Ashen God
Chapter 648 - 647: Compressing the Golden Body

Chapter 648: Chapter 647: Compressing the Golden Body

"And now, I’m about to upgrade the Death Wave Skill from LV.MAX to Death Wave·Original LV.5, which will consume another bit of Ash Source. After this upgrade, I’ll only have a little Ash Source left, yet advancing in rank requires four points of Ash Source.

But fortunately, the Ashen Treasure Boxes in the upcoming Demonized Swamp Zone should give me three more points of Ash Source, so I’m definitely not too worried about advancing in rank, the real concern is how to upgrade the professional skills acquired after rank advancement.

However, I might as well leave that problem for when I reach the Third Tier, even though it’s quite close—something I’ll face the day after tomorrow—but indeed, it’s not immediately relevant to me."

Of course, the main reason is that even if Zhang Yanhang worries, he doesn’t have any good solutions at hand, so he might as well ignore it for now, in any case, delaying is enough to deal with it.

"After I’ve upgraded the Fighting Master Skill to LV.6, the next skill level upgrade requirement to reach Fighting Master LV.7 unsurprisingly became the same as Gun Mastery LV.7’s requirement of 204,800 Soul points.

Speaking of which, since I now have a total of 380,000 Soul points, should I try upgrading Gun Mastery LV.7 or Fighting Master LV.7 to see what happens?"

After briefly considering, Zhang Yanhang ultimately decided to decline. The main reason being that further upgrading Gun Mastery and Fighting Master indeed was not something he could afford at the moment, and also, only going up one level wouldn’t bring any particularly significant improvements.

Therefore, he felt it was better to follow the upgrade plan and level up Death Wave and Indestructible Golden Body to Original LV.6 first before attempting to upgrade these skills.

Moreover, compared to Gun Mastery and Fighting Master, Technique Immunity and Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil were of higher priority for Zhang Yanhang, if he were to try any upgrades, he would first focus on those two skills, only after they were upgraded would it be Gun Mastery and Fighting Master’s turn.

"So, I choose option nine, to raise Indestructible Golden Body·Original from LV.5 to LV.6."

After checking the list of skills to upgrade, Zhang Yanhang quickly made his choice to prioritize upgrading the Indestructible Golden Body Skill, and as for Death Wave, since it was the most important, he’d choose to upgrade it last.

Once Zhang Yanhang had made his final decision, the Time Pause vanished instantly, but instead of directly checking the Attribute list of Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.6, he waited a little longer. Unfortunately, as expected, he did not receive any options related to choosing Additional Attributes.

"I was actually hoping that after upgrading the Indestructible Golden Body Skill to Original LV.6, it might trigger some choice related to Additional Attributes unlike before, but it turns out that even though the skill has been upgraded to the Original Stage, there’s no change in this regard—I’m still given the default Additional Attributes."

Zhang Yanhang did indeed wish for a choice related to Additional Attributes, because he felt that if such an option was triggered, there would likely be options related to increasing bonuses for Life Value Limit, defensive power, and Attack Power, with precisely three choices to pick from.

And he would have hesitated slightly between the increase of defensive power bonus and the Attack Power bonus, before decisively choosing the increase of the Life Value Limit bonus.

Unfortunately, even though Zhang Yanhang had planned ahead, the Indestructible Golden Body gave no quarter, showing no signs of triggering any choice for additional attributes.

"Anyway, let’s first check out the Skill Effect of the Indestructible Golden Body after the upgrade," Zhang Yanhang said as he proceeded to review the Skill Effect of the freshly upgraded Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.6.

[Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.6 (Passive/Active)]

[Passive Effect: Life Value +60% (+10%)]

[Active Effect: After Skill Activation, body parts covered by the Golden Body Effect will have a defensive power increase of +300% (+50%), and Attack Power increase of +60% (+10%). Currently applicable to the entire body. No cooldown time, consumes a small amount of Physical Strength.]

