But fortunately, pain aside, there is ultimately a gain after the pain. Zhang Yanhang checked the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures he had just collected, and there were about more than a hundred types.

Furthermore, because some varieties of the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures appeared in multiples, he actually acquired nearly two hundred Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures.

However, among these Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, none corresponded to his current Fourth Tier stage; the highest was only Third Tier, and there were only seven or eight of those. Among the rest, about forty or fifty were Second Tier, and the remaining more than a hundred were all First Tier.

Of course, Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures can't be judged solely by rank; their actual effects are also important. Due to Zhang Yanhang grabbing all Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures he could see, following the principle of indiscriminate consumption, at least two-thirds of them were actually useless to him.

For example, among the First Tier Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, there were some that increased skin water absorption efficiency and increased food digestion speed. For Zhang Yanhang, who had already been promoted to Fourth Tier and long mastered abilities like Water Resistance and Fasting, consuming these would be equivalent to not eating them at all—completely useless.

And there are many such examples in other tiers. For instance, a certain pine needle that could increase swordsmanship insight, or a truffle that could enhance affinity with earth elements. While this may be useful to some extent, it truly wasn't of any substantial use to him. He neither uses a sword nor practices earth attribute cultivation techniques and doesn't even possess any earth attribute attack methods, nor knows any related spell. Even if these boosts were offered to him, he couldn't make use of them in his lifetime.

Therefore, after eliminating those Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures entirely useless to him, Zhang Yanhang stuffed the remaining dozens into his Stomach Space all at once.

If eating the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures before was like drinking a glass of warm water, this time, after his Stomach Space absorbed the treasures, it felt like someone was continuously spraying him with a shower.

Though the total quantity wasn't that large, the coverage of dozens of warm currents coursing through his body was indeed vast due to their variety and could cover a bit of every aspect.

However, because of their lower rank, the coverage was truly minimal—even just a small fraction.

Even though the First Tier warm currents were the most numerous, they were basically ignored by Zhang Yanhang. For him in the Fourth Tier, even a 50% increase from this portion would be almost imperceptible. Second Tier was slightly better, but even if gathered, it would probably increase only by a few percentage points.

As for the Third Tier, it was much better. Combined, they at least provided a 20-30% increase for Zhang Yanhang. Of course, these increases were dispersed.

For the final gain, Zhang Yanhang could only try to perceive the familiar ones. First, the stamina limit, he estimated that his stamina limit should at least have increased by 14% this time, with the Stamina recovery speed at 10%, and the defensive power was around 8% more.

"Previously, my stamina limit was sufficient to continuously cast 6200 Death Waves, and now it should have increased by 700 more times, allowing me to cast Death Waves 6900 times continuously.

This means it can cover 16,422 square kilometers of area now, an increase of 1,666 kilometers from the previous 14,756 square kilometers. It's really auspicious."

Apart from the increase in terms of stamina and defensive power, Zhang Yanhang also noticed another growth aspect in his Energy value limit just now. Although it wasn't much of a growth, he immediately checked his Energy value limit.

[Energy Value: 14099/14099 (Intelligence ×58, the current body is fully data-driven, Energy Value Recovery Speed, 222 points per hour.)]

"I remember my previous Energy value limit was 13,919 points, and now it has increased to 14,099 points, equivalent to an increase of 180 points in the Energy value limit.

Though it seems plenty, it's the result after experiencing two amplifications—first with a 50% artifact effect, then the 60% boost from the SS-level Scroll Dragon Bloodline on the Energy value limit."

According to this calculation, Zhang Yanhang thought the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures that increased the Energy value limit should originally only provide 75 points of Energy value limit.

Thus, if calculated this way, the artifact amplification effect provided an extra 37.5 points in the Energy value limit, while the Energy value limit boost gave another 67.5 points.

"Calculating like this, the Third Tier Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure that provided the Energy value limit increase doesn't seem particularly strong, not even better than the Second Tier Sky Demon Blue Crystal Grass I consumed before, which can raise the Energy value limit by a hundred points. It's just slightly stronger than the Sky Demon Green Crystal Grass."

Regardless, the Energy value limit consumed during Dual-choice has been replenished, and there's an extra increase of 179 points in the Energy value limit."

Since these Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures were picked up for free, and being low-tier as well, Zhang Yanhang knew he couldn't demand too much.

"So, the question arises, now that the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures have been collected, what should I do next?"

Having endured over two hours of torment only to gain this much, Zhang Yanhang wasn't keen on searching for more Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures. Instead of doing that, it would be more beneficial to use the option trigger to directly locate high-tier Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures to consume.

After all, a Fourth Tier Heavenly Material or Earthly Treasure at least equals hundreds of low-tier ones, like those just consumed, and the enhancement effects aren't scattered, making it easy to perceive.

"You could say, relying on my strong luck, although searching normally also finds a lot of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, their ranks are relatively low and their effects are weaker. It's still more cost-effective to use Multiple Choice to 'conjure out of nothing' Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures."

Even without saying anything else, at the very least, Zhang Yanhang was definitely not going to venture into other regions of Siberia again.

"Since there's nothing much to do now, I should return to Qin Island City first."

Zhang Yanhang wanted to wait a bit longer to see if he could trigger another adventure. After all, when he promoted to Third Tier, he could trigger two adventures a day. Now being Fourth Tier, triggering just one adventure a day didn't make sense.

