Ashen God
Chapter 559 - 558 Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord

Chapter 559: Chapter 558 Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord

October 21st, thirteen days after the end of the Mid-Autumn holiday and the National Day holiday, was also the first day Zhang Yanhang left the Ashen World. At 3:10 p.m., in the teaching building, within a specialized course classroom.

After reading the news, Zhang Yanhang took out two Thermo-baric Bombs +5 from his Waist Bag and began the fusion process.

Although the procedure had become exceedingly familiar, he simply couldn’t increase the fusion speed, which made Zhang Yanhang suspect that his technique might not be up to par. Perhaps after advancing to the Third Tier and further upgrading his Alchemy Skills, he could enhance the efficiency of fusing Thermo-baric Bombs.

Eighty minutes later, Zhang Yanhang successfully fused a second Thermo-baric Bomb +6. He glanced at the time on his phone; it was already half-past four, with only fifty minutes left until the end of school. Afterward, he had arranged to meet Li Zerui for a healing session.

"If fusing a Thermo-baric Bomb +6 already requires eighty minutes, starting to fuse a Thermo-baric Bomb +7 now could potentially take from the afternoon into the evening. Wouldn’t that mean standing up Li Zerui? After all, he is my very first client; that wouldn’t look very good."

After some contemplation, Zhang Yanhang decided he would be better off treating Li Zerui after school before attempting to fuse Thermo-baric Bomb +7.

"So, the question is, what should I do now?" After careful thought, Zhang Yanhang figured he might use this time to research Magical Tattoos. So, he promptly pulled out two pieces of Goblin skin from his Waist Bag, one from Maka Bagga and the other from Goblin Chief Nu Shan.

Since he had already planned to use their skins for Magical Tattoos, Zhang Yanhang had skinned Maka Bagga and Goblin Chief Nu Shan completely while he was in the Ashen World.

With a small knife, Zhang Yanhang cut out a palm-sized piece of green skin from each, Maka Bagga and Goblin Chief Nu Shan, next planning to test the energy transmission efficiency of these two pieces.

This transmission efficiency was a critical factor determining the potency of Magical Tattoos once they were inscribed.

For instance, if Zhang Yanhang inscribed an Attack Magic Spell and the energy transmission efficiency was poor, it’s possible that one hundred points of Energy Value could only exert twenty to thirty points of power. Typically, this level of inefficiency occurs with metals or wooden materials other than skin.

If the efficiency is this low, then creating a Magical Tattoo becomes a meaningless gesture. It’s simply not worth it, a waste of time, materials, and Energy Value to create something without value.

After a simple test using the method prescribed for Magical Tattoos, Zhang Yanhang discovered that both pieces of skin had subpar energy transmission efficiency, with Maka Bagga at forty percent and Goblin Chief Nu Shan at fifty percent.

"Forty and fifty percent, what use are these? I thought they would at least be seventy or eighty percent efficient. With that in mind, it seems I might as well use my own skin for inscribing Magical Tattoos."

According to the information provided about Magical Tattoos, the skin of a spellcaster, Zhang Yanhang’s skin, could reach a minimum of ninety percent efficiency, and in the best-case scenario, even ninety-nine percent. Meaning, transmitting one hundred points of Energy Value could yield ninety-nine points of power, almost no difference from the original.

Zhang Yanhang sighed, then repacked the skins of Maka Bagga and Goblin Chief Nu Shan back into his Waist Bag. "In the end, it seems I’ll have to use my own skin to create the Magical Tattoos."

While he could directly inscribe on himself, the inability to store it in his Waist Bag would introduce a time limit. In the best-case scenario, it would fade in a week; even at a slower rate, it would likely last at most half a month, which is still quite brief.

"Come to think of it, would skinning myself count as self-harm? And it sure seems like it would hurt."

Upon further reflection, Zhang Yanhang realized that if he only needed his skin, he wouldn’t have to actually skin himself; he could simply generate a portion of skin using the Human Body Refinement aspect of Alchemy. That shouldn’t pose a significant problem.

"This plan seems unexpectedly sound, and it doesn’t seem too difficult to pull off." Zhang Yanhang decided to first try this approach, to see how it goes, before deciding whether to inscribe the Magical Tattoos on his skin or on the skin created through Alchemy.

Zhang Yanhang activated the Alchemy Array and controlled his arm’s skin to form a hair-sized crack, then quickly prompted the growth of the skin, extending it beyond the crack at a rapid pace.

But, whether due to Zhang Yanhang’s lack of proficiency or his current strength, the rate at which the skin grew wasn’t very fast. Each minute, about a palm-sized piece of standard human skin—ideal for inscribing Magical Tattoos—could be produced.

"Taking into account the Zero Ring Magic, I have a total of thirty-five spells, each of which can be cast eight times for free, adding up to 280 casts in total. If I can only produce one piece of human skin per minute, then just producing the skin will take nearly five hours each day.

Even if I omit some unnecessary spells, that would likely still burn three hours a day. That’s far too slow. Where would I find the time to do this? Plus, after generating the skin, inscribing the Magical Tattoos would take more time. I simply wouldn’t have the time to manage this."

After a brief trial, Zhang Yanhang felt he might as well give up on the skin generation idea. While it did indeed offer a longer preservation time, the main issue was the lengthy production time. On reflection, with the rate at which his rank was advancing, he wouldn’t need that lengthy duration; half a month might be more than adequate.

Zhang Yanhang safely stored the freshly grown piece of skin and used Alchemy to seal the recent incision.

The plan was indeed viable, and the result was successful, but the time cost was too high. In the early stages, his own skin, readily available, would be more useful. Once his body was fully inscribed, he could then use skin generated via Alchemy for Magical Tattoos.

