Ashen God
Chapter 603 - 602: Virtual Life

Chapter 603: Chapter 602: Virtual Life

"Life Pulse? I’ve only just leveled up to B-rank and already got a fancy-sounding name like Life Pulse, I wonder how ridiculous the names for A-rank, S-rank, and even SS-rank will evolve into..."

Though different from Skills, where content and name are straightforwardly sincere, Talent names don’t entirely represent the ability itself, but Zhang Yanhang certainly preferred the sound of more appealing Talent names. He had always complained about the evolution of Ant Power into some kind of Ant Power and Power to Tie Chicken.

"Back when it was C-rank, it was Biological Rhythm, but after upgrading to B-rank, it’s become Life Pulse, which seems to have expanded the scope of rhythm by who knows how many multiples.

After all, ’biological’ in the conventional sense generally only encompasses carbon-based life, but ’life’ is different—it includes digital life and virtual life, as they are also forms of life. Plus, viruses are life too. How does that saying go? A virus’s life is still life; they too have the right to freedom."

Of course, Zhang Yanhang definitely had a special fondness for virtual life compared to other various life forms; after all, those two-dimensional paper beings were really enticing. He never actually gave up on that little dream of learning new spells and pulling paper beings into three dimensions, only held back by the lack of time.

After briefly pondering, Zhang Yanhang immediately began to inspect the Talent Effect of the B-rank Talent "Life Pulse."

"Biological Rhythm"

"Quality: B (0/27)"

"Ability One: Bodybuilding—Charm +2 (+1)."

"Ability Two: Aerobic Exercise—Movement Speed +45% (+15%) when exercising in an environment with oxygen (no oxygen molecule concentration limit)."

"Ability Three: Outdoor Sports—Negative Movement Effects -90% (+10%) when exercising in outdoor solid environments (including but not limited to deserts, snowfields, swamps...)."

"The Charm attribute bonus from Ability One Bodybuilding increased by another point upon upgrading to B-rank, resulting in a two-point increase. As a result, my Charm attribute can grow once again.

However, compared to Ability One Bodybuilding, Ability Two Aerobic Exercise is definitely more critical.

Just a single upgrade in Quality increased my Movement Speed by 15%, a decent increase indeed, catching up to the achievements of a Dark Purple Quality. After this 15% increase in Movement Speed, the bonus provided by Aerobic Exercise jumped from the original 30% to 45%."

While thinking about the increase in Movement Speed, Zhang Yanhang suddenly remembered he hadn’t set a new goal after reaching his last short sprint of 100 meters, and now he thought a goal of 150 meters per second might be appropriate—it posed a certain difficulty, but wasn’t impossibly hard.

Although he couldn’t achieve this goal with the current upgrade, he should be able to do it easily once he elevated his Talent Quality to SS-rank.

"While the rate of increase for the Movement Speed bonus from Aerobic Exercise didn’t see a boost, thankfully, the 15% was already quite substantial. But Ability Three Outdoor Sports, on the other hand, was different. I initially thought that an increase of maybe 5%, or even just 3% or 1%, would have been nice.

But surprisingly, Life Pulse was unexpectedly generous, providing a direct 10% reduction in negative effects. Hence, the reduction in Movement-related negative effects went from the original 80% up to 90%. Although, at 80%, most negative effects are nearly negated, it would naturally be better to achieve a complete negation at 100%."

Moreover, Zhang Yanhang’s intuition told him that if he could truly achieve a 100% reduction in negative effects, he might even get some special effect.

"I obtained a total of thirty-three Prehistoric Giant Beast Talents this time, and I’ve just used nine of those for the B-rank upgrade of my Talent, leaving me with twenty-four. Although it’s close to the twenty-seven Prehistoric Giant Beast Talents required for the A-rank upgrade, even one less would make the upgrade impossible, let alone three less."

Zhang Yanhang didn’t feel like heading out to hunt monsters just to collect those three Prehistoric Giant Beast Talents; he planned to wait until he cleared the remaining monsters in the Southern Forest before continuing with Talent upgrades.

