Ashen God
Chapter 649 - 648 Skill Cooldown Time Reduction

Chapter 649: Chapter 648 Skill Cooldown Time Reduction

But even though it indeed only had a palm-sized coverage area, Zhang Yanhang felt that he might remain unscathed even if he were hit by a Fourth Tier attack, without losing any Shield Value due to the excessively exaggerated Defense bonus.

Of course, this refers to a normal Fourth Tier. If it were a Peak Fourth Tier with all Attributes maximized, he better forget it—probably a slap could not only burst his golden body’s blessing but also strip away two-thirds or even all of Zhang Yanhang’s Shield Value.

After all, in the power system of the Awakeners, the expansion of power between tiers is extremely exaggerated; as a mere Second Tier Awakened, thinking about fighting a Fourth Tier Awakener capable of effortlessly destroying provincial entities felt utterly unrealistic.

Although relying on Death Wave to pull off a sneak attack would definitely be easy, it would be merely courting death, since Death Wave could only take effect once, and after that, there would be no other powerful attack methods left...

Alright, perhaps he could still try to hit the enemy with All Four Elements are Void once more, but after that, he really wouldn’t have any other powerful means of attack left, only Normal Attacks.

Therefore, relying solely on these two methods to fight a Fourth Tier was indeed not feasible, at best he could only handle a Third Tier. But after being promoted to Third Tier, it might be worth trying, as his chance of success would definitely increase significantly.

Certainly, if the compression ability of this Indestructible Golden Body could really only be used like this, then it was not actually that strong.

But later, Zhang Yanhang also tested further; the Golden Body compression could also be used when it covered the whole body, although the effect was not as good due to the thinness of the Golden Body.

Even so, it could still double Zhang Yanhang’s defensive power, raising it from approximately four times to six times, and the only cost Zhang Yanhang had to pay was the extra Physical Strength.

As per the test results, if it was just a simple compression over the whole body, the consumption of Physical Strength wasn’t very severe. Though he couldn’t operate continuously for a dozen hours like Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil, supporting it for an hour or two during battle was definitely not a problem.

In this respect, Zhang Yanhang felt that this compression ability provided by the Additional Attribute was far more practical than the original Concentration, increasing the defensive power bonus almost without any cost.

Most importantly, it allows for a full-body increase in defensive power bonuses, which means it can be used routinely. The original Concentration, on the other hand, performed poorly in this regard, basically only suitable for emergencies and certainly not for routine use.

After all, after Concentrating, Zhang Yanhang’s body could not enjoy the full Defense bonus, only certain parts could enjoy more defensive power bonuses.

In a way, it was like creating a vulnerability in himself, easily exploited by enemies to inadvertently deal more damage despite the enhanced defense.

Thus, Concentration, in normal circumstances, was only suitable for situations facing an utterly unstoppable attack, allowing it to forcibly withstand an enemy’s attack through Concentration. Otherwise, Zhang Yanhang considered it not very practical.

With this in mind, Zhang Yanhang immediately felt that this compression was so much better than the direct trigger option of selecting Additional Attributes.

After all, the two times Defense bonus provided by compression, if converted, was a 200% Defense bonus, whereas Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.6 provided only a 300% Defense bonus.

So, even if a Defense bonus could appear in the Additional Attributes, it surely wouldn’t be as much. Even a 100% would be considered a lot.

Moreover, more crucially, in addition to increasing the Defense bonus, this compression could also enhance the Attack Power bonus, which, if it were an option in the Additional Attributes, would definitely be two completely different choices. He couldn’t possibly choose both Defense and Attack Power bonuses simultaneously.

And speaking of the Attack Power bonus, this compression was also very effective for the Attack Power bonus.

Although he couldn’t obtain precise data for lack of a good test subject, Zhang Yanhang reckoned that the previous claim of "3.7 times Attack Power rounded up to 4 times" could now be discarded.

With the addition, he still needed to round it up, but this time it wasn’t rounding up from 3.7 as before, but rather rounding down some, hence called four times.

Although Zhang Yanhang really wanted to round it up to a full five times, unfortunately, the Attack Power bonus was not enough; although it was a bit more than four times, it was still far from 4.5 or higher.

All in all, though still far from five times, a basic four times Attack, completely genuine, could now rightfully be claimed as a ’Normal Attack is four times stronger and can trigger Double Strike, melee brutes, do you love it?’ with no false parts at all; in fact, it was quite modest.

"With this compression ability now, I feel that the current Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.6 has undergone a qualitative change compared to the previous Indestructible Golden Body LV.MAX, but I just don’t know if Death Wave, upon being upgraded to Original LV.6, might also gain some powerful Additional Attributes."

Of course, the two previous Additional Attributes of Death Wave were also very useful—one allowing Zhang Yanhang to avoid injuring allies, and another letting him conserve Physical Strength, indirectly increasing the number of times Death Wave could be released—both are very practical abilities.

So, he hoped that Death Wave being upgraded to Original LV.6 could gain a practical and also very powerful Additional Attribute. Although it’s somewhat a daydream, according to past experience, it was still possible.

No more, no less, at least achieving half, getting a handy Additional Attribute shouldn’t be difficult. As for the other half that wasn’t achieved, well, just let it go.

After checking the Attribute list for Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.6, Zhang Yanhang reopened his soul point balance to take a look.