...

October 30th, Friday, the fifth day after the Double Ninth Festival, and also the first day after Zhang Yanhang left the Ashen World, at 4:11 PM, Main World, Qin Island City, Huaxing Road, in a bubble tea shop with relatively low customer traffic.

Zhang Yanhang, who had been trying unsuccessfully to trigger an encounter, was sitting on a chair at the entrance of a milk tea shop, pondering whether he should buy a cup of milk tea. By doing so, he hoped to prompt an encounter through some form of external interference.

As Zhang Yanhang was deep in thought, he noticed a person with slightly strange behavior appearing at the milk tea shop entrance as well.

This strange individual was wearing a shirt printed with some anime white-haired beauty Zhang Yanhang did not recognize, paired with incredibly short shorts that tightly hugged their buttocks, and white stockings on their legs.

On their feet were a pair of boots that completely covered their calves, boots that Zhang Yanhang had only ever seen in anime, evoking a strong sense of déjà vu.

Although Zhang Yanhang had minimal social experience, he immediately recognized this person as an otaku, given that no one with a sound mind would dress like that.

As for the appearance of this strange individual, it could only be said that they were quite pretty, with very fair skin.

They didn't seem very old, probably a college student like him, with ear-length short hair, big eyes that sparkled, and lips that looked pink and tender. They seemed to embody the character of a cute junior girl, yet, unfortunately, had a problematic mind and were an otaku.

Just as Zhang Yanhang was trying to discern if the exaggeratedly bouncing chest of this otaku, as they walked, was padded, he suddenly felt an invisible energy rushing towards him, originating from the otaku he had been observing.

Zhang Yanhang initially thought he had been discovered and targeted, but to his surprise, the invisible energy quickly bypassed his body and rushed far beyond, seemingly not aiming at him?

Soon after, Zhang Yanhang noticed the surrounding environment suddenly becoming both familiar and unfamiliar. The familiarity lay in the air, which felt more viscous, providing a certain sense of drag. Yet, despite the viscosity, it continued to flow?

However, Zhang Yanhang quickly noticed something genuinely amiss. His Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil, always scanning the surrounding area in search of encounters, found that everyone within its range, or rather all matter, had come to a standstill.

This feeling strongly resembled a Time Pause, but Zhang Yanhang hadn't triggered a Time Pause, at least there wasn't any relevant option appearing before him.

Could it be that after using Multiple Choice to exploit a bug for so long, he finally encountered a genuine bug today?

As Zhang Yanhang was pondering what exactly was happening, he noticed that the strange otaku he had been observing hadn't fallen into this state but was instead moving normally, even approaching his direction.

Since the invisible energy had originated from this otaku, he strongly suspected that the current situation was also their doing.

Shen Mengling, a Fourth Tier Awakened, approached Zhang Yanhang with a strange smile on her face and quickly unfastened her waistband before grabbing onto Zhang Yanhang's Raccoon City-issued police pants and started to pull them down, "Two and a half meters tall, I haven't tried an awakened of this size before."

But as Shen Mengling continued pulling, she noticed something wrong; she couldn't move the pants at all. Her hands could touch them, but they wouldn't budge, and even the creases on the pants remained unchanged.

Although the other party started by pulling on his pants, Zhang Yanhang didn't get angry. Instead, he began to suspect he might have met a legendary female Bodhisattva fond of bestowing physical gifts of charity...

To not dampen the other party's enthusiasm, Zhang Yanhang casually asked, "Do you need help?"

The deep, resonant male voice suddenly heard in her ear startled Shen Mengling, who was concentrating on the pants. She shivered slightly, and as she questioned whether she was hearing things, she looked up and found the person she was trying to strip staring at her with eyes as big as saucers.

"!!!"

Shen Mengling's eyes narrowed as she quickly stepped back, her soft, white hands letting go of Zhang Yanhang's trousers and adopting a gesture resembling preparation for an attack, perhaps as a deterrent, signaling she wasn't easy to mess with.

But undeniably, this kind of behavior was akin to a bandit greeting for Zhang Yanhang, who became even more interested in chatting with this unusual high-level awakened, though her preferences seemed a bit strange.

"Who are you? How can you maintain mobility during a Time Pause?"

With a cautious expression, Shen Mengling breathed heavily, clearly very nervous, possibly encountering such a situation for the first time. Her chest course expanded rapidly, causing her bosom to sway, making her appear less like she was asking a question and more like she was trying to seduce a confession.

"Time Pause? I see, if that's the case, it makes sense."

Zhang Yanhang finally understood why everything within his scanning range had stopped and why he felt somewhat unfamiliar—it was because this was a Time Pause triggered by the other party. Only, their Time Pause seemed different from his own.

Judging by the skillful way she had started to strip his pants, Zhang Yanhang suspected her Time Pause could alter the state of matter to a certain extent.

However, her Time Pause seemed ineffective against him, a long-time user of Time Pause-related abilities, or maybe there was a conflict between their Time Pauses, causing the current situation.

"What did you understand?"

Shen Mengling, looking at Zhang Yanhang, who was dressed oddly, even while manifesting gear in the Main World, felt he probably wasn't a good person and couldn't help but step back two more steps.

"Haven't you noticed that your usual Time Pause is a bit different here? For example, the Sun overhead…"

Having finally met a Time Pause ability user, Zhang Yanhang was eager to have a good chat with them.

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