Ashen God
Chapter 587 - 586: Energy Poison

Chapter 587: Chapter 586: Energy Poison

"The first option with the sashimi platter is truly a bit outrageous. Given that I pursue efficiency, why would I bother with a sashimi platter? Shouldn’t I just randomly pull a piece of raw meat from my waist bag and stuff it into my mouth?

Moreover, the specifics of this sashimi platter are even more ridiculous. Why would I go eat the heart of Maka Bagga and the baskets from Nu Mountain? Although I’ve eaten dog baskets, sheep baskets, and horse baskets, those were all cooked. Who could stomach them raw?"

Of course, Dragon Vein Goblin is actually somewhat special; even if it were cooked, Zhang Yanhang couldn’t eat it. It’s not for any particular reason, just that the meat of Dragon Vein Goblin truly tastes awful.

Although Zhang Yanhang hadn’t actually tasted it, just the smell of hydrogen sulfide made him think that Dragon Vein Goblin meat definitely couldn’t taste good. It was probably already soaked through with that very characteristic dark green blood in its body.

"Besides, as an Awakener who pursues Self-Immortality, I really don’t need to enhance reproduction ability. Why would I suddenly think of eating basket sashimi?"

Because once he chose that option, Zhang Yanhang would really go through with it, so he couldn’t imagine what kind of mindset he would have at that time, or what could have possibly persuaded him to eat such a bizarre sashimi platter.

Could it be just because the option mentioned it had ’high nutritional value’? That reason is too far-fetched; he chose to reject it.

"Although the first option is really preposterous, luckily, the second option is relatively normal—involving the Demonized Steel Umbrella Mushroom. Although the name starts with ’demonized,’ which gives an unhealthy and definitely toxic impression, thankfully, I likely won’t be poisoned after eating it."

Zhang Yanhang’s confidence came from his Energy Shield. The main reason was that his Energy Shield could protect even the stomach area, because only such comprehensive, no-dead-angle protection could truly be called ’Technique Immunity’.

Thanks to this, even if the toxins in the Demonized Steel Umbrella Mushroom could harm Awakeners, they wouldn’t matter if they couldn’t contact him. They would be directly filtered out by the Energy Shield.

In fact, due to the characteristics of the Energy Shield, Zhang Yanhang was generally not very afraid of toxin damage since most toxins that could harm living beings are ordinary toxins that act on the flesh.

If such toxins come into contact with the Energy Shield, they are essentially the same as ordinary H2O, producing no reaction at all.

Thus, the toxins that could harm Zhang Yanhang, or the toxins that could affect his Energy Shield, must be those special ones that have energy-corrosive properties to potentially reduce the Shield Value of the Energy Shield.

Moreover, to be honest, this is also a drawback of the Energy Shield. If it really got tainted with that kind of energy toxin, it would continuously erode the Shield Value, making it impossible to maintain the 20% recovery rate per second, which could turn very uncomfortable.

Of course, such special toxins are something Zhang Yanhang felt he might never encounter in his life, so he didn’t worry too much about it. After all, he could easily list dozens of Monster attributes, such as frozen, flames, acid liquid, lightning, darkness, etc.

So, encountering a monster with a toxin attribute was already quite rare, let alone a specific one with energy toxins. It indeed wasn’t something to be particularly concerned about.

Besides, Zhang Yanhang wouldn’t lose his attacking ability just because he lost his Energy Shield. He wasn’t that fragile; the Indestructible Golden Body could still effectively provide physical defense, and unlike the Energy Shield, the Golden Body didn’t need Energy Value to function—it could maintain as long as he had enough Physical Strength.

With his robust Physical Strength, it was hardly likely that an enemy could completely deplete it, unless the battle dragged on for more than a dozen hours. If he did face an enemy so tough, why wouldn’t Zhang Yanhang just use a Thermo-baric Bomb and send the opponent away rather than grinding it out?

