CHAPTER 632: CHAPTER 631 [INDESTRUCTIBLE GOLDEN BODY·ORIGINAL LV.5]

After testing his current movement speed, Zhang Yanhang quickly returned to Room 301 of Dulda Apartment and immediately lay back down on the battered wooden bed.

"Now that I’ve finished opening the treasure boxes, and I’ve tallied up all the gains from the equipment, artifacts, and Talent, and, moreover, the Talent has been upgraded, what should I do next?"

Zhang Yanhang thought for a moment and realized he hadn’t checked his Soul points balance after opening the treasure boxes, so he promptly opened up his Soul points balance to start checking it.

[Soul points: 246026 (+102690)]

"The three hundred and sixty dropped treasure boxes allowed me to gain 102690 Soul points, increasing my Soul points balance from the original 143336 to 246026, but although it should be very happy to have gained so many Soul points, why is it only two hundred forty thousand? It would be nice if I had gained an extra ten thousand to make it two hundred fifty thousand."

Zhang Yanhang had been quite looking forward to seeing his Soul points balance this time because he previously thought he might be able to directly collect two hundred fifty thousand Soul points, and while upgrading the Fighting Master LV.6, also promote the Indestructible Golden Body to Original Stage LV.6.

But now it seemed unlikely that he could directly promote Indestructible Golden Body to Original LV.6, and he would have to settle temporarily for promoting it to Original LV.5.

"I remember my highest Soul points balance was also only about two hundred seventy thousand, and at that time, it was only by using a Thermo-baric Bomb to completely annihilate the remaining Dragon Vein Goblins on the Goblin Plain and then adding the previously remaining six-figure Soul points to reach a Soul points balance of two hundred seventy thousand.

This time, just by my own regular hunting, I’ve saved up two hundred forty-six thousand Soul points, which rounds up to nearly two hundred fifty thousand Soul points. But the more Soul points I have, the faster I spend them. Even though I have 246026 Soul points, now just enhancing skills costs me tens to hundreds of thousands..."

Since he wouldn’t be able to promote the Indestructible Golden Body directly to Original LV.6 this time, he thought he’d have quite a few Soul points left over. Zhang Yanhang felt that after cleaning up the Demonized Swamp’s Western Forest and lake area today, his Soul points might break through three hundred thousand for the first time.

By then, he could directly enhance the last two skills, Indestructible Golden Body and Death Wave, both to Original LV.6, and still have some Soul points left over to prepare for post-promotion enhancements of Skill Level, Cultivation Method Level, and Profession Level.

Of course, when he says preparing, in reality, the portion of Soul points he saved now may not be able to be enhanced much, since by that time, he’ll be facing Third Tier Level Soul points requirements, which will definitely see a new surge compared to now.

"Forget it, let’s not think about these things for now, and quickly enhance the Skill Level. Choose! Skill Level Enhancement!"

After forsaking further thought, Zhang Yanhang immediately triggered the Skill Level Enhancement options, and Time Pause once again descended on Raccoon City after a short while, and a large array of text options related to skills appeared before him.

[Do you want to do a Skill Level Enhancement?]

[Option One: ’Gun Mastery LV.6’ enhanced to ’Gun Mastery LV.7’ (consumes 204800 Soul points.)]

[Option Two: ’Fighting Master LV.5’ enhanced to ’Fighting Master LV.6’ (consumes 102400 Soul points.)]

...

[Option Five: ’Limitless Universe Skill[Second Order]LV.MAX’ enhanced to ’???’ (Cannot be enhanced)]

...

[Option Seven: ’Death Wave LV.MAX’ enhanced to ’Death Wave·Original LV.5’ (consumes one Ash Source and 51200 Soul points.)]

...

[Option Nine: ’Indestructible Golden Body LV.MAX’ enhanced to ’Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.5’ (consumes one Ash Source and 51200 Soul points.)]

"To enhance Fighting Master LV.5 to Fighting Master LV.6 costs 102400 Soul points, and to promote Indestructible Golden Body LV.MAX to Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.5 requires 51200 Soul points, for a total cost of 153600 Soul points.