After checking the Talent Effects of B-rank "Life Pulse," Zhang Yanhang immediately opened his Attribute list.

"Strength: 50 (+6[-7])"

"Agility: 50 (+6[-6])"

"Constitution: 50 (+6[-6])"

"Intelligence: 50 (+6[-11])"

"Charm: 48 (+19)"

"After the upgrade of the Life Pulse Talent and gaining an extra point in Charm due to the Bodybuilding ability, my Charm attribute successfully went from 47 to 48.

As a result, the upper limit of fixed damage from my Death Wave Skill could grow by another five points, from 735 to 740, increasing the range of enemies I could instantly kill.

Previously, my Death Wave Skill could only instantly kill monsters with Constitution Attribute of 36 or below, but now, even those with 37 can be killed instantly.

However, if I don’t upgrade further, 37 points will be the limit for the Death Wave Skill, considering its maximum limit currently is only 750 points.

I’m just ten points short of this limit, and since each point of Constitution Attribute for a Second-tier Monster adds twenty Life Value, unless a monster is naturally missing ten Life Value, it’s definitely impossible to instantly kill them."

Of course, whether or not he could instantly kill was not that significant to Zhang Yanhang. After all, would a monster with 760 Life Value really be able to hang on after 750 points had been drained?

Although Ashen World is data-driven, it’s still vastly different from game worlds where one could fight at full capacity with a thread of health left.

A monster left with merely ten Life Value could barely struggle for one more second and would be considered quite resilient in terms of Life Force and Willpower.

Normally, at that point, the monster’s entire body would have been crushed to a pulp, all bones including the spine guaranteed shattered, and their brain likely pulped beyond recognition. Under such conditions, unless possessing some ultra-fast regeneration, so quick that it could fully recover in one second, it’s basically certain they can’t survive any longer.

So, although in theory, Zhang Yanhang’s Death Wave Skill indeed could only kill Second Tier Three Star monsters with a Constitution Attribute of 37, in practice, even Second Tier Four Star monsters hit by his Death Wave would definitely die on the spot, barely clinging to life for a few more seconds at most.

"After my Charm attribute grew to 48 points, the proportion of the increase provided by my Equipment in my Charm attribute value has once again declined, successfully dropping from the previous forty percent to thirty-nine percent.

This is a milestone progress, and after a long time, it has let the Equipment amplification proportion fall below forty percent again. Although it only decreased by one percent, it feels as though my Charm attribute suddenly appears much healthier."

Although my current Charm attribute is still quite distorted, such things need to be addressed step by step. Zhang Yanhang decided to set his next small goal at thirty percent. However, it is certain that this small goal cannot be achieved within the Second Tier, but it seems it should not be too difficult to accomplish once he reaches the Third Tier.

Of course, this assumes he will not obtain any Equipment that increases Charm attribute value in the future. If he were to find Equipment that could boost his Charm attribute value in the new monster lair at the bottom of the underground tunnel, not only would he fail to decrease the healthiness of his Charm attribute, but it would significantly increase instead.

At that time, it’s estimated that it would quickly climb back up above fifty percent from the current thirty-nine percent. But, even so, he indeed really wants Equipment that adds to his Charm attribute. After all, if all five attributes were to be elevated using Free attribute points, he definitely wouldn’t have enough.

After reviewing the Attribute list, Zhang Yanhang immediately went downstairs to test his current Movement Speed. He had just received a fifteen percent enhancement to Movement Speed, so it’s certain to have improved significantly compared to before.

As Zhang Yanhang had predicted, after testing, he found that his current Movement Speed had increased from 121 meters per second to 131 meters per second. The recent fifteen percent increase in Movement Speed had added a total of ten meters per second.

"My previous small goal was 150 meters per second, and now I’m only 19 meters short. It truly seems the difficulty of achieving this small goal is not great at all. Let alone an SS Tier, perhaps even advancing to S Tier could accomplish it."

Zhang Yanhang could only say that he might have overestimated before; SS Tier will definitely be part of the next small goal.

