Ashen God

After checking the attribute list, Zhang Yanhang opened his soul point balance for a glance, wanting to know how many soul points he had left after upgrading the Limitless Universe Skill.

[Soul points: 25872357 (-17600000)]

"I originally had 43,470,000 soul points, but upgrading the Limitless Universe Skill just now consumed 17,600,000 soul points, leaving me with 25,870,000 soul points. Fortunately, that's still enough to upgrade the Indestructible Golden Body."

Of the 17,600,000 soul points expended this time, upgrading the Limitless Universe Skill from LV.8 to LV.9 consumed 7,900,000 soul points, and from LV.9 to LV.MAX required 9,700,000 soul points, with the final level needing an increase of 1,800,000 soul points compared to before.

"Since I have enough soul points, let's quickly upgrade the Indestructible Golden Body Skill. Choose! Skill Level Up!"

Zhang Yanhang immediately began activating the relevant options.

......

November 1st, Sunday, Halloween, also Zhang Yanhang's first day entering the Ashen World, at 10:16 PM, Umbrella Biochemical Test Field, Gelijia City.

After successfully upgrading the Indestructible Golden Body from the original LV.MAX to Origin LV.6, Zhang Yanhang once again opened his soul point balance for another glance.

[Soul points: 6211557 (-19660800)]

"After upgrading the Indestructible Golden Body∙Original LV.MAX to Indestructible Golden Body∙Origin LV.6, I consumed another 19,660,800 soul points, instantly reducing my soul point balance from the previous 25,870,000 eight-digit figure to the seven-digit 6,211,557."

Now, Zhang Yanhang can't even afford a single level up, as even simply promoting the Gun Mastery and Fighting Mastery requires at least 6,550,000 soul points, and he's still over 300,000 short.

"Apart from soul points, I've also consumed one Legendary Essence and one Ash Source this time; I originally had three Legendary Essences and four Ash Sources, and now it's reduced to two Legendary Essences and three Ash Sources."

Luckily, the remaining Legendary Essences are just enough to promote the Gun Mastery and Fighting Mastery as well, so there's no need for concern.

More importantly, Zhang Yanhang is quite interested in the skill effects of the Indestructible Golden Body after the upgrade, so after a quick glance at his soul point balance, he quickly checked the skill effects of Indestructible Golden Body∙Origin LV.6.

[Indestructible Golden Body∙Origin LV.6 (Passive/Active)]

[Passive Effect: Life Value +120% (+20%)]

[Active Effect: After skill activation, the defensive power of body parts covered by the golden body effect +600% (+100%), attack power +120% (+20%). Currently, all body parts can be covered. No cooldown time, low stamina consumption.]

[Additional Attribute: Skillful—You can now skillfully control the Indestructible Golden Body skill, gaining the ability to freely transfer the golden body effect to designated locations. When the target for transfer is an external object, the stamina consumption rate will increase.]

[Additional Attribute: Mastery—Your control of the Indestructible Golden Body skill has become proficient, providing the ability to concentrate the entire golden body effect onto a designated location, significantly enhancing the corresponding location's defense and attack power bonus. The stamina consumption rate will increase based on the concentration level when transferring the golden body effect.]

[Additional Attribute: Specialization—After a long period of effort, your control over the Indestructible Golden Body skill has reached a specialized level. You've gained the ability to further compress the originally diffused golden body effect, greatly enhancing defense and attack power bonus. The stamina consumption rate will increase based on the compression level.]

[Additional Attribute: Expert—After extended effort, your mastery of the Indestructible Golden Body skill qualifies you as an expert. Your research has greatly increased the energy you can control, and the range at which you can control the golden body effect has extended. You can freely manipulate the golden body effect even at a relatively long distance.]

[Additional Attribute: Master—After a very long period of effort, your mastery of the Indestructible Golden Body skill qualifies you as a master. Your research has provided a deeper understanding of the skill; the amount of golden body energy and the control range have significantly increased. You have also acquired the ability to shape the energy and give it physical form. When doing so, the stamina consumption rate will increase based on the precision and volume of shaping.]

"After upgrading to Origin LV.6, the Indestructible Golden Body's previous increase to Life Value Limit from 100% immediately rose to 120%, which translates to a 20% increase in Life Value Limit bonus. This is wonderful and should significantly help increase my Life Value Limit."

With this 20% Life Value Limit bonus, Zhang Yanhang believes that while he is still unlikely to achieve his goal of an eightfold increase in Life Value Limit, getting close to it shouldn't be a problem. He certainly wouldn't remain at the current level, which can only be considered as just reaching a sevenfold increase in Life Value Limit.

As for how to actually achieve the small goal of an eightfold Life Value Limit, one could say that instead of hoping for a Life Ring, it's better to look forward to obtaining Yellow Medicine Grass after clearing Raccoon City.

After all, he has both the Life Value Limit bonus and the item effect bonus provided by the Heaven and Earth Devourer, so even if the initial increase in Life Value Limit is low, it can still transform into a slightly promising figure after amplification.

Of course, what's more worth anticipating is the other things in the Umbrella Biochemical Test Field that could increase Life Value Limit, because if he can get a Life Ring and obtain an Ancestor Virus Enhancement Potion, that means there's the possibility of acquiring more items related to Life Value Limit, especially from the Fourth Tier Monsters he hasn't defeated yet.

"Besides the Life Value Limit bonus, the defense bonus from my Indestructible Golden Body also increased from 500% to 600%, representing another 100% boost in defense bonus. In other words, if I use the Indestructible Golden Body again, it will at once amplify my defensive power sixfold."

