October 29, Thursday, four days after the Double Ninth Festival, and also the first day Zhang Yanhang entered Ashen World. At 9:45 PM, Ashen World, Crimson Iron Ore Vein, Large Crimson Iron Ant Nest Talano, Central Region.
After exterminating this portion of Crimson Iron Hell Ants, Zhang Yanhang, as usual, waited a bit and then as expected, saw the drop treasure box refresh. Roughly fifty Crimson Iron Hell Ants were killed, and a total of eight drop treasure boxes appeared.
"According to the normal treasure box drop rate of one box per seven kills, seven multiplied by seven equals forty-nine, plus one for the first kill, that's exactly right. It seems the treasure box drop rate of these Crimson Iron Hell Ants is the same as the Crimson Iron Flame Demon Ants."
Every time he encountered this normal drop rate, Zhang Yanhang couldn't help but criticize Ashen World's utterly unreasonable rank penalty system. Life was already hard enough, yet killing low-level monsters reduced the treasure box yield, which was infuriating. What exactly did Ashen World want to turn Awakeners into? Could things ever get better?
"But to solve this, I guess I need to keep increasing my Luck Attribute value, although I still haven't encountered any means to increase my Luck Value, and I don't even know how high my Luck Attribute is."
Regarding this, Zhang Yanhang could only sigh silently and then immediately went ahead to pick up the eight Dark Purple Quality drop treasure boxes and put them into his Waist Bag.
"After clearing those Crimson Iron Hell Ants, I've roughly cleared another ninety square kilometers, which, translated into the progress of the third phase of my Large Crimson Iron Ant Nest Talano clearing plan, is about 30% completed. There are still seventy percent, or 210 square kilometers, left to clear."
If calculating the overall progress of Zhang Yanhang's plan to clear the Large Crimson Iron Ant Nest Talano, a total area of 340 square kilometers had already been cleared.
Converted into specific progress, it's reached 52.3% completion. After striving for so long, he finally cleared more than half of the entire Large Crimson Iron Ant Nest Talano, but the remaining half still desperately needed his attention.
Although his Attack Power had greatly increased, Zhang Yanhang's hunting efficiency remained the same, about twenty seconds to clear one square kilometer, causing him to clear just ninety square kilometers in the past half hour.
The reason for this was because increasing Attack Power and Strength did little to improve hunting efficiency since he could easily annihilate these Crimson Iron Flame Demon Ants or Crimson Iron Hell Ants without any enhancements.
Fortunately, Zhang Yanhang still had more than nine hours available to him, so hunting efficiency was not as critical as before. Even if it couldn't be improved further, maintaining the current level of efficiency was definitely sufficient. Thus, there was no need to rush to improve it like before.
As a result, compared to equipment that could improve hunting efficiency, Zhang Yanhang was more interested in finding new equipment that could continue to enhance Power Effect from the drop treasure boxes of the Crimson Iron Hell Ants.
However, opening treasure boxes was a task for later. He still needed to continue clearing the remaining area of the Central Region first. Only after completely clearing it would he open the treasure boxes, sticking to the old tradition.
"Speaking of which, even though I purposely used the Six Roots Pure Soul Passage Spear to kill this batch of Crimson Iron Hell Ants, there's still no sign of triggering the Triple Strike. The chances are indeed less than one in a thousand, truly minuscule."
After the chance of triggering Double Strike reduced to once every sixty attacks, Zhang Yanhang had triggered several Double Strikes in the past half hour. However, its advanced version, the much more powerful Triple Strike, failed to activate.
Aside from the inherently low probability of triggering Triple Strike, this might also be related to his frequent use of Death Wave for hunting monsters most of the time.
"Forget it, if it doesn't trigger, then it doesn't. I'll just leave it to chance in the future."
After giving up on attempting to trigger Triple Strike, Zhang Yanhang quickly charged towards the Crimson Iron Flame Demon Ants and Crimson Iron Destruction Ants ahead.
...
October 29, Thursday, four days after the Double Ninth Festival, and also the first day Zhang Yanhang entered the Ashen World. At 10:30 PM, Ashen World, Crimson Iron Ore Vein, Large Crimson Iron Ant Nest Talano, Central Region.