[Soul Points: 284533 (-102400)]

"Just now, the Soul Points balance unprecedentedly broke the record. Then, casually upgrading a Skill immediately reduced it to its original form. The Skill consumption at the Original Stage is indeed horrific; I really can’t afford it, I can only just barely manage to upgrade to Original LV.6 and scrape together the Additional Attributes’ enhancements."

Zhang Yanhang often really wanted to complain about the soul point growth requirements that doubled every time he leveled up, but despite the high demands, he had always been able to supply them.

The main reason was that the gap in soul point value provided by monsters between different levels was quite large, which enabled him to sustain this kind of exponential soul point consumption. Additionally, his usual practice of hunting monsters was to clear an entire area, a less diligent approach likely wouldn’t have sufficed to meet the high soul point demands.

"Now that the Indestructible Golden Body Skill has successfully been upgraded to Original Stage LV.6, the next step in the upgrade plan is to raise the Death Wave Skill to Original Stage LV.6 as well. With that, my Second Tier upgrade plan will be completely finished."

To be honest, Zhang Yanhang felt that the completion of this plan was a bit quicker than he had anticipated. He had always thought that he might only just manage to complete this upgrade plan before his promotion to the Third Tier or possibly even only after the promotion.

Being able to finish ahead of schedule and also save up some soul points to be used after the promotion to the Third Tier was something he hadn’t foreseen at all.

"Selection! Skill level upgrade!"

After checking his soul points balance, which had drastically reduced after upgrading the Indestructible Golden Body from Original Stage LV.5 to LV.6 and would continue to shrink even more, Zhang Yanhang quickly began to trigger the relevant options.

Time Pause instantly descended over Raccoon City again, and a series of familiar text option boxes once again appeared before him.

......

After spending 51,200 soul points and a bit of Ash Source to promote the Death Wave Skill from Death Wave LV.MAX to Death Wave·Original LV.5, Zhang Yanhang did not rush to enhance the Death Wave Skill to Original LV.6.

Instead, he decided to first check the skill effect of Death Wave·Original LV.5, curious to see if there would be any changes or enhancements after promoting it to Original LV.5. Thus, Zhang Yanhang eagerly began to review the skill effects of Death Wave·Original LV.5.

[Death Wave·Original LV.5 (Passive/Active)]

[Passive effect: Reduces the enemy’s defense by 10%.]

[Active effect: After skill activation, causes 250+5×50 (Intelligence)+5×50 (Charm) = 750 points of fixed damage to all people within the coverage area.

Coverage area 500 meters, within 12 hours (-12 hours), it can only cause damage to the same target once. No cooldown time, consumes a small amount of Physical Strength.]

[Additional Attributes: Skillful—You have now become skillful in controlling the Death Wave Skill, and you have gained the ability to mark allies, making them immune to the fixed damage from the Death Wave Skill.]

[Additional Attributes: Mastery—You have become more adept at controlling the Death Wave Skill, and you have gained the ability to freely manipulate the coverage of the Death Wave Skill (only downwards adjustments), reducing Physical Strength consumption when the coverage area is reduced.]

"Hmm... well... although the Death Wave Skill has indeed changed a bit after being promoted to Original LV.5 compared to Death Wave LV.MAX, it hasn’t completely changed. It can’t be said to be exactly the same as before, but it is nearly identical.

Whether it’s the 10% defense reduction provided by the passive effect or the 750 points of fixed damage created by the active effect, both are identical to before, including the coverage area, which is still the same 500 meters with no signs of expansion.

The only change, which is virtually no change, is the damage cooldown time, which has been reduced from 24 hours to 12 hours. But who the hell launches an attack on their enemies every 12 hours?!

Not to mention, Death Wave provides fixed damage, which merely ignores defense, not irrecoverable curse damage. Twelve hours later, by just relying on rank-based healing effects, the enemies could probably have fully restored their Life Value.

If they have any healing skills or recovery artifacts, it would probably only take a few minutes to fully recover. What’s the use of a 12-hour cooldown?

If you really want to reduce the cooldown time, why not reduce it from 24 hours to 24 minutes? That might be somewhat useful, although I don’t think any monster could last 24 minutes in front of me.""

Zhang Yanhang even felt this change was worse than no change at all, but he ultimately bore it, adhering to the principle that having something is better than nothing.

"Actually, if you think about it, this cooldown reduction is still useful. Since it has dropped by 12 hours this time, maybe it will drop by another 12 hours after the next promotion? Then I could continuously insta-cast Death Wave and embark on an invincible path. Well, the odds of that happening are virtually zero."

Zhang Yanhang couldn’t help but sigh. Looking at the current situation, he felt that even if he could promote again, at most, the cooldown time might be halved again by six hours, which still holds no practical value.

Unless his battles exceed six hours and the enemy doesn’t regenerate during that time, the conditions are incredibly stringent, almost impossible to replicate in a real battle.

"So, since Death Wave LV.MAX hasn’t changed much after being promoted to Death Wave·Original LV.5, the next thing to look forward to is Death Wave·Original LV.6.

After the Death Wave upgrades to Original LV.6, there will definitely be some more significant changes, or rather, some decent enhancements. Plus, the additional attributes are also quite anticipated."

While the additional attributes of Death Wave·Original LV.6 are unlikely to be very powerful, being practical is also really good. Zhang Yanhang felt that since the powerful aspect may be unachievable, striving in the practicality aspect is excellent, as any extreme achievement always ensures it won’t be weak.

Being practical is just like that, and he now hopes that Death Wave·Original LV.6 will bring a super practical additional attribute.