October 29th, Thursday, the fourth day after the Double Ninth Festival, and also the first day Zhang Yanhang entered the Ashen World, at 9:14 PM, Ashen World, Crimson Iron Ore Vein, Large Crimson Iron Ant Nest Tarano, Central Region.

After testing his strength, Zhang Yanhang quickly stowed away the surplus Crimson Marrow Flame Demon Armor +3 and Crimson Marrow Flame Demon Armor +2 into his waist bag.

"Now it seems like everything that came out of the treasure box has been accounted for, so let's upgrade some skills next," Zhang Yanhang said as he opened his soul points balance to check.

[Soul points: 11939404 (+5852400)]

"No wonder it took me an hour to open the four-digit drop treasure box. This wave directly brought out 5852400 soul points, increasing my soul point balance from the original 6087004 soul points to 11939404 soul points.

With so many soul points, it's not just upgrading three skills; even the soul points needed for upgrading a fourth skill are almost gathered, just short of over three hundred thousand soul points...

But although the obtained soul points are indeed many, the fraction that follows really is quite unfortunate."

Luckily, if Zhang Yanhang enhances a skill level later and spends some soul points, this fraction should change.

"Choose! Skill Level Enhancement!" After checking his soul point balance, Zhang Yanhang quickly began to actively trigger the option.

As Zhang Yanhang actively triggered the choice, the Time Pause that had just been triggered thousands of times once again descended upon the Large Crimson Iron Ant Nest Tarano, and simultaneously, a long row of text option boxes that he had become very familiar with appeared in front of him.

[Would you like to perform Skill Level Enhancement?]

[Option One: 'Gun Mastery LV.6' upgraded to 'Gun Mastery LV.7' (uses 204800 soul points).]

[Option Two: 'Fighting Master LV.6' upgraded to 'Fighting Master LV.7' (uses 204800 soul points).]

…

[Option Six: 'Alchemy' upgraded to 'Alchemy·Original' (uses 2 Ash Sources).]

…

[Option Nine: 'Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.6' upgraded to 'Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.7' (uses 204800 soul points).]

[Option Ten: 'Fatian Xiangdi LV.6' upgraded to 'Fatian Xiangdi LV.7' (uses 204800 soul points).]

[Option Eleven: 'Three-Headed Six-Armed LV.MAX' upgraded to '???' (Cannot be enhanced).]

"The Three-Headed Six-Armed Skill, as expected, also turned out to be unenhanceable. From past upgrade experience, it's certain again that it has to wait until promotion to the Fourth Tier, and of course, it's also possible, like Supreme Will, that it truly became genuinely unenhanceable."

If possible, Zhang Yanhang still wished to upgrade the Three-Headed Six-Armed Skill, because who knows if he might continue to grow more arms and heads in the future?

For instance, maybe something like Six Heads and Twelve Arms or even a Hundred-Armed Giant—then he wouldn't he have a lot more equipment slots? Although it felt unlikely, having too many arms and heads can indeed give people a somewhat polluted feeling.

"Although I still have five skills left to upgrade, Alchemy undoubtedly needs to be ruled out directly, since I don't have any Ash Source on me now. Next is Fatian Xiangdi because with the adaptability issues brought by the external environment, getting bigger is completely unnecessary; after all, it won't fit."

Thus, Zhang Yanhang was left with only three skills needing upgrades: Gun Mastery LV.6, Fighting Master LV.6, and Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.6, and he just happened to have enough soul points to upgrade these three skills, so he didn't need to hesitate too much and just upgraded all of them.

"So, I choose Option Nine, upgrading Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.6 to Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.7." After briefly pondering, Zhang Yanhang quickly made his decision.

...

October 29th, Thursday, the fourth day after the Double Ninth Festival, and also the first day Zhang Yanhang entered the Ashen World, at 9:15 PM, Ashen World, Crimson Iron Ore Vein, Large Crimson Iron Ant Nest Tarano, Central Region.

