CHAPTER 617: CHAPTER 616: UNDERLYING LOGIC

"Thinking about the permanent teleportation channel, Zhang Yanhang didn’t stop moving forward. He had now once again arrived at the Goblin Plain’s lucky slot machine. Although it was just eleven o’clock, the third-prize pool that he cleared at dawn today had already refreshed.

"It seems, the Goblin Plain’s lucky slot machine probably refreshes between six in the morning and eleven in the morning. Now I’ve narrowed down the time range to within five hours. If I can get up earlier tomorrow morning, maybe I’ll be able to pinpoint the exact refresh time.

Since I’m here, should I clear out the prize pool?" Zhang Yanhang thought about it and decided that since he was already there, he might as well clear it out to save himself another trip later.

"Suddenly I remembered, I seem to have forgotten to clear the slot machine prize pools in Raccoon City, but it’s not a big problem. I can take care of it after clearing the Southern Forest. After all, those refresh at six in the morning."

While speaking, Zhang Yanhang skillfully pulled the metal lever on the side of the slot machine. With the pull of the lever, Time Pause descended on Goblin Plain once again after eleven hours, and a vast array of text options materialized before Zhang Yanhang.

"Please select the specific content for this lucky slot machine draw."

"Option One: ❂❂❂ (Third Prize, Big Saber Goblin, First Tier One-star, Elite Monster.)"

"Option Two: ❂❂❂ (Third Prize, Goblin Spear Thrower, First Tier Two Stars, Elite Monster.)"

...

"Option Thirty-nine: ❂❂❂ (Third Prize, Chief Shaman Goblin Maka Bagga, Second Tier Two Star, Elite Monster.)"

...

"Option Eighty-nine: ❂❂❂ (Third Prize, Goblin Wolf Cavalry, First Tier Three Stars, Ordinary Monster.)"

...

"Option One Hundred Thirty-two: ✫☆✫ (Fourth Prize, Thank You for Your Patronage, No Physical Prize.)"

...

After carefully examining the text options, Zhang Yanhang found that, as before, there were twenty monsters of each type, except for the Goblin Shamans, who were one short to make room for the Chief Shaman Goblin Maka Bagga.

In a sense, since Maka Bagga is the Chief Shaman Goblin, he should also be classified under Goblin Shamans, so it’s totally fair to say that all five types of Dragon Vein Goblins are twenty in number.

Zhang Yanhang still needed five Barbaric Stone Bandages and two Lightning Totem Poles, and barring any surprises, he should be able to complete the Lightning Totem Poles after clearing the pool, but the Barbaric Stone Bandages would likely have to wait until tomorrow, because even with his luck it’s improbable to kill twenty Big Goblins and get five treasure boxes.

The beautiful drop rate of one treasure box per four kills was something Zhang Yanhang only encountered in dreams. Whether he would encounter it in the real world depended on whether the Ashen World was merciful enough.

Or perhaps, if he worked hard to increase his Luck Value, raising it by another twenty or thirty points, then he might get one treasure box for every four kills. But currently, he can’t even raise his Luck attribute by one point, let alone a significant amount.

When it came to increasing his Luck attribute, Zhang Yanhang wasn’t too confident he could elevate it even if he could advance to Third Tier because, compared to other five normal attributes, Luck as a hidden attribute is indeed harder to enhance.

Fortunately, while he definitely can’t complete the collection today, he only needs to wait one more day, and one day is not too long. After all, today is only the 26th, and he can still stay in the Ashen World for nearly three days. So he wasn’t in much of a hurry.

"So, I choose Option Thirty-two, a First Tier One-star Elite Big Saber Goblin."

After quickly reviewing the options, Zhang Yanhang swiftly made his choice. Time Pause vanished in an instant, and the images on the lucky slot machine screen began spinning rapidly, aligning soon after with three symbols depicting monsters.

...

"Successfully killed Second-tier One-star Monster ’Goblin Shaman (Elite)’ ×1, Soul points +60."

