Ashen God
Chapter 551 - 550: Transmission Channel Permanently Opened!

Chapter 551: Chapter 550: Transmission Channel Permanently Opened!

As for trying to get any useful artifacts or Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures from Zhao Yalan? Nonexistent. What good things could a person who has just been promoted to a Second Tier Awakened possibly have on them?

Zhang Yanhang didn’t particularly care about the suddenly silent and odd atmosphere; he just quietly began to concentrate on fusing Thermo-baric Bombs, after all, this was his main goal at the moment.

Of course, the strange atmosphere didn’t last too long because after being silent for a while, Zhao Yalan actively added Zhang Yanhang as a friend and then slipped out of the public class quietly once again.

After all, there was no need for her to stay here. If she wanted to join the departmental authorities, she could certainly ask Zhang Yanhang for help, and it seemed like she had other matters to attend to.

October 21st, the thirteenth day after the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays ended, and also the first day since Zhang Yanhang left Ashen World, 12:05 PM, dormitory building, room 604.

Zhang Yanhang opened the door and glanced at the dormitory’s items; they were exactly the same as when he left yesterday, which meant that it was unlikely any of his roommates had returned during this time.

"Three weeks already, where on earth did these guys go? Forget it, better not to think about them. Anyway, if they really died, by now they’re probably dead without a complete corpse.

And if they’re alive, they won’t miss a short while longer. I currently don’t have time to look for them, so let’s continue to wait and see if they can return on their own."

Zhang Yanhang planned to wait another week if these guys still hadn’t returned by the end of October, he would go out and search for them.

For now, he had more pressing matters to tackle, such as fusing Thermo-baric Bombs, learning High-level Silence Field, and talking with the group admin about pets and Transmission Channels.

In the public class just now, Zhang Yanhang had successfully fused sixteen Thermo-baric Bombs+3 into eight Thermo-baric Bombs+4, and with the leftover time, he even fused one Thermo-baric Bomb+5, so now, he had a total of six Thermo-baric Bombs+4 and one Thermo-baric Bomb+5.

"Should I continue to fuse them?" Zhang Yanhang thought for a moment; since it was already lunchtime, it would be better to go and chat with the group admin, whom he had always contacted around this time before.

With that thought, Zhang Yanhang immediately took out his phone and sent the group admin a message.

Heavenly Destiny Master: "Are you there?"

Because waiting was dull, Zhang Yanhang couldn’t help but glance at his contact list, the one almost devoid of any substantial friends, wanting to find someone to chat with.

After scanning up and down, Zhang Yanhang felt he might chat with Zhou Muxi and see if she had any artifacts that could increase his Agility attribute value.

After all, Zhou Muxi was at least a Third Tier Awakened, and there was a possibility that she had some Low-level Artifacts that she couldn’t use, so Zhang Yanhang sent Zhou Muxi a message.

Heavenly Destiny Master: "Are you there?"

After sending the message, Zhang Yanhang took out two Thermo-baric Bombs+4 from his waist bag, ready to continue the fusion into Thermo-baric Bomb+5. But unexpectedly, as soon as he put his phone down, a notification for a new message appeared, someone had replied to him.

Initially, before looking at his phone, Zhang Yanhang thought it might be the group admin who had finally shown some conscience, but to his surprise, it was Zhou Muxi who replied. By the way, because Zhou Muxi’s previous nickname didn’t stand out, Zhang Yanhang changed her contact name to [Chaotic Eye].

Chaotic Eye: "Here."

Chaotic Eye: "What’s up?"

Chaotic Eye: "I’m pretty busy, if you have something to say, suggest saying it directly."

Heavenly Destiny Master: "Don’t you guys rest at midday? What’s so busy?"

Chaotic Eye: "Normally we do, but a Fourth Tier Awakened from the departmental authorities’ headquarters in Beijing came this morning, and I’m in charge of liaising."

Heavenly Destiny Master: "Are you guys really that short on people? Didn’t you just start your job today?"

Chaotic Eye: "Although we are indeed short-staffed, the main reason I’m in charge of liaising is that my abilities are suitable."

