Ashen God
Chapter 577 - 576: The New D-Class Talent

Chapter 577: Chapter 576: The New D-Class Talent

Since Zhang Yanhang’s skill promotion also required a considerable amount of Ash Source, he naturally hoped that the Ash Source needed for later rank promotions could be as little as possible, ideally only two or three points. Any more, and he wouldn’t be able to promote his skills as freely as he could now.

[Profession Level successfully raised to LV.16, Free attribute points +6.]

"After raising my Profession Level to LV.16, I gained six more free attribute points, adding to the six free attribute points I got from leveling up to LV.15, I now have a total of twelve free attribute points in my possession."

If everything goes as expected, Zhang Yanhang estimated that he would, just like during the First Tier period, save up thirty-six free attribute points to quickly increase his strength after promoting his rank.

Of course, when saying "if everything goes as expected," in reality there couldn’t be any unexpected events, since Zhang Yanhang’s four main attributes had already been maxed out a while ago, and there was simply no need to use any free attribute points. As for Charm? Not applicable. There really wasn’t any need to increase it.

If he were to consider advancing to the Third Tier later on, Zhang Yanhang might consider using some free attribute points to increase his Charm in order to quickly boost his Charm attribute, but his Charm had already reached 46 points with the equipment bonus. He was just four points away from reaching the Second Tier Limit.

Charm wasn’t a main attribute and didn’t receive rewards when promoting ranks, so the presence or absence of these four points really didn’t make much of a difference. And while increasing Charm could enhance the fixed damage of the Death Wave Skill, whether it was twenty points more or less wasn’t that important considering the base had already hit 730 points of fixed damage.

After all, an increase of twenty points in fixed damage meant changing from instantly killing monsters with 36 points of Constitution or less to those with 37 points of Constitution or less, which was still within the range of a Second Tier Three-star power level.

If increasing those four points in Charm could allow Death Wave’s fixed damage to instantly kill Second Tier Four-star monsters, then Zhang Yanhang would definitely increase it immediately. Unfortunately, that was purely wishful thinking.

After the upgrade in Profession Level was completed, Zhang Yanhang immediately reopened his level panel.

[Name: Zhang Yanhang (Second Tier)]

[Race: Human]

[Profession: Heavenly Destiny Master]

[Level: LV.16 (0/12000)]

[Soul Points: 18761 (-10000)]

"Promoting the Heavenly Destiny Master Profession Level from LV.16 to LV.17 requires 12000 Soul Points, and right now I have 18761 Soul Points. Although I can continue to promote my Profession Level, LV.17 is probably the last level I can reach for now.

After all, if nothing unexpected happens, to reach LV.18 would likely require 14000 Soul Points, and after upgrading to LV.17, I would only have a little over six thousand Soul Points left. So, the future Profession Level promotions can wait until I start clearing the forest north of Raccoon City."

Even though it now costs over ten thousand Soul Points to level up, Zhang Yanhang believed he could earn a considerable number of Soul Points in the forest north of Raccoon City, enough to gather the tens of thousands of Soul Points needed to level up his Profession Level by just casually hunting some monsters.

"Although with my current physical condition, I probably can’t hunt monsters in the forest for more than a few hours before needing to rest, it shouldn’t be a big problem," Zhang Yanhang said as he clicked on the level-up button on the level panel.

[Would you like to spend 12000 Soul Points to raise your Profession Level to LV.17?]

"Yes, raise the Profession Level to LV.17."

Although Zhang Yanhang had always referred to himself as a Second Tier Peak Awakened, that was mainly a division based on attribute value. If one were to consider from a more reasonable aspect of Profession Level, Zhang Yanhang was not only not at the Second Tier Peak previously but wasn’t even in the Second Tier Late Stage.

After all, if we were to divide levels into stages such as 3331, then his previous LV.14 would only, at best, correspond to a Second-order Middle Stage Awakened, and that’s being generous considering he barely entered that stage.

If we were to categorize the ranks according to another fantasy novel Zhang Yanhang had read before, then he would be considered at Second Order Middle Stage Early Stage Peak, followed by Second Order Middle Stage Early Stage Perfect, and then Second Order Middle Stage Half-step Middle Stage, and so on with terms like Sub-middle Stage, Secondary Middle Stage, Virtual Middle Stage...

Okay, that method of classification didn’t really suit him. After all, according to that terminology, by going from LV.14 to LV.17 today, he would have crossed dozens of levels, which is quite an extraordinary feat.

