Ashen God
Chapter 633 - 632 [Fighting Master LV.6]

Chapter 633: Chapter 632 [Fighting Master LV.6]

"But as useful as it might be, it’s not really so useful that I would sacrifice a portion of my melee attack power bonus for these things."

Although the suffix of the Sumo Wrestler indeed matched Zhang Yanhang’s usual combat style professionally, the fact that choosing this suffix would reduce his attack power bonus was something he couldn’t tolerate.

He always believed in the principle that ’One Force Breaks All Techniques,’ so the idea of permanently lowering his attack power to exchange for temporary strength increase—and a not so high amplification at that—seemed to him to be foolish. Rather than pursuing such an effect, it would be better to retain the permanent, cost-free increase to melee attack power from the start.

After vetoing the Sumo Wrestler suffix in the first option, Zhang Yanhang began to look at the second option, ’Heavy Weapon Master.’

"This Heavy Weapon Master seems a bit similar to the Heavy Cannon Master in the previous option for Gun Mastery LV.6, except one is for ranged heavy weaponry and the other is for melee heavy weaponry. However, what really counts as a heavy weapon for an Awakener like me, who already has the strength of tens of tons at the Second Tier? As heavy as a main battle tank?"

According to Zhang Yanhang’s knowledge, he remembered that the best weapon for a normal person should not exceed 1% of their body weight, meaning that an average adult without training could generally wield a weapon a bit over a pound in weight.

Using heavier weapons wasn’t impossible; it was just that they wouldn’t last very long. Normally, an adult could swing a weapon a bit over a pound hundreds of times without much trouble, but with a weapon weighing two to three pounds, they would begin to feel tired after only dozens of swings.

This concept might be hard to grasp, but to put it differently, a typical dumbbell only weighs two to three pounds. It’s definitely alright to lift it slowly, but if you’re slow in combat, you’re sure to be cut down, so you have to launch a rapid succession of attacks, meaning continuously lifting the dumbbell in short order.

In that case, an ordinary person would naturally tire after lifting it dozens of times. Plus, weapons need to be held continuously and can’t be put down, further increasing the burden. Therefore, it’s best for ordinary people not to use single-handed weapons that weigh over five pounds.

After all, hacking at someone with a cold weapon isn’t as easy as just pulling a trigger like with a firearm. It’s really exhausting, and sometimes when the blade gets caught in the enemy’s ribs or neck bones, it requires even more strength to pull out, becoming more tiring.

Of course, if one is trained, the weight of weapons that can be used would greatly increase. Weapons weighing ten or twenty pounds would not be an issue, and these would fall within the category of heavy weapons. But beyond that would be too much.

Take twenty pounds, that’s ten kilograms, for example. A standard large bottle of cooking oil at home normally holds five liters, and if a regular person had to carry two such heavy oil bottles in one hand from the supermarket home, they would feel tired, let alone use them as weapons.

It’s only various ancient generals who would use weapons weighing dozens of pounds, and they generally did so mounted on horses as cavalry weapons. In normal infantry combat, they wouldn’t last long either. As for those exceeding a hundred pounds, they were generally used for physical training.

For the current Zhang Yanhang, a heavy weapon must weigh at least five tons to qualify as such—and that’s just at the Second Tier. At the Third Tier, perhaps only something weighing tens of tons like a main battle tank would count as a heavy weapon.

By the way, using this theory, one could also explain why some people greatly increase their strength after swinging a sword ten thousand times a day. After all, if you could lift dumbbells—even relatively light ones—continuously for ten thousand times and maintain this behavior, you would certainly be able to easily punch to death most humans and even most carbon-based lifeforms, achieving the ability to tear apart tigers and leopards with your bare hands.