So, Zhang Yanhang felt that under normal circumstances, there truly wasn’t a scenario where his Indestructible Golden Body couldn’t be maintained against an enemy.

Plus, even if he was truly beaten to near-death by an enemy, there was still the Proof of Dominator to save him once, and if the Proof of Dominator was also used up, he could simply use a full-coverage Mechanical Prosthetics to resurrect. As long as he still had the Multiple Choice Talent, he would definitely have the day to rise again.

Other things might have their rankings, but the importance of Multiple Choice for Zhang Yanhang was never in question, as all his things were obtained through Multiple Choice.

After reviewing the second option, Zhang Yanhang immediately used ’Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil’ to scan the surroundings, and indeed, he found the Demonized Steel Umbrella Mushroom mentioned in the options that looked a bit like a pine mushroom.

The Demonized Steel Umbrella Mushroom could only be said to have a very fitting name. Although its overall shape was similar to a pine mushroom, the colors were completely different; most of the areas were silver-grey, looking very much like metal, and surprisingly, it was quite large in size, about as tall as Zhang Yanhang’s forearm.

Besides this Demonized Steel Umbrella Mushroom, Zhang Yanhang also found many other bizarre mushrooms and plants with unrecognizable names, all continually emitting energy, so they probably had some use as well.

But gathering mushrooms and plants wasn’t what Zhang Yanhang meant to do at the moment. It was only after clearing out all the monsters in the entire Demonized Swamp would he do such things.

Okay, maybe that was a bit too precise. Actually, after clearing the monsters in the Demonized Swamp, he still had to clear the refreshed monsters in Raccoon City and Goblin Plain. Only after all this was done would he start collecting the various plants in the Demonized Swamp.

However, by that time, how much time he would have left, or even if he could spare any time at all, would still be an unknown.

So, Zhang Yanhang didn’t really care much about things like the Demonized Steel Umbrella Mushroom at the moment.

But speaking of the things he cared most about, that would definitely still be the content in the third option."

"I never expected to encounter a First Tier Three Star Monster right at the start. Could it be that my wish to acquire a D-Level Talent from the beginning is about to come true?

"If the weakest monster in the Demonized Swamp is indeed the First Tier Three Star, then isn’t it possible for me to upgrade my Talent to SSS-Level after clearing the Demonized Swamp?"

As soon as Zhang Yanhang thought of this possibility, he felt excited since it would be his first SSS-level Talent. He had always thought that SSS-level Talents might only be obtainable after reaching the Third Tier, but now it seemed possible even now.

Of course, obtaining an SSS-level Talent depended on there being enough monsters in the Demonized Swamp. After all, starting with a D-level Talent simply saved Zhang Yanhang one upgrade step. So if there weren’t enough monsters in the Demonized Swamp, it might still be impossible to boost it directly to SSS-Level.

Therefore, Zhang Yanhang’s most important task now was to scan the Demonized Swamp’s monster situation while Time Pause was active.

However, since time was paused and there was no need to worry about time consumption, Zhang Yanhang decided to first scan the situation in Raccoon City and Goblin Plain before exploring the Demonized Swamp. Given the vast area of the Demonized Swamp, he didn’t expect to complete the scanning in one go.

With this in mind, Zhang Yanhang, who had just entered the Demonized Swamp Zone, immediately turned around and ran back to Raccoon City.

It had to be said that by now, Zhang Yanhang was really too familiar with Raccoon City, having plowed through it back and forth three or four times. Therefore, he practically had the scanning route committed to muscle memory. Even without scanning, he could roughly tell where Zombies were more likely to respawn.

But still, scanning was very much necessary to ensure nothing was missed.

...

Last time, it took Zhang Yanhang less than ten minutes to scan the whole Raccoon City. Although his Movement Speed and Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil Perception Range had increased, the total scanning time hadn’t reduced by much. It still took him several minutes to finish.

