Ashen God
Chapter 650 - 649 [Death Wave·Original LV.6]

Chapter 650: Chapter 649 [Death Wave·Original LV.6]

"Choose! Skill Level upgrade!" Zhang Yanhang quickly began triggering the skill level upgrade option again, and Time Pause descended once more onto Raccoon City, the skill upgrade list appearing before Zhang Yanhang for the third time.

...

After smoothly upgrading the Death Wave Skill from Death Wave·Original LV.5 to Death Wave·Original LV.6, Zhang Yanhang waited a moment, but as expected, did not see any options triggered related to Additional Attributes, though he had anticipated this, similar to the situation with his Indestructible Golden Body—he hadn’t held much hope.

But although he had finished upgrading Death Wave, Zhang Yanhang didn’t rush to check the skill effects of Death Wave·Original LV.6; instead, he first opened his Soul points balance and took a look.

[Soul points: 130933 (-153600)]

"Upgrading Death Wave from LV.MAX to Death Wave·Original LV.6 consumed a total of 153600 of my Soul Points, reducing my balance from the original 284533 to 130933, which rounds up to one hundred thirty thousand. With such a limited amount of Soul points, even if I don’t want to hold onto them, there isn’t really any way to spend them.

My plan for upgrading the Second Tier part of my skills had just been completed after upgrading Death Wave·Original LV.6, and besides, my Profession Level had already been raised to the Second Tier Peak LV.20, just as the Level of Limitless Universe Skill had been upgraded to LV.MAX long before.

This amount of thirteen thousand Soul points truly falls in-between; there really isn’t a suitable channel to spend it, considering everything I could upgrade is already upgraded. In terms of Skill Level, I need 204800 Soul points to proceed further, and I’m still over seventy thousand points short of meeting those needs, so I better not upgrade yet."

Incidentally, when Zhang Yanhang had just finished upgrading Death Wave·Original LV.5, he had also checked his Soul points balance, which just happened to be 233333 after subtracting 51200—a pure coincidence.

"I guess I’m really at the true Second Tier Peak now, or to put it in a more fantasy-oriented way, Second Tier Peak Mixed Element Unlimited Great Perfection. There truly is nothing left to upgrade at this point; now it’s just about preparing for my promotion to Third Tier.

Although I’ve essentially been preparing for the Third Tier since after advancing to the Second Tier, using just half a month to reach the Third Tier really isn’t slow.

All is ready except for the Ash Source, and once I’ve fully cleared the Demonized Swamp Zone, using the three units of Ash Source from the Ashen Treasure Box in the Demonized Swamp, I’ll be able to immediately ascend in rank. But that’s likely tomorrow’s task; for now, let’s first take a look at the skill effects of Death Wave."

Talking to himself, Zhang Yanhang opened and began reviewing the skill effects of Death Wave·Original LV.6.

[Death Wave·Original LV.6 (Passive/Active)]

[Passive effect: Reduce the enemy’s defensive power by 12% (+2%).]

[Active effect: Upon activation, causes 300 (+50) + 6 (+1) x 50 (Intelligence) + 6 (+1) x 50 (Charm) = 900 points (+150 points) of Fixed Damage to everyone within a coverage range.

Coverage range 600 meters (+100 meters), can cause damage to the same target only once within 12 hours. No cooldown period, consumes a small amount of physical strength.]

[Additional Attributes: Skillful—You can now skilfully control the Death Wave Skill, granting you the ability to mark friendly targets. The marked ones will be immune to the fixed damage from the Death Wave Skill.]

[Additional Attributes: Mastery—Your control over the Death Wave Skill has become quite proficient, granting you the ability to freely manipulate the coverage range of the Death Wave Skill (can only be decreased), which will also reduce physical strength consumption after reducing the coverage range.]

[Additional Attributes: Specialization—After a long period of effort, your control over the Death Wave Skill can now be described as specialized. You have gained the ability to instantly kill enemies whose Life Value falls below 10% after being attacked by the Death Wave Skill, without further physical strength consumption.]