[Additional Attribute: Skillful—You are now skillful enough to control the Indestructible Golden Body Skill freely, and you have acquired the ability to transfer the Golden Body Effect to specific areas at will. The transfer process to objects outside the body would intensify the consumption rate of Physical Strength.]

[Additional Attribute: Mastery—Your control over the Indestructible Golden Body Skill has become masterful, and you can now concentrate the Golden Body Effect, usually spread across the entire body, to a specific area to greatly increase the defensive power bonus and Attack Power bonus of that area. The concentration will increase Physical Strength consumption based on the degree of concentration.]

[Additional Attribute: Specialization—After a considerable period of effort, you have achieved Specialization level control over the Indestructible Golden Body Skill. You’ve gained the ability to further compress the loosely structured Golden Body Effect that covers the whole body and thereby extremely increase the defensive power bonus and Attack Power bonus.

The deeper the compression of the Golden Body Effect, the more the consumption of Physical Strength will be intensified.]

"Indestructible Golden Body had no differences when it was upgraded to Original LV.5, but now that it’s been raised to Original LV.6, it finally changed. If there had been no changes, I would have begun to doubt whether there was a problem with the Indestructible Golden Body Skill.

This time, after the upgrade to Original LV.6, the Life Value Limit bonus offered by the passive effect went directly from the original 50% to 60%, a full 10% increment in the Life Value Limit bonus.

Before the promotion to the Original stage, each Indestructible Golden Body Skill level upgrade could only improve the Life Value Limit by 5%. But after reaching the Original stage, the growth of Life Value Limit bonus provided by Indestructible Golden Body doubled.

You should know that currently, whether it’s Equipment, Achievements, or Talent, nothing can provide me with a Life Value Limit bonus, so the bonus offered by Indestructible Golden Body·Original is my only increase to the Life Value Limit.

Therefore, with this 10% increment to my Life Value Limit, my Life Value will definitely rise by 10% for real, and at the very least, it should help to boost my Life Value Limit by over two hundred points."

"Furthermore, besides the enhancement to my Life Value Limit, the Shield Value conversion coefficient has also allowed me to significantly increase my Shield Value Limit. The Original indeed lives up to its name; those one hundred thousand Soul points were definitely well spent."

In addition to the most prized increase in Life Value Limit, Zhang Yanhang also noticed that the defensive power and Attack Power Bonus boosted by the Indestructible Golden Body had likewise risen.

"After upgrading to Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.6, the Golden Body Effect’s boosted Defense bonus jumped from the original 250% to 300%, another 50% increase in Defense bonus. With this, after using the Skill, my defensive power would instantly quadruple from its original level, which is indeed very impressive.

Moreover, the Attack Power Bonus provided by the Golden Body Effect has gone from 50% to 60%, resulting in a total increase of 10% in Attack Power Bonus.

Originally, if I threw a punch relying solely on the Fighting Master LV.6 bonus, I would deal 3.1 times the damage, but with a simple activation of the Indestructible Golden Body, this part of the Attack Power Bonus alone could produce a hit with 3.7 times the attack power.

In other words, rounding up, that’s a fourfold attack. A brawler who can deal four times the damage with a normal attack and trigger Double Strike—have you fallen in love with him yet?"

Of course, Zhang Yanhang has various other Attack Power Bonuses and specialized attacks, so the final damage output is definitely more than four times. This particular fourfold is nothing but a basic coefficient.

After all, besides Attack Power, factors such as Power Effects must also be calculated, and he has a plethora of bonuses in this area too, so damage dealt will certainly see a significant increase.

"Speaking of which, even though the Indestructible Golden Body has been promoted to Original LV.6, the Skill’s energy consumption still remains at a minimal Physical Strength cost, and I’m not sure how much more Physical Strength is being used. But based on past experience, it should not be too much.

However, it’s important to note that the range for ’minimal Physical Strength consumption’ is actually quite broad.

