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 sa as the Crimson Iron Fla Demon Ants."
Every ti 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 ans 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 imdiately 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 kiloters, 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 kiloters, 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 kiloters 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 sa, about twenty seconds to clear one square kiloter, causing him to clear just ninety square kiloters 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 Fla Demon Ants or Crimson Iron Hell Ants without any enhancents.
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 equipnt that could improve hunting efficiency, Zhang Yanhang was more interested in finding new equipnt 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 ti.
"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 Fla 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 so loud booming sounds. Compared to Crimson Iron Fla 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 ntioning 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 ters per second, that roughly equated to the speed of an ard helicopter.
Although they appeared sowhat 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 Fla Beam were to go to the Main World, they would definitely give most people a firsthand experience of what 'hell' really ant.
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 ti.
And if Third Tier monsters were this dangerous, there was no need to ntion Fourth Tier, Fifth Tier, Sixth Tier, etc., as a single one could destroy city-level units or even provincial-level units, not to ntion 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 ans ahead of ti, such asures, 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 ti, 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 sowhere 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 tis, 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-ti 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 kiloters. Adding the previous 90 square kiloters, that's a total area of 225 square kiloters cleared. I still have 75 square kiloters left to clear.
With my hunting efficiency of one square kiloter every twenty seconds, three square kiloters 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 kiloters cleared this ti, Zhang Yanhang had now cleared a total area of 475 square kiloters, 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 ti, my current hunting efficiency would be sufficient even without extending the ti. But unfortunately, I need to open treasure boxes, and rging equipnt takes another one or two hours, far more ti-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 ti.
"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 Fla Ants, and in the back, dozens of Crimson Iron Fla 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 rember 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 ti 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 ti 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 ti 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 ti 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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