CHAPTER 628: CHAPTER 627: ATTACK SPEED INCREASE

"And if we include the 2.5% boost from the Gray Mane Armor +5 that I had before, my total increase in physical recovery speed bonus this time actually amounts to 9%."

Previously, Zhang Yanhang needed to rest for ten hours after working for twelve consecutive hours to recover his physical strength; now, with this additional 9% physical recovery speed bonus, he can work for twelve hours and fifty-four minutes before needing that ten-hour rest period.

Rounding up and ignoring the six-minute gap, Zhang Yanhang’s total working time has almost effectively increased by an hour, bringing him closer to a three-to-two work-to-rest ratio.

"If we take an example of three-to-two, it means working for fifteen hours and only needing to rest for ten hours. Now, I’ve almost caught up with three hours of progress, which is equivalent to achieving sixty percent of my minor goal. The remaining two hours are now in the sprint phase."

However, although Zhang Yanhang indeed wanted to quickly catch up on those remaining two hours, unfortunately, the Gray Mane Armor he used to provide the physical recovery speed bonus had already been upgraded to its true limit of dark purple quality +6 and could not be enhanced further.

Therefore, if Zhang Yanhang still wants to increase his physical recovery speed, he would have to look for new equipment related to physical recovery speed. He felt hopeful about acquiring such equipment again, especially since several monsters awaited him in the Demonized Swamp.

After checking the attribute list of Gray Mane Armor +6, Zhang Yanhang quickly replaced the Gray Mane Armor +4 that he was originally wearing on his arm.

Although the Gray Mane Armor +6 had finished fusing, there were still eighty-eight regular Gray Mane Armors left on Zhang Yanhang’s bed, and he also had three more in his waist bag, making a total of ninety-one regular Gray Mane Armors in his possession, along with the recently replaced Gray Mane Armor +4.

Calculating it, he effectively had a total of one hundred and seven Gray Mane Armors, enough to re-fuse three Gray Mane Armors +5 and still have eleven regular Gray Mane Armors left.

But since he had just spent an hour fusing the Gray Mane Armor +6, Zhang Yanhang felt a bit tired and was temporarily too lazy to fuse the remaining regular Gray Mane Armors, so he directly packed the replaced Gray Mane Armor +4 and those eighty-eight regular Gray Mane Armors into his waist bag.

"Now that the matter with the Gray Mane Armors has been dealt with, the last piece of equipment is next, the Emperor Crocodile Belt from the Demonized Emperor Crocodile. I never imagined that one day I’d use this type of crocodile skin belt that middle-aged men favor, especially since I’m only twenty this year. According to the laws of the Empire, I’m only just an adult and don’t even qualify to get married."

Zhang Yanhang picked up the Emperor Crocodile Belt he had just acquired and briefly examined it. Although it was purple quality equipment, its appearance was quite ordinary—the belt part was entirely black, and the buckle was golden. Except for the buckle, it looked no different from the belts middle-aged people wear with their suits.

As for the buckle, it had an embossed ring of crocodile reliefs, highlighting the back of the emperor crocodile. Although this pattern was fairly common, what truly differentiated it from ordinary belt buckles was the strange runes densely engraved beside the relief, which Zhang Yanhang couldn’t understand—presumably, they were specialized runes used by the High Elves.

The language of the High Elves was unreadable even for regular elves, forming a completely different system than the normal elf language and even harder to learn than Dragon Language, which made it naturally incomprehensible to ordinary humans like Zhang Yanhang.

Moreover, even using the Master Language spell was useless, for the reason that the High Elves of later generations had gone extinct. Entry-level spells like the First Tier All-night Language were unlikely to include languages from a bygone era—only higher-level linguistic spells might offer a possibility of comprehension.

Zhang Yanhang remembered there seemed to be a Fifth Tier Magic in the spell library that could serve a similar purpose; however, unfortunately, he had neither the leisure time to learn such a spell that was practically useless on a regular basis, just to decipher the runes on the belt buckle.