However, if we use a simplified or, shall we say, a normal method of classification, then Zhang Yanhang’s advancement today from Profession Level LV.14 to LV.17 could be seen as a step into the Second Tier Late Stage, though he just barely entered that stage.

Of course, even though he just entered the Second Tier Late Stage, Zhang Yanhang reckoned that in a few more hours, he’d truly reach the Second Tier Peak, as he was only three levels away from reaching the Second Tier limit of Profession Level LV.20. In total, that would only cost tens of thousands of Soul Points, which should be quite easy to handle.

[Profession Level successfully raised to LV.17, Free attribute points +6.]

"By raising my Profession Level at once from LV.14 to LV.17, I’ve obtained a total of eighteen free attribute points, and I can gain another eighteen free attribute points later by raising my Profession Level.

With these thirty-six free attribute points, even if I decide to boost my Charm attribute as well and increase five different attributes, I could raise each attribute by more than seven points. However, if I choose not to increase Charm and only focus on the four main attributes, each could be raised by nine points. It feels great to be so well-prepared."

Although he has not yet promoted his rank, Zhang Yanhang had already planned out his attribute increases for the foreseeable future. After all, it’s definitely not a bad thing to be prepared.

Right after the Profession Level upgrade was finished, Zhang Yanhang immediately opened his level panel for a quick look.

[Name: Zhang Yanhang (Second Tier)]

[Race: Human]

[Profession: Heavenly Destiny Master]

[Level: LV.17 (0/14000)]

[Soul points: 6761 (-12000)]

"To upgrade the Heavenly Destiny Master profession from LV.17 to LV.18, 14000 soul points are required, yet I currently have only 6761 soul points, meaning I’m still short by over seven thousand soul points to upgrade my profession level once more.

Thinking back, I started with just over six thousand soul points at the very beginning. After upgrading my profession level three times, I find myself once again with a little over six thousand soul points. This unexpectedly subtle feeling of being neither here nor there is rather intriguing."

For Zhang Yanhang who had just entered the Ashen World, these six thousand plus soul points were quite a lot, enough for him to smoothly upgrade directly from LV.1 to LV.12 with just a bit more Ash Source. But for the current Zhang Yanhang, there seemed to be no use for them at all, merely a trifling amount.

After completing his profession level upgrade, Zhang Yanhang began to tally the various items he had obtained from the treasure boxes. First and foremost was the Talent quantity, which was crucial for him. This time, Zhang Yanhang had unlocked a total of one hundred and sixty-nine E-grade Talents "Ant Power".

Taking into account the previously accumulated two hundred and seventeen E-grade "Ant Power" Talents, Zhang Yanhang now had a total of three hundred and eighty-six "Ant Power" in hand.

However, in order to upgrade the S-grade Talent "Bear Power" to SS-grade, he would need to consume seven hundred and twenty-nine "Ant Power". After this hunting expedition, Zhang Yanhang’s overall progress finally went from less than one-third to more than a half.

Even so, he still needed three hundred and forty-three more "Ant Power" to upgrade the Talent level, which was still a sizable gap. Relying solely on clearing the Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu and its Crimson Iron Ants would definitely not suffice. He would have to venture to the new monster nest at the bottom of the underground tunnels to gather that many "Ant Power".

Of course, what he’d obtain then would not be E-grade "Ant Power"; it should be a higher-grade Talent, at least D-grade and possibly even C-grade.

Otherwise, if the monsters in the new nest at the bottom of the underground tunnels also only provided E-grade Talents, then based on the probability of one treasure box dropping for every twenty monsters killed, Zhang Yanhang would need to hunt at least sixty to seventy thousand monsters to upgrade "Bear Power" from S-grade to SS-grade and even to SSS-grade.

He did not believe there could be so many monsters in that nest, especially considering that the Goblin Plain, which had the highest number of monsters he had encountered so far, only had a total of twenty thousand monsters. It certainly would not triple directly.

After inventorying the gains from Talents, Zhang Yanhang proceeded to tally the gains from Artifacts, which were nonexistent—the Crimson Iron Ant treasure boxes did not contain any Artifacts, only various pieces of equipment and weapons forged from Crimson Iron.

Therefore, Zhang Yanhang immediately set about inventorying the equipment gains. First was the Crimson Iron Ring, of which he obtained one hundred and sixty-one Green quality Crimson Iron Rings this time, which should allow him to fuse two Blue quality Crimson Iron Rings +6.

