Ashen God
Chapter 593 - 592 High Elf Empire

Chapter 593: Chapter 592 High Elf Empire

"High Elf Empire, Supreme Forest, Elf Court Avando... this place sounds familiar. If I remember correctly, it’s where the World Tree is located that I’ve been yearning for.

Moreover, the High Elf Empire seems to be a remnant of the First Epoch, also known as the Golden Age, when the High Elves, as the golden race, dominated all other races..."

After briefly checking the origin of the equipment, Zhang Yanhang quickly shifted his attention to the description, hoping to gather more information.

However, after reading the description, Zhang Yanhang found the new equipment’s description to be even more ridiculous than the one he had acquired on Goblin Plain, which was made by the Red Dragon Salcano.

The equipment description from the Red Dragon Salcano, although already absurd, at least mentioned a thing or two about the equipment. This time, the description of the new Grey Maned Arm Guard didn’t mention anything about the equipment at all.

Not even a single word. It only mentioned that a High Elf named Azikasa Baofeng Saint Silvado was highly skilled in forging.

Moreover, it appears that this Azikasa Baofeng Saint Silvado has unexpectedly low emotional intelligence. When his well-endowed apprentice sincerely confessed to him, he misunderstood it as an Immortal Jump and rejected her.

"So, the question arises, since this Azikasa Baofeng Saint Silvado is a war hero from the First Epoch of the High Elf Empire and is undoubtedly powerful, having lived for over a thousand years, and he prides himself most on his forging skills—

why then, is equipment forged by such a formidable individual only of blue quality?"

Looking at the string of impressive adjectives, Zhang Yanhang felt that Azikasa Baofeng Saint Silvado must certainly be a forging master. Yet, the equipment he forged is only of blue quality. Zhang Yanhang felt he must be overlooking some crucial issue.

After pondering briefly, Zhang Yanhang suddenly considered a new possibility, "Since this Azikasa Baofeng Saint Silvado is likely ridiculously strong, could it be possible that the Grey Maned Arm Guard was actually forged by that large-chested apprentice he rejected?"

Upon thinking this, it suddenly seemed reasonable to Zhang Yanhang. After all, even if Azikasa Baofeng Saint Silvado was worthless, he wouldn’t be so inept at forging tech after a thousand years that he could only produce equipment of this caliber. Therefore, this item could only be the apprentice’s practice work.

"Sigh, the practice work of an apprentice not yet two hundred years old, reaching such a blue quality—High Elves indeed are powerful, rightfully the dominators of the First Epoch."

After focusing on the description, Zhang Yanhang immediately checked the additional attributes he cared most about.

"Although this additional attribute isn’t the attack speed bonus I need most right now, fortunately, the physical recovery speed bonus is also useful to me. With faster physical recovery, I can reduce my rest time, which effectively increases my hunting efficiency.

Moreover, when hunting monsters, physical recovery speed, like stamina limit, can extend my endurance.

This Grey Maned Arm Guard, being merely of blue quality, provides a 10% physical recovery speed bonus. If it’s upgraded to purple quality through fusion, it might directly offer a 20% physical recovery speed bonus.

If that really happens, then it’s incredible. The three-to-two work-rest ratio might suddenly become less challenging."

The reason Zhang Yanhang said this is because, although he has bonuses related to stamina limit, he didn’t have any earnest bonus connected to physical recovery speed (only a ’Vitality’ status acquired when he advanced to Second Tier).

So, if the Grey Maned Arm Guard could provide a 10% physical recovery speed bonus, that’s a solid increase by 10%. His physical recovery speed would leap to 1.1 times his original.

For instance, if Zhang Yanhang normally must rest for eleven hours after working continuously for eleven hours to fully recover his spent stamina, with a 1.1 times increase in recovery speed, he’d need only ten hours to recover after eleven hours of continuous work.

The hour saved could be used to hunt more monsters, essentially amounting to indirect monster hunting.

"So, I choose ’90 Soul Points,’ ’Prehistoric Giant Beast,’ ’90 Soul Points,’ ’90 Soul Points,’ ’Grey Maned Arm Guard.’"

After reviewing all the options, Zhang Yanhang quickly made his choices, and correspondingly, the Time Pause abruptly ended. But due to having three treasure boxes left unopened, Zhang Yanhang soon reached out for another green treasure box.

......

Since he only collected four Drop Treasure Boxes this time, Zhang Yanhang spent less than twenty seconds to open all the boxes.

But before tallying his loot, Zhang Yanhang first opened his soul points balance to check.

[Soul Points: 5575 (+1674)]

"As expected, I only gained over a thousand soul points, with 1080 of these soul points coming from treasure box gains, and the remaining 594 soul points are from monster kills. After this meager increase of 1674 soul points, my soul point balance has just barely increased from the original 3901 to now 5575.

And for my Heavenly Destiny Master profession to upgrade from LV.18 to LV.19, I need a total of 16000 soul points, so I still need 10425 soul points to advance my profession level."

Based on the earnings from the one square kilometer he just cleared, Zhang Yanhang would need to clear about six or seven more square kilometers to gather the missing 10425 soul points. Considering it takes him ten minutes per square kilometer, about one more hour would be needed.

"Although I really want to sleep now, I can definitely push through another hour, and even after equipping that Grey Maned Arm Guard, pushing for two more hours should be possible."

