October 31st, Saturday, the sixth day after the Double Ninth Festival, and the second day since Zhang Yanhang left the Ashen World, at 10:57 AM, Main World, Greenland, in a yet unnamed but vast basin (formerly the Sokanadar Mountain Range).

After spending about half an hour dealing with the remaining monsters and devouring tens of thousands of relatively intact monster corpses, Zhang Yanhang discovered something that might be important: he found that besides the number of mouths, the size of his mouths also seemed to affect the devouring speed to some extent.

To put it simply, he found that the larger the mouth, the larger the object it could devour simultaneously. This might be some kind of hidden bonus, and it was quite significant. Previously, in his ordinary state, he could only devour 10,000 cubic meters per second, but when switching to the 'Fatian Xiangdi' state, he could devour at least 40,000 cubic meters per second.

With four mouths combined, it reached 160,000 cubic meters, greatly enhancing the devouring efficiency, effectively quadrupling it. Now, if he wanted to fill the 1 billion cubic meters of stomach space, it would only take about two hours, saving Zhang Yanhang a significant amount of time.

"The mouth becomes bigger, and the devouring speed becomes faster as well. It's unexpectedly logical. I just don't know how many tens of thousands of cubic meters per second it could devour with a body over 2,000 meters in size. 100,000? 150,000?"

Zhang Yanhang estimated that this hidden bonus shouldn't increase too much in this regard, or at least not to the extent that he could fill the entire 1 billion cubic meters space in just ten minutes.

But currently, his stamina limit could only support him for ten minutes, so using the 'Fatian Xiangdi' state for large-scale devouring would probably only result in exhausting his stamina before the 1 billion cubic meters stomach space was filled.

Therefore, he thought that if there was no urgent matter, it was more cost-effective to just use the 'Fatian Xiangdi' state because it consumed less physical strength.

Zhang Yanhang stood on the devastated and deathly silent land where no living things existed, feeling inexplicably emotional about the exaggerated increase in strength after his promotion to the Fourth Tier.

Even though he already had such an exaggerated power, he was about to strive for promotion to the Fifth Tier, so the subsequent improvement in strength would undoubtedly be even more exaggerated. Hopefully, the Earth would be fine when that happens.

"I wonder if reaching the Fifth Tier would make it possible to attain the strength of someone like Saitama."

But thinking about Saitama's ability to leap back and forth between the Moon and the Earth quickly during battle, Zhang Yanhang felt a bit overwhelmed.

However, as long as he worked hard, he believed he would succeed eventually. Although for now, he was still quite far off, as even in the Dharma Body state, his movement speed was less than 40 kilometers per second. Traveling to the Moon, which was 400,000 kilometers away from Earth, would take him 10,000 seconds, nearly three hours.

He felt he needed to reduce this number by tenfold or even several tens of times to bring the transit time between the trips down to just a few minutes to qualify for rapid leapfrogging, so for now, it remained quite distant.

"Forget it, better not to think about these useless things. I'll head home first and upgrade my skill levels."

With that, Zhang Yanhang began teleporting towards Qin Island City. His current maximum teleportation distance was 1,000 kilometers, so he needed to teleport nine times in a row to return to Qin Island City from nearly 10,000 kilometers away in Greenland.

...

October 31st, Saturday, the sixth day after the Double Ninth Festival, and the second day since Zhang Yanhang left the Ashen World, at 11:00 AM, Main World, Qin Island City, Xingfuli District, Apartment 505, Bedroom.

After teleporting nine times consecutively, Zhang Yanhang was finally lying back on the big bed in his bedroom. Despite his physical strength being heavily depleted, he didn't hurry to rest. Instead, he first opened his Soul Points balance to see how many Soul Points he had gained from the recent endeavor.

[Soul Points: 71,320,517 (+70,869,080)]

"Wow, that was quite a haul: I gained 70 million Soul Points. With the additional 70,869,080 Soul Points added to my previous balance of 451,437 Soul Points, my Soul Points balance has soared to a total of 71,320,517 Soul Points.

