Ashen God
Chapter 601 - 600: I Don’t Understand, But I’m Deeply Shocked

Chapter 601: Chapter 600: I Don’t Understand, But I’m Deeply Shocked

"But the Demonized Hyena was somewhat understandable, after all, it does look similar, but this Demonized Silver-Backed Gorilla was even more far-fetched compared to the Demonized Hyena. Besides both being covered in black fur and both being gorillas, there was basically no other commonality. It’s just absurd no matter how you think about it."

Despite the absurdity of things like Gorilla Leg Guards, what Zhang Yanhang cared about most was the Demon Ape Leg Armor, so he immediately began to inspect its attribute list.

[Demon Ape Leg Armor]

[Quality: Blue]

[Type: Equipment]

[Origin: Ashen World, High Elf Empire, Supreme Forest, Elf Court Avando.]

[Durability: 45/45]

[Defensive power: 30]

[Additional Attributes: Defense bonus +5%.]

[Usage requirements: Constitution 28 points.]

[Score: 50 (Blue item scores range from 31 to 70.)]

[Introduction: My name is Azikasa Baofeng Saint Silvado, an utterly unremarkable War Hero. Since I distinguished myself in the war against the Dwarves a thousand years ago, I have been collecting my pension without any guilt and thus began my tedious retirement life.

During this dull retirement, my daily routine has been extremely regular. Although retired, I have never given up on exercising my body, doing 100,000 push-ups, 100,000 sit-ups, 100,000 squats, and a hundred short sprints of 100 kilometers each day.

The other retired High Elves at the Sunset Red Youthful Elder Leisure Entertainment Park all praise me for my persistent exercise habits, rain or shine, calling me a disciplined High Elf. I gladly accept the compliments; it was my discipline that made me an Imperial War Hero.

I don’t know if it’s because of the post-war baby boom, but in the past thousand years, the birth rate of High Elves has seen a significant increase. With this population rise, as a public welfare measure, Sunset Red Youthful Elder Leisure Entertainment Park recently decided to also open its doors to some young High Elves, easing the retired elderly Elves’ burden of looking after children.

Regarding this, I actually didn’t have much of a reaction, after all, although I’m not particularly fond of young elves, I also don’t have a strong aversion to them. It was just that one day, a guy who I can barely consider an acquaintance (having met only fifty years ago) needed to deal with something urgently and asked me to help look after his kid for a bit.

For this unconventional little miss with black twin ponytails and, for some unfathomable reason, cat ears magically sprouted on her head, I didn’t hesitate to scold her for not being serious about her duties. But when I asked her why she dyed her hair, she said it was because her recent summer vacation homework was to sign a pact with a Dark Energy Leopard to train a druid’s communication skills.

Then, she added that the cat ears were also meant to make the Dark Energy Leopard feel more kinship, and furthermore, she had specially rehearsed a Meow Meow Dance for this purpose and even enthusiastically performed it for me on the spot. I didn’t understand it, but I was greatly shocked. I started to feel that retiring at just adulthood may have made me fall a bit behind the times.

Humph! Druids are not such inconvenient things! After confirming that this girl was not from an extreme animal conservationist faction within the druid community but a regular secular one, I taught her a more practical communication technique—grabbed a Dark Energy Leopard from the neighboring forest, gave it a good thrashing, and, sure enough, the contract was a success.

The girl with cat ears looked at me with eyes filled with admiration and some feelings that I couldn’t quite understand. I was already used to admiration, and those incomprehensible feelings I think might be a unique form of veneration peculiar to the new generation of high elves.

It seems to be another shy individual, too embarrassed to praise me directly, only daring to bury their veneration deep in their heart. But it’s quite normal, after all, I am the renowned Imperial War Hero Azikasa Baofeng Saint Silvado, hahaha!