After all, there was a high probability that the decoded information might turn out to be meaningless gibberish, merely added for aesthetic reasons. Given the artistic pursuit inherent to the Elf Clan, which was inherited from the High Elves, they likely believed aesthetics could indeed enhance combat abilities.

However, the manufacturing philosophy of Elves greatly diverged from that of Zhang Yanhang’s. Although he did not dislike items with a cool appearance, the premise was that they also needed to be genuinely useful.

If they were not useful and merely cool, then he preferred something plain yet significantly useful—Zhang Yanhang was always a pragmatist from beginning to end.

After briefly examining the appearance of the Emperor Crocodile Belt, Zhang Yanhang immediately used it to replace his multi-functional belt from the Raccoon City Police Department.

However, by doing so, he also lost the Set Effect bonuses from the Green Ten-piece Set and even lost some bonuses from the White Ten-piece Set, as some parts of it were also attached to the multi-functional belt.

Although Zhang Yanhang had always valued the All Attributes +3 provided by both the Green and the White Ten-piece Sets, these sets had also provided him with a 6% bonus to his Attack Power, Defense, Movement Speed, Critical Strike Rate, and Critical Strike Damage.

Though he had plenty of Attack Power and Defense bonuses, the mere 6% bonus offered by the Green and White Sets was not very significant.

However, the 6% Movement Speed bonus was still very useful for Zhang Yanhang. Without this bonus, his Movement Speed would certainly reduce by several meters per second—from 160 meters per second to just over 150 meters per second, which was somewhat bothersome.

Besides the Movement Speed bonus, the Critical Strike Rate and Critical Strike Damage bonuses provided by the Green and White Ten-piece Sets were also very useful.

For instance, though the 6% Critical Strike Damage bonus provided by these outfits was small, it was the only Critical Strike Damage bonus Zhang Yanhang had on him. He had no other equipment aside from these two sets that offered a Critical Strike Damage bonus.

The situation was similar regarding the Critical Strike Rate bonus. Zhang Yanhang had only the White Ten-piece Set, the Green Ten-piece Set, and the All Four Elements are Void Pure World Fist offering him Critical Strike Rate bonuses, totaling 18% all together.

Of this 18% Critical Strike Rate bonus, the All Four Elements are Void Pure World Fist provided 12%, and the remaining 6% came solely from the White and Green Ten-piece Sets.

Thus, without the bonuses from the Green and White Ten-piece Sets, his Critical Strike Rate immediately dropped by a third, changing from nearly one critical hit in every five attacks to needing about nine attacks to achieve one critical hit, a significant weakening.

"But although it will lead to reduced Movement Speed and Critical Strike Rate, there’s no helping it. After all, even if I don’t replace the Equipment now, when I advance to Third Tier, I will still need to replace it. So, in the future, it seems I should try to find some Equipment that can increase my Critical Strike Rate."

Zhang Yanhang’s desire was very modest; he wasn’t pursuing a 100% critical hit rate—just to increase his Critical Strike Rate from triggering once every nine attacks back to once every five attacks would suffice, which is quite modest indeed.

But even though it’s such a modest wish, when exactly it will be fulfilled is unknown, since he can’t control the Equipment drop from monsters and can only rely on luck.

After losing the boosts from the Green Ten-piece Set and part of the White Ten-piece Set, Zhang Yanhang felt that the Green Ten-piece Set was beyond saving, but the White Ten-piece Set could still be salvaged.

After all, he only had two parts of the White Ten-piece Set on his waist bag. All he needed to do was equip two more White Ten-piece Set parts in other slots.

Thus, Zhang Yanhang picked two parts that wouldn’t affect the normal use of other Equipment from the inventory of standard Equipment of the Raccoon City Police Department stored in his Waist Bag and reequipped them, reactivating the Set Effect of the previously lost White Ten-piece Set.

After equipping these two parts, Zhang Yanhang would only lose the All Attributes +2 and 3.5% increase in Attack Power, Defense, Movement Speed, Critical Strike Rate, and Critical Strike Damage from the Green Ten-piece Set. He could temporarily retain the All Attributes +1 and 2.5% various bonuses provided by the White Ten-piece Set.

