CHAPTER 609: CHAPTER 608 [FIGHTING MASTER LEVEL 5]

"It’s already been twenty-five days; surely we don’t have to wait a full four weeks or even a month before the first and second prizes refresh."

Since Zhang Yanhang was leaving Ashen World on the last day of the fourth week after he cleared the Raccoon City Lucky Slot Machine jackpot, he felt there was still a little hope to cling on to.

Of course, apart from the day he left Ashen World, Zhang Yanhang also looked forward to another day with great anticipation, and with no backup options if he failed—that would be in a month, which would likely be his next entry into Ashen World.

For this ultimate goal, if the first and second prizes really don’t refresh for a whole month, then Zhang Yanhang felt, there might be no need to wait. He might as well treat them as one-off rewards.

That said, although this date seemed hopeful, by the time the first and second prizes would be refreshed, he definitely wouldn’t need them himself. Actually, he couldn’t use them now either.

But one mustn’t only view a problem from one angle. Although the prize content of the Raccoon City Lucky Slot Machine might be useless to him, there are other areas with Lucky Slot Machines. His speed of hierarchical promotion certainly wouldn’t always be once every half a month.

So, if his promotion speed slowed down later on, a monthly refresh of first and second prizes would be very useful to him. Besides, if they weren’t needed, he could sell them. The value of these prizes was fixed and wouldn’t depreciate.

Take Zhang Yanhang’s exchange with the group owner for instance; the group owner traded the medicinal potions she didn’t need for some items that were useful either for her or her cousin.

"Speaking of which, I think I still have several yellow medicine herbs stored in my waist bag that I haven’t used, but there’s no rush for that. I’ll just wait to fuse them all together at the end."

Zhang Yanhang would carry out a concentrated cleanup of the monsters in Raccoon City at the end. He planned to wait until then to fuse the yellow medicine herbs he’d obtained. Although he only had a single-digit number of them now, he estimated that after clearing the entire Raccoon City in a few days, he would have at least more than twenty.

"So, I choose Option Forty-Two, the first-tier zero-star common monster, worker zombie."

After checking Raccoon City’s prize pool list as usual, Zhang Yanhang immediately made his final decision. Due to the pit next to the prize pool that hadn’t been filled up, it was no surprise that the worker zombie popped out of the transparent egg and fell right into the hole, breaking its leg due to the fall and unable to climb out.

Zhang Yanhang indifferently ignored the worker zombie that had fallen into the pit and continued to pull the metal lever on the side of the slot machine, as one zombie after another tumbled into the hole, immobilized.

...

[Successfully killed a first tier three-star monster, ’Beta Type Hunter (ordinary)’ ×1, soul points +10.]

[Successfully killed a first tier three-star monster, ’Beta Type Hunter (ordinary)’ ×1, soul points +10.]

[Successfully killed a first tier three-star monster, ’Beta Type Hunter (ordinary)’ ×1, soul points +10.]

...

After spending five minutes pulling the metal lever, Zhang Yanhang once again ended this third-place prize pool with a single Death Wave.

Zhang Yanhang brushed off the corpse of the Prototype Tyrant T-001 that had leapt out of the pit, apparently intending to give him a long-absent Death Claw attack to the head, and threw it back into the pit, then quietly squatted on the ground to wait for the Drop treasure boxes to refresh.

Seconds later, Zhang Yanhang found that his luck with this prize pool seemed not too bad, as he actually got six Drop treasure boxes. Not only did the Police Zombie drop a treasure box again, but, after a long absence, the Beta Type Hunter also dropped a Green quality treasure box. However, the Gamma Type Hunter and the Prototype Tyrant, as usual, did not drop any treasure boxes.

Zhang Yanhang quickly jumped into the corpse pit to pick up the six Drop treasure boxes and stuff them into his Waist Bag, then leaped up with a bound, landing right beside the window of Dulda Apartment unit 301.

Since he had climbed out from there last time, he had not closed the window. To maintain consistency, he grabbed the window frame with both hands, flipped back into unit 301, and because the window was just over the worn wooden bed, he landed directly on the bed.