If I then want to enhance Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.5 to Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.6, that would need an additional 102400 Soul points, meaning I’d need a total of 256000 Soul points.

Ah, if only I could get another ten thousand Soul points, that would be great, it’s just 9974 Soul points away from being able to directly enhance the Indestructible Golden Body to Original LV.6."

However, although it would be possible to enhance Death Wave to Original LV.5 with the remaining Soul points because he couldn’t directly promote Indestructible Golden Body LV.MAX to Original LV.6, Zhang Yanhang chose to decline.

As for the reason? Naturally, it was still due to concerns about Physical Strength consumption. He was already implementing the Third Stage of the clearing plan and had reached a 55% progress in cleaning up the entire Demonized Swamp. It was better to be safe, and there would be no delay in enhancing the Death Wave Skill tomorrow.

If prematurely enhancing the Death Wave Skill caused a sudden reduction in endurance and consequently made it impossible for Zhang Yanhang to clear the entire Demonized Swamp within the stipulated time, that would be a great loss.

"So, the question comes, which Skill should I upgrade first?" Zhang Yanhang thought a bit and decided to first enhance the Indestructible Golden Body Skill. Although he could only promote it to Original LV.5, he was still curious about the Original Stage Indestructible Golden Body Skill.

"Therefore, I choose Option Nine, to enhance Indestructible Golden Body LV.MAX to Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.5." Although he had high expectations for the Original Stage Indestructible Golden Body Skill, given its past performance, he didn’t expect it to undergo any significant Transformation, at least not at Original LV.5.

Speaking of which, Zhang Yanhang suddenly remembered that the last time he had promoted the level of the Indestructible Golden Body Skill was before his advancement to Second Tier when he went to clear the Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dala Gu of the Crimson Iron Ants. Now, he was about to be promoted to Third Tier; it had indeed been a very long time, or rather, almost half a month.

But this was inevitable, as Zhang Yanhang had never managed to gather enough Soul points before. Even if he wanted to enhance, he was helpless until now, almost advancing to Third Tier, he finally managed to gather enough Soul points to be able to promote his Skill level.

Moreover, even though he had just managed to amass enough Soul points to upgrade the Indestructible Golden Body LV.MAX to Original LV.5, Zhang Yanhang could only say that the Soul points required for promotion to the Original stage were indeed too many. Just promoting it required fifty thousand Soul points which was twice the total amount needed to upgrade a Skill from LV.1 to LV.MAX, although the boost in effects after promoting the Skill to Original was admittedly significant.

After successfully promoting the Indestructible Golden Body LV.MAX to Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.5, Zhang Yanhang immediately opened the Skill effect window of Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.5 to start checking.

[Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.5 (Passive/Active)]

[Passive effect: Life Value +50%]

[Active Effect: After activating the Skill, defensive power of body parts covered by the Golden Body Effect +250%, Attack Power +50%, currently can cover: entire body. No cooldown, consumes a small amount of Physical Strength.]

[Additional Attributes: Skillful—You can now skillfully control the Indestructible Golden Body Skill, gaining the ability to freely transfer the Golden Body Effect to specific locations. When transferring to an external target, the rate of Physical Strength consumption will increase.]

[Additional Attributes: Mastery—Your control of the Indestructible Golden Body Skill has become more masterful. You gain the ability to concentrate the original full-body Golden Body Effect to a specific location, significantly enhancing the defensive bonus and Attack Power bonus of that location. The rate of Physical Strength consumption will increase with the degree of concentration when transferring the Golden Body Effect.]

"Although the Indestructible Golden Body has indeed been promoted from the original LV.MAX to Original LV.5, how should I put it? After the promotion, there doesn’t seem to be a significant change to the Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.5 compared to Indestructible Golden Body LV.MAX, aside from the name. There actually seems to be no change at all."

Although Zhang Yanhang had predicted this situation before upgrading, he really hadn’t anticipated there being no change whatsoever. He had thought that the Indestructible Golden Body would certainly undergo some changes, but it seems he might have overestimated it.

