"So, I choose Option One, a First Tier One-star Ordinary Monster Crimson Iron Worker Ant."

After a quick glance at the prize pool list that hadn't changed at all, Zhang Yanhang swiftly made his final choice; he felt that the monsters in the third prize pool of the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalaran's Lucky Slot Machine were just right to help him preliminarily test the Rank Penalty of the Third Tier.

...

[Successfully killed a First Tier One-star 'Crimson Iron Worker Ant (Ordinary)'] x 1, Soul Points +3.]

[Successfully killed a First Tier One-star 'Crimson Iron Worker Ant (Ordinary)'] x 1, Soul Points +3.]

[Successfully killed a First Tier One-star 'Crimson Iron Worker Ant (Ordinary)'] x 1, Soul Points +3.]

...

About five minutes later, Zhang Yanhang finally cleared the entire prize pool and took away a hundred Crimson Iron Ants with a single Death Wave.

He used to think five minutes were okay, but now, whether it was because of his promotion or not, he began to feel that five minutes were a bit too long; however, it was a pity that even if he found it slow, there was no way to increase the speed since Ashen World wouldn't adjust the rules just for him. He had no choice but to make do with it.

"There are a total of forty Crimson Iron Worker Ants, twenty-five Crimson Iron Flying Ants, twenty-five Crimson Iron Soldier Ants, nine Crimson Iron Breeding Ants, and one Crimson Iron Ant King in the third prize pool of the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalaran's Lucky Slot Machine. I wonder how many Drop Treasure Boxes will eventually spawn."

Zhang Yanhang stood still and waited for a while, then, seconds later, a White Treasure Box and two Green Treasure Boxes quietly appeared above the scattered bodies of the Crimson Iron Ants.

"Only three boxes? No, should I say actually three boxes?"

Zhang Yanhang initially thought that after his promotion to Third Tier, the drop rate of killing First Tier monsters might directly drop to one box per fifty killed. At best, it would double to one Drop Treasure Box for forty killed monsters; but now it seemed it might be a little better than the best-case scenario.

But it really was just a little better, certainly not comparable to the previous rate where he could get a Drop Treasure Box for every twenty monsters killed. Otherwise, he shouldn't have killed forty Crimson Iron Worker Ants and received only one White Quality Drop Treasure Box — he should have gotten two Drop Treasure Boxes.

Considering that the twenty-five Crimson Iron Flying Ants and Crimson Iron Soldier Ants also dropped a box, Zhang Yanhang estimated that his current drop rate for killing First Tier monsters should be between twenty and forty. As for the exact number, he would only know when he conducted a large-scale cleanup of the Crimson Iron Worker Ants later.

After swiftly picking up the three Drop Treasure Boxes, Zhang Yanhang didn't linger too long at the spot; instead, he quickly moved out of the 'C' shaped passage and headed towards the location of another Crimson Iron Worker Ant that had dropped a box.

Earlier, in order not to waste the stamina consumed by the Death Wave, he had covered a one-kilometer radius incidentally, killing forty to fifty Crimson Iron Worker Ants; fortunately, one of them had dropped a White Treasure Box, which he planned to pick up.

Although this Drop Treasure Box was hundreds of meters away from Zhang Yanhang, on the edge of the Death Wave's coverage, because his Movement Speed had now reached twice the Sound Speed, he only took a few seconds to traverse the labyrinthine corridors and pick up this White Quality Drop Treasure Box, which he directly put into his Waist Bag.

After picking up the Drop Treasure Box, Zhang Yanhang continued running for a bit, then after finding the right position, he released the Death Wave Skill again.

Accompanying the spread of a ring of transparent, invisible waves that started from his body and quickly propagated outward, dense killing notifications once again sounded in his ears.

However, having grown accustomed to the thousands of simultaneous killing notifications during the peak times when he cleared the Permanent Teleportation Channel, he now had no reaction at all to this much lower frequency of killing notifications that were only a few dozen per second.