Although the worn wooden bed in unit 301 was not very comfortable to sleep on, it inexplicably gave Zhang Yanhang a sense of peace. After lying down for a while, he sat up, poured a big pile of treasure boxes out of his Waist Bag, and because he had cleared the entire Southern Forest at once, he now had about two or three hundred Drop treasure boxes in his hands.

But before counting his Drop treasure boxes, Zhang Yanhang first opened his Soul points balance and took a look. He felt that with his current balance of Soul points, it should still be quite easy to upgrade his Heavenly Destiny Master Profession Level from LV.19 to LV.20.

[Soul points: 60379 (+54802)]

"It only increased by 54802 Soul points, which is a bit less. Even if you add the 5577 Soul points I had left over, I currently have only 60379 Soul points in total. I had thought I might gather enough to raise Fighting Master to Grandmaster LV.6, but now it looks unlikely."

However, while it might not be possible to promote Fighting Master to Grandmaster LV.6, it was certainly simple to raise the level of Heavenly Destiny Master, as it only required 18000 Soul points to go from LV.19 to LV.20. Even with his current balance, he could do it three times over.

"The Soul points are so few, it’s really due to the small number of monsters hunted."

In this cleanup of the remaining eighty square kilometers of the Southern Forest, Zhang Yanhang had killed a total of just over five thousand monsters, which, even adding the three hundred monsters from the Lucky Slot machine, still fell several hundred short of six thousand, so it was indeed normal for the Soul points to be on the lower side.

The majority of the five thousand plus monsters he had killed this time were naturally the Demonized Dogtooth Giant Apes. He had killed over five thousand of just this type of monster. The second highest were the one hundred Demonized Maned Tooth Beasts from the slot machine in the Demonized Swamp.

Next were the various Zombies, Zombie Dogs, and Lickers from the slot machine in Raccoon City. Since the Southern Forest only contained Demonized Dogtooth Giant Apes, all his other scattered monster kills were from the prize pool. Thus, it was normal to have fewer Soul points under such circumstances.

Of course, this was just Zhang Yanhang’s subjective feeling that it was slightly less. In fact, had he been back in Goblin Plain, it would have taken him nearly nine thousand kills of the Big Saber Goblin to earn this much Soul points, when there were only twenty thousand Big Saber Goblins in the entire Goblin Plain.

Moreover, in reality, this level of Soul points gain was already about the same as the gains he had from annihilating the Dragon Vein Goblins in the middle layer of Goblin Plain with a Thermo-baric Bomb in one go. It was probably because it took more time than usual that Zhang Yanhang subconsciously felt that the balance of Soul points was a bit low.

"But having fewer Soul points also has its advantages. This way, I shouldn’t have to worry about whether to upgrade my Profession Level or promote Fighting Master to Grandmaster LV.6 first."

However, Zhang Yanhang still very much hoped to gather the 150,000 Soul points needed to upgrade to Grandmaster LV.6.

After checking his soul point balance, Zhang Yanhang immediately began to tally the number of treasure boxes he had collected this time.

Upon completing the count, Zhang Yanhang found that he had obtained a total of two hundred and eighty-four drop treasure boxes, including six blue treasure boxes, two hundred and seventy-four green treasure boxes, and only four white treasure boxes.

The six blue treasure boxes were all obtained by Zhang Yanhang through the third-prize pool of the Lucky Slot Machine during the clearance of Goblin Plain, namely three drop treasure boxes from Big Goblins and three from Goblin Shamans.

Next were the most numerous green treasure boxes. Of the two hundred and seventy-four green treasure boxes, the largest proportion naturally came from the drop treasure boxes of the Demonized Canine Giant Apes, which together had contributed two hundred and sixty-four drop treasure boxes to Zhang Yanhang.

That’s right, excluding the drop treasure boxes from the Demonized Canine Giant Apes, the other monsters had contributed only ten drop treasure boxes. Moreover, of these ten, five came from the prize pool of the Demonized Swamp slot machine and the one hundred Demonized Maned Beasts.

The remaining five green quality drop treasure boxes were one each contributed by the Big Saber Goblin, Goblin Spear Thrower, Goblin Wolf Cavalry, Licker, and Beta Type Hunter.