[Successfully killed Third Tier Two-star Monster 'Crimson Iron Hell Ant (Ordinary)' ×1, Soul points +600.]
[Successfully killed Third Tier Two-star Monster 'Crimson Iron Hell Ant (Ordinary)' ×1, Soul points +600.]
[Successfully killed Third Tier Two-star Monster 'Crimson Iron Hell Ant (Ordinary)' ×1, Soul points +600.]
...
Having given up on using Cannon bullets extensively to trigger Triple Strike, when Zhang Yanhang encountered monsters, he would without hesitation use Death Wave. Now was no exception. Having already released Death Wave, he was silently listening to the killing notification sounds of the Crimson Iron Hell Ants.
However, occasionally mixed in were some loud booming sounds. Compared to Crimson Iron Flame Ants, which were only the size of rhinos, the sound of Crimson Iron Hell Ants, as large as elephants, crashing to the ground was particularly loud, like a large truck crashing into a residential building, with the ground frequently conveying strong vibrations.
Speaking of which, Zhang Yanhang couldn't help mentioning a fact that, although the Crimson Iron Hell Ants had substantial bodies and relatively small exoskeletal wings on their backs, they actually flew quite fast. After all, they did have 46 points in Agility. With speeds starting from several tens of meters per second, that roughly equated to the speed of an armed helicopter.
Although they appeared somewhat disgraceful in front of Zhang Yanhang, if these Crimson Iron Hell Ants that liked to carry out high-intensity bombings from the air with Hellfire, Hell Breath, and Blazing Flame Beam were to go to the Main World, they would definitely give most people a firsthand experience of what 'hell' really meant.
More importantly, their defensive power was exceptionally high. Ordinary RPG rockets and Ground-to-Air Missiles might be effective against thinly armored regular airplanes, but hitting them would probably be like tickling.
After all, Ground-to-Air Missiles generally don't aim for direct hit damage but rather explode just before hitting, relying on shrapnel for area attack.
But this kind of attack would obviously have no effect on Crimson Iron Hell Ants. If targeting them, clearly Anti-Tank Missiles and Anti-ship Missiles might be more useful.
Also, precisely because of this, Zhang Yanhang always maintained a pessimistic attitude regarding whether the Empire could still protect ordinary people once the teleportation channels were fully opened. After all, even if only one Third Tier monster like the Crimson Iron Hell Ant slipped through, it could cause massive destruction, easily annihilating a town-level unit and effortlessly killing thousands of people in a short time.
And if Third Tier monsters were this dangerous, there was no need to mention Fourth Tier, Fifth Tier, Sixth Tier, etc., as a single one could destroy city-level units or even provincial-level units, not to mention they often numbered in the thousands or even tens of thousands.
Although it was possible to trap the monsters in parallel worlds and kill them with high-energy-consuming means ahead of time, such measures, adequate during the early stages when the permanent teleportation channels were minimally open, would definitely be insufficient when the channels proliferate in the later stages.
By then, compared to trapping monsters in parallel spaces, it might be easier to just create a massive parallel space and perform a reverse operation, packing all humans inside to avoid disaster.
Luckily, that was still at least six months away, and by that time, Zhang Yanhang could be at the Sixth Tier or even Seventh Tier; even if he couldn't stay on Earth, he could always cos as the ultimate life form in outer space, or even live somewhere like the Moon.
"No, no, that's not right. The Moon might not be safe either, after all, what if there are teleportation channels on the Moon, and a bunch of Moon Gods suddenly appear?"
There are many Moon Gods from various cultures and times, with varying strengths, but most are quite formidable. Zhang Yanhang felt that he should probably stay away from the Milky Way and find an uninhabited planet nearby to live on.
Of course, such a scenario would only occur after Earth had truly fallen. If Earth were still in a stable condition, he certainly wouldn't just run away but would most likely stand his last post, or maybe engage in guerrilla warfare; only if the situation were truly dire and he were the last remaining Earth person, would he decisively flee to space or the Ashen World.
"Alright, maybe I am being a bit too pessimistic; perhaps I should be more optimistic like the group leader. What if by then I've reached the pinnacle of Divine Skill and am invincible?"