After triggering four options in succession, Zhang Yanhang finally upgraded the Indestructible Golden Body from Original LV.6 to Original LV.MAX. Since there were no options related to Additional Attributes, Zhang Yanhang quickly began to directly review the Attribute List of Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.MAX.

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

[Passive effect: Life Value +100% (+40%).]

[Active Effect: After skill activation, the defensive power of body parts covered by the Golden Body Effect +500% (+200%), Attack Power +100% (+40%), current coverable parts: entire body. No cooldown period, consumes a small amount of Physical Strength.]

[Additional Attribute: Skillful—You can now skillfully control the Indestructible Golden Body Skill, gaining the ability to freely transfer the Golden Body Effect to a specified location, which will increase the rate of Physical Strength consumption when the transfer target is external to the body.]

[Additional Attribute: Mastery—Your control over the Indestructible Golden Body Skill has become quite masterful, granting you the ability to concentrate the originally body-wide Golden Body effect to a specific location, thereby significantly enhancing the defensive power bonus and Attack Power bonus of that location, with varying rates of increased Physical Strength consumption based on the degree of concentration during the transfer of the Golden Body Effect.]

[Additional Attribute: Specialization—After a long period of effort, you have now achieved mastery over the Indestructible Golden Body Skill, granting you the ability to compress its loosely structured effect that originally covered the entire body. This compression significantly increases the defense bonus and attack power bonus.

The degree of compression will increase the rate of physical strength consumption accordingly.]

[Additional Attribute: Expert—After a long period of effort, you have now become an expert in the Indestructible Golden Body Skill. Extensive research has greatly increased the control you have over the Golden Body Energy, and the distance at which you can manipulate the Golden Body Effect, allowing you to freely operate it from a greater range.]

"I spent three million soul points to elevate from Original LV.6 to Original LV.MAX, and the enhancement of the Indestructible Golden Body indeed provides an immense amount of additional attributes. Firstly, a crucial issue is the increase in the Life Value Limit, this time directly raising it by an additional 40%, taking the total Life Value bonus from the original 60% to 100%."

Perhaps because such percentage increases in the Life Value Limit are genuinely rare, since entering the Ashen World, Zhang Yanhang had only seen such an increase with the Indestructible Golden Body, making it the sole Life Value Limit bonus he possesses.

Thus, the 40% increase in the Life Value Limit conferred by the Indestructible Golden Body truly signifies a 40% increase in his Life Value Limit.

Moreover, not only are increases in the Life Value Limit rare, but bonuses to the Energy Value Limit are as well, Zhang Yanhang had neither seen them in equipment, artifacts, achievements, nor other items, nor even in skills. Currently, the only encounter he had that could increase the Energy Value Limit by a percentage was through the Scroll Dragon Bloodline.

In this regard, Zhang Yanhang could only speculate that perhaps such percentage increases are so powerful that they are rarer; after all, with his current Life Value Limit of 6952 points, even a mere 5% increase would raise it by nearly 350 points.

And previously, the light golden Quality World Tree Juice of full score could only increase the Life Value Limit by 180 points. To achieve an increase of 350 points, perhaps even golden quality might not suffice, possibly requiring an artifact of dark golden quality.

Of course, since this 6952 Life Value Limit already includes a 60% bonus, his actual Life Value Limit should be around four thousand points.

But even so, a 5% increase would raise it by at least two to three hundred points, something not comparable to the light golden Quality World Tree Juice, which would likely require at least a golden quality artifact.

"This time, the Indestructible Golden Body's elevation from Original LV.6 to Original LV.MAX has once again increased the defense bonus by 200%, from an initial 300% defense bonus to a 500% defense bonus, that is, five times the defense bonus."

According to Zhang Yanhang's past experiences, such a level of defense, with just a bit of concentration, can immediately double to ten times the defense bonus and, if compressed further, could potentially reach up to twenty times the defense bonus. Compared to the previous twelve times defense bonus, this virtually doubles it.