Finally, there were those white treasure boxes. All four white quality drop treasure boxes were obtained by Zhang Yanhang while clearing the third-prize pool of the Raccoon City slot machine just now, with the most common zombies contributing two treasure boxes, and the remaining two coming from one each contributed by the Police Zombie and the Zombie Dog.

After counting the treasure boxes, Zhang Yanhang immediately picked a random drop treasure box and chose to open it, as there were no new treasure boxes this time, Zhang Yanhang didn’t have much expectation for these treasure boxes.

"Would you like to open the ’Drop Treasure Box (Demonized Canine Giant Ape)’?"

"Yes, open it."

Zhang Yanhang wasn’t at all surprised that he had randomly picked a drop treasure box for the Demonized Canine Giant Ape. After all, there were only two hundred and eighty-four drop treasure boxes in total, with only twenty being other drop treasure boxes, and the remaining two hundred and sixty-four all being from the Demonized Canine Giant Apes. The chance of getting another type of drop treasure box was indeed a small probability event, only about 7%.

According to Zhang Yanhang’s estimate, after opening this treasure box, he should definitely be able to collect enough Demon Ape Leg Armor to break through the limit. After all, most of the Demonized Canine Giant Apes in the Demonized Swamp had already been wiped out by him. If he couldn’t gather enough this time, he would only have to pin his hopes on the Lucky Slot Machine.

"Please select the specific contents of ’Drop Treasure Box (Demonized Canine Giant Ape)’"

"Item One: ?"

"Item Two: ?"

"Item Three: ?"

"Item Four: ?"

"Item Five: ?"

...

On October 26, Monday, the first day after Double Ninth Festival, and also Zhang Yanhang’s second day in Ashen World, at 12:30 midnight, in Raccoon City, at Dulda Apartment, unit 301.

After spending about fifteen minutes opening the two hundred and eighty-four drop treasure boxes, Zhang Yanhang did not rush to tally his earnings but instead opened his soul point balance to check it, mainly because he was very eager to know how many soul points he had just uncovered, and whether it was enough for the one hundred and fifty thousand soul points.

"Soul points: 149109 (+88730)"

"It really isn’t enough for one hundred and fifty thousand soul points, those 284 drop treasure boxes only yielded a total of 88730 soul points, and even after adding them to my original 60379 soul points, it only totals 149109 soul points."

"If only I had a few thousand more soul points, then I could consider whether to first upgrade my profession level or my skill level, but now, I can only upgrade my profession level. The Fighting Master skill can only be slightly promoted, to become a Grandmaster LV.5."

However, despite that, the upgrade was definitely still to be pursued, as the promotion could actually result in enhancement, although the likelihood of the Fighting Master skill being enhanced during promotion wasn’t great, just as it was with the previous Gun Master, which, despite being promoted to Master Level 5, was completely indistinguishable from before.

"Forget it, I’d better hurry up and promote the Fighting Master skill. After promoting the Fighting Master, then I’ll upgrade the profession level. Choose! Skill Level Enhancement!"

Speaking of skill level, Zhang Yanhang suddenly remembered that it had been a long time since he had last upgraded a skill level. The last time he upgraded, it was right after he had cleared the Goblin Plain, when he had spent tens of thousands of soul points to upgrade the Limitless Universe Skill to LV.MAX.

After he actively triggered the selection, the familiar Time Pause descended upon Raccoon City once again, and a large array of text options related to skill level enhancement immediately appeared in front of Zhang Yanhang.

"Would you like to undergo skill level enhancement?"

"Option One: ’Gun Mastery LV.6’ upgrade to ’Gun Mastery LV.7’ (Consumes 204800 soul points.)"

"Option Two: ’Fighting Master LV.MAX’ upgrade to ’Grandmaster LV.5’ (Consumes 1 Ash Source 51200 soul points.)"

...

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

...

"Option Seven: ’Death Wave LV.MAX’ upgrade to ’Death Wave·Original LV.5’ (Consumes 1 Ash Source 51200 soul points.)"

...

"Option Nine: ’Indestructible Golden Body LV.MAX’ upgrade to ’Indestructible Golden Body·Original LV.5’ (Consumes 1 Ash Source 51200 soul points.)"