A notable point here is that the defense bonus of the Indestructible Golden Body is not simply a defense bonus from start to finish, but rather provides a corresponding multiplier after consolidating its own defense bonuses.

In other words, the more his defense bonus is, the higher the defense after the amplification; the two are not an additive relationship, but a multiplicative one.

Especially when it comes to the defense bonus Zhang Yanhang just increased, that is completely the most ordinary defense bonus, entirely different from the defense amplification provided by the Indestructible Golden Body.

"With a sixfold defense, just a bit more concentration can immediately achieve a twelvefold defense amplification, and if compressed further, it can reach a twenty-fourfold defense amplification."

Honestly, due to the large recent increase in defense bonuses, Zhang Yanhang even feels that he might be able to withstand attacks from the late Fifth Tier stage by using the Indestructible Golden Body Skill.

As for the Sixth Tier, it's not feasible, as each tier generally has at least a tenfold gap, even at the lowest, ten times ten is a hundredfold gap between the Fourth and Sixth Tiers, so expecting a mere twenty-fourfold defense bonus to withstand Sixth Tier attacks is, frankly, unrealistic.

Of course, saying this, as long as Zhang Yanhang can increase the spiritual energy once, he can immediately double the defense bonuses again, making it more hopeful to withstand attacks. As for whether or not he can withstand them and how many punches the Sixth Tier can take before dying, only practice can reveal the truth.

"Besides the defense bonus, my Attack Power bonus also increased from the original 100% to 120%, equivalent to another 20% increase in Attack Power bonus."

Although compared to defense bonuses, the growth in Attack Power bonuses is somewhat low, he understands that the Indestructible Golden Body is mainly a defensive skill, and it's hard to expect much from it offensively.

Though it's often said the best defense is offense, inevitably, sometimes one indeed needs to withstand enemy attacks first without dying instantly to have the ability to fight back.

Additionally, Zhang Yanhang does not want to be a fragile ADC; the brainless melee charge suits him better.

Interestingly, the Attack Power bonus provided by the Indestructible Golden Body is not just an ordinary Attack Power bonus. Instead, much like defense, it can directly amplify the base amount comprehensively.

Meaning, currently, after using the Indestructible Golden Body, his attack power enhancement surpasses the increase provided by spiritual energy empowerment.

Because the usual spiritual energy empowerment can only add about a onefold increase in Attack Power without significant energy consumption, yet the current Indestructible Golden Body can already add 1.2 times, 0.2 times higher than spiritual energy empowerment, and the two are multiplicative.

As for why he does not often use the Indestructible Golden Body even though it can directly double the Attack Power, the reason is similar to why he rarely uses spiritual energy empowerment to augment attack abilities.

Even the most basic normal attacks already inflict overflowing damage by multiple times, let alone adding extra buffs, which would only make the overflow worse.

Thus, in cases where consuming more Energy Value and Physical Strength yields no extra benefits, Zhang Yanhang finds using those related augmentations unnecessary.

Besides, Zhang Yanhang does not even use spiritual energy empowerment much when killing Lord Monsters; his normal attacks combined with All Four Elements are Void suffice his output needs; hence, there's no demand for excessive buffs.

Only when encountering a significantly formidable enemy will he add tons of buffs to defeat them. For this aspect, he actually looks forward to it, as the stronger the monster, the greater the benefits he gains after slaying them.

It's unfortunate that, even though he's promoted to the Fourth Tier, he hasn't met such enemies yet, even the Fifth Tier God of Sun encountered previously was simply taken down with a few shoulder throws, without exerting much effort. Therefore, Zhang Yanhang sincerely hopes for more encounters with stronger monsters.

"Speaking of the Indestructible Golden Body, after upgrading to Origin LV.6, its skill effect still indicates a slight consumption of Physical Strength with no change."

Of course, during actual usage, the Indestructible Golden Body should still exhibit some increase in Physical Strength consumption, but based on his previous experiences, the increase never exceeds one to two times. Given his significantly enhanced Physical Strength limit now, it's unworthy to concern over, hardly needing attention.

And because of the reason that previously upgraded Death Wave Skill consumption increased to a moderate consumption of Physical Strength, Zhang Yanhang finally knew roughly the upper limit of slight consumption of Physical Strength.

Currently, Indestructible Golden Body's consumption of Physical Strength is far from reaching even half of the upper limit of slight consumption, probably lingering at a lower middle tier.

Thus, he estimates that even after several more upgrades, the skill effect of Indestructible Golden Body may never reach moderate consumption of Physical Strength, as Indestructible Golden Body is ultimately a regular augmentation skill, entirely incomparable in Physical Strength consumption with the burst-type attack skill Death Wave.

As for asking about the consumption of Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil, being a supportive skill type, its consumption is naturally much lower than Indestructible Golden Body, although it has been upgraded several times, it still lingers in the lower tier of slight consumption.

Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil initially only consumed minimal Physical Strength, and with a low base number, naturally not much growth in Physical Strength consumption is observed now.

"And compared to Physical Strength consumption, of course, the new Additional Attributes are more crucial. This time's Additional Attributes greatly enhance my mastery over Golden Body Energy and broadly improve the mastery distance."

Compared to this, Zhang Yanhang is more concerned with the latter half of Additional Attributes.

It mentions that he mastered the ability to shape and materialize Golden Body Energy. Though temporarily unsure of what this means, he evidently mastered an advanced usage technique of Indestructible Golden Body, probably akin to 'Life Drain' acquired from the Death Wave.