To confirm whether the Set parts had been successfully equipped, Zhang Yanhang opened his Attribute list and took a peek.

[Strength: 50 (+4[-5])]

[Agility: 50 (+4[-4])]

[Constitution: 50 (+4[-4])]

[Intelligence: 50 (+4[-9])]

[Charm: 48 (+17)]

"Just less than a day after raising my Charm attribute to the Second Tier Limit, it has quickly fallen back to forty-eight points again, causing my Death Wave Skill’s Fixed Damage Limit to drop back down from seven hundred fifty points to seven hundred forty points.

However, it might not wholly be a bad thing because, after the decrease in Charm attribute from the Equipment, my Charm attribute has become healthier again.

Originally, the Charm attribute contributed by the Equipment made up thirty-eight percent of the Charm value. Now, it has decreased by three percent, dropping to thirty-five percent.

I thought that the next decrease would only happen when reaching Third Tier, as the attribute had reached the Second Tier Limit. But fate plays its own games, who could have foreseen a new belt dropping from the Demonized Emperor Crocodile’s Drop Treasure box."

But although his Charm attribute has indeed fallen back to the previous forty-eight points, Zhang Yanhang will continue to enhance his Rhythm Talent’s Talent Level. Unless something unexpected happens, the SS-grade Rhythm Talent should definitely be able to raise his Charm attribute back up again.

And in this back and forth, he will reduce the proportion of Equipment even more, though Zhang Yanhang doesn’t want to reduce Equipment proportion by reducing Equipment bonuses, of course.

"Besides the Charm attribute, the other four main Attributes: Strength, Agility, Constitution, and Intelligence have all decreased by two points in Attribute bonuses due to the All Attributes -2.

Previously all four main Attributes could enjoy a six-point Equipment bonus, now it has shrunk to four points. Moreover, the previously overflowing Attributes also decreased by two points. Originally, the Intelligence attribute overflowed by double digits, a whopping eleven points, but now it has shrunk back to nine.

The Strength also decreased from an overflow of seven points to just overflowing by five points, and both Agility and Constitution decreased from overflowing six points back to four points; it’s somewhat uncomfortable."

Although Zhang Yanhang didn’t need those previously overflowing attributes or couldn’t even use them if he wanted, at least they were more pleasing to look at. Now, after a collective reduction of two points, they look less impressive visually.

Even though he knew that these two points of All Attributes would be forcibly decreased upon advancing to Third Tier, Zhang Yanhang still felt somewhat uneasy.

And, he had had the Green Ten-piece Set for a month and had grown somewhat sentimental toward it; admittedly, it was mainly the All Attributes bonuses and the 3.5% bonuses in Movement Speed and Critical Strike Rate which made him reluctant to part with it.

That 3.5% reduction in Movement Speed bonus would likely reduce Zhang Yanhang’s movement by two to three meters per second, and the decrease in the 3.5% Critical Strike Rate would lower his total Critical Strike Rate from the original 18% to 14.5%, changing from triggering a critical hit once every five attacks to once every seven attacks.

But as the saying goes, out with the old, in with the new; after reviewing the Attribute list, Zhang Yanhang quickly began to test the increased Attack Speed contributed by the Emperor Crocodile Belt.

With the additional 10% Attack Speed bonus from the Emperor Crocodile Belt, his Six Roots Pure Soul Spear’s Cannon bullet firing rate per second would once again increase by ten rounds, from shooting 159 Cannon bullets per second to 169 bullets per second.

"Also, with the increase in the firing rate of the Cannon bullets, the speed at which I clear the magazine has similarly decreased once more, from 3.1 seconds to 3 seconds, decreasing by another 0.1 second."

Now, this speed was only a final step away from the mini-goal Zhang Yanhang had previously set to compress it to within three seconds; any slight increase in Attack Speed should suffice to achieve it.