"In this way, even though there has been an upgrade, it hasn’t fully upgraded. Only after raising the Indestructible Golden Body to Original LV.6 will I truly witness the Indestructible Golden Body of the Original stage.

Sigh, even though it’s a normal Skill, it ended up having no change just like when Gun Mastery and Fighting Master were upgraded to LV.5. That’s really outrageous."

After checking the Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.5 Skill effects and finding no changes, Zhang Yanhang then prepared to upgrade another Skill which also had no changes at this stage, Fighting Master LV.5.

This time he would raise Fighting Master to LV.6. Presumably with the additional attributes, the performance of Fighting Master should certainly not be as lackluster as before.

"Choose!—Skill Level Enhancement." Zhang Yanhang, having checked the Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.5 effects, immediately resumed triggering related choices. The Time Pause returned to Raccoon City after a short while, and the familiar text option box also appeared again before him.

......

After expending 102,400 Soul points to promote Fighting Master LV.5 to Fighting Master LV.6, as expected, Zhang Yanhang quickly triggered a new round of Time Pause—relating to the additional attributes of Fighting Master LV.6.

[You have acquired the Skill ’Fighting Master LV.6’ and are currently drawing random additional attributes.]

[Do you want to choose the additional attribute for the Skill ’Fighting Master LV.6’?]

[Option One: Sumo Wrestler (By choosing Sumo Wrestler, ’Fighting Master LV.6’ will add a suffix term ’Sumo Wrestler’ and specialize the Skill’s original bonus effects to a certain extent.

Specific specializations include but are not limited to a slight reduction in the bonus effect on Melee Attack Power, a moderate increase in ’Body Suppression’, ’Power Crush’, and ’Defense counterattack’ judgement attributes, and an extra effect of ’Muscle Expansion’...）]

[Option Two: Heavy Weapon Master (By choosing Heavy Weapon Master, the ’Fighting Master LV.6’ Skill will completely transform into ’Heavy Weapon Master LV.7’.

Specific transformations include but are not limited to a moderate reduction in bonus effect on Melee Attack Power when unarmed or using light weapons, a significant increase in bonus effect on Melee Attack Power when attacking with heavy swords, greatswords, lances, hammers, Wolf Fang Clubs, two-handed axes... etc.

There will also be a moderate increase in judgement attributes such as ’Power Critical Strike,’ ’Splash Attack,’ ’Defense Penetration’...）]

[Option Three: Melee Attack Power +40%]

"These two options this time don’t seem to be very good, but even so, after all they are additional attributes of Fighting Master LV.6, and Grandmaster-level options are definitely much stronger than the Executioner and Hand-to-Hand Combat Master options triggered when upgrading Fighting Master LV.MAX.

As for this Option One, Sumo Wrestler, just hearing the name, it doesn’t quite fit with my combat style at all."

Zhang Yanhang’s only impression of sumo was of two fat men in loincloths rubbing against each other passionately.

Of course, that’s just a stereotype. Despite their seemingly bulky and cumbersome appearance, sumo wrestlers are actually full of muscles under their fat and are quite agile. They can easily do a 180-degree straight split—not as good as a dancer, but certainly beyond most ordinary people. Without training, a regular person trying to do a 180-degree split could at best get a cramp or at worst fracture a bone or tear a muscle. Naturally, children perform better and can easily pull off a 180-degree split while playing games without much thought.

One can only say that although adults’ bodies have indeed grown, they have also lost many innate abilities in the process. Another similar example is when as a child, one could easily jump off a two-meter high platform due to lighter weight, whereas a hefty adult would risk injuring their ankle or leg, with a poor landing possibly resulting in a sprain.

"Even if I don’t really want it, attributes like Body Suppression, Power Crush, and Defense counterattack are surprisingly useful to me. The first, Body Suppression, might not be used much, but Power Crush and Defense counterattack have always been part of my combat style."

Moreover, apart from these three attributes, Zhang Yanhang also looked at Muscle Expansion and found it quite useful too. Muscle Expansion could increase Strength and further enhance physical size—in simple terms "taller, bigger, stronger"—which he felt was quite compatible with his Giant Transformation and Frenzy Skill.