Some relatively unfamiliar monsters that don't have mutual hatred and hostility chains will wander in the same city ruins like this in Niger, but won't break into conflict.

This is the most probable situation; after all, the types of monsters in the Ashen World are as numerous as grains of sand in the Ganges, and encountering monsters with hatred chains is an extremely rare special case.

The situation where several eternal transmission channels overlap together is naturally very bad for ordinary people, or rather, for a country like Niger, it's completely adding insult to injury, with no ability to retaliate.

But for an Awakener like Zhang Yanhang, who comes to clean permanent transmission channels to grind soul points, it's a good thing. After all, the cost of a Death Wave is fixed. The higher the density of monsters within the coverage area, the happier he is because he can naturally obtain more soul points.

After obtaining the heavenly materials and earthly treasures marked in the options, Zhang Yanhang should have left directly, but he felt the environment in Niger was pretty good, so he wanted to farm more soul points here, gather the incomplete one billion soul points, upgrade Death Wave to LV.MAX, and then leave.

Moreover, besides soul points, Zhang Yanhang is also thinking of acquiring more monster corpses. After all, with his current energy value absorption efficiency once again improving, the reserve of Subordinate Sage Stone that he could only barely maintain for seven days has once again begun to shrink and now can only sustain for five days at most.

Considering the cooldown time of the transmission channel alone, which still has three or four days, the stock of Subordinate Sage Stone is already somewhat precarious. Zhang Yanhang feels he needs to restore it to at least over a month to feel a bit secure.

......

November 2nd, Monday, the first day after Halloween, and also the first day Zhang Yanhang left the Ashen World, 7:38 PM, Niger, Alan City Ruins, Third Tier Permanent Transmission Channel.

During his immersive soul point farming process, Zhang Yanhang unknowingly already finished farming the remaining 116 permanent transmission channels throughout Niger.

In total, Zhang Yanhang cleaned ten Third Tier Permanent Transmission Channels, thirty-five Second Tier Permanent Transmission Channels, and seventy-one First Tier Permanent Transmission Channels.

As for why it took him nearly five hours to complete, one can only say that the cleaning actually only took a bit over two hours, but the follow-up recovery of monster corpses took over two more hours, ultimately taking close to five hours to complete, starting from just before three in the afternoon to seven in the evening.

But fortunately, although a lot of time was spent, Zhang Yanhang feels his soul point yield should also be quite favorable.

Simultaneously, during the cleaning process, Zhang Yanhang confirmed one thing, that there really aren't many living people left in Niger. He cleared the entire country and only found some natives in some remote corners.

Of course, this doesn't matter to Zhang Yanhang. Although Niger indeed faced extinction, its extinction brought him a generous soul point yield, which is also considered a way to be used after its demise, illuminating others.

After cleaning those permanent transmission channels, Zhang Yanhang immediately started checking his soul point balance.

[Soul Points: 774151440（+457216320）]

"I initially only had 316.93 million soul points, but now they've increased to 774.15 million soul points, equivalent to a growth of 457.216 million soul points.

How do I put this—clearing the entire 116 permanent transmission channels took nearly five hours, yet the soul points yield isn't as good as the previous clearing of Fourth Tier Permanent Transmission Channels which only took forty-five minutes. Indeed, it's much better to focus on clearing high-tier transmission channels; there is at least a seven to eight times efficiency difference."

For this level of yield, if it were before clearing Fourth Tier Permanent Transmission Channels, he might feel it's alright. But now, he only feels somewhat lackluster.

"But anyhow, I've finally gathered the four hundred million soul points needed to upgrade Death Wave. Choose! Skill Level Up!"

After checking the soul point balance, Zhang Yanhang immediately began triggering related options.

[Do you want to enhance the skill level?]

[Option One: Upgrade 'Gun Master·Original LV.6' to 'Gun Master·Original LV.7' (Consumes 26,214,400 soul points.)]

...

[Option Five: Upgrade 'Limitless Universe Skill[5th Tier]LV.2' to 'Limitless Universe Skill[5th Tier]LV.3' (Consumes 21,700,000 soul points.)]