"With my current Movement Speed, if I add Spiritual Energy, it will immediately increase from 0.71 to 0.77 Mach, a total increase of 0.06 Mach, getting closer and closer to the small goal of one Mach. It indeed seems very possible to achieve a breakthrough of the sound barrier with my physical body before advancing in Rank.

And if translated, even without the addition of Spiritual Energy, my Movement Speed has already reached 470 kilometers per hour, surpassing 99% of armed helicopters. Only the fastest S-97 is just a bit quicker than me. But that S-97 can only fly at 480 kilometers per hour. Once I increase my Talent Level next time, I’ll surely surpass it easily.

Moreover, with my current Movement Speed, if I enhance it with Spiritual Energy, I can reach the speed of an airliner, easily surpassing the common Boeing 737 and reaching the level of the Boeing 747, and even be slightly faster.

The speed of a Boeing 747 is merely 940 kilometers per hour, while I can reach 943 kilometers per hour. It feels like I’ll soon be able to exceed a Movement Speed of a thousand kilometers per hour."

To achieve a speed faster than a Boeing 747 while only at the Second Tier, Zhang Yanhang can only say he is quite satisfied with the Life Pulse Talent; the Movement Speed bonus is truly strong.

After testing his current Movement Speed, Zhang Yanhang immediately returned to apartment 301 of the Dulda Apartment, gathered up the various other items on the bed, and placed them all into his Waist Bag. But speaking of other items, there were only twenty-four D-tier Prehistoric Giant Beast Talents left on the bed.

After storing these twenty-four dark green small light balls, Zhang Yanhang lay back down on the bed and opened his data panel to start checking it.

[Name: Zhang Yanhang (Second Tier)]

[Race: Human]

[Gender: Male]

[Age: 20]

[Profession: Heavenly Destiny Master]

[Level: LV.19 (0/18000)]

[Soul Points: 5577]

[Shield Value: 5485/5485 (Life Value Limit × 210%, Recovery Speed: 20% per second.)]

[Life Value: 2612/2612 (Constitution × 21, the current body has been officially digitized, Life Value Recovery Speed, 15 points per hour.)]

[Energy Value: 2720/2720 (Intelligence × 21, the current body has been officially digitized, Energy Value Recovery Speed, 48 points per hour.)]

[Strength: 50 (+6[-7])]

[Agility: 50 (+6[-6])]

[Constitution: 50 (+6[-6])]

[Intelligence: 50 (+6[-11])]

[Charm: 48 (+19)]

[Luck: ??? (This attribute is a hidden Attribute.)]

[Talents: 1. Multiple Choice (???). 2. Longevity Mountain and Fortune Sea (SS Tier). 3. Bear Power (S Tier). 4. Mature Scroll Dragon [Bloodline Purification] (SS Tier). 5. Life Pulse (B Tier).]

[Skills: 1. Limitless Universe Skill [Second Order]LV.MAX (Passive/Active). 2. Alchemy (Active skill). 3. Gun Mastery LV.6 (Passive skill). 4. Fighting Master LV.MAX (Passive skill). 5. Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil·Original Scripture LV.6 (Passive/Active). 6. Technique Immunity·Original LV.6 (Passive skill). 7. Death Wave LV.MAX (Passive/Active). 8. Supreme Will LV.MAX (Passive skill). 9. Indestructible Golden Body LV.MAX (Passive/Active).]

"I remember that after the last promotion of my Profession Level, I think I had 5575 Soul Points remaining, and this time after the promotion, I have 5577 Soul Points left. So, round up, after all the hustle, I barely gained a benefit of two Soul Points, well, round up can’t be used like this."

For this Soul Point balance, Zhang Yanhang could only say it’s purely coincidental.

"Although Life Pulse has been promoted from C Tier to B Tier, it still stands out in a group of S and SS Tier Talents. In the future, indeed, I still need to more quickly improve Talent Quality and get it to SS Tier as soon as possible. That way, my hunting efficiency will also rapidly increase along with Movement Speed."

Zhang Yanhang’s demands were not too high; it would be sufficient to reduce the hunting efficiency in the Demonized Swamp from ten minutes per square kilometer at the start to about five minutes.