Having abandoned the idea of Alchemy-generated skin, Zhang Yanhang began trying to inscribe Magical Tattoos directly onto his body. While in theory, since Magical Tattoos were listed under the Spell List, they should be Instant Cast Spells.

Unfortunately, Magical Tattoos seemed to be an exception—or maybe the activation could indeed be instantaneous, without any chant or preparation needed, but the inscription process still took time.

Zhang Yanhang had originally thought the process of imprinting magical tattoos might be time-consuming—perhaps it would take half a minute or even a minute to imprint a single spell. However, it turned out that just one second was enough, at least for the Zero Ring Magic tricks he tested.

He then consecutively tested other spells and found that all First Tier Magic, including Zero Ring Magic, First Tier spells, and Second Ring Magic, only took one second to imprint. Second Tier Magic, comprising Third Tier Magic, Fourth Tier Magic, and Fifth Tier Magic, required two seconds.

However, the situation was slightly different for Third Tier magic, the Sixth Circle Magic. It seemed due to rank insufficiency, it took ten seconds to imprint a single spell. Well, that wasn’t much—after all, there were only five Sixth Circle spells, so it would only take a total of six minutes to imprint them all.

The remaining spells would also only consume six minutes, which meant Zhang Yanhang would need approximately twelve minutes to imprint all the spells on his body. If he left out spells such as those related to Magic Pet Space and Magic Pet Enhancement, he could even reduce the time to under ten minutes.

"Ten minutes a day is acceptable. It looks like I’ve got an extra daily task in the Main World from now on."

Moreover, after conducting the experiments, Zhang Yanhang discovered that due to the rank enhancement, the Second Ring magical tattoos, originally the size of a palm, only took up as much skin as almost a walnut in actuality—a reduction in size by several times.

This meant he could inscribe even more magical tattoos on the limited surface area of his skin.

Additionally, tattoos imprinted on his own body had an advantage over those on other organisms’ skin: they only appeared when activated, remaining invisible and energy-efficient at other times.

Perhaps thanks to this, Zhang Yanhang unexpectedly found that the duration of his body’s magical tattoos seemed to last not just half a month but about three weeks. Although after three weeks he might have reached the Peak Third Tier or even advanced to the Fourth Tier, an increase in duration was certainly good news.

After completing the tests, Zhang Yanhang took a few minutes to fill one arm with magical tattoos, and when he looked at the red magical rune on the back of his hand symbolizing Scorching Ray, he had the bizarre feeling of transforming into Father Ma Po, as if he had just tattooed a whole arm’s length of Command Spells.

Well, to a degree, magical tattoos were indeed quite similar to Command Spells, as both stored abundant energy, except that the latter’s energy was used for control and the former primarily for direct attacks.

Speaking of the energy, it was impossible not to mention the consumption of the magical tattoos. The initial eight imprints were free, but afterwards, Zhang Yanhang had to pay for the Energy Value himself.

Although he initially knew the consumption of a Second Ring magical tattoo wouldn’t be very large, he didn’t expect that after completing all imprints, he hadn’t even expended one tube of Energy Value. Perhaps this was due to receiving some related bonus to energy consumption for being a Second Tier Awakened using First Tier spells.

"There are only eight free chances for each spell daily; it might take me more than ten days to fulfill my little dream of releasing hundreds of attack spells instantaneously covered with magical tattoos. Oh, wait, I have six Ray Skills alone, so if I count them as the same type, then I could realize this little dream in just two days."

Zhang Yanhang couldn’t help but visualize a scene where he was entirely covered in lasers shooting out. For some reason, it made him think of the Centipede Spirit from "Journey to the West," also known as the big brother of the Seven Spider Demons—the Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord.

After sorting out the magical tattoos, Zhang Yanhang glanced at the time on his phone and realized there was only half an hour left before class ended.

"Now that the magical tattoos are taken care of, what’s next? Should I research Alchemy Potions? No, I’ll handle that at home tonight. Besides, I remember I still have an unused Maka Bagga Alchemy Set.

For now, let’s use the last half-hour to recover some Energy Value, as later I must treat Li Zerui."

Whenever Zhang Yanhang focused on cultivating his Limitless Universe Skill, time flew by incredibly fast. It felt like the blink of an eye before the end-of-class bell rang as expected.

After the bell, Zhang Yanhang promptly took non-existent textbooks and returned to his dorm, then messaged Li Zerui to come quickly.

Perhaps it was due to the day’s anticipation, but Li Zerui arrived at Dorm Room 604 in about a minute, carrying something that looked like a cooler.

Zhang Yanhang initially thought it contained something odd, but after scanning it, he discovered it held the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures prepared for him. To his surprise, there were three of them, even though he had clearly requested only two.

As soon as Li Zerui entered, without saying anything else, he opened the box and placed it on the dorm table. "Here are three Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, all for increasing Stamina limits. You mentioned you urgently needed these kinds, can we start the surgery right away?"

Since Li Zerui didn’t take the initiative to explain why there were three Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, Zhang Yanhang didn’t plan to ask. What if Li Zerui simply misremembered, and by asking, Zhang Yanhang had helped him recall?

Then Li Zerui might take one of them away, which would be rather uncomfortable, as Zhang Yanhang didn’t want to give up something that had already made it to his mouth.

"Before we start the surgery, can I ask where you got these three Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures from? I’ve heard from others that you’ve been playing the gigolo recently?" Zhang Yanhang was genuinely curious about this matter and wanted to hear the story firsthand.

"Yes, I hooked up with a wealthy woman," responded Li Zerui as his already sallow and ill-looking face became even paler, devoid of any color; probably due to subconsciously recalling some painful memories from before.

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