CHAPTER 631: CHAPTER 630: BREAKING THE SOUND BARRIER WITH THE FLESH

"My Charm attribute has now grown back to fifty points from the original forty-eight, and there has been no further increase in the Attribute bonus provided by Equipment, so, correspondingly, my Charm attribute has become a bit healthier."

Zhang Yanhang did a quick calculation, the proportion of Charm attribute provided by Equipment bonuses in his overall Charm attribute value had once again decreased by 1%, from the original 35% to 34%. There was still a considerable distance to reducing it to below 30%.

"Last time I reduced two points of Equipment bonus, the proportion plummeted by three percent, this time, the same two points, but because it was an increase, and also an increase of my own Attribute, it only reduced by one percent. It seems the best way to decrease the proportion is indeed to reduce it.

Unfortunately, reducing the Attribute bonus is definitely not feasible, I can only reduce the Equipment bonus proportion indirectly by increasing the total amount of Attribute values."

Zhang Yanhang remembered that a previous minor goal of his seemed to be to reduce the proportion to below thirty percent, which was definitely impossible within the Second Tier, unless he tossed a few rings. So, indeed, he could only wait until reaching the Third Tier to accomplish this. After the promotion to the Third Tier, it wouldn’t be impossible to reduce it to twenty percent, let alone thirty.

After checking the Attribute list, Zhang Yanhang didn’t rush out but instead went to the bathroom on the left side of the room, which had a bathtub. He wanted to test something related to Ocean Rhythm there.

He was initially surprised that such a small house would have a bathtub, but then again, the sparrow may be small, but it has all its vital organs, and the existence of a bathtub was quite necessary, at least for an environment like Raccoon City.

After all, many horror movies and horror games always have significant scenes involving bathtubs, like a bathtub suddenly starting to spew blood, or a hand reaching out from the tub leaving a bloody handprint on the curtain outside, but when the curtain is pulled back, the bathtub appears empty, or a rotting corpse is hidden within it.

Overall, the confined and gloomy environment of a bathroom is indeed suitable for creating a horror atmosphere. Moreover, during the cleanup of Raccoon City, Zhang Yanhang did indeed often find Zombies pretending to be corpses in bathtubs. It could be said that the horror atmosphere of Raccoon City really complements bathtubs.

Although Zhang Yanhang would just emotionlessly kill the Zombie each time he encountered one, after all, most of the Zombies in the bathtubs tended to be particularly hideous due to having been soaked in water.

Now, the bathtub in front of Zhang Yanhang was not much different from those in other rooms. Although old and dusty, it should at least not be leaky. So, Zhang Yanhang took out a large bucket of an unknown mixture of liquids from his Waist Bag, maybe from a swimming pool in a sports hall in Raccoon City, and poured some into the bathtub.

Because it was just a simple experiment, Zhang Yanhang didn’t pour too much, he stopped once it had barely covered the bottom of the tub.

The unclear, even somewhat dirty, yellowish liquid mixed with dead yellow leaves and rotting corpse pus and Zombie filth turned even murkier upon contact with the dusty bottom of the tub – it nearly could be called mud.

Zhang Yanhang’s good eyesight allowed him to clearly see a thin film on the liquid’s surface made up of impurities like little snowflakes, which was exceedingly dirty.

Zhang Yanhang reckoned that if a normal person drank even a mouthful, they’d likely have diarrhea for three days and nights, and with bad luck, they might even die from it and turn into a Zombie. In front of this, even the clean and sanitary waters of the Ganges River would probably have to admit defeat.

After all, although the waters of the Ganges also contained corpses and ashes and various industrial wastewater, it was still flowing water, unlike this stagnant water that had been sitting for who knew how many years.

At the First Tier, even if Zhang Yanhang wanted to drink it, he had to transform it into pure water using Alchemy first, otherwise, if he guzzled it down, he was scared he would lose Health points.

So, he actually hadn’t truly drunk it. Most of the time, he would only drink bottled mineral water and pure water produced through Alchemy.

Later on, he could go check out the lakes in the Demonized Swamp. The water there is quite clean and flowing, and he could drink some from there. Hmm, provided Zhang Yanhang has the spare time, otherwise directly creating pure water through Alchemy would be simpler.

After pouring the water, Zhang Yanhang tentatively dipped one foot in and discovered that the thin layer of unknown liquid unexpectedly had some sort of resilience, firmly supporting his foot.

And, the shape of the unknown liquid itself had not changed at all, not even the filmy layer of impurities on the surface, which according to relevant physical effects, should have dispersed around or gathered around the edges of his combat boots.

After the success of the ’first step’ experiment, Zhang Yanhang moved on to the ’second step’, placing his other foot onto the liquid as well. As expected, he was eventually able to stand firmly on top of the unnamed liquid in the bathtub.

Then, he took a few steps in the bathtub, and it was still a success; not even a ripple appeared on the unknown liquid, which was completely calm, it seemed to have indeed formed some unique rhythm relationship with Zhang Yanhang.

"With this, the application range of my ’As Flat As A Pancake’ has extended from solid matter to liquid matter, but I don’t know if it can further extend to gaseous matter in the future. If it’s possible, I won’t need to use the Flying Technique in the future, it will be many times more convenient than now."

Regarding the classic three states of matter, solid, liquid, and gas, Zhang Yanhang has always remembered them clearly since learning them in junior high school.

"Speaking of which, now that I can freely move in liquid environments, or rather water environments, this ability should definitely provide a great help during later cleanup operations in lake areas. If things go as expected, it can certainly help me significantly improve the hunting efficiency in water environments."

Originally, Zhang Yanhang thought it would be difficult to hunt Demonized Emperor Crocodiles in the lake area, but now, it seems that the difficulty has greatly decreased.

