Ashen God
Chapter 576 - 575 Profession Level Increase

Chapter 576: Chapter 575 Profession Level Increase

"As for the second option, I didn’t expect to trigger an option related to Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures again, could it be that today’s adventure was inadvertently triggered within this choice?

Speaking of which, I had intended to report this cat-faced old lady to Zhou Muxi later, but unexpectedly, she vanished without a trace. Did she die on her own, or was she perhaps casually liberated by some passing Awakener?"

The reason Zhang Yanhang felt that the cat-faced old lady was already dead mainly lay in the fact that the ’Cat’s eye gem’ mentioned in that option, which could increase the upper limit of Physical Value, had an overwhelmingly heirloom-like vibe to it.

Compared to being liberated by a passing Awakener, Zhang Yanhang was more inclined to believe that the cat-faced old lady might have died of natural causes. After all, if an Awakener had done it, they would definitely not have left something like a cat’s eye gem at the scene; they would have taken it immediately.

As for the precise reason behind the cat-faced old lady’s mysterious sudden demise, Zhang Yanhang was clueless. Although he could probably obtain some information about her after consulting with Multiple Choice later, Zhang Yanhang didn’t want to waste Energy Value on something seemingly pointless. After all, she was already dead, and asking how she died seemed meaningless. Even if he found out how she died, it wouldn’t be of any benefit to him.

"As for the third option, I definitely can’t choose it because I need to head to the southern forest in Raccoon City to hunt monsters. It’s impossible for me to stay in the Crimson Iron Ore Vein any longer."

Zhang Yanhang had already said that he wasn’t confident in clearing the monsters from the bottom of the underground tunnels within five days, so it was better to wait until he advanced to the Third Tier before tackling that task. Otherwise, his promotion might be delayed by another week, maybe even to next month, and that would be truly uncomfortable.

"So, I choose Option Two, to go home." After reviewing all three options, Zhang Yanhang immediately made his final decision.

.......

October 25, Sunday, Double Ninth Festival, and also the first day Zhang Yanhang left the Ashen World, at midnight sharp, in the living room of unit 702, Building 6, Unit 3, East River District, on the sofa.

As Zhang Yanhang made his choice, Time Pause vanished instantly, and everything before his eyes went dark, then bright again. Since he had already planned to return at twelve o’clock at night, he hadn’t turned off the lights—well, actually, he had turned them on before going to bed and then forgot to turn them off after falling asleep.

"Now that I’m back, let’s start by checking the Treasure boxes." Zhang Yanhang prepared to open all the Drop treasure boxes he had just collected back in the East River District before returning to Xingfuli District to take the Transmission Channel to Raccoon City.

After making up his mind, Zhang Yanhang immediately poured out a large pile of Drop treasure boxes from his Waist Bag.

But before tallying the treasure boxes, Zhang Yanhang first opened up his Soul points balance to take a look.

[Soul points: 17051 (+10756)]

"I took down more than three thousand Crimson Iron Ants, and in the end, I only got 10756 Soul points. Even if I add the original 6295 Soul points I had left, the balance still doesn’t even reach twenty thousand. The gains from hunting Crimson Iron Ants are really incomparable to those from Dragon Vein Goblins."

According to Zhang Yanhang’s hunting experience, if he had managed to kill more than three thousand Dragon Vein Goblins, even if they were all the weakest Big Saber Goblins, he should have been able to get around twenty thousand Soul points, and perhaps even reach thirty thousand when adding his original balance.

Unfortunately, the number of Dragon Vein Goblins in Goblin Plain hadn’t much refreshed because they had only recently been cleared out.

The number of Crimson Iron Ants that Zhang Yanhang had killed this time, including the two hundred Crimson Iron Ants from the Lucky Slot Machine third prize pool, was around three thousand three hundred.

Among these three thousand three hundred Crimson Iron Ants, three thousand and two hundred were the weakest kind, the Crimson Iron Worker Ants, followed by a total of one hundred Crimson Iron Flying Ants and Crimson Iron Soldier Ants, and finally, eighteen Crimson Iron Breeding Ants and the smallest in number but also the most important two Crimson Iron Ant Kings.