"Successfully killed Second-tier One-star Monster ’Goblin Shaman (Elite)’ ×1, Soul points +60."

"Successfully killed Second-tier One-star Monster ’Goblin Shaman (Elite)’ ×1, Soul points +60."

...

After pulling out the last Dragon Vein Goblin Maka Bagga from the slot machine prize pool, Zhang Yanhang immediately launched his Death Wave Skill before Maka Bagga even had time to hit the ground. A transparent wave spread around him, and the pleasant sound of a kill notification echoed in his ears.

It’s worth mentioning that this time, Zhang Yanhang didn’t play the part of a mechanical arm anymore but kept himself moving occasionally, so as not to let any foolhardy Big Saber Goblins take liberties by stepping over his head (figuratively speaking)."

And why Zhang Yanhang suddenly dared to make a move this time? Well, he noticed that the monsters from the Lucky Slot Machine reward pool seemed a bit different from ordinary monsters.

Of course, their strength, drops, and soul points’ value were definitely all the same, but what was different about them was their brains.

Despite the attribute list blatantly displaying the word "Escape," these creatures showed no intent of fleeing. Instead, as soon as they popped out of the egg, they relentlessly and persistently launched attacks on him, much more persistent than the normal Dragon Vein Goblins.

Of course, Zhang Yanhang hadn’t just noticed this recently, but had realized it quite some time ago, probably during the clearing of the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dala Gu. After all, the zombies in Raccoon City truly had no brains, so even if they behaved strangely, it would seem normal to Zhang Yanhang.

Crimson Iron Ants, though, were different; even though they also lacked brains, at least they had something akin to a brain in the form of nerve clusters, so they sometimes did flee.

Well, they would flee if there were no orders from the Crimson Iron Ant Queen; if the Crimson Iron Queen issued commands, then they would definitely fight to the death, as the queen’s commands to them were like core logic within an AI chip’s programming, absolutely indisputable.

But at the prize pool of the slot machine, it was a different case. The Crimson Iron Ant Queen was long dead, and no monsters should have been issuing orders, yet these creatures still didn’t flee and continued to attack him with great determination.

At that time, he thought it might have been because they were attacking based on pheromones released by the Crimson Iron Ant Queen before she died, but that possibility was certainly not reliable. Therefore, it was more likely that the monsters refreshed by the Lucky Slot Machine prize pool were inherently abnormal.

The zombies in Raccoon City attacked him tirelessly even when they weren’t abnormal, so Zhang Yanhang couldn’t spot anything unusual. While the odd behavior of the ants from the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dala Gu didn’t register as significant to him, since their escape was rare.

However, these Dragon Vein Goblins from the Goblin Plain were indeed behaving abnormally. As a race that included escape in their attribute list and turned it into a skill, they showed no signs of fleeing.

So now, it could only be said that perhaps the monsters refreshed by the slot machine were inherently abnormal, or maybe they were brainwashed by the machine to be more aggressive.

And as to why this would happen, Zhang Yanhang thought it might be because the monsters were placed in the slot machine reward pool by the Ashen World as a sort of punishment, which would explain why these monsters would immediately attack the person drawing from the Lucky Slot Machine reward pool.

However, this punishment was taken by Zhang Yanhang as a regular reward from the pool; after all, with the first and second prizes not refreshing and only the third prize pool refreshing daily, it indeed seemed difficult to consider it anything other than a normal reward.

But, other Awakeners likely couldn’t draw the first and second prizes as easily as Zhang Yanhang and had to rely on making a large number of draws to try their luck.

As a result, if they couldn’t clear the entire prize pool in one day, then the hundred monsters refreshed in the next day’s third-prize pool would truly be a legitimate punishment for them.

Regarding this anomaly in the slot machine reward pool, Zhang Yanhang was planning to test the Lucky Slot Machine in the Demonized Swamp area to see if the monsters refreshed there are also abnormal.