"Although ’Power Critical Strike,’ ’Splash Attack,’ and ’Defense Penetration’ are attributes that seem perfect for a melee brute like me just by their names,

the weight category of this heavy weapon alone is quite difficult to define. The skill of a Fighting Master really isn’t suitable for me, even if after choosing it I essentially get twenty thousand soul points for free, it’s still not quite right. After all, no matter how you calculate it, ’Four Great Emptiness Purifying World Fist’ should never be classified as a heavy weapon."

After dismissing the first option, Sumo Wrestler, Zhang Yanhang quickly dismissed the second option, Fighting Master, as well. Compared to the first two options, he indeed felt the third option was better.

"I remember when I upgraded Fighting Master to LV.MAX which only triggered a 30% increase in melee attack power. But now, just reaching LV.6 for the Fighting Master, I’m already seeing a 40% increase in melee attack power due to the triggered additional attributes, which is really great.

So, I choose Option Three, melee attack power +40%."

After reviewing the three options, Zhang Yanhang made his decision without hesitation. After all, not to mention Fighting Master, although the term Sumo Wrestler had some appeal to him, it wasn’t really that useful, so it was naturally discarded right away.

Once he successfully upgraded Fighting Master LV.5 to Fighting Grandmaster LV.6, Zhang Yanhang immediately began to review the attributes list for Fighting Grandmaster LV.6. There was bound to be some change this time; after all, he had just chosen the additional attributes, and even if the level up didn’t boost the amplification effect, the additional attributes were definitely going to increase.

"Fighting Grandmaster LV.6 (Passive Skill)

Skill Effect: Increases melee attack power by 120% (+20%), and improves proficiency in melee combat and related abilities.

Additional Attributes: melee attack power +90% (+40%)."

"Good, there are indeed changes. After upgrading the skill effect of Fighting Grandmaster to LV.6, it added 20% to the melee attack power bonus, which although significant compared to before, doesn’t seem as impressive next to the 40% melee attack power bonus from the additional attributes.

The additional attributes are still as powerful as ever, or rather, forever god-tier. If only I could get new additional attributes with every upgrade. If I could, my strength would be at least doubled or tripled compared to now, okay, I’m daydreaming.

The original Fighting Grandmaster LV.5 could only provide me a 150% bonus to melee attack power, meaning I could deal 2.5 times the damage with a punch. But now, although I’ve only moved up one level, I’ve already gained another 60% in melee attack power bonuses, bringing the total bonus to 210%.

Now when I throw a punch, it’s equivalent to causing 3.1 times the damage. Do you love a melee brute whose normal attacks are three times as powerful and can also trigger Double Strike?"

Speaking of Double Strike, Zhang Yanhang felt he definitely needed to collect more Ant Power talents from the Crimson Iron Ore Vein and push the S-grade talent Bear Power higher, aiming for at least SSS-grade, and even beyond, if possible. After all, Double Strike really meshed well with his abilities.

However, because Bear Power was only at S-grade, the probability of triggering it was not high, with only a 6% chance to trigger an extra attack that had 125% attack power.

Zhang Yanhang wasn’t greedy; he felt that if he could just increase the trigger chance of Double Strike to about ten percent in the future, so it could trigger once every five or six attacks, that would be enough.

He didn’t harbor any unrealistic expectations of achieving a 100% Double Strike rate; after all, that just wasn’t realistic. Instead, it would be simpler to pursue a 100% Critical Strike rate. Compared to the Talent, which required three times more resources with each level up, increasing the Critical Strike Rate was definitely easier.

"Previously, the Gun Mastery’s bonus to Remote Attack Power could also amplify the power of spells provided by the Scroll Dragon Bloodline. On the other hand, the bonus to Melee Attack Power seems to have a narrower application, seemingly only enhancing melee attacks. But it’s also possible that I have yet to fully utilize it, especially since my attack methods are not very diverse and I mostly rely on Normal attacks."

It was precisely because Normal attacks could resolve most situations that Zhang Yanhang became increasingly disinclined to develop fancier attack methods. Besides, no matter how much he developed his own tactics, it was unlikely they would be more practical than casually using All Four Elements are Void.

