Ashen God
Chapter 658 - 657: Basalt Anti-ship Missile

Chapter 658: Chapter 657: Basalt Anti-ship Missile

As for the other minor goal, it naturally was the one related to Zhang Yanhang’s desire to achieve a seven-to-four work-to-rest ratio.

To reach that minor goal concerning the seven-to-four ratio, Zhang Yanhang also needed to obtain new equipment that could enhance his Physical Recovery Speed from the treasure box drops of the Demonized Four-eyed Wild Boar.

The problem, however, based on his past experience, was that the treasure box dropped by the Demonized Four-eyed Wild Boar would at most contain one new piece of equipment. Therefore, from this perspective, the two minor goals did indeed have a slight conflict. Yet, the conflict wasn’t so significant as to be irreconcilable. It was still possible to achieve both goals simultaneously.

In addition to the firing speed of the cannon bullets, the flight speed of Zhang Yanhang’s Six Roots Pure Soul Gun Cannon Bullets also improved after receiving the 18% Attack Speed Bonus.

The velocity of his cannon bullets had increased directly from 5.4 to 5.9 mach, a gain of 0.5 mach in flight speed.

When converting this increase of 0.5 mach into meters per second, it meant an enhancement of 170 meters per second in flight speed.

"My previous minor, or rather, long-term goal was to raise the attack speed of the cannon bullets to six mach. Initially, I thought this long-term goal would definitely have to wait until I advanced to the Third Tier. Moreover, I believed that as long as it was achieved before the Fourth Tier, there would be no issue.

Surprisingly, the goal of reaching six mach now seemed to be achievable within the Second Tier. My current flight speed of the cannon bullets has reached an astonishing 5.9 mach, just 0.1 mach shy of achieving the six mach goal.

Last time, I still lacked 20% progress to achieve this goal, but now, in the blink of an eye, I’m only about 3% away from reaching it.

Perhaps I wouldn’t even need any more new equipment related to Attack Speed Bonus. Simply fusing the Ivory Pendant to a Light Golden Quality of +5 might directly fulfill this long-term goal."

The reason why Zhang Yanhang had set this long-term goal in the first place was due to the worry that he might encounter Fourth Tier enemies and the cannon bullets’ slow speed wouldn’t hit the monsters. Thus, he aimed to achieve it before the Fourth Tier. But he had never thought it would be completed so soon, without even reaching the Third Tier.

"Other various minor goals are more challenging to achieve, but this long-term minor goal has been completed so quickly, it’s quite extraordinary."

Zhang Yanhang remembered that a long time ago, he could perform sound speed attacks with just his fists, primarily relying on the Spiritual Qi Blessing, but now it was different. He estimated he could produce a sonic boom even without using his hands.

A simple addition of Spiritual Qi Blessing might very well allow him to hit two or three times the speed of sound. Coupled with his own weight of nearly sixteen tons, and thirty-two tons after the Spiritual Qi Blessing, Zhang Yanhang felt that the power of his punch would at least be at the level of anti-ship missiles.

Take, for instance, the Basalt anti-ship missiles from Russia last century. The armor-piercing type of anti-ship missile relied on its own gravitational acceleration to pierce the armor of warships at an attack speed of 2.5 mach, combined with a five-ton weight and then causing an explosion.

Therefore, even though his fists didn’t explode like the warheads of anti-ship missiles (well, they actually could), with a superior attack speed and more powerful strength, Zhang Yanhang felt that in terms of raw power, he certainly wouldn’t have much problem competing with last century’s anti-ship missiles.

And, if his own mass was insufficient, he could use the Giant Transformation skill, which would definitely be OK after use. By then, each of his normal attacks should be able to rival an anti-ship missile.

Zhang Yanhang himself was quite surprised that he could achieve this at just Second Tier. He could only say that the power system of Awakeners was indeed outrageous. Second Tier was actually just the beginning of the power system, yet it was capable of this extent. How strong he would be at Third Tier was truly unimaginable.

Fortunately, Zhang Yanhang felt that cases like his were probably exceptions. When spiritual energy fully revived and the era of nationwide Second Tier began, it definitely would not be possible for everyone to have the power of an anti-ship missile.

After all, the strength of ordinary cultivators depended on their own qualifications. Most would likely just be a plain average, maybe not even reaching the average but falling below it, dragging down the great cultivators who were inflating the average. This was the most realistic scenario that could happen to ordinary cultivators.

After some brief contemplation, Zhang Yanhang tried to throw a punch with all his might. Accompanied by a huge roar, a visible sonic boom enveloped in violent airflow formed a tangible shockwave, like an air cannon, blasting towards the corpse of a demonized mammoth in front of him.

Boom!

Amid the spray of blood and flesh, a transparent blood hole suddenly appeared on the body of the demonized mammoth. Through this hole, one could clearly see a massive tree being torn apart, slowly falling down.

"The effect is surprisingly good, but ordinary Awakeners probably can’t produce this level of air attacks. After all, the power I just unleashed mainly relied on the bonuses from Melee Master skills.

For ordinary Awakeners, even if they have the same strength as me, without practice, they could at most produce some scattered blows of wind. Perhaps that could work on ordinary people, but achieving the kind of power I just did is definitely impossible."

Although this attack method was unexpectedly cool, Zhang Yanhang would hardly ever use it in practice. After all, with the effort it took to use this, he might as well hit the enemy directly with his fists. This technique would definitely consume a lot of physical strength if used continuously, far less convenient than direct punches.