"Suddenly, I remembered something. When I was hunting monsters in the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dala Gu, I kept thinking about collecting eight Crimson Iron Rings +6 to forcefully fuse into a Purple Quality Crimson Iron Ring +7. But now, I’m wearing six Crimson Iron Rings +6 and four Crimson Iron Rings +4 on my hands.

So, the question arises, should I go through with the fusion?"

Zhang Yanhang thought for a moment and felt it was better not to fuse them after all, since those six Crimson Iron Rings +6 and four Crimson Iron Rings +4 provided him with a total of ten points in Charm value bonus. If he were to fuse the eight Blue quality Crimson Iron Rings +6 into a Purple Quality Crimson Iron Ring +7, he would definitely lose a significant amount of Charm value bonus.

After all, even if the Crimson Iron Ring was fused to +7, it would just be a Purple Quality Equipment, and at best, it could only provide one or two more points in Charm value bonus. It certainly couldn’t surpass the Charm bonus obtained by wearing Crimson Iron Rings on every finger.

Therefore, although he could indeed proceed with the fusion immediately, Zhang Yanhang decided to wait and gather more, at least until he could collect nine Blue quality Crimson Iron Rings +4 before using the Crimson Iron Rings +6 for the fusion into Crimson Iron Rings +7. Otherwise, it would be a terrible loss in terms of Charm value bonus.

After briefly considering the fusion plan for the Crimson Iron Rings, Zhang Yanhang immediately started the alchemy to fuse the rings. Because he had a larger number of Crimson Iron Rings this time, it took Zhang Yanhang six attempts to fuse them all into Crimson Iron Rings +1, totaling eighty Crimson Iron Rings +1.

However, after the fusion was completed, he was left with one regular Crimson Iron Ring due to an odd number remaining. Zhang Yanhang certainly wanted to fuse this ring into a Crimson Iron Ring +1 as well, but unfortunately, there were no extra Crimson Iron Rings left in his Waist Bag at all.

The remaining Crimson Iron Rings in Zhang Yanhang’s Waist Bag had all been used previously to fuse Blue quality Crimson Iron Rings +4. The Blue quality Crimson Iron Ring that Zhang Yanhang had given to the group leader had consumed all of the few remaining Crimson Iron Rings in his bag, so the regular Crimson Iron Ring was left singled out.

After fusing the seventy-nine Crimson Iron Rings into eighty Crimson Iron Rings +1, Zhang Yanhang quickly proceeded with three more batches of fusion to obtain forty Crimson Iron Rings +2. After that, the process was rather simple. Although it took two batches to fuse the rings into Crimson Iron Rings +3, he was able to fuse all of them in one go after that because there were only twenty Crimson Iron Rings +3 left.

When all the Crimson Iron Rings were fully fused, Zhang Yanhang obtained two Crimson Iron Rings +6 and two Crimson Iron Rings +4. If someone were to ask Zhang Yanhang why he didn’t fuse the Crimson Iron Rings +4 into Crimson Iron Rings +5, it was naturally because he wanted to prepare for the subsequent fusion of the Purple Quality Crimson Iron Ring +7.

Looking at the newly minted Crimson Iron Rings +6, Zhang Yanhang quickly looked over their attribute list and, finding it identical to the other Crimson Iron Rings +6, immediately slid them onto his fingers, replacing the two Crimson Iron Rings +4.

"This way, I have a total of eight Crimson Iron Rings +6 and two Crimson Iron Rings +4 on my hands, and I also have four extra Crimson Iron Rings +4.

To fuse the Purple Quality Crimson Iron Ring +7, I still need to gather three more Crimson Iron Rings +4, which means a total of 48 regular Crimson Iron Rings. Considering I have one regular Crimson Iron Ring left, that means I need 47 more regular Crimson Iron Rings."

The deficit of forty-seven Crimson Iron Rings wasn’t that big or, to put it another way, was actually quite small. Zhang Yanhang figured that during his next visit to the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dala Gu, a casual clearance of a few Crimson Iron Worker Ants should suffice to collect these forty-seven Crimson Iron Rings.

After all, that place could respawn three thousand Crimson Iron Worker Ants in less than ten days, and Zhang Yanhang’s next visit would be five days later, so gathering another thousand or so wouldn’t be an issue.

Even if promotion in rank might potentially lead to a further decrease in the drop rate, but even if it dropped by half, going from one treasure box per twenty ants to one per forty, he would need to kill at most two thousand Crimson Iron Worker Ants.

On his next visit to the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dala Gu, Zhang Yanhang was sure to stay there for several days, so collecting two thousand Crimson Iron Worker Ants should be easy."

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