Seventy-one million Soul Points, enough for me to promote and upgrade three Origin LV.6 skills."

For Zhang Yanhang, the new record in Soul Points balance was not surprising at all. Actually, if not for the 20-million-plus Soul Points used earlier, he suspected that the total gains from this wave might have potentially elevated his earning straight from the eight digits up to nine digits, resulting in an astounding one billion Soul Points.

"Is this the Soul Points acquisition efficiency of a Fourth Tier Awakened? I love it."

But looking at it from another perspective, even one billion Soul Points would not be enough to promote and upgrade half of his skills. It could be said that the Soul Points consumption after the Fourth Tier promotion was indeed terrifying.

"Previously, the Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil Skill had just been promoted to Origin LV.5. This time, I must raise it to Origin LV.6. Make your choice! Skill level up!"

After checking his Soul Points balance, Zhang Yanhang immediately triggered the related skill upgrade options.

As the familiar resistance feeling emerged, time instantly paused, and a series of equally familiar text option frames appeared in front of Zhang Yanhang.

[Would you like to perform a skill level enhancement?]

[Option One: 'Gun Mastery LV.MAX' to 'Gun Mastery·Original LV.5' (Consumes 1 Ash Source, 1 Legendary Essence, 6,553,600 Soul Points.)]

...

[Option Three: 'Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil·Origin LV.5' to 'Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil·Origin LV.6' (Consumes 13,107,200 Soul Points.)]

[Option Four: 'Technique Immunity·Original LV.MAX' to 'Technique Immunity·Origin LV.5' (Consumes 1 Ash Source, 1 Legendary Essence, 6,553,600 Soul Points.)]

...

[Option Seven: 'Death Wave·Original LV.MAX' upgraded to 'Death Wave·Origin LV.5' (Consumes 1 Ash Source, 1 Legendary Essence, 6,553,600 soul points.)]

...

[Option Twelve: 'Heaven and Earth Devourer LV.MAX' upgraded to 'Heaven and Earth Devourer·Original LV.5' (Consumes 1 Ash Source, 1 Legendary Essence, 6,553,600 soul points.)]

[Option Thirteen: 'No Taboos LV.MAX' upgraded to '???' (Cannot be enhanced)]

"So, the question is, besides the Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil Skill, I have two other skills that can be upgraded this time. Which two skills should I upgrade?"

First, Zhang Yanhang is definitely not going to give up on Technique Immunity, the shield skill for survival. It's an old tradition, so Technique Immunity must take one spot. Therefore, Zhang Yanhang is now mainly torn about which skill to upgrade for the remaining slot.

"In the past, I would definitely have upgraded the Death Wave Skill first. But this time, after advancing to the Fourth Tier, I got the Heaven and Earth Devourer Skill, which is now upgraded to LV.MAX. It's a passive growth skill, and once it advances to Original LV.6, it will certainly boost my growth speed significantly..."

For this reason, Zhang Yanhang is quite conflicted.

"The next area I want to explore is the region opposite the abandoned sewage transmission channel in Raccoon City. I know from the options that the other side involves zombies, and in Raccoon City, the most powerful Lord Monster, the T-103 Tyrant·Tracker, even at its full form, is only at Third Tier One-star strength.

And the Tyrant is generally considered one of the stronger types among zombie monsters, so logically, the other side shouldn't have even the weakest monsters being Fourth Tier One-star monsters."

After all, if the opposing strength were truly that overpowered, the options wouldn't keep suggesting that I go there. Based on the current information, Zhang Yanhang believes there are definitely Third Tier monsters on the other side, and quite a lot of them, too. Currently, the Death Wave is already very effective against Third Tier monsters.

Therefore, Zhang Yanhang thinks that even if the Death Wave is upgraded later, it will still be adequate. He usually starts by clearing low-level monsters when he explores new areas.