Although he hasn’t tried it yet, Zhang Yanhang believes that if he hunts in that environment, he may be faster than in forest environments. After all, there are no obstacles in the lake area; the surface is all flat, completely treatable as a plain area – with this, the hunting efficiency would likely be hard to lower even if he tried.

"After I get a good sleep, maybe I’ll be able to clear the third stage of the Demonized Swamp cleanup plan within the Western Forest and the fourth stage within the lake area, all by the end of today."

Zhang Yanhang felt confident that he should definitely have enough time to clear Raccoon City and Goblin Plain.

After all, if he could finish clearing the third stage Western Forest and the fourth stage lake area in a day, then it wouldn’t be possible that he couldn’t clear the forty-five square kilometer swamp area and the Lord Monster of the fifth stage in a whole day tomorrow, right? It was certainly not possible, so he felt sure that this time it was a done deal.

After a quick test of his ability to move on the water surface, Zhang Yanhang didn’t stay in the bathtub but leapt out the window and started to test his current Movement Speed.

The final test result was quite satisfying for Zhang Yanhang; his Movement Speed had increased from 160 meters per second to 193 meters per second, a 33 meter per second enhancement. Although he only increased his Talent Quality once, this improvement was even greater than the cumulative increase gained from consecutively raising his rank to A and S tiers before.

"Ah, it’s just a pity that the Green Ten-piece Set which provided a 3.5% Movement Speed bonus has become ineffective. Otherwise, my current Movement Speed could be even faster.

Moreover, although this time it really did increase a lot, it still falls short of the small goal I set before of two hundred meters per second. I still lack seven meters per second to complete that previous goal."

Zhang Yanhang originally thought the SS-tier Ocean Rhythm would easily help him achieve this small goal, but now he could only say he might have been too bold in his prediction, and he hadn’t foreseen something like the Green Ten-piece Set becoming ineffective.

"To achieve the small goal of two hundred meters per second, it seems that I need to rely on other pieces of Equipment or achievements.

Though gaining a Movement Speed bonus from Equipment may not be very reliable, achievements are still very possible. After all, since the Talent bonus effects here increase Movement Speed, it’s very likely that achievements could also provide a bonus to Movement Speed."

Although the small goal of breaking two hundred meters per second hasn’t yet been achieved, Zhang Yanhang easily accomplished another one.

"Before, my Movement Speed only reached 0.94 Mach with Spiritual Qi Blessing, missing the mark for breaking the sound barrier by 0.06 Mach.

Now it’s different. With Spiritual Qi Blessing, I’ve successfully broken the sound barrier, reaching 1.14 Mach, exceeding the small goal by 0.14 Mach, which is an increase of 0.2 Mach compared with before."

Zhang Yanhang planned to carefully test the physical feat of breaking the sound barrier after Spiritual Qi Blessing during the upcoming hunts, as he was really interested in this aspect.

As for the next small goal, Zhang Yanhang set it at double the speed of sound, that is, two Mach. Although it may seem very difficult now, it will definitely be easily achieved after a Promotion in Rank.

It’s even possible that he could achieve it right after Promotion, as he has a pile of Free attribute points to freely allocate.

Perhaps because of this, the strength enhancement Zhang Yanhang gains from Promotion in Rank will always outstrip anything else, of course, even excluding those Free attribute points, Promotion in Rank would still help him rapidly enhance his strength, much more powerful than Talent.

Zhang Yanhang’s current Movement Speed may not seem very fast when measured in seconds, but when converted to kilometers, it’s quite a lot. He’s now capable of moving 695 kilometers per hour, nearly reaching triple the speed of a high-speed train.

Given Qin Island City’s current location, it’s only about six hundred kilometers from South Korea’s capital, Han City. This means that, with Zhang Yanhang’s current Movement Speed, going to Han City is as simple as a two-hour movie round trip.

If Zhang Yanhang were to enhance his Movement Speed with Spiritual Qi, he would immediately be able to increase it to 1390 kilometers per hour, surpassing the B-52 bomber from World War II, which has been in service for over sixty years and is expected to retire only by 2030.

However, he still has some distance to cover to surpass the Cold War-era bomber from the 1980s, the B-1, which can reach a top speed of 1530 kilometers per hour. Zhang Yanhang is still unable to surpass it, but he is not far behind, only 140 kilometers per hour slower in Movement Speed.

If he could gain another Movement Speed related bonus later on, he’d easily surpass the flight speed of bombers from the Cold War era but only those from the last century, as there would still be a considerable gap between him and this century’s bombers.

If we exclude military bombers and only consider the fastest commercial airliners, Zhang Yanhang has already surpassed all civil aviation passenger planes except for Concorde.

After all, civil aviation passenger planes can only achieve subsonic speeds, while his currently compares to supersonic planes.

But in civilian aviation, there is actually a supersonic plane, the legendary Concorde, the only truly operational supersonic passenger plane, with a maximum flight speed comparable to fighter jets and capable of reaching an astonishing two Mach at full throttle.

Facing such fast Concorde planes, which are as quick as fighter jets and are indeed civilian airliners, Zhang Yanhang admittedly finds it hard to surpass them for now.

So, Zhang Yanhang can only say that he has surpassed most civil aircraft but not all, and he won’t be able to say he’s completely suppressed all civil aircraft until the day his Movement Speed exceeds two Mach.

Moreover, although the Concorde is classified as a civilian plane, it was actually phased out in 2003 due to price, safety, and other various reasons, having been out of service for almost twenty years. Basically, when Zhang Yanhang wasn’t even in kindergarten yet, the Concorde had already been retired.

Therefore, if we change the premise to all currently active civil planes, then Zhang Yanhang has indeed surpassed all of them, and in many cases, he has already crushed them at two to three times their speed.