"So, the question is, what should I do now? I’ve opened all the treasure boxes, sorted out the items, and even tested the attack speed. Is there anything else I can do? It seems not."

Zhang Yanhang thought carefully and felt that there really was nothing else to do. After all, he had only opened thirty treasure boxes this time, so the only thing left to do was equipment fusion.

"Since there’s nothing else to do now, let’s check the data panel first." With nothing else to occupy him, Zhang Yanhang habitually opened his stats panel to start reviewing it.

[Name: Zhang Yanhang (Second Tier)]

[Race: Human]

[Gender: Male]

[Age: 20]

[Profession: Heavenly Destiny Master]

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

[Soul points: 218,933]

[Shield Value: 7262/7262 (Life Value Limit × 210%, recovery speed: 20% per second.)]

[Life Value: 3458/3458 (Constitution × 21, current body has been officially digitalized, Life Value recovery speed, 15 points per hour.)]

[Energy Value: 2720/2720 (Intelligence × 21, current body has been 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)]

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

[Skills: 1. Limitless Universe Skill[Second Tier]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·Original LV.6 (Passive/Active). 8. Supreme Will LV.MAX (Passive skill). 9. Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.6 (Passive/Active).]

"This time the data panel, well, basically hasn’t changed much, or rather, besides the balance of soul points, everything else has remained the same.

However, seeing that there are now only eight monsters left in the Swamp Area of the Demonized Swamp, I didn’t expect the balance of soul points to be still less than two hundred and twenty thousand.

The remaining seven demonized Four-eyed Wild Boars and the Lord Monster Demonized Four-eyed Wild Boar Queen Pei Qi may give more soul points individually than other monsters, but there are too few of them, and I estimate that all together they can probably give at most a few tens of thousands of soul points.

Moreover, it’s certain that the bulk of these would come from the soul points obtained from the Drop treasure box of the Lord Monster Demonized Four-eyed Wild Boar Queen Pei Qi. That being said, there’s no way I’ll have even three hundred thousand soul points left after clearing the entire Demonized Swamp, right?"

Although Zhang Yanhang had not carefully scanned the number of monsters that respawned in Raccoon City and Goblin Plain before, he could still make a rough estimate, after all, the number of respawns every day is about the same, or rather, it has reached the limit of respawn speed and can no longer increase.

Therefore, Zhang Yanhang estimated that even if he rehunted the monsters that respawned in Raccoon City and Goblin Plain, he could at most obtain a hundred thousand soul points.

Hence, from this situation, Zhang Yanhang felt that he could hardly scrape together even four hundred thousand before his promotion to the Third Tier, although four hundred thousand is a lot for the Second Tier, it is definitely different for the Third Tier.

It’s like when Zhang Yanhang was in the First Tier, ten thousand soul points seemed like a lot, but now they are basically of little use to him, and he could get them by casually swiping the prize pool for five minutes.

And now, Zhang Yanhang estimated that the four hundred thousand will be about the same as the forty thousand soul points he had during the Second Tier Period after he got promoted to the Third Tier, definitely not enough to be of use.

"But even if it’s not enough, there’s nothing I can do, after all, the soul points I’ve saved up are just for temporary emergency use after my Rank promotion, and proper enhancements still rely on hunting more monsters subsequently."

However, even though the soul points Zhang Yanhang is getting now aren’t much for his promotion to the Third Tier, his goal in clearing the monsters in Raccoon City and Goblin Plain wasn’t mainly to acquire soul points, but to obtain various Items and Talents, so he must still clean them up.

"It seems I’m running out of things to do now, so I might as well hurry up and hunt the Demonized Four-eyed Wild Boars." Zhang Yanhang put the extra Ivory Pendants into his Waist Bag and glanced at the time on his watch, only to find that it was just 10:23.

"At the beginning, I estimated that it might take fifteen minutes, but in the end, I didn’t use even ten minutes; it only took eight minutes to open the Treasure box and sort out the Equipment fusion. Now it’s indeed time to hunt the last eight monsters in the Swamp Area."

Zhang Yanhang used Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil to scan the remaining area of the Swamp and immediately rushed towards the group of Demonized Four-eyed Wild Boars that he had already locked onto. It’s unclear if it’s due to some herd instinct of the Demonized Four-eyed Wild Boars, but those seven have always stayed together.

...

October 27, Tuesday, the day after the Double Ninth Festival, and also Zhang Yanhang’s third day in the Ashen World, 10:23 PM, Demonized Swamp, Swamp Area, habitat of the Demonized Four-eyed Wild Boars.

Because Zhang Yanhang’s Movement Speed was extremely fast, reaching nearly 0.6 mach, and the remaining area of the Swamp was not large, only about ten square kilometers, and he wasn’t far from the group of Demonized Four-eyed Wild Boars, it took him only a few seconds to arrive smoothly beside the seven Demonized Four-eyed Wild Boars.

If one were to only look at the side of the group of Demonized Four-eyed Wild Boars, what Zhang Yanhang observed would appear to be just ordinary pink hairdryers with two eyes laying on the ground, just the wild version.

However, once Zhang Yanhang shifted his viewing angle to the front, he would realize that each of these creatures actually has two eyes on both the left and right sides, so from the side, they appear to have just the usual two eyes, but from the front, they’re a bit unnerving with a round face and four eyes.

Despite that, these pink Demonized Four-eyed Wild Boars are not quite like the ones Zhang Yanhang was accustomed to; they are exceptionally large, or rather, though they are just wild boars, their size was even bigger than the previously encountered Demonized Mammoths, by a factor of about twenty tons at the least, in Zhang Yanhang’s estimation.