For example, both Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil·Original LV.6 and Death Wave·Original have their Skill consumption marked as ’minimal Physical Strength consumption.’ With my current Physical Recovery Speed, I can freely use Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil continuously for over ten hours with no issue.

But Death Wave·Original is quite different—in fact, with my current formidable physical strength, I can only use it consecutively about eighty or ninety times before it’s completely exhausted in a minute if I cast it quickly.

Although both are labeled as ’minimal Physical Strength consumption,’ in reality, there’s a world of difference between them. You absolutely cannot generalize."

Zhang Yanhang even suspected that once the Death Wave Skill was upgraded to Original LV.6, it would likely still require only a small amount of Physical Strength, but by how many times it would increase was unknown.

Based on Zhang Yanhang’s previous experience, it wouldn’t be surprising if the consumption increased to three, four, five or six times as much. In all honesty, he sincerely hoped that the energy consumption of the Death Wave could increase as little as possible, otherwise, he could barely afford it.

After going through the Skill Effects, Zhang Yanhang soon turned his attention to equally important Additional Attributes.

"The Additional Attribute this time actually provides the ability to compress the Golden Body. Moreover, as stated, it can greatly enhance the defense and Attack Power Bonus. The previous Concentration could only significantly increase these.

It seems that Compression should be even more useful than Concentration, which makes sense since it’s an Additional Attribute gained from reaching Original LV.6, so it’s naturally stronger than the previous ones."

Since Zhang Yanhang had no practical experience just from reading the Additional Attribute descriptions, he quickly tried out the new Compression ability.

A small patch of golden light began to gather at the chest of Zhang Yanhang, expanding and contracting continuously before stabilizing into a small, exceedingly dazzling patch resembling solidified gold foil. He immediately began to test the defense of this palm-sized ’gold foil.’

After the tests, if Zhang Yanhang had to simplify his thoughts on this Compression ability, he would say that it indeed improved the defensive power way more than Concentration before; the main advantage is that Compression can be used together with Concentration. You can Concentrate first, then Compress—the prior expansion and contraction were precisely this process.

For instance, if Zhang Yanhang’s original defensive power was like a sheet of paper, then the Golden Body Effect was like a special coating that enhances defensive power. Concentration involved repeatedly folding the paper until it reached the limit of folding.

And Compression was like using a hydraulic press to further compress the already folded paper’s density. The resulting paper, though still the same in quality and remaining the initial piece of paper, becomes much harder than stone and steel because of the density increase, nothing like the original ordinary A4 paper.

To put it into perspective, to stop a handgun bullet at close range, the A4 paper would need to be about six or seven centimeters thick—that’s roughly six or seven hundred sheets of paper.

Of course, a slightly thinner stack could work, but there would be a chance that the bullet could penetrate the outer layers of the A4 paper defense. However, at that point, the bullets would have nearly no kinetic energy left, so it’s relatively safe.

However, since not all handguns are 9mm pistols, it’s still better to err on the side of thickness.

In comparison, a one-centimeter thick steel plate of the same weight but different density (the density of paper being 1.25 and steel 7.85, a sixfold difference) can not only effortlessly stop handgun bullets but can even withstand rifle bullets. Only large-caliber bullets from sniper rifles or machine guns can penetrate this steel plate.

And how thick would the A4 paper need to be to withstand rifle bullets? It would need at least ten to twenty centimeters of thickness to block those.

So, in terms of mass, the A4 paper, due to its lower density, would need twice to thrice the thickness of the steel of equivalent mass to achieve the same level of defense effect. Indeed, the difference in density is a significant component in defense power testing.

Thus, if the original Concentration could only boost Zhang Yanhang’s defensive power from a base of four times to about seven or eight times, then combining it with the Compression provided by this new Additional Attribute could easily raise his defense by at least a dozen times. Although this extreme situation covers a very small area, it’s only the size of a palm.