"Twenty times the defense bonus, additionally, I've just enhanced it by 90% using the additional attribute 'Impenetrable' from the Three-Headed Six-Armed skill. I feel like with my current defensive strength, if I fully activate my abilities, I might even be able to block attacks of Fifth Tier level..."

As for creatures like the Lord Monster Crimson Iron Queen Ant, which is at most Peak Fourth Tier, Zhang Yanhang felt it would be very easy.

Of course, when he talks about blocking, he doesn't mean that taking hits from a Fifth Tier won't drop the Shield Value, as that's still quite unlikely. He primarily thinks that it should help him withstand some damage when facing a Fifth Tier, allowing him to hold out longer and give him a chance to fight back or attempt to escape and buy time.

Considering the huge gap between the Fifth Tier and the Third Tier, the disparity in strength between the two was also immense, perhaps even greater than that between a human and a flatworm. Therefore, Zhang Yanhang generally wouldn't go out of his way to provoke a Fifth Tier enemy, let alone find one.

As for how large the gap between the Fifth Tier and the Third Tier could actually be, considering both are separated by two ranks, one could approximate it by comparing the difference in strength between Zhang Yanhang's current Third Tier and his First Tier.

Zhang Yanhang had just been promoted to the Third Tier less than a day ago and had not yet reached his peak state, but his one-handed strength had already reached 652 tons, whereas during his First Tier his maximum strength was only about one ton. That estimated a disparity of 652 times.

If one were to consider other factors of strength enhancement, rounding it up to a thousand times would not be an exaggeration, including active enhancements from skills such as Giant Transformation and Frenzy Skill.

Because the rank disparity was so vast, generally, awakeners wouldn't think of fighting across two ranks, and barely any could challenge across one rank. Although Zhang Yanhang had a chance to do so, he was never really interested in activities that were likely lethal.

"Besides increasing the Attack Power Bonus by 200%, the Indestructible Golden Body also enhanced the Attack Power Bonus by an additional 40%, raising the total enhancement provided by Indestructible Golden Body from the original 60% to 100%. Overall, it's quite satisfactory.

Although it can't be compared with the active enhancement of 800% from the Three-Headed Six-Armed, the real function of Indestructible Golden Body is still to enhance defensive power."

Honestly, in the face of the Indestructible Golden Body's twentyfold increase in defensive power, Zhang Yanhang even felt somewhat that the originally impressive 800% Attack Power Bonus from the Three-Headed Six-Armed seemed slightly inadequate, given how powerful a twentyfold increase in defensive power truly was.

"Unfortunately, this time, the Additional Attributes did not provide anything like Super Compression or Multiple Compression, which would allow me to double the defensive bonus again to an incredible fortyfold."

Of course, Zhang Yanhang didn't feel regretful. After all, his original compression had gotten to the point where it only covered an area the size of a palm. If he were to undergo Super Compression, it might just compress to a single point, which wouldn't be very meaningful in increasing the defense by forty times.

After all, one couldn't rely on a single point's coverage to withstand all the enemy's attacks during combat. Having the enemy's attacks hit that single spot each time would make fighting exhausting and contradicted his usual combat style.

Moreover, such techniques were mostly used in the reverse manner, repeatedly striking a specific part of the enemy's body to break through their defenses, but to actively use a single point to handle incoming attacks was indeed somewhat insane.

Thus, Zhang Yanhang was quite interested in this Additional Attribute that could increase the Golden Body Energy.

"Since the Golden Body Energy has significantly increased, does that also mean the thickness of my Golden Body Effect or, perhaps, the coverage area after compression could be significantly larger?"

Zhang Yanhang thought it very likely, but speculating was not enough. It was necessary to test it to know for sure.

So, Zhang Yanhang quickly activated the Indestructible Golden Body and tried it out. A thin layer of golden light immediately enveloped his whole body, making him look like a statue that had just been gilded.

After feeling it carefully, Zhang Yanhang could clearly sense that although the layer of golden light was still thin, compared to before, its thickness had indeed increased and had become more concentrated, no longer as thin as a cicada's wing and tending towards transparency and illusoriness.

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