Ashen God
Chapter 591 - 590 E-level Talent [Survival of the Fittest]

Chapter 591: Chapter 590 E-level Talent [Survival of the Fittest]

October 25, Sunday, Double Ninth Festival, was also the first day Zhang Yanhang frequently leaped between the Main World and the Ashen World. At two in the morning, in the demonized swamp’s outer zone, on the very edge of the southern forest.

[Successfully killed a first tier three-star monster ’Demonized Maned Beast (Normal)’ ×1, soul points +9.]

[Successfully killed a first tier three-star monster ’Demonized Maned Beast (Normal)’ ×1, soul points +9.]

[Successfully killed a first tier three-star monster ’Demonized Maned Beast (Normal)’ ×1, soul points +9.]

...

Zhang Yanhang expressionlessly fired at the Demonized Maned Beasts charging towards him. He was fairly lucky this time, stumbling upon five Demonized Maned Beasts together. After taking down these five, one of their corpses spawned a green-quality drop treasure box.

Zhang Yanhang immediately went forward to pick up the green quality drop treasure box and tucked it into his waist bag, "Including this drop treasure box, I now have a total of four. It’s time to open them in one go.

Alas, however, compared to opening treasure boxes, the process of collecting them is indeed much more difficult than when I was in Goblin Plain."

Although aside from his initial kill, Zhang Yanhang had only collected three more drop treasure boxes, the issue was that he had to clear an area of a square kilometer to obtain these three.

Perhaps because of the solitary nature of Demonized Maned Beasts, they were not only scattered in location but also sparse in density, which meant that despite clearing a square kilometer, Zhang Yanhang had only killed about sixty or so Demonized Maned Beasts.

And not surprisingly, Zhang Yanhang’s estimation of his cleaning efficiency was incredibly precise; he did indeed spend ten minutes clearing that square kilometer. However, when he made the estimation, he had thought that terrain would be the biggest interfering factor.

But when he actually started clearing, he realized that the dispersion of the monsters was the biggest factor in reducing his hunting efficiency, as it exacerbated the adverse impact of the terrain.

"But although the overall hunting efficiency is quite low, the good thing is that the Prehistoric Giant Beast Talent can increase movement speed. Once I acquire this talent, the improvement in speed should correspondingly increase hunting efficiency. In that case, the overall difficulty of clearing should definitely be less than the worst case I had initially anticipated."

Zhang Yanhang felt that with this situation, the likelihood of him allocating some time at the end to clear Raccoon City and Goblin Plain should significantly increase.

"Never mind, let’s not think about these things now, just open the treasure boxes." Zhang Yanhang found a relatively flat spot on the corpse of a demonized maned beast in front of him to sit down, then took out four green-quality drop treasure boxes from his waist bag, all of which he had obtained by killing Demonized Maned Beasts.

Although he had only killed sixty or so Demonized Maned Beasts so far, which was not enough for a substantial statistical sample, he still understood something clearly—that the Demonized Maned Beasts, likely due to rank penalty, would on average need twenty kills to drop a treasure box.

Of course, it could also be nineteen. The exact number could only be definitively concluded after Zhang Yanhang had killed about four digits worth of Demonized Maned Beasts.

Since there were only four treasure boxes, all of which were drop treasure boxes from the Demonized Maned Beasts, Zhang Yanhang just randomly picked one and chose to open it.

"Would you like to open ’Drop Treasure Box (Demonized Maned Beast)’?"

"Yes, open it," Zhang Yanhang said, making his choice. The familiar Time Pause descended on the Demonized Swamp again after an interval of ten minutes. If possible, Zhang Yanhang actually wished he could trigger this Time Pause hundreds of times in a row, but unfortunately, with the number of treasure boxes he had on hand, he could only trigger it four times at most.

"Please choose the specific content for ’Drop Treasure Box (Demonized Maned Beast)’"

"Item One: ?"

"Item Two: ?"

"Item Three: ?"

"Item Four: ?"

"Item Five: ?"