Heavenly Destiny Master: "Why are you short on people? I saw some Awakened from the departmental authorities recruiting people at the school today. Has the public security situation suddenly deteriorated?"

Zhang Yanhang was genuinely curious about why the departmental authorities were short on people, feeling that there might be a very important reason, and perhaps even one that could affect himself to a significant degree.

Chaotic Eye: "There has indeed been a deterioration, but what’s deteriorating isn’t the public security situation, it’s the Transmission Channel situation."

Heavenly Destiny Master: "Transmission Channels? Why would there be a deterioration in Transmission Channels?"

Chaotic Eye: "Some Transmission Channels have very long opening cycles, having been observed to open once every half a month or even once a month. As for the maximum limit, there is no consensus at present. However, the shortest cycle time for the opening of Transmission Channels has long been calculated; no matter how fast, a Transmission Channel can open at most every three days."

Chaos Eye: "Moreover, as is well known, every time a Transmission Channel opens and closes, the time of the next opening of this Transmission Channel will occur earlier."

Chaos Eye: "Normally, it’s usually half an hour earlier with each opening, but when the duration that a Transmission Channel stays open is increased to over twelve hours, the amount of time it opens earlier each time doubles, which means it goes from half an hour earlier to one hour earlier."

Chaos Eye: "And the most common duration for Transmission Channels is eight hours, so after eight openings, the duration of the Transmission Channel will change to opening one hour earlier each time, plus a three-day opening cycle..."

Heavenly Destiny Master: "Does this mean that these Transmission Channels, which open once every three days, after their duration reaches twelve hours, only need to open continuously sixty more times, that is, one hundred and eighty days, six months, and they will become permanently open?"

Zhang Yanhang had already speculated about this matter, and now, having it pointed out by Zhou Muxi, he immediately thought of what the deteriorating outcome would be.

Chaos Eye: "Exactly, some of the Transmission Channels that appeared during the initial stages of the Spiritual Qi Recovery are now showing signs of being permanently open, and it is estimated that in the near future, more and more Transmission Channels will become permanently open."

Chaos Eye: "And the reason why the relevant departments are currently short-staffed is because they need to send people to deal with these Transmission Channels that are now permanently open."

Heavenly Destiny Master: "Deal with them? Why deal with them? Isn’t it a good thing that the Transmission Channels are permanently open? If the Transmission Channels are permanently open, doesn’t that mean you can freely enter the Ashen World at any time to hunt monsters?"

From this perspective, Zhang Yanhang indeed felt that the permanent opening of Transmission Channels was a good thing for him, because without the restriction of opening times, he would likely spend long periods hunting monsters in the Ashen World, which would certainly significantly reduce the time needed for advancing ranks.

Chaos Eye: "To some extent, it may indeed be a good thing, but the problem is, once a Transmission Channel is permanently open, the Ashen World will forcefully refresh monsters in the region connected to that Transmission Channel. These forcibly refreshed monsters will ignore previous limitations and become free to enter the Main World."

After reading the message from Zhou Muxi, Zhang Yanhang couldn’t help but sigh deeply. The thing he worried about most had still happened; he had previously suspected an unusual density of monsters near the Transmission Channels, and now it seemed that those monsters were the vanguard forces after the permanent opening of the Transmission Channels.

Moreover, in the Ashen World, monsters like Zombies, which are even weaker than ordinary adults, are ultimately a very small minority. The majority of First Tier Monsters, even the weakest ones like the Crimson Iron Worker Ant and Big Saber Goblin in their own region, would also become capable of easily killing ordinary adults in the Main World.

Although most adults and elderly within the Empire had already started practicing Cultivation Techniques, due to the short period, managing to reach the third or fourth layer was considered exceptional Talent.

And while Cultivation Techniques practiced only to the third or fourth layer might help a cultivator deal with First Tier Miscellaneous Monsters and First Tier One Star Monsters without too much trouble, the slightly stronger First Tier Two Stars, let alone First Tier Three Stars, were completely beyond what these ordinary people without actual combat experience could handle.