"Fortunately, even though the soul points gained from hunting Crimson Iron Ants aren’t too much, at least they are sufficient to level up the Heavenly Destiny Master profession level without too much trouble, especially since upgrading from LV.14 to LV.15 requires only 8000 soul points,"

Zhang Yanhang estimated that if he added the soul points from the treasure boxes dropped later, he should at least be able to raise his profession level by two or three levels, up to LV.16 or LV.17.

Although Zhang Yanhang had always thought about saving up the soul points and then leveling up his profession rank to LV.20 in one go, he didn’t feel much like hoarding soul points at the moment.

After all, he would definitely be able to gain a large number of soul points in the process of clearing the forest, so he felt it was better to use up this part of the soul points immediately after getting them, as they only amounted to a few tens of thousands, which really wasn’t very significant for him at this stage.

After all, Zhang Yanhang currently had a bunch of Original LV.6 skills, and upgrading any one of those would cost two hundred thousand to four hundred thousand soul points.

Such a huge consumption of soul points couldn’t even be matched by the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dala Gu, let alone slaughtering the forest to the north of Raccoon City, so he would have to wait until he advanced to the Third Tier before he could do a relatively normal upgrade.

And his current modest goal was simple, to raise his profession level to LV.20, then upgrade Fighting Master to Grandmaster LV.6, and finally to bring both Indestructible Golden Body and Death Wave up to Original LV.6, since he really couldn’t advance the other parts any more.

After checking his soul point balance, Zhang Yanhang began to count the number of treasure boxes he had obtained. After completing the count, he found he had received a total of 169 drop treasure boxes this time, with Crimson Iron Worker Ants naturally making up the largest proportion, contributing a total of 161 drop treasure boxes to Zhang Yanhang.

Next were the Crimson Iron Flying Ants and Crimson Iron Soldier Ants, from which Zhang Yanhang had obtained only three drop treasure boxes each since he had only encountered them in the third prize pool of the slot machine.

Then came the Crimson Iron Breeding Ants that had contributed only one drop treasure box, and finally, the most significant yet least in numbers were the Purple Quality drop treasure boxes from the Crimson Iron Ant Kings which were the most important to Zhang Yanhang.

After counting the number of drop treasure boxes, Zhang Yanhang immediately picked up the Purple Quality drop treasure box from the Second Tier Second Star Elite Monster, the Crimson Iron Ant King.

If nothing unexpected happened, this drop treasure box from the Crimson Iron Ant King should enable Zhang Yanhang to once again obtain Makarov’s Regret, allowing him to raise the Makarov Set from Dark Purple to Light Gold.

[Do you want to open ’Drop Treasure Box (Crimson Iron Ant King)’?]

"That said, although it’s expected that this drop treasure box should definitely yield another Makarov’s Regret, what if it doesn’t come out? There’s actually a high probability of getting another redundant Makarov’s Regret."

Zhang Yanhang guessed that if that were the case, it would be quite awkward.

Plus, Zhang Yanhang also suddenly remembered a very important issue, that if nothing unexpected happened, the next time he entered the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dala Gu, he should have advanced to the Third Tier.

By then, the normally high drop rate treasure boxes from the Ant King, which dropped one every eight or nine kills, might suffer from a Rank Penalty and see a reduced drop rate, potentially requiring twenty kills to drop just one treasure box.

If that was the case, it would be quite difficult for Zhang Yanhang to get another Makarov Earring in the future, or by the time he got it, the Makarov Earring might already be useless to him. After all, given another twenty days, he might advance to the Fourth Tier.

Well, the earring would still be useful. After all, the Makarov Earring was of Dark Purple Quality and could still be used by Fourth Tier Awakened individuals. It was just that by then, he might have access to better earrings, like those of Golden Quality, for instance.

"Although it would be troublesome if I couldn’t obtain Makarov’s Regret this time, fortunately, I’m confident in my luck. Yes, let’s open it."

Though resigned to ’leaving it to fate’, Zhang Yanhang, being the ’Heavenly Destiny Master,’ believed that such matters should almost certainly be manageable and unlikely to fail.

[Please select the specific contents of the ’Drop treasure box (Crimson Iron Ant King)’]

[Item One: ?]

[Item Two: ?]

[Item Three: ?]

[Item Four: ?]

[Item Five: ?]

