used these mental powers unlocked through the Power of Faith, like the spells Zhang Yanhang was imbued with by the Scroll Dragon Bloodline, she could cast them instantly without practice and was capable of Multi-casting, though she did not have any free casting opportunities.

While she couldn’t cast for free, Zhao Yalan could choose to use the Power of Faith as the energy required for casting, allowing her to frequently use her mental powers and to hunt monsters intensively.

Moreover, she could enhance the strength of her mental powers by using additional Faith Power, making "Gathering Power" indeed a Talent very suitable for combat.

The three Female Awakened that Zhang Yanhang encountered, including Zhao Yalan and Zhou Muxi, all excelled in combat-oriented abilities, which perhaps was the reason they ventured into the Ashen World to hunt monsters and rapidly rose in ranks.

As for Zhang Yanhang with his Multiple Choice, it had no relation to combat at all. Its main function, both now and in the future, was bound to be an auxiliary-type Talent.

Having heard Zhao Yalan introduce her Talent "Gathering Power," Zhang Yanhang finally understood who the person extracting power from him was—it turned out to be Zhao Yalan, which he had guessed when he scanned her at the foot of the mountain, only to have it confirmed now.

Zhang Yanhang was immobilized by Zhao Yalan’s Human Immobilization Technique, not just surprised by the technique itself, but mostly shocked by the dense, golden threads encircling her. He stood still mainly to observe those threads.

Under the effect of Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil, he clearly saw numerous swiftly flying golden threads converging towards Zhao Yalan from all directions.

And indeed, because he saw Zhao Yalan, a golden thread emerged from him and flew toward her. So, he had already figured out who was drawing his power away; it was just now formally set in stone.

"I actually planned to call the authorities and report you when I first sensed someone was extracting power from my body."

Zhang Yanhang wasn’t really thinking of reporting Zhao Yalan anymore. After all, the tiny amount of strength she drew, he could recover in a single breath—it really didn’t matter. Besides, Zhao Yalan was somewhat of an acquaintance. If it were some stranger extracting his power, he would definitely consider reporting it.

"You can see the Power of Faith?" Zhao Yalan was astounded after hearing this.

"I couldn’t originally, but after I upgraded a Skill, I could. By the way, I’ve been following your account for a while, so I guess you could consider me a Light believer of yours, and I provide you with a portion of the Power of Faith every day."

Though Zhang Yanhang had become a Light believer of Zhao Yalan, he felt he definitely lacked any room to advance further. After all, the basic requirement of watching and liking her videos every week for a consecutive seven days was something Zhang Yanhang just couldn’t do, especially since he would visit the Ashen World every week, and sometimes a few days at a time.

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