...

[Option Seven: Upgrade 'Death Wave·Origin LV.6' to 'Death Wave·Origin LV.7' (Consumes 26,214,400 soul points.)]

...

[Option Twelve: Upgrade 'Heaven and Earth Devourer·Original LV.MAX' to '???' (Cannot be enhanced)]

...

[Option Fifteen: Upgrade 'Eternal Demon Body LV.6' to 'Eternal Demon Body LV.7' (Consumes 26,214,400 soul points.)]

"Currently, the Swallowing Heaven and Earth skill, having been upgraded to Original LV.MAX, has again become unable to further advance."

Zhang Yanhang is familiar to death with this situation; only when advancing in tier, specifically upgrading to Sixth Tier, can he unlock subsequent upgrading options.

"Thinking about the fact that I have eleven skills to upgrade and yet have only just upgraded one skill with ten remaining, just the thought of it makes my head hurt."

But fortunately, this time Zhang Yanhang will upgrade Death Wave to LV.MAX, which leaves only nine skills needing upgrades, although still many. It's just a matter of changing from needing forty billion soul points to needing thirty-six billion soul points, there is a difference, but not a big one.

"Forget it, better hurry and upgrade the skill, I choose Option Seven, consuming 26,214,400 soul points to upgrade Death Wave from Origin LV.6 to Origin LV.7."

After briefly reviewing the upgrade list, Zhang Yanhang quickly made a decision.

......

November 2, Monday, the first day after Halloween, and also the first day Zhang Yanhang left the Ashen World, 7:39 PM, Niger, Alan City Ruins, Third Tier Permanent Teleportation Channel.

After upgrading the skill, Zhang Yanhang first checked his Soul Points balance as usual, wanting to know how many Soul Points he had left.

[Soul Points: 380,935,440 (-393,216,000)]

"Originally, I had 774,150,000 Soul Points, but just now upgrading Death Wave Origin LV.MAX consumed 393,216,000 Soul Points, causing my Soul Points balance to plummet to 380,935,000 Soul Points. Unfortunately, I am only 12 million Soul Points away from being able to upgrade another skill."

Of course, even if he could gather this 12 million Soul Points, Zhang Yanhang wouldn't upgrade a skill. After all, he still plans to first raise the Profession Level of the Heavenly Destiny Master and the Cultivation Method Level of the Limitless Universe Skill.

Since there are so many Soul Points left this time, he could conveniently upgrade both a bit more. However, it's definitely not realistic to fully upgrade them; perhaps only a portion can be upgraded.

Although only part can be upgraded, it's still not difficult to elevate his current Attribute value to 125 points.

As for the Tier limit in a bare state, that's temporarily beyond Zhang Yanhang's reach, and there's no need to rush it. He can improve it over time, and as long as he gets it sorted before promoting his Tier, that's what matters. According to his past experiences, achieving this should still be relatively simple.

After checking the Soul Points balance, Zhang Yanhang immediately continued to review the skill effect of Death Wave·Origin LV.MAX.

[Death Wave·Origin LV.MAX (Passive/Active)]

[Passive Effect: Weakens enemy Defense Power by 40% (+16%).]

[Active Effect: Upon skill activation, causes 1000 (+400) +20 (+8)×122[Intelligence]+20 (+8)×119[Charm]=5820 (+2328) fixed damage to everyone within the coverage area.

Coverage area is 2000 (+800)×240% (+80%)=4800 meters (+2880 meters), able to inflict damage to the same target only once within 6 hours. No cooldown time, consumes a lot of Physical Strength.]

......

[Additional Attribute: Master—After a long time of effort, you have now mastered the Death Wave skill to the level of a master. The long-term study has given you a deeper understanding of the Death Wave skill, increasing the forced kill Life Value Limit by 10% and coverage area by 40%.

Additionally, the long-term usage of the Death Wave skill also allows you to learn part of the principle of 'Life Drain' through cross-reference. When you use the Death Wave skill to attack an enemy, you can draw a part of 'Life Energy' from the enemy to recover a small amount of your own Physical Strength.]