Of course, that’s assuming the slot machine prizes in the Demonized Swamp have been refreshed. If not, then he would have to wait a little longer. When he had cleared out the entire Eastern Forest of the Demonized Swamp, he would set aside time to clear out the Lucky Slot Machines there.

He guessed that this time the Third Prize pool of the Lucky Slot Machine in the Demonized Swamp would certainly have more than just the Demonized Maned Tooth Beasts. Based on his current progress, there would likely be a fair number of Demonized Dogtooth Giant Apes as well. Although Zhang Yanhang’s Demon Ape Leg Armor was already upgraded to the max, earning more Soul points was definitely still a good thing.

If possible, he actually hoped that the Lucky Slot Machine in the Demonized Swamp could take a page from the one in Goblin Plain, refreshing a balanced variety of Second-tier Monsters after a while, aside from boss monsters like Maka Bagga, instead of the more traditional method with a diminishing refresh rate based on strength, as seen in Raccoon City and small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dala Gu. That way, the profits he could amass would be much greater, and he would also acquire more equipment suitable for fusion upgrades that hadn’t yet reached their limits.

After standing in place and waiting for a few seconds, treasure boxes began to sporadically appear from the corpses of the hundred Dragon Vein Goblins he had just eliminated with his Death Wave Skill.

Perhaps due to his recently good luck, he actually received nine Drop treasure boxes this time, including a Green Drop treasure box from a Big Saber Goblin, Goblin Spear Thrower, and Goblin Wolf Cavalry, along with three Blue quality Drop treasure boxes from Big Goblins and Goblin Shamans.

"Even though there were only nineteen, I didn’t expect the Goblin Shaman to drop three treasure boxes this time. Could it be because there was a substantial number of leftovers from hunting monsters in Goblin Plain where boxes didn’t drop? It’s quite possible."

Zhang Yanhang remembered that under normal conditions, Big Goblins and Goblin Shamans would drop a treasure box every seven kills, so normally, dropping three boxes would require the slaying of twenty-one monsters. Having two less could indeed mean that previously there were many leftover monsters.

That’s a much more plausible explanation than simply good luck, after all, no matter how good your luck is, it can’t be good three days in a row, that wouldn’t be called good luck anymore, but rather a normalization.

After swiftly picking up those nine Drop treasure boxes, Zhang Yanhang immediately put them into his Waist Bag. Although opening them now could directly yield three Lightning Totem Poles, which could be used to fuse with a Light Golden Quality Lightning Totem Pole +4, he had just finished opening a batch of treasure boxes before bed, so he planned to wait until after clearing out the Demonized Maned Tooth Beasts in the Eastern Forest of the Demonized Swamp before dealing with these newly acquired ones.

After all, the Additional Attributes of Lightning Totem Poles were nothing that could directly increase his hunting efficiency, like Movement Speed or Physical Strength recovery rate, but merely increased Energy Value recovery efficiency, which wouldn’t really hold him back if he were to fuse them a bit later.

Especially since he hadn’t expended much Energy during this hunting process. In the past, when hunting in Goblin Plain, Zhang Yanhang had spent several thousand Energy points just buying cannon bullets, not to mention using Energy for Spiritual Qi Blessing and casting Spells; he indeed used up a significant amount of Energy during the clearing.

But this time was different; he didn’t even need to buy additional cannon bullets as the automatic refresh was sufficient. The magazine he equipped on the machine gun doesn’t count towards the storage limit, so in normal circumstances, he could have eleven magazines at once, adding up to five thousand five hundred bullets.

Moreover, every hour, the Pure Soul Gun automatically refreshes a magazine. After ten hours of monster hunting, that meant he had refreshed ten magazines, totaling twenty-one magazines—amounting to ten thousand and five hundred bullets.

In the Southern Forest, there were only a total of six thousand monsters, some of which Zhang Yanhang would take down using the Death Wave Skill, so even if it took him two bullets to kill a monster, the abundance of ammunition would be surely sufficient.