Moreover, actually, even if one had combat experience it wouldn’t matter, after all, monsters of First Tier Two Stars and First Tier Three Stars could completely overpower ordinary cultivators in terms of physical attributes. No matter how good your technique is, you need to react to use it, and if you’re cut down by a monster before you can react, there’s naturally no afterwards.

Since even First Tier Monsters could already completely overpower ordinary Awakeners, let alone mention Second Tier Monsters and Third Tier Monsters, each one capable of causing massive destruction.

Just as Zhang Yanhang had said earlier, Spider-man’s strength was only about twenty tons, whereas the Third Tier One-star lord monster, Goblin Chief·Nu Mountain, had already possessed tens of tons of strength. This meant that a slightly higher level Third Tier monster could possess even greater strength than Spider-man.

Ordinary superheroes could easily cause large-scale destruction just by swinging a punch, and if you were to send five or even six figures’ worth of ’superheroes’ into a city, the very least you could expect would be leveling the area—and that’s considering the better outcomes, as it’s also possible that they could punch the ground into a crater or send things flying into the sky.

Moreover, although the level classification of village, town, and city doesn’t apply reliably to the Awakeners, it might actually make sense for monsters; after all, monsters may not possess Awakeners’ powerful talents and the complex variety of skills, equipment, and artifacts.

But their basic physical qualities are still very much up to standard, meeting the criteria of their ranks. This means they could easily massacre village-level units or even town-level units without the need to use any skills, simply relying on their physical constitution to deliver basic attacks.

While this claim might seem far-fetched, it is actually quite reasonable. For example, a Licker at the First Tier Two-star level couldn’t even defeat fully-armed special police; how could you expect an ordinary cultivator, at best armed with a kitchen knife, to take down such a creature?

If we talk about Lickers, I think they could at least take down dozens of ordinary humans before being killed, while a normal village-level unit typically has a population in the hundreds.

For a Licker to use basic attacks to kill them all would be somewhat challenging, but the problem is that Lickers can also spread the T-virus—that’s their real weapon of destruction. Although Zhang Yanhang is immune, that’s because his Constitution is higher than ten points; can ordinary people have such a high Constitution?

Even though there would definitely be certain restrictions when the T-virus appears in the Main World, no matter how restricted, at the very least, a Licker should be able to retain its original infectivity—just based on that, it should be able to kill at least dozens of humans before itself being killed.

A higher-level First Tier Three-star Beta-type Hunter truly has the genuine capability to massacre a village-level unit. It has no weaknesses, whether it be Agility, Constitution, or Strength, it excels in all, and its defensive power is extremely high, with ordinary bullets not even being able to penetrate its scale armor.

The special police that provided Zhang Yanhang with the White Ten-piece Set and the Green Ten-piece Set would likely not be a match for it, even if a whole squad came. When playing games, Zhang Yanhang had suffered greatly at its hands, as a moment’s inattention would lead to him being directly slashed to death by its claw.

These First Tier Three-star T-virus infected are not something ordinary people can deal with, and they truly have the potential to annihilate an entire village-level unit. Moreover, even if a single Beta-type hunter couldn’t do it, it would have other companions.

Once the transmission channel opens, it isn’t just one monster that comes through; a great number of monsters emerge, and dozens of Beta-type hunters together would likely even overwhelm a town-level unit, since, despite perhaps still having some form of militia organization, the combat efficacy of town-level units is up for debate.

Because of this reason, Zhang Yanhang viewed the ordinary people’s capability to resist monsters pessimistically; instead, it would be necessary for Awakeners to step in or to employ large-scale heavy firepower weaponry to bombard and resist the invasion of monsters.

Heavenly Destiny Master: "So, the reason why the relevant departments are short-staffed is that they have dispatched most of their Awakeners to clear out these monsters invading the Main World? But why haven’t I ever seen any related news?"

Chaotic Eye: "That’s because, for the time being, the relevant departments still have the situation under control. However, this has led to a shortage of staff and has resulted in relatively powerful Awakeners like myself being able to join the relevant departments directly after a simple interview, as long as the political screening presents no issues."

Chaotic Eye: "But since this information has not yet spread widely, there aren’t many Awakeners joining the relevant departments for the time being. This is also one of the reasons they previously went to your university to recruit."

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