Chapter 962 961: Constant Star System and Gravitational Capture - Ashen God - NovelsTime

Ashen God

Chapter 962 961: Constant Star System and Gravitational Capture

Author: Just call the polar bear
updatedAt: 2025-11-03

"With my current Movement Speed, if I enhance it further with Spiritual Energy, it can instantly soar to 52.4 Mach, almost comparable to twice the speed of an intercontinental ballistic missile. After all, the fastest intercontinental ballistic missiles in the world are only a mere 27 Mach. I'm just 1.6 Mach away from twice its speed."

Compared to intercontinental ballistic missiles, Zhang Yanhang's primary target is the space probe, such as the New Horizons. The launch speed of the New Horizons Space Probe is 48 Mach, which is slower by one Mach than the Voyager 1 equipped with the Golden Record that Zhang Yanhang had previously surpassed.

However, Zhang Yanhang mentioned the New Horizons because its peak speed far surpasses the Voyager 1's 49 Mach. When passing by Jupiter, due to Jupiter's immense gravitational pull, its maximum speed reached 62 Mach, which is over 21,000 meters per second, and its hourly speed reached as high as 76,000 kilometers.

Therefore, for Zhang Yanhang, although he has temporarily surpassed the 49 Mach of Voyager 1, the New Horizons remains a significant challenge. He likely won't complete it before his Rank Promotion.

"Even if I enhance with Spiritual Energy, I only reach 52.4 Mach, still 9.6 Mach short of the New Horizons' 62 Mach, which is quite a gap."

Fortunately, although this small goal seems difficult for Zhang Yanhang now, once he achieves Rank Promotion, all obstacles will be swiftly eliminated.

"After enhancing with Spiritual Energy, my Movement Speed converts to 17,846 meters per second, which rounds off to 17.8 kilometers."

Last time Zhang Yanhang increased his Movement Speed, he had already surpassed the 16.7 kilometers per second of the Third Cosmic Speed. Now his target is the 120 kilometers per second of the Fourth Cosmic Speed. However, it's indeed challenging at the moment, as he's still 102.2 kilometers per second away from achieving the Fourth Cosmic Speed.

In other words, the Fourth Cosmic Speed is nearly seven times his current speed, making it truly difficult to chase. But it's understandable, as the Third Cosmic Speed only breaks away from the Solar System's gravitational pull, while the Fourth Cosmic Speed escapes the entire Milky Way's gravitational catch.

Regarding the difference between the Solar System and the Milky Way, to put it simply, the Milky Way contains at least two hundred billion stars internally, with the possibility of four hundred billion stars or more. Most of these stars have their own Constant Star Systems similar to the Solar System.

Thus, under such circumstances, needing a speed increase of only seven times to escape the Milky Way's gravitational catch is already quite generous, not high at all.

Moreover, the Fourth Cosmic Speed itself is a long-term goal, so although progress is relatively slow, Zhang Yanhang is not in a hurry.

"Converting my enhanced speed to kilometers per hour, it reaches a Movement Speed of 64,246 kilometers per hour, meaning I can run 1.6 circles around the 40,000 kilometers equator in one hour."

Besides, the Moon, which previously required six and a half hours to reach, Zhang Yanhang can now arrive in just 6.2 hours and complete a round trip in twelve and a half hours, showing a significant reduction compared to before.

After upgrading and reviewing the Talent Effect of the SSS-level Talent Sky Rhythm, Zhang Yanhang quickly continued to count other Talent Earnings.

After counting the E-level Talent Slow Corrotion of Raccoon City, the E-level Talent Thin Dragon Vein of Goblin Plain, and the D-level Talent Prehistoric Giant Beast of Demonized Swamp, it was finally the turn for the B-level Talent Muscle Regeneration of the Umbrella Biochemical Test Field.

However, due to all Drop Treasure Boxes from the Umbrella Biochemical Test Field coming from the third prize pool of the Lucky Slot Machine, Zhang Yanhang opened only a scarce fourteen Muscle Regeneration this time.