"The previous introduction at least mentioned something about blacksmithing, but this time they didn’t even mention blacksmithing, let alone any information related to equipment. It’s getting more and more absurd. It’s supposed to be an introduction to Demon Ape Leg Armor, but it goes on about Azikasa Baofeng Saint Silvado tutoring a non-mainstream elf with cat ears and twin ponytails on her summer homework.

Moreover, this Azikasa Baofeng Saint Silvado feels like a magical version of Saitama, with 100,000 push-ups, 100,000 sit-ups, 100,000 squats each day, plus a hundred 100-kilometer shuttle runs—that’s just Saitama’s training regime multiplied by a thousand."

After all, it’s a high elf, lightly and casually cultivating and reaching the Legendary stage, and with a bit more effort could be on par with deities, so for Zhang Yanhang, it makes sense that Azikasa Baofeng Saint Silvado could easily complete such intense training, well, probably.

"However, this Demon Ape Leg Armor, I still think it must be the same piece of equipment made by the Forging Apprentice mentioned in the previous introduction. Both the usage requirements and the equipment score are exactly the same as the last Gray Maned Arm Guard, requiring 28 Constitution Attribute points and a blue quality Medium score of 50."

For such a situation, Zhang Yanhang could only say that the Forging Apprentice’s performance was indeed very consistent, and the learning progress was truly very slow; otherwise, there should have been some improvement, not none at all.

"The additional attribute is a +5% defense bonus, which is indeed related to Constitution. Although it’s not the Physical Recovery Speed Bonus that I wanted, the defense bonus is still not bad. Maybe if I fuse it later, I could get about a 10% defense bonus.

With that 10% defense bonus, those Goblin Shamans that could inflict single-digit damage on me with Maka Bagga’s enhancement would definitely be unable to hurt me now, unless Goblin Chief Nu Shan comes back to life and layers a third Activated Muscles status on the Goblin Shaman.

But despite the Goblin Shaman no longer being able to inflict any harm on me, Maka Bagga could still probably cause some damage. Defense still needs to be strengthened. Luckily, there are many Demonized Dogtooth Giant Apes in the Demonized Swamp, so I should be able to fuse the Demon Ape Leg Armor several more times."

Although the Life Value Limit has slightly higher value due to being convertible to a Shield Value Limit, defense is fundamental. If the defense is not up to par, unless you can lock your health, no matter how high the shield value is, it’s just a matter of time before it gets broken, hence defense and shield value need to be improved concurrently.

After reviewing the attribute list of the Demon Ape Leg Armor, Zhang Yanhang immediately opened the last item.

"Even though they are all ordinary monsters of the First Tier Three Stars, the E-Level Talent of ’Survival of the Fittest’ from the previous Drop treasure box of the Demonized Hyena Beast has disappeared, and instead, it’s been replaced with the Maned Tooth Beast’s Talent. It seems that the Demonized Canine Giant Ape is indeed an upgraded version of the Demonized Maned Tooth Beast, albeit only slightly stronger.

As an ordinary monster of First Tier Three Stars, the racial Talent of the Demonized Canine Giant Ape is indeed D-Level... I hope I can encounter more monsters that start out with D-Level Talents in the future. No, that’s not right, what I should really hope for is to encounter those that start out with C-Level Talents. D-Level is still somewhat conservative.

Like this time with the Demonized Swamp, although the initial Talent is D-Level, I can’t directly upgrade it to SSS-Level due to the insufficient number of monsters. I have to wait until after the monsters have respawned to gather enough. So, D-Level really is a bit conservative, and starting with C-Level would be better.

If I started with a C-Level Talent, even if the number of monsters barely reaches five figures, I could easily gather the amount needed to raise the Talent Quality to SSS-Level. Moreover, if the number is a bit more, reaching the level of the Goblin Plain, then I could upgrade it to a rank above SSS-Level."

Zhang Yanhang’s intuition told him that if he could really raise the quality of Talents to above SSS-Level, there would definitely be new changes in the Talents, but this is something he could not verify at the moment. He could only wait until he reached the Third Tier to possibly accomplish it.