[Successfully killed a First Tier One-star 'Crimson Iron Worker Ant (Ordinary)'] x 1, Soul Points +3.]

[Successfully killed a First Tier One-star 'Crimson Iron Worker Ant (Ordinary)'] x 1, Soul Points +3.]

[Successfully killed a First Tier One-star 'Crimson Iron Worker Ant (Ordinary)'] x 1, Soul Points +3.]

...

After releasing the Death Wave, Zhang Yanhang habitually stood still and continued to wait. Then, he soon felt that something wasn't quite right, or rather, that doing this felt too inefficient.

"Since my Movement Speed has now reached twice the Sound Speed, and since the Death Wave itself doesn't require any operation, why don't I run while casting it? After all, it's only going to take forty instances of Death Wave to clear the entire small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalaran..."

Zhang Yanhang felt this idea was indeed reasonable, after all, although the Drop Treasure Boxes that had previously taken a few seconds to refresh needed to be waited for, it wasn't too bad, definitely more efficient than killing all and then coming back to pick up the boxes separately.

But with the increase in his Movement Speed if he continued to follow the old pattern, the efficiency might not be that high.

"But although it's reasonable, in a place like the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalaran where the Perception Range is limited, picking up treasure boxes feels like it could easily miss some."

After careful consideration, Zhang Yanhang thought that this drawback could be mitigated with the help of Time Pause.

"With that in mind, there's nothing more to say, let's start cleaning up."

Although the Drop Treasure Boxes had already refreshed during Zhang Yanhang's pondering, he did not rush to pick them up but went straight ahead towards the direction where there were still Crimson Iron Ants.

The main reason Zhang Yanhang came up with the idea of waiting to pick up the treasure boxes after the killing was related to the complex environment of the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalaran.

Often the treasure box, though dropped only a few hundred meters away in a straight line, could be separated by seven or eight walls and a bunch of forks in the road. So, waiting for all treasure boxes to refresh and then picking them up along the main passageways might indeed be a lot easier.

...

October 29th, Thursday, four days after the Double Ninth Festival and also Zhang Yanhang's first day entering the Ashen World, at 4:15 PM, the Ashen World, Crimson Iron Ore Vein, small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu, a T-shaped passage strewn with blood and fleshy limbs as well as thick crimson body fluids.

[Successfully killed First Tier One-star Monster 'Crimson Iron Flying Ant (Elite)' ×1, soul points +7.]

[Successfully killed First Tier One-star Monster 'Crimson Iron Flying Ant (Elite)' ×1, soul points +7.]

[Successfully killed First Tier One-star Monster 'Crimson Iron Flying Ant (Elite)' ×1, soul points +7.]

...

After killing the last batch of Crimson Iron Worker Ants and Crimson Iron Flying Ants in the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu, Zhang Yanhang didn't rush to check the drop treasure boxes, but first glanced at the time on his watch.

"Can it be that it's just turned 4:15 PM after I've cleared the entire small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu? Doesn't that mean I used only ten minutes to clear all the Crimson Iron Ants in the nest?"

Zhang Yanhang remembered that the last time he cleared the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu, it seemed to have taken him seven and a half hours, or more accurately, around four hundred and fifty minutes.

This time, he hadn't even reached a fraction of the time he spent before, using only ten minutes to completely finish the battle, which could be said to be a forty-five-fold increase in efficiency, entering a brand new world.

"If we were to calculate the efficiency, that would be several times faster than my fastest time before. Previously, it was about how many minutes to clear one square kilometer, but now it's the other way around, calculating how many square kilometers can be cleared in one minute.

If it only took ten minutes to clear an area of forty square kilometers, that's four square kilometers per minute, needing only fifteen seconds to clear one square kilometer."

Zhang Yanhang guessed that if he were in a plain area, it would certainly not take this long, but unfortunately, this was the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu, where there were too many forks, branches, and omnipresent Crimson Iron Ore Walls, which wasted most of his time.