Zhang Yanhang felt confident he could reach profession Level 19 before sleeping, although reaching Level 20 might require some extra effort.

After reviewing the gains in soul points, Zhang Yanhang began to inventory his recent acquisitions, starting with artifacts—he got nothing substantial, and the same was true for weapons.

Then he moved on to talents, an area of significantly important gains. This time, he had acquired four D-level "Prehistoric Giant Beast" talents, which, barring any unexpected issues, should allow him to upgrade the Prehistoric Giant Beast talent from D-level to C-level.

"Since I’ve successfully gathered four Prehistoric Giants, let’s try it out now," Zhang Yanhang said as he picked up a small light ball with a sinister wild beast’s head faintly emerging inside its dark green exterior and immediately crushed it.

[You have obtained the D-level talent "Prehistoric Giant Beast."]

After successfully acquiring the Prehistoric Giant Beast talent, Zhang Yanhang immediately opened up its talent effect for review.

[Prehistoric Giant Beast]

[Quality: D (0/3)]

[Ability One: Body Suppression—Against enemies whose size is smaller by more than 30%, there’s a 20% chance to trigger the "Spiritual Suppression" effect, reducing the enemy’s Movement Speed and defensive power by 20%, and a 2.5% chance to cause the "Demonization Infection" effect, leading to harmful deformities in the enemy’s body.]

[Ability Two: Quick Movement—Movement Speed +15%]

"What can I say... the names of the abilities this time seem unexpectedly straightforward and blunt. The second ability is directly called Quick Movement due to increased Movement Speed, and the first one is called Body Suppression because it involves suppressing opponents physically."

Zhang Yanhang remembered that the first ability he got in the Goblin Plain was called "Drive Thunder Strategy," and the second was "Hundred Dragon Wisdom," which sounded particularly grand, whereas the Prehistoric Giant Beast felt outright simplistic and even a bit lowbrow.

However, despite the plain names, the actual skills were quite useful, especially the Quick Movement with a 15% increase in Movement Speed, which was more relevant to Zhang Yanhang. As for Body Suppression, it seemed rather optional, almost entirely unused.

The criteria were too stringent; the ability not only required facing an enemy 30% smaller than oneself but also had a mere 20% activation chance, although this might increase later, it was still not very suitable for him.

Especially since Zhang Yanhang had only a single "Body Suppression," unlike the demonized maned beast that provided the Prehistoric Giant Beast talent, which could coordinate a myriad of skills; he even doubted that he could surpass the activation probability of those skills if he elevated his talent to SS-level.

After all, the demonized maned beast alone seemed to achieve about 60% activation chance with various buffs, and stronger monsters would only be more formidable, possibly reaching 70% or even 80% activation rates, while he had to rely on upgrading his talent to increase his activation chance, which might not even catch up.

Hence, Zhang Yanhang wasn’t too fond of this ability and felt it would be better if this Body Suppression could be replaced with a more practical ability, akin to Drive Thunder Strategy from the previous Thin Dragon Vein.

Of course, compared to that, what Zhang Yanhang cared about more was undoubtedly the upgrade conditions for the Prehistoric Giant Beast, as he had always worried that the D-level talent might change in terms of the number required for upgrading.

For instance, changing from the need of three talents to four, and then quadrupling with each level—such a situation would be unbearably painful since the gap between cubing and quadrupling, although seemingly minimal, was actually vast.

Take a simple example: cubing, which required 243 talents to upgrade S-level talent, versus quadrupling, needing 256 talents for the same S-level upgrade.

Thus, although the Prehistoric Giant Beast starting at D-level was supposed to save one doubling instance, turning into a quadruple process made it fruitless effort, even requiring more than originally needed, making it utterly unbearable.

Now that he confirmed the upgrade of the D-level Prehistoric Giant Beast would also need just three talents, Zhang Yanhang immediately felt relieved, suggesting that future upgrades of the Prehistoric Giant Beast would likely follow the original tripling process.

"By the way, I wonder if I can ever find a talent that only doubles with each upgrade. If such a talent exists, the upgrade speed must be extremely fast, not to mention reaching SSS-level, or even beyond, although currently, SSS-level still seems quite distant to me."

Zhang Yanhang thought it would be better to first evolve an SSS-level talent before considering higher levels, as aspiring too high under tripled requirements was quite unrealistic. As for talents that doubled, they were merely wishful thinking.

"Anyway, compared to the highly unlikely talents that only double, I’d better hurry up and upgrade the Prehistoric Giant Beast talent."

Based on Zhang Yanhang’s experience, the Prehistoric Giant Beast talent would likely undergo significant changes after upgrading, or perhaps both the name and abilities would change.

Zhang Yanhang immediately grabbed the other three dark green small light balls and crushed them again.

[The talent list detected the existence of D-level "Prehistoric Giant Beast" talents of the same level. Do you want to merge talents?]

"Yes, merge."

Zhang Yanhang couldn’t help but pray for the abilities after the merger. If the "Double Strike" provided by Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dala Gu’s Ant Power was very useful, and Drive Thunder Strategy from the Goblin Plain’s Thin Dragon Vein was moderately useful.

Then the Body Suppression provided by this side of the Demonized Swamp’s Prehistoric Giant Beast talent was utterly useless; thus, Zhang Yanhang was eager for this upgrade to replace the Body Suppression ability.

[Merging completed.]

[You have obtained the C-level talent "Biological Rhythm."]