"So, I choose ’100 Soul Points,’ ’100 Soul Points,’ ’100 Soul Points,’ ’Demon Ape Leg Armor,’ ’Prehistoric Giant Beast.’"

After reviewing all five options, Zhang Yanhang made his final selection without hesitation. The Time Pause ended accordingly, only to descend again very quickly because Zhang Yanhang picked up another Drop treasure box.

...

After spending less than two minutes opening the accumulated Drop treasure boxes from previous cleanup, Zhang Yanhang quietly opened his balance of Soul points and started to examine it.

"After opening all those Drop treasure boxes accumulated from the Demonized Hyena Beasts and Demonized Canine Giant Apes, I’ve gained a total of 9600 Soul Points, increasing my balance from 11977 to 21577 Soul Points.

Now, to upgrade my Profession Level from LV.18 to LV.19, I only need 16000 Soul Points. Since I’ve gathered enough, I might as well upgrade my Profession Level immediately. It took me more than an hour to gather all these Soul Points."

As he spoke, Zhang Yanhang clicked to upgrade on the Level panel.

"Yes, raise the Profession Level to LV.19."

Zhang Yanhang remembered saying when he first entered the Ashen World that he would raise his Profession Level to LV.20 before sleeping. However, after seeing the specific situation of the Demonized Swamp, he quickly changed his small goal from raising directly to LV.20 to merely gathering enough Soul Points to reach LV.19.

It’s just that although the overall yield after cleaning up the Demonized Swamp should definitely be much higher than that of the Goblin Plain, the area here is really too vast, covering four hundred square kilometers. Hence, it consumes a lot of time to clean up, lowering the efficiency compared to the Goblin Plain.

But fortunately, Zhang Yanhang had already decided to stay in the Ashen World for four days, so he didn’t have to consider the cost of time too much. As long as he could clean up in the end, it would suffice, although he was slightly behind schedule at the moment. That’s why he planned to continue cleaning the Demonized Swamp immediately after opening the treasure boxes later.

"The Profession Level has finally been raised to LV.19, which means I’m just one step away from the Second Tier Peak LV.20.

If you’re talking about levels, LV.19 is almost like the last portion of the Second Tier. Normally, at this level should be in a phase of energy accumulation, preparing the quality of energy to reach personal limits and break through the rank."

Having understood the effort put forth by other Awakeners to break through their ranks, Zhang Yanhang could only conclude that he was indeed more suited to his current situation, where he could simply gather Ash Source to advance instantly with a single click.

After all, even though Zhang Yanhang had great confidence in his Cultivation Talent, thinking that if he wasn’t a cultivation genius, at least he should be considered top-notch. If he truly cultivated on his own, he probably would succeed in ascending.

However, such an approach would certainly take a lot of time. Having lagged far behind because he awakened his talent just six months before the Spiritual Qi Recovery and entered the Ashen World, if he merely relied on his own cultivation to ascend in rank, then he would never catch up with those powerhouse Awakeners who awakened their talents at the beginning of the Spiritual Qi Recovery and entered the Ashen World.

Even now, Zhang Yanhang feels it’s extremely difficult to catch up and that there’s a huge gap between himself and the powerhouse Awakeners. After all, like the group owner, some have already ascended to the Fourth Tier, and even those like the white-bearded old Taoist of Lao Mountain Taoist Temple have reached the Fifth Tier, while he had just made it to the Second Tier. The gap was colossal.

Therefore, Zhang Yanhang had been striving to catch up, and once he ascended to the Third Tier, the gap between him and those powerhouse Awakeners would undoubtedly shrink significantly.

But if he relied on his own cultivation, he would not only fail to close the distance, but he would also likely fall further behind since those who ascended rapidly were all super geniuses, and he was merely above average. So self-cultivation wasn’t a possibility—not in this lifetime.

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