"With only the use of the Death Wave Skill to hunt monsters, it took me ten minutes to clear all one thousand nine hundred Crimson Iron Ants in the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu, but it still takes five minutes to clear a mere lucky slot machine third prize pool with only a hundred monsters."

As soon as Zhang Yanhang thought about this, he felt even more disdainful of the 'prolonged' drawing time of the lucky slot machine, but despite being lengthy, it was indeed worth trying, after all, it was still a hundred monsters.

For him, the key issue was never the hunting efficiency, but the density and numbers of monsters. If the density and number of monsters were sufficient, he had countless methods to improve his hunting efficiency.

Unfortunately, most of the time the monsters in the regions were not abundant enough under his intense hunting, even the type that had ten times the number of monsters like the permanent teleportation channels he encountered before still didn't seem enough in front of him, which he finished in an hour.

"Even though it did take only ten minutes to completely finish the battle, that only takes care of the battle part. Now, after hunting all the Crimson Iron Ants, it's necessary to pick up the treasure boxes one by one."

As Zhang Yanhang spoke, he bent down to pick up a drop treasure box from a Crimson Iron Flying Ant, which had just refreshed after his contemplation ended.

"Moreover, the efficiency of the battle part is actually a bit lower than I imagined."

At first, Zhang Yanhang thought he might clear the entire small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu in five or six minutes under the best circumstances, and at worst, it would take at most seven or eight minutes to clear the entire nest, but in the end, it took ten minutes, to which he could only say it was all because of the complex road conditions.

Furthermore, aside from that, the number of times he used Death Wave was also higher than he initially estimated.

He initially thought that at most forty times would be enough to clear the entire small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu, but due to the irregular shape of the nest and many corners, he used forty-three times in total to clean the entire nest. Counting the first two times, he used Death Wave forty-five times in total.

But considering the time saved, the consumption of his physical strength for this part can only be said to be okay, and it was still quite a good deal.

Of course, it's worth mentioning that although he relied solely on Death Wave to hunt monsters, occasionally, an inevitable few would be missed. In those cases, using Death Wave obviously wasn't worth it, so Zach Yanhang had to detour for manual hunting to fix the omissions, which was one of the main reasons it took a total of ten minutes in the end.

However, Zhang Yanhang guessed that it would certainly not take this long just to go back and pick up a treasure box this time.

After briefly summarizing the results and lessons of the first separate hunting approach, Zhang Yanhang quickly triggered a Time Pause. While paused, he located the positions of the various drop treasure boxes, then he made his way out of the T-shaped passage and started looking for the recent drop treasure boxes.

However, since it was indeed a Time Pause, he had the spare time to also count the number of boxes dropped by those nearly one thousand nine hundred monsters, which was about over sixty—a nice haul.

...

October 29th, Thursday, four days after the Double Ninth Festival and also Zhang Yanhang's first day entering the Ashen World, at 4:20 PM, the Ashen World, Crimson Iron Ore Vein, small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu, C-shaped passage.

It took Zhang Yanhang nearly five minutes to collect all the treasure boxes, after which he made his way back to this initial C-shaped passage.

"Simply picking up treasure boxes is indeed much faster than clearing the entire small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu, so it turns out that I actually spent a total of fifteen minutes clearing the entire nest.

Though it's a bit more than I initially estimated, compared to the last time's seven and a half hours, it's still a lot better, roughly a thirty-fold difference."

Although Zhang Yanhang is slightly disdaining this efficiency for the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu, if he could achieve this efficiency when clearing new areas in the future, he would be very happy. Well, that's not very realistic.

After all, the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu was cleared for the third time with a rank promotion before achieving this efficiency. It's unlikely that new areas would achieve such efficiency immediately; not to mention, the time consumed in picking up treasure boxes will undoubtedly be much more than that needed for the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu.

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