Although Zhang Yanhang wasn't interested in becoming the savior of humanity—after all, his ultimate desire was to retire—a part-time role was still acceptable.
After finishing his contemplation, Zhang Yanhang skillfully picked up the drop treasure box from the ground and put it into his waist bag, "In the past forty-five minutes, I've cleared another 135 square kilometers. Adding the previous 90 square kilometers, that's a total area of 225 square kilometers cleared. I still have 75 square kilometers left to clear.
With my hunting efficiency of one square kilometer every twenty seconds, three square kilometers per minute, it should take about another 25 minutes to finish clearing the area. Not bad."
If Zhang Yanhang's current cleared area was converted into a percentage of the Third Stage cleaning plan's progress, then he had now reached a 75% clearance rate, just 25% shy of completely clearing the entire Central Region.
"I didn't expect that I've already cleared three-quarters of the area. The remaining quarter should be finished within half an hour, so I should be able to clear the entire Central Region before 11 pm tonight."
Adding the 135 square kilometers cleared this time, Zhang Yanhang had now cleared a total area of 475 square kilometers, which, converted into the overall clearance progress for the large Crimson Iron Ant Nest Talano, was now 73%, nearly reaching three-quarters as well.
"If it weren't for needing to open treasure boxes, which takes one or two hours each time, my current hunting efficiency would be sufficient even without extending the time. But unfortunately, I need to open treasure boxes, and merging equipment takes another one or two hours, far more time-consuming than hunting the monsters themselves."
Of course, having said that, considering the newly opened teleportation channels, Zhang Yanhang felt it was very necessary to extend the time.
"Next, I'll continue hunting monsters." Zhang Yanhang scanned the surroundings and quickly dashed toward an area denser with monsters.
...
October 29, Thursday, the fourth day after the Double Ninth Festival and also Zhang Yanhang's first day in the Ashen World—10:56 PM, Ashen World, Crimson Iron Ore Vein, Large Crimson Iron Ant Nest Talano; the connection channel between the Central and Inner Regions.
Having successfully reached the far end of the Central Region, Zhang Yanhang looked at the entrance to the connection channel, where hundreds of Crimson Iron Destruction Ants, Crimson Iron Flame Ants, and in the back, dozens of Crimson Iron Flame Demon Ants and Crimson Iron Hell Ants, were amassed; he unhesitatingly unleashed Death Wave.
After all, this scene was absolutely suitable, to the point that it gave him flashbacks to the Permanent Teleportation Channel—where a single Death Wave could directly eliminate four-digit numbers of Third Tier monsters, exactly that level of efficient hunting allowed him to collect the millions of Soul points needed for skill upgrades.
[Successfully killed Second Tier Three-star monster 'Crimson Iron Destruction Ant (Elite)' ×1, Soul points +160.]
[Successfully killed Second Tier Three-star monster 'Crimson Iron Destruction Ant (Elite)' ×1, Soul points +160.]
[Successfully killed Second Tier Three-star monster 'Crimson Iron Destruction Ant (Elite)' ×1, Soul points +160.]
...
"By the way, are all these large Crimson Iron Ants blocking the way because of the summons of the Crimson Iron Queen Ant? I remember that during the cleanup of the smaller Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu, that Ant Queen had been very active in summoning, practically emptying out the latter half of the small Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu and calling them all to her side for protection, but this time the Crimson Iron Queen Ant doesn't seem so active?
No, it's not that she isn't active, it might just be a matter of insufficient time since I've only been in the Large Crimson Iron Ant Nest Talano for about six or seven hours.
While in the smaller Crimson Iron Ant Nest Dalagu, the Ant Queen didn't react initially either; it was after I had hunted monsters till I was tired and slept for a while—equivalent to about ten to twenty hours—that she cleared out the latter half of the smaller nest."
From this perspective, Zhang Yanhang felt that clearing too fast might also be a mistake, not leaving enough time for the Lord Monster Crimson Iron Queen Ant of the Large Crimson Iron Ant Nest Talano to summon.
But there was nothing to be done about that, as the upkeep time for the teleportation channels was insufficient; if allowed to slowly gather, they might not even complete by tomorrow morning, so direct clearance was more comfortable.
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