Before this, Zhang Yanhang had accumulated 2016 Muscle Regeneration in his Waist Bag, and now, adding the fourteen Muscle Regeneration obtained this time, he possesses a total of 2030 Muscle Regeneration.

"But although these 2030 Muscle Regenerations seem like a lot, for the huge upgrade requirements of my XXX-level Talent Infinite Life, they appear insufficient. After all, upgrading from my current XXX-level Talent to EX-level requires consuming a whopping 177,147 E-level Slow Corrotion.

Even when divided by 27, converting into B-level Talent upgrade requirements, it still demands 6561 Muscle Regeneration."

Thus, the Muscle Regeneration Zhang Yanhang currently holds can only satisfy less than a third of the upgrade requirements, still lacking 4531 Muscle Regeneration for a Talent upgrade.

To obtain these 4531 Muscle Regeneration Talents, his previously unenhanced Luck Value would require killing around 77,000 Third Tier Tyrants, and now, although his Luck Value has increased, it still requires killing around 72,000 Third Tier Tyrants, which remain quite a large number.

Therefore, Zhang Yanhang estimates it's likely impossible to accumulate them, making it nearly hopeless to recreate a situation like with the SSS-level Talent Sky Rhythm due to the large gap here.

However, it's not completely hopeless. If one day Zhang Yanhang's Multiple Choice evolves to manipulate Monster refresh rate, it might be easy to accumulate them. Relying on the automatic refresh of the Ashen World would probably take at least a month, which is doubtful.

After counting all Talent Earnings, Zhang Yanhang categorically stored the small light balls of each Talent into the Waist Bag and then started counting the Equipment earnings.

The first equipment still came from Raccoon City. Perhaps due to killing a significant number of Police Zombies, despite the terrifying Rank Penalty requiring thirty-six First Tier Monsters to drop one Treasure Box, he acquired ten Waist Bags.

Previously, Zhang Yanhang had six Waist Bag +4, one Waist Bag +3, one Waist Bag +2, and two ordinary Waist Bags, rendering them quite fragmented and in desperate need of Fusion.

Thinking of this, Zhang Yanhang immediately took out the string of fragmented Waist Bags from his Waist Bag setup and combined them with the ten ordinary Waist Bags just obtained, placing them into the Alchemy Array for Fusion.

In the first round of Fusion, the twelve ordinary Waist Bags were fused into six Waist Bags +1 by Zhang Yanhang, and then in the second round of Fusion, they were fused into three Waist Bags +2.

And because there was still one Waist Bag +2 left before, the third round of fusion resulted in two Waist Bags +3, and the final fourth round of fusion transformed them into a new Waist Bag +4.

After the fusion was complete, Zhang Yanhang now had a total of seven Waist Bags +4 and one Waist Bag +3. He still needed eight ordinary Waist Bags to fuse a new Waist Bag +3 and thus further fuse the eighth Waist Bag +4.

"Each Waist Bag +4 can provide thirty-two slots, adding up to a total of 224 slots, and counting the sixteen slots from the Waist Bag +3, that's precisely two hundred and forty slots."

Honestly, the number of slots in a Waist Bag doesn't mean much to Zhang Yanhang anymore, since he usually just puts large items directly in his Stomach Space.

However, Waist Bags are still useful for storing scattered items, so he continues to increase the fusion times. Of course, the most important thing is that it's convenient and trouble-free.

Besides these ten Waist Bags, the Police Zombies also provided Zhang Yanhang with ten set parts of Raccoon City police standard equipment.

But compared to Waist Bags, these are even more insignificant, considering that Zhang Yanhang already discarded the Green Ten-piece Set. These set parts, still being of White Quality, are not worthless but can at least be considered trash.

"Speaking of which, I used these set parts to help smuggle before, but now I definitely don't need them at all."

Zhang Yanhang previously, while in the Ashen World, deliberately swallowed more things into his Stomach Space that theoretically couldn't be brought out, but he just glanced at it, and now those items, originally marked as non-exportable, are still quietly lying in his Stomach Space.

"Before, while in the Ashen World, I could only verify the possibility of taking items from the Main World into the Ashen World using Stomach Space. Now that I'm back in the Main World, I've also validated the smuggling part, allowing me to come and go freely in the Ashen World from now on."