"The passive effect provided by Death Wave once upgraded to Original LV.6 has had its defensive reduction increased by another 2%, from the original 10% to 12%. I remember that before being upgraded, each level only increased defense reduction by 1%, which has effectively doubled after advancing to Original.

This way, any enemy standing before me, even if they do nothing, will first have their defensive power reduced by 12%, making my output more fluid."

Although it was a passive effect and thus not very noticeable on a regular basis, this defense reduction turned out to be incredibly useful.

Zhang Yanhang even fancied increasing this effect directly to 100%; then he could deal maximum damage to anyone he attacks, every punch equating to Armor Penetration Damage, likely making him instantly invincible.

Unfortunately, even at Original LV.6, Death Wave could only reduce 12% of defensive power. Who knows how long it might take to reach 100% reduction? For the time being, he could only dream about it.

"On the side of fixed damage, the Death Wave initially only added 250 points of basic fixed damage. After this upgrade to Original LV.6, it has increased by another 50 points, reaching 300 points of added fixed damage.

Besides the basic fixed damage added, the conversion coefficients of Intelligence and Charm towards fixed damage both increased by one point, from the initial conversion coefficient of 5 points increased to 6 points. Before the upgrade, each level only increased the conversion coefficient by 0.5 points, so this too has effectively doubled.

Although my Intelligence attribute and Charm attribute have not continued to increase, remaining at the fifty points of the Second Tier Limit, just by the increase in conversion coefficients, I’ve gained an additional 50 points of fixed damage limit for both Intelligence and Charm.

Adding up the increased limits from these three sets of fifty points, I’ve accumulated a total increase of 150 points of fixed damage, allowing the triggered total fixed damage by my Death Wave Skill to rise from the original 750 points to 900 points.

Before, with 750 points of fixed damage, I was only able to instantly kill Second Tier Three-stars monsters with a Constitution attribute of 37.5 points, but now with the fixed damage increased to 900 points, it’s different. Now I can directly kill Second Tier Four-star monsters with a Constitution attribute of 45 points—they are indeed the most formidable monsters of the Second Tier."

Moreover, as per reason, anything above forty points would already be considered a Second Tier Four-star Monster, and forty-five points would be the limit for a Second Tier Four-star Monster. Beyond that, it could only be an unknown Second Tier Five-star Monster, or a Second Tier Four-star Elite Monster.

Even a Crimson Iron Ant Queen, a Second Tier Four-star Lord Monster, only possesses fifty points in Constitution Attribute, which means I can essentially one-shot a Crimson Iron Ant Queen instantly.

The Death Wave Skill truly lives up to its name as the Death Wave Skill. Merely upgrading it to Original LV.6 has already made me unbeatable among my peers.

Moreover, it is a large-scale group AOE attack, which means whether it is one or a thousand Crimson Iron Ant Queens in my presence, they can all be slain in one hit by the Death Wave."

Zhang Yanhang has always attached great importance to the Death Wave Skill for this very reason. The output from Death Wave is just too explosive.

Ordinary skills reaching such levels of burst damage in single-target attacks are already absurd, yet Death Wave is a group attack that doesn’t limit the number of targets, just the range of attack. This is even more outrageous.

Speaking of this coverage area, after the upgrade to Original LV.6 this time, the area covered by Death Wave has also increased by a hundred meters, growing from the original five hundred meters to six hundred meters. Though it doesn’t seem much, in terms of covered area, it’s almost equivalent to an increase by half."

Initially, Zhang Yanhang’s Death Wave Skill had a 500-meter range and could cover an area of about 0.2 square kilometers with one use.

Now, with the range increased to six hundred meters, a single use of the Death Wave Skill can cover roughly 0.28 square kilometers, which is directly an increase by 0.08 square kilometers, rounding off to about half the increase.