"The level of the Demonized Maned Beast is First Tier Three Stars, the same as the Goblin Wolf Cavalry from the Goblin Plain. Although the Demonized Maned Beast provides slightly fewer Soul points than the Goblin Wolf Cavalry, it’s very likely that its drop treasure box can also yield Blue quality items."

Although the Soul points were only worth nine, the fact that the Demonized Maned Beast normally dropped a Green quality treasure box meant that Zhang Yanhang thought the value of the Demonized Maned Beast’s treasure box should be quite normal. At least with his luck, he shouldn’t be limited to only obtaining Green quality items.

"Speaking of which, Yellow Medicine Grass is also a Blue quality artifact. I wonder if I can get some corresponding artifact that can raise the Energy Value limit from the Demonized Maned Beast’s treasure box. Well, I’m just daydreaming, obviously, since the Demonized Maned Beast clearly has nothing to do with the Energy Value limit."

Since the items that could be obtained from a drop treasure box generally have more or less a connection with the monster itself, the Demonized Maned Beast, which has a relatively low Intelligence Attribute Value, and whose Intelligence Attribute Value even decreases further after demonization, indeed doesn’t have much to do with such items.

Compared to the Demonized Maned Beast, Zhang Yanhang used to be more optimistic about the Dragon Vein Goblins of Goblin Plain. Unfortunately, the Dragon Vein Goblins there were very uncooperative and didn’t drop any artifacts that could increase the Energy Value limit. The only things that existed in the slot machines on Goblin Plain were two bottles of Scroll Dragon’s Blood and one bottle of Scroll Dragon Essence Blood.

Fortunately, though the Dragon Vein Goblins on Goblin Plain did not provide Zhang Yanhang with any artifacts that could raise the Energy Value limit, they did provide an artifact that could. It was by relying on the Scroll Dragon Bloodline that he managed to get his Energy Value limit to reach such an extent that it could surpass the Life Value Limit.

Moreover, having acquired the Scroll Dragon Bloodline—a Talent that could increase the Energy Value limit—Zhang Yanhang now desired to gain another Talent that could raise the Life Value Limit, in addition to a Talent to increase the Agility attribute.

However, the current "Prehistoric Giant Beast" definitely couldn’t raise the Life Value limit, and so, this Talent that could increase the Life Value limit was something Zhang Yanhang figured he wouldn’t be able to obtain until after he advanced to the Third Tier at least.

As for precisely when he could acquire it, it was up to luck since he currently couldn’t directly choose the additive effects of Talent.

"Since there’s little chance of getting a Blue quality Artifact that enhances the Energy Value limit, I can only hope the Drop treasure box from the Demonized Maned Beast contains some useful Equipment.

As for Weapons or anything of the sort, forget it, since my All Four Elements are Void Pure World Fist just advanced to Golden quality. Considering the limit of a Green treasure box, the best it could yield would be a Weapon of Blue quality, no matter how impressive.

And even a Weapon of Blue quality, fully fused, couldn’t reach Light Golden Quality, let alone Golden Quality, unless I really could Speak and follow by directly forcing a weapon upgrade." Zhang Yanhang silently clicked on the first item after some thought.

[Item One]

[Option One: Maned Tooth Dagger, Green quality, Weapon]

[Option Two: 45 Soul points]

[Option Three: 90 Soul points]

"I just said I didn’t want a weapon, and immediately a Maned Tooth Dagger appears, and it’s not even a Blue quality weapon—it’s just a Green quality one."

Zhang Yanhang briefly checked the Attribute list of the Maned Tooth Dagger; the introduction implied it was fashioned from one of the hardest of the four canine teeth of a Demonized Maned Beast. But despite that, it was just that—merely a Maned Tooth Dagger of Green quality with a Full Score.

Such a dagger, from Zhang Yanhang’s experience, might at best be enhanced to Purple Quality, or even remain Blue quality after exceeding its limit.

Such worthless weapons, even with Zhang Yanhang’s smithing skills, should be easily forgeable, since the materials from the Demonized Maned Beast itself were likely of a similar Quality.