[Additional Attribute: Grandmaster—After a long time of effort, you have now mastered the Death Wave skill to the level of a grandmaster. The long-term study deepened your understanding of the Death Wave skill again, increasing the forced kill Life Value Limit by 10% and the coverage area by 80%.

Additionally, the long-term process of using the Death Wave skill has also allowed you to become much more skillful in 'Life Drain', which you were initially unfamiliar with. When you use the Death Wave skill to attack the enemy, you can draw more 'Life Energy' from the opponent to restore your own Physical Strength.]

"Originally, my Death Wave could only weaken enemy Defense Power by 24%, but now after upgrading to LV.MAX, it can weaken enemy Defense Power by 40%, which is equivalent to increasing the Defense Reduction by another 16%."

Zhang Yanhang recalled that originally he had a total of 42.6% Armor Penetration Attack, and he gained another 28% Armor Penetration Attack when he promoted his Tier, accumulating to a total of 70.6% Armor Penetration Attack. This means that each attack can ignore 70.6% of the enemy's Defensive Power.

"I wonder if this 40% Defense Reduction can be stacked with Armor Penetration Attack? If it can, wouldn't it be possible to weaken it to only 60% of the Defensive Power, and my Armor Penetration Attack already has 70% penetration? Is it possible to completely ignore the enemy's Physical Defense then?"

Due to a lack of understanding about how Armor Penetration Attack functions, Zhang Yanhang plans to test it in practice, as practical experimentation is always the best way to verify.

Once he succeeds, Zhang Yanhang could ignore all Physical Defense of any enemy he attacks in the future, even possibly reducing the enemy's Physical Defense to a negative, delivering even higher damage than the original Attack Power.

"Aside from the passive effect, the most significant upgrade of the fixed damage limit of Death Wave, as expected, received another tremendous boost after leveling up.

Firstly, the base fixed damage limit increased by 400 points, rising directly from the initial 600 points to 1000 points, and both the Intelligence Attribute and Charm Attribute conversion ratios each increased by eight points, from the original twelve points to twenty points."

These eight points of conversion ratio, combined with Zhang Yanhang's 122 points of Intelligence Attribute, helped him increase the fixed damage limit by 976 points, while paired with 119 points of Charm Attribute, it further added 952 points of fixed damage.

Adding these three together raised Zhang Yanhang's Death Wave skill's fixed damage limit by 2328 points in one go, enhancing it from the original 3492 points to 5820 points, undoubtedly a substantial boost, nearly increasing it by over two-thirds.

Although this 5820-point fixed damage limit is still insufficient to instantly kill a Fifth Tier Monster, it at most can only take down a Fifth Tier Monster with 90 points in the Constitution Attribute, but fortunately, he still has not yet combined the Slash Kill effect.

Zhang Yanhang noticed this time his additional attribute once again increased the Slash Kill limit by 10%. With this, his Slash Kill limit increased from 30% to 40%.

Consequently, realistically speaking, any monster with a Life Value below 9700 points could now be instantly killed by Death Wave.

"Even a Fifth Tier Monster with 125 points in Constitution would only have a Life Value Limit of 8125 points. Therefore, with the Slash Kill combo, theoretically, I can now instantly kill all Fifth Tier Monsters, even exceeding the Slash Kill limit by 1575 points."

Zhang Yanhang previously mentioned that any issue about insufficient damage could easily be solved with skill level enhancements. Now, after gathering four hundred million Soul Points and upgrading the Death Wave to its limit, it's indeed not necessary to worry about the fixed damage limit being insufficient anymore.

Moreover, since his Intelligence Attribute and Charm Attribute currently haven't reached the Tier limit of 125 points, the fixed damage limit can still receive some increase in the future.

"Additionally, as the fixed damage limit increases, the coverage area of the Death Wave skill has also seen tremendous enhancement. Initially, the base coverage area was only 1200 meters, but now it has directly increased to 2000 meters, effectively increasing the base coverage by 800 meters."

Most importantly, Zhang Yanhang noticed the additional attributes provided yet another range bonus this time, and it's an astounding 80%, which is quite impressive.