"Previously, my Death Wave Skill needed five contiguous releases without overlap to cover one square kilometer, but now, only 3.5 times are sufficient.

That is, three times full range, plus one half-coverage.

I wonder when the Death Wave Skill can directly cover one square kilometer. If possible, the average efficiency of clearing an area of one square kilometer would probably drop to under a second.

Then open a portal, like Raccoon City, which only spans forty square kilometers, it can be completely pushed through in under a minute. That would be too blissful.

Unfortunately, if it really reaches that level, the Physical Strength consumption of the Death Wave Skill would definitely become terrifying, and whether I can withstand releasing it so many times continuously is really an unknown."

Of course, Zhang Yanhang could now nearly rush through Raccoon City, but it would involve teleportation and the number of Death Wave releases reaching triple figures, requiring him to consume potions to sustain that degree of consumption, which isn’t worth it.

After all, under normal circumstances, he can clear Raccoon City in just a matter of dozens of minutes. Consuming energy that would need over ten hours of rest to replenish, for the sake of saving those minutes, isn’t worth it unless faced with a need for extreme efficiency due to special circumstances, like an imminent closure of the Transmission Channel.

Speaking of which, the skill consumption for this upgrade of Death Wave, as expected, still maintains minor Physical Strength consumption. However, how much it has specifically increased is unknown, but I will refrain from testing for now to save Physical Strength and wait to test it while hunting monsters later."

Zhang Yanhang’s intuition told him that after promoting Death Wave to Original LV.6, Physical Strength consumption will definitely become exaggerated, so it’s best not to test it carelessly; in case just a few releases could deplete all his Physical Strength, making the subsequent hunting process much more challenging.

Besides the unchanged description of skill consumption, the cooldown of Death Wave remained the same as well, still holding at twelve hours. I had hoped that this upgrade might further reduce the cooldown by one or two hours, but no changes occurred.

It seems, the prior reduction in cooldown time probably wasn’t related to the Original Skill Level, but rather due to the promotion to the Original Stage itself, and any further reductions would have to wait for the next promotion.

Although I’ve barely managed to promote to Original LV.6 now and I’m clueless about the name of the next level."

Zhang Yanhang estimated that the next promotion of Death Wave, even if he were promoted to Third Tier, would likely not be achievable; it’s probably an event possible only at Fourth Tier, which for him, is quite too remote, given he hasn’t even achieved Third Tier yet.

After reviewing all the previous upgrades, Zhang Yanhang quickly started focusing on the most important part of this upgrade, which was the Additional Attributes obtained after upgrading Death Wave to Original LV.6.

"This time’s Additional Attributes, well, they are indeed extremely useful—giving me the ability for an Instant Death Kill.

As long as the Life Value of the target is reduced by the Death Wave Skill to below ten percent, it can directly ignore the remaining life value and forcibly slay the opponent. This is certainly a nice feature, as it essentially boosts the Fixed Damage Limit of my Death Wave Skill.

Moreover, it can be used against those monsters with an exceptionally fast healing rate, such as those that can regenerate several hundred or even thousands of points per second with abilities like Super-speed Regeneration, Limb Regeneration, or Blood Rebirth.

Most importantly, this Instant Death Kill ability has no Physical Value consumption and can wholly serve as a passive ability.

My initial Fixed Damage Limit after promoting to Original LV.6 was nine hundred points. By dividing 900 points of Fixed Damage by 0.9, you get 1000 points of Fixed Damage, which means I can now instantly kill even monsters with fifty points in Constitution Attribute."

Previously, Zhang Yanhang’s slaughtering of the Crimson Iron Ant Queen, which possesses fifty points of Constitution Attribute, by Death Wave was a pseudo-slaughter, remaining with 10% of its Life Value for a chance of struggling to its death and activating a Self-Destruction Skill to perish together.

But now, with this Killing Ability, Zhang Yanhang no longer needs to worry about any Self-Destruction or mutual perishing capabilities, ensuring a direct suppression right on the spot.