This way, by the time he deals with Fourth Tier monsters, he should have already gathered the required twenty million soul points to upgrade the Death Wave Skill to Origin LV.6.

But Heaven and Earth Devourer is different; the sooner it's upgraded, the sooner he can benefit from the growth in body size and corresponding artifact effects.

Although he currently doesn't have any relevant artifacts to use, Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures can also provide boosts. He hasn't even triggered any encounters today, so it is definitely worth upgrading.

Even though he has made a decision, Zhang Yanhang will still upgrade the Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil Skill first, "So, I choose Option Three, upgrading the Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil Skill from Origin LV.5 to Origin LV.6."

As Zhang Yanhang made his choice, the Time Pause vanished instantly.

After successfully upgrading Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil·Origin LV.5 to Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil·Origin LV.6, Zhang Yanhang immediately checked the skill effects of Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil, wanting to know what new effects the additional attributes would bring this time.

After all, the last additional attribute granted him the ability to perceive sounds, upgrading him from the silent film era of 1080p to high-frame-rate sound movies in 1080p. In such a situation, it is indeed hard not to look forward to the effects of the additional attributes obtained by upgrading to Origin LV.6.

[Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil·Origin LV.6 (Passive/Active)]

[Passive effect: Neural Reflex Speed +60.0% (+10%)]

[Active effect: Sense enemy positions within the perception range and predict the next attack to a certain extent. Current perception range is 6,000 (+100) + 100×100[Intelligence] = 16,000 meters (+1,000 meters). No cooldown time, low physical strength consumption.]

[Additional Attribute: Skillful - You are now skillful at controlling Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil. You can freely adjust the coverage of your perception and fully grasp the outline of enemies within the perception range.]

[Additional Attribute: Mastery - You are now very skillful in controlling Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil. The penetration power of your perception is enhanced, allowing you to acquire colors within the perception range by concentrating energy.]

[Additional Attribute: Specialization - Thanks to long-term efforts, you now exhibit specialization in controlling Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil. The penetration power and anti-interference ability of your perception are further enhanced, making your perception of the surroundings more refined.]

[Additional Attribute: Expert - After a long period of effort, you now master Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil skills to the level of an expert. Extended research allows you to gradually master the methods of observing vibrations, and you gain a new understanding of both the colors of perceived objects and the penetration power of perception.]

[Additional Attribute: Master - After a long period of effort, your mastery of Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil skills has now reached the level of a master. Extended research further amplifies your perception of the colors of objects and penetration ability, and you gain some understanding of how to better release Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil, expanding the perception range by 40%.]

"Master?! With the Fourth Tier, I've finally reached the master stage? I was already an expert before; it makes sense to be a master now."

Because he puts great importance on additional attributes, Zhang Yanhang checked them first. These additional attributes live up to the name of 'Master' and are indeed very powerful.

"This time, the first part of the additional attributes helped me improve the perception of colors and penetration power, in layman's terms, it improved the image quality and the rate of mosaic removal."

Of course, the mosaic removal rate only becomes relevant when dealing with high-level Awakeners, like group leaders. In normal situations, penetration ability is most commonly applied underground, especially in the solid environment of the Crimson Iron Ore Vein. Penetration ability allows Zhang Yanhang to better utilize perception even underground.

"But compared to the image quality improvement and penetration ability, the latter half of this additional attribute is the real focus. It increased the perception range of Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil by 40% at once? That's so powerful!"

Zhang Yanhang's Dark Purple Quality Tarot Card Set only provides a 45% skill range bonus, yet here, simply upgrading to Origin LV.6 and relying on additional attributes granted a 40% range boost. Well, maybe it's not that simple, considering it took a full twenty million soul points to upgrade to this level.

And when Zhang Yanhang thinks about how the 40% perception range of Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil was exchanged with twenty million soul points, it suddenly doesn't seem so outrageous.

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