After scanning Raccoon City, Zhang Yanhang found that in the past four days, the number of monsters that had respawned in the city was quite a lot, roughly around eleven hundred.

Assuming the current situation continues, Zhang Yanhang thought that if he waited another four days before clearing the place again before leaving the Ashen World, he could probably collect up to two thousand monsters.

Currently, among these rejuvenated eleven hundred monsters, the Zero Star First Tier Ordinary Zombies firmly occupied the C spot with about seven hundred of them. Next were the One-Star First Tier Zombie Dogs, with roughly one hundred and fifty spawned, and following that, the Police Zombies, with about seventy to eighty—it was quite a lot.

"I remember last time, it took seven days to respawn about one hundred Police Zombies, but this time only four days have passed and seventy to eighty have already appeared. It seems this should be the normal respawn rate for Police Zombies.

And previously, it must have been that Police Zombies didn’t respawn immediately after I left, but rather a day or two later before starting to respawn, which is why only one hundred appeared over seven days."

Although he just merged a Waist Bag +3, Zhang Yanhang wouldn’t refuse more Waist Bags. Even though his current Waist Bag slots are indeed quite plentiful, future situations might arise where plenty of Waist Bag slots are needed, such as previously when digging tunnels in the Crimson Iron Ore Vein...

Moreover, Waist Bags can be infinitely stacked. Just from this point alone, Zhang Yanhang had no reason to refuse more Waist Bags. After all, they don’t take up space.

"Speaking of which, if Raccoon City can refresh seventy to eighty Police Zombies in four days, then in another four days, wouldn’t there be a possibility of refreshing one hundred and fifty to one hundred sixty Police Zombies? Based on the drop rate of one Treasure Box per twenty, these Police Zombies should just provide me with eight Waist Bags."

Zhang Yanhang currently has five Waist Bag+4 and one Waist Bag+3. If he could obtain another eight Waist Bags later, he could merge another Waist Bag+3 and fuse it with the existing one to make a Waist Bag+4, giving him a total of six Waist Bag+4.

"But compared to Waist Bags, Yellow Medicine Grass is more important."

Besides the Ordinary Zombies, Zombie Dogs, and Police Zombies, during this scanning session, Zhang Yanhang also discovered about sixty Lickers and ten Beta-type Hunters. After four more days, their numbers should double, potentially providing Zhang Yanhang nearly ten Medicinal Herbs.

Previously, although Zhang Yanhang had won a Yellow Medicine Herb while clearing the prize pool, he hadn’t immediately experimented with it, planning to use them together later.

What surprised Zhang Yanhang the most was that Gamma Type Hunters had also started to respawn, though not many, just four. But this was a very good sign, indicating that most monsters in the Ashen World could naturally respawn, not just be obtained from a prize pool.

Of course, if other monsters also took half a month to respawn, although they indeed could be refreshed, that efficiency really couldn’t compare to a slot machine prize pool.

"Now that the Beta-type Hunters have also started respawning, that leaves only the Lord Monster Tracker and Second Order One Star Prototype Tyrant that haven’t appeared in Raccoon City yet. I wonder what the respawn rate of the Prototype Tyrant will be.

Although I don’t yet know if it will respawn, based on the number of Prototype Tyrants in Raccoon City, if Prototype Tyrants can respawn, then it would definitely be faster than the slot machine prize pool, which refreshes one per day—way too slow."

Even though the slot machine prize pool path is indeed a dead end, if Raccoon City itself can refresh Prototype Tyrants, then there’s still hope that Zhang Yanhang can once again gather ten Coin Fragments for coin crafting.

Zhang Yanhang currently has two Defense Coin Fragments and two Attack Coin Fragments left. So, assuming each Prototype Tyrant’s Treasure Box could produce three Coin Fragments, he just needs to obtain three more Drop Treasure Boxes to get another complete Dark Purple Quality Defense Coin or Attack Coin.