...

After opening drop treasure boxes for about fifteen minutes, Zhang Yanhang finally finished opening all 169 of them.

Before tallying the specific items he had gained, Zhang Yanhang first checked his Soul points balance.

[Soul points: 36,761 (+19,710)]

"Huh? I actually gained 19,710 soul points, that’s quite a lot more than expected."

Zhang Yanhang surmised that the reason for the high amount of soul points gained this time was mainly because of the contribution of the Crimson Iron Ant King’s drop treasure box which alone yielded 3,600 soul points; after all, the Crimson Iron Ant King was indeed a Second Tier Second Star Elite Monster, which certainly has far more soul point value than other Crimson Iron Ants.

For example, the strongest among the common Crimson Iron ants— the First Tier Three Stars Crimson Iron Breeding Ant, although it also had only one drop treasure box, yielded only 360 soul points from it, merely one-tenth of that of the Crimson Iron Ant King.

"I originally had only over six thousand soul points, and now my soul point balance is 36,761, so these Crimson Iron Ants of the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dala Gu, including the killing gains as well as the treasure box gains, contributed approximately thirty thousand soul points in total.

Since there are so many soul points, this time I should be able to bring my Profession Level up to LV.17. Therefore, without delay, let’s begin advancing my Profession Level. I indeed haven’t upgraded my Profession Level in a long time; it seems the last time I did was four days ago."

Zhang Yanhang said this as he clicked to level up on the level panel.

[Would you like to spend 8,000 soul points to upgrade Profession Level to LV.15?]

"Yes, upgrade Profession Level to LV.15."

Although it had only been four days since Zhang Yanhang had last upgraded a level, which wasn’t truly that long, the time before last when he upgraded his Profession Level, that truly was a long time ago.

It was almost two weeks ago; back then he had just advanced to Second Tier and raised his Profession Level to LV.13 in one breath with the soul points he had saved up, and then he hadn’t moved since, until four days ago when he upgraded to LV.14.

Fortunately, there was no issue, especially since Zhang Yanhang expected to be able to directly raise his Profession Level to LV.20 today.

[Profession Level successfully raised to LV.15, Free attribute points +6.]

"Although it has been quite a while since I last upgraded my Profession Level, if I remember correctly, it seems each level increase at Second Tier requires an additional two thousand soul points." Zhang Yanhang reopened the level panel for another look after leveling up.

[Name: Zhang Yanhang (Second Tier)]

[Race: Human]

[Profession: Heavenly Destiny Master]

[Level: LV.15 (0/10,000)]

[Soul points: 28,761 (-8,000)]

"It’s indeed just an increase in requirements of two thousand soul points. In comparison to skill upgrade costs, the fixed increase for advancing Profession Levels is really quite generous."

Zhang Yanhang speculated that the reason for such small soul point requirements for upgrading Profession Levels might mostly be because that’s roughly the acquisition ability for soul points for the majority of Ordinary Awakened.

After all, not every Awakened can clear an entire area by themselves with a 100% completion rate, and in addition to that, Zhang Yanhang can also acquire a large amount of soul points through drop treasure boxes.

Considering these two aspects comprehensively, Zhang Yanhang even felt that the efficiency at which Ordinary Awakened gain soul points could very well be ten times lower than his, so although the requirement increase for Profession Level advancement is indeed very friendly in Zhang Yanhang’s eyes, it may not seem so friendly for those Ordinary Awakened.

Otherwise, Ordinary Awakened would not be taking months to advance through the tiers, and while breaking through bottlenecks would take a lot of time, the initial accumulation up to the limit of the tier rank would definitely be a significant part of it.

"Upgrading Heavenly Destiny Master Profession Level from LV.15 to LV.16 requires 10,000 soul points, and I currently have 28,761 soul points left. Since there are still enough soul points, let’s continue to advance my Profession Level," said Zhang Yanhang, who then clicked to upgrade again on the level panel.

[Would you like to spend 10,000 soul points to upgrade Profession Level to LV.16?]

"Yes, upgrade Profession Level to LV.16."

Although he had just upgraded to LV.16, Zhang Yanhang was already beginning to worry about whether the requirement for the unlock at LV.20 advancement, the demand for the Ash Source, would be too great.