For a weapon that lacked even the worth for waste recycling, Zhang Yanhang naturally chose to refuse it. Compared to a Green quality Maned Tooth Dagger, he much preferred those ninety Soul points.

"If nothing unexpected happens, there should be three options related to Soul points inside the treasure box of the Demonized Maned Beast, with each option offering ninety Soul points. This means that each treasure box from the Demonized Maned Beast could net me two hundred and seventy Soul points.

Having four of the Demonized Maned Beast’s treasure boxes in hand, I should be able to gain 1080 Soul points after opening them all. This number, for some reason, makes me think of screen resolution."

Speaking of resolution, Zhang Yanhang remembered something very important; although Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil·Original had advanced to LV.6, its Additional Attributes hadn’t resulted in any abilities related to improved image quality, but had simply enhanced Penetration and Anti-interference ability.

This led to Zhang Yanhang’s use of Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil to scan various things being roughly maintained at the blurred picture quality of approximately 720p, only slightly better than the basic standard definition of 480p provided by Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil LV.6.

He had originally thought that maybe Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil would also improve image quality when it advanced to Original LV.6, but it seemed he had hoped for too much.

"Since Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil even at Original LV.6 still only maintains a 720p image quality, as if everything appears akin to a washed-out, slightly faded old garment that reveals its true colors only upon concentrating, it looks like an upgrade to 1080p will have to wait until the Skill level of Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil reaches Original LV.MAX. However, the number of Soul points required for such an upgrade is beyond what I can afford for now. It seems feasible only after reaching the Third Tier.

Although reaching 1080p should be manageable, upgrading to 2K, 4K, and 8K would most likely be unrealistic."

Zhang Yanhang always had a small dream of seeing everything in crystal clear, uncensored clarity. For now, uncensored was achievable, but super clear was a bit of a struggle; 720p was merely high-definition, while resolutions starting from 1080p were considered super clear.

[Item Two]

[Option One: Prehistoric Giant Beast, D-Level Quality, Talent]

[Option Two: Demonized Life Form (Maned Beast), D-Level Quality, Talent]

[Option Three: Survival of the fittest, E-Level Quality, Talent]

"Huh? Talent comes out straight away with just the second item? And indeed, as a First Tier Three Star Monster, the Demonized Maned Beast, though its Soul points are slightly less valuable, still retains a D-Level Quality Racial Talent.

Moreover, the Prehistoric Giant Beast Talent is indeed initially a D-Level Talent, as I had guessed. With this, my hope to upgrade the Prehistoric Giant Beast to SSS in the future is very promising, needing only to gather the same number of points required to upgrade an E-Level Talent to SS."

However, although upgrading the Prehistoric Giant Beast Talent was indeed easier by threefold compared to an E-Level Talent, the problem lay in the fact that, according to previous scans, the number of monsters in the Demonized Swamp seemed rather limited, certainly fewer than in the Goblin Plain.

The Goblin Plain just barely allowed for the Dragon Bloodline to be upgraded to SS in one go, and moreover, the drop rate of treasure boxes there was one per nineteen kills. Hence, it might be somewhat difficult to upgrade directly to SSS Level in this case.

Fortunately, while reaching SSS could be challenging, upgrading to SS was extremely easy, and the difficulty in reaching SSS was only slight.

Perhaps the requisite quantity of monsters in the Demonized Swamp zone was indeed insufficient, but according to Zhang Yanhang’s estimate, the shortfall wouldn’t be too great. Just cleaning up the area again when there was time for monsters to respawn should allow for collecting the needed amount.

And though the quantity of monsters in the Demonized Swamp might be less than in the Goblin Plain, considering that the weakest here was the Demonized Maned Beast with at least First Tier Three Star strength, Zhang Yanhang believed that the yield of Soul points from the Demonized Swamp should indeed be much higher than the Goblin Plain.

After a quick review of the D-Level Talent Prehistoric Giant Beast, Zhang Yanhang swiftly shifted his attention to the last Talent, the E-Level "Survival of the fittest".