Thanks to the Stomach Space, Zhang Yanhang will be able to arbitrarily take things from the Main World into the Ashen World or vice versa. Although he has nothing he wants to take out at the moment, it may come in handy later.

Of course, it's actually already useful now, for instance, transporting monster corpses from the Ashen World to ensure Zhang Yanhang's energy sources, allowing his Stomach Space to continuously absorb energy without interruption for his physical growth.

Aside from Police Zombies, the only other monster in Raccoon City capable of dropping equipment is the Second-order One-star T-001 Prototype Tyrant. Perhaps because it's a second-tier monster, resulting in a lower Rank Penalty, Zhang Yanhang still managed to find quite a few Coin Fragments, despite their scarcity.

This time, Zhang Yanhang found a total of nine Defense Coin Fragments and six Attack Coin Fragments from the treasure boxes dropped by the various Prototype Tyrants.

That's right, once again, the number of Defense Coin Fragments is higher. He thinks it might be because Defense Coins are more valuable, hence Multiple Choice usually presents options related to Defense Coin Fragments more frequently.

After all, the Equipment Score for Defense Coins is 210 points, belonging to the medium-grade within the 151-260 Dark Purple Quality range, whereas Attack Coins are different, with only a score of 160 points, barely hitting the passing mark for Dark Purple Quality.

Therefore, from this perspective, Zhang Yanhang somewhat understands why the last two times more Defense Coin Fragments appeared; Defense Coins indeed hold higher value, and Multiple Choice has always preferred to offer higher value options.

"Previously, since I'd already synthesized a Defense Coin once, I only had one Defense Coin Fragment left, but combining it with this time's nine Defense Coin Fragments, I can synthesize another new Defense Coin.

As for Attack Coin Fragments, I originally accumulated five, and added to this time's six Attack Coin Fragments, I can similarly synthesize another new Attack Coin."

Once the counting was complete, Zhang Yanhang immediately took out the previously accumulated Coin Fragments from the Waist Bag and started merging. Soon, a Defense Coin and an Attack Coin appeared in Zhang Yanhang's hands.

"One Defense Coin provides 25 points of fixed damage mitigation. I already had three Defense Coins, and adding this one brings the total to four Defense Coins, so I now directly immunize against damage below a hundred points."

Moreover, this hundred points refers to damage that manages to break through Zhang Yanhang's Energy Shield defense, meaning damage below a hundred points from shield-breaking attacks is directly immunized, while damage above a hundred points forcibly reduces by a hundred points; for instance, reducing 101 points to only one point.

Since this kind of fixed damage reduction is indeed quite domineering, Zhang Yanhang has always favored Defense Coins, but it's unfortunate that Defense Coins can only mitigate Physical Damage and are ineffective against Energy Damage.

If Defense Coins could also mitigate Energy Damage, Zhang Yanhang wouldn't have lost so much Shield Value from the Nuclear Fusion Fist of the God of Flesh and Corruption before.

"Meanwhile, the effect of Attack Coins allows me to increase my Physical Damage Bonus by twenty-five points. Previously, I had two Attack Coins, adding this one brings the total to three Attack Coins, which together provide me with a seventy-five-point extra Physical Damage Bonus."

Although this seventy-five-point Physical Damage Bonus might not be very noticeable in Zhang Yanhang's own attacks, it is quite effective for the Six Roots Pure Soul Passage Spear or the Golden Body Attack of the Indestructible Golden Body.

After all, even the Ancestor Virus Aggregation only has an eight thousand Life Value Limit, so a seventy-five-point additional Physical Damage Bonus is indeed quite a lot, approximately equating to barely scraping off a hundred times to forcibly shave the Ancestor Virus Aggregation to death.

Of course, the prerequisite for this is that the Ancestor Virus Aggregation doesn't regenerate Life Value during the scraping. If it utilized Super-speed Regeneration, the scraping speed would need to be faster than the Super-speed Regeneration to forcibly scrape it to death.

As such, ensuring the Attack Speed is fast enough is crucial for scraping.

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