One could say that possessing a powerful weapon might lead to laziness, but others didn’t have the luxury to afford such laziness. Therefore, Zhang Yanhang actually felt very happy with himself.

After checking the effects of the Fighting Master Level 6 Skill, Zhang Yanhang realized he seemed to have run out of things to do, as he had already accounted for all the Treasure Box gains and used up all his Talents and Soul Points.

"So, the question is, what should I do next? Just go to sleep? No, I should check my data panel first," Zhang Yanhang murmured as he opened the data panel to take a look, intending to go to sleep only after reviewing it.

[Name: Zhang Yanhang (Second Tier)]

[Race: Human]

[Gender: Male]

[Age: 20]

[Profession: Heavenly Destiny Master]

[Level: LV.20 (0/4)]

[Soul Points: 92426 (-153600)]

[Shield Value: 6808/6808 (Life Value Limit × 210%, recovery speed: 20% per second)]

[Life Value: 3242/3242 (Constitution × 21, current body is officially digitalized, Life Value Recovery Speed, 15 points per hour)]

[Energy Value: 2720/2720 (Intelligence × 21, current body is officially digitalized, Energy Value Recovery Speed, 48 points per hour)]

[Strength: 50 (+4[-5])]

[Agility: 50 (+4[-4])]

[Constitution: 50 (+4[-4])]

[Intelligence: 50 (+4[-9])]

[Charm: 50 (+17)]

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

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

[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.6 (Passive Skill). 5. Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil·Original 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·Original LV.5 (Passive/Active).]

"Just now, I only upgraded two skill levels, or rather one was a skill level upgrade and the other was merely a promotion, but it already cost me 153,600 Soul Points, causing my Soul Point balance to plummet from 246,026 to 92,426."

But overall, I seem to be saving more than before. I recall after my last skill upgrade, I had roughly 79,900 Soul Points left, which rounds up to 80,000, whereas this time I have over 90,000, more than 10,000 left over from last time, not that I actually want to save any.

The 153,600 Soul Points used this upgrade session, if converted into the number of Ordinary Zombies in Raccoon City, would require defeating 153,600 zombies to accumulate. Even including gains from Treasure Boxes, it would necessitate the defeat of 60,000 Ordinary Zombies.

Yet, Raccoon City only has a total of 5,000 zombies, so if one wanted to amass that many Soul Points there, they’d need to farm the entire Raccoon City twelve times over.

Even if we account for the additional thousand or so Monsters in Raccoon City, it would still likely require farming Raccoon City ten times back and forth to gather such a number of Soul Points."

The more Zhang Yanhang improved his abilities, the greater the gap he felt between different Ranks. Moreover, he increasingly realized how courageous he had been to tackle a Tracker, a Second Tier Four Stars Lord Monster, with incomplete First Tier Skills, or even the fact that during the Fourth Stage of transformation, he could evolve into a Third Tier One-star Lord Monster.

Of course, he would still dare to face a Third Tier Four-star Lord Monster now, but as much as he’d like to, there wasn’t one to be found—after all, he couldn’t just summon enemies out of thin air.

"Next time, I must gather enough Soul Points to directly upgrade both the Indestructible Golden Body and Death Wave to Original LV.6."

When Zhang Yanhang woke up, he planned to carry out the Third Stage of the Demonized Swamp Cleanup Plan, which involved clearing the Western Forest, followed by the Fourth Stage—cleaning the Lake Area.

Thanks to the SS-rank Talent, Ocean Rhythm, which granted him the ability to move freely in liquid environments, Zhang Yanhang thought he might be able to clear the Lake Area quite quickly.

Eventually, he hoped that he might be able to continue with the final Fifth Stage of the cleanup plan today and completely clear it. Of course, this was the best-case scenario. It was more likely he would just patrol around the entrance to the Swamp Area.