Because he had just wiped out over a million monsters, Zhang Yanhang casually opened his soul points balance to take a look, wanting to know how many soul points he could gather, and whether he could possibly round it up to one hundred million soul points or so.

[Soul points: 112997620（+65093934）]

"Given how hard I've worked to clear out monsters, it's indeed very smooth that my soul points balance has returned to over a hundred million, finally back to the nine-digit figure of my previous peak period.

Originally, I only had a total of 47.9 million soul points, but after taking down over a million monsters this time, I harvested 65.09 million soul points, which increased my soul points balance to 112.99 million."

With so many soul points, Zhang Yanhang felt it was perhaps time to simply upgrade his Swallowing Heaven and Earth skill level a bit, as he realized it had really been a long time since he last upgraded the skill level of Swallowing Heaven and Earth.

"Select! Skill level enhancement!" Once the soul points met the criteria, Zhang Yanhang immediately began to trigger the relevant options.

[Proceed with skill level enhancement?]

[Option One: Upgrade 'Gun Master·Original LV.6' to 'Gun Master·Original LV.7' (costs 26214400 soul points.)]

...

[Option Five: Upgrade 'Limitless Universe Skill[5th Tier]LV.2' to 'Limitless Universe Skill[5th Tier]LV.3' (costs 21700000 soul points.)]

...

[Option Seven: Upgrade 'Death Wave·Origin LV.6' to 'Death Wave·Origin LV.7' (costs 26214400 soul points.)]

...

[Option Twelve: Upgrade 'Heaven and Earth Devourer·Original LV.6' to 'Heaven and Earth Devourer·Original LV.7' (costs 26214400 soul points.)]

...

[Option Fifteen: Upgrade 'Eternal Demon Body LV.6' to 'Eternal Demon Body LV.7' (costs 26214400 soul points.)]

"Currently, upgrading my Limitless Universe Skill to 5th Tier LV.3 requires 21.7 million soul points, which is completely affordable with my current soul points, but unfortunately, I need to fully upgrade Swallowing Heaven and Earth right now, so Limitless Universe Skill will have to be upgraded later."

Moreover, compared to the current Limitless Universe Skill LV.3, Zhang Yanhang also thought upgrading the profession level of Heavenly Destiny Master was more cost-effective, since at present, upgrading Heavenly Destiny Master to LV.44 only requires 15 million soul points.

"So, I choose option twelve, consuming 26214400 soul points to upgrade Heaven and Earth Devourer·Original LV.6 to Original LV.7."

Although Death Wave also urgently needed to be upgraded, fortunately, Zhang Yanhang hadn't yet encountered monsters he couldn't one-hit kill, so he wasn't overly anxious. Of course, this is only relative; if he can upgrade earlier, it's better to do so, as last-minute cramming can be quite uncomfortable.

Following Zhang Yanhang's choice, the time pause instantly disappeared, but he then immediately began the second upgrade, as just one upgrade definitely couldn't fulfill his demands.

......

November 2, Monday, the first day after Halloween, and also the first day Zhang Yanhang left the Ashen World, at 1:43 PM, Niger, the ruins of the city of Tajiafadi.

After successfully upgrading Heaven and Earth Devourer·Original from LV.6 to LV.8, Zhang Yanhang didn't immediately check the skill effects but opened his soul points balance again.

[Soul points: 34354420（-78643200）]

"What does it mean to go back to the pre-liberation state overnight? The one hundred million soul points that were just painstakingly accumulated, after upgrading the Swallowing Heaven and Earth skill only twice, immediately fell back from nine digits to eight digits."

Zhang Yanhang had just consumed 26.21 million and 4400 soul points when upgrading the Swallowing Heaven and Earth skill from Original LV.6 to Original LV.7, and another 52.42 million and 8800 soul points when further upgrading it from Original LV.7 to Original LV.8. Altogether, the two upgrades consumed a total of 78.64 million and 3200 soul points of Zhang Yanhang's soul points.

"Simply upgrading Swallowing Heaven and Earth twice left my soul points balance with only 34.35 million; it seems more effort is needed."

After a cursory glance at subsequent upgrade requirements, Zhang Yanhang saw that upgrading to Original LV.9 would require 104.85 million and 7600 soul points, roughly around one hundred and five million.

"Just upgrading to LV.9 already means spending 105 million soul points. In this way, when upgrading to LV.MAX, it will double again to 210 million soul points. How am I supposed to gather that? Do I really need to help clean out all the permanent teleportation channels nationwide in Nigeria?"

Zhang Yanhang made a simple calculation and found out that currently upgrading a skill from LV.6 to LV.MAX required more than 390 million soul points, inching close to 400 million soul points requirement.

It could be said that even adding up all the soul points he gained from First Tier before Fifth Tier, they wouldn't reach 400 million, yet simply upgrading a single skill now requires 400 million, and he currently has more than a dozen skills needing upgrades, just the thought of such massive upgrade demands made Zhang Yanhang's head ache a bit.

"Forget it, when the ship gets to the bridge, it will naturally straighten. Better move step by step, because although the upgrade demands are immense, fortunately, the efficiency of soul points acquisition at Fifth Tier has also significantly improved."

Zhang Yanhang believed that with his current soul points acquisition efficiency in Fifth Tier, as long as he worked harder to clear a few more permanent teleportation channels, he could still hope to meet such enormous soul points requirements.

Of course, aside from low-level teleportation channels, Zhang Yanhang also felt the urgent need to find higher-level permanent teleportation channels, as for an Awakener like him who excelled in wide-range attacks, the higher the level of the permanent teleportation channels, the greater the efficiency of soul points acquisition.

After all, the higher the tier of the monsters, the more numerous they are, and while numerous, they are also stronger, so naturally the number of soul points they can provide is higher as well.

Just like this time, the soul points balance obtained from clearing out over twenty permanent teleportation channels, where a single Third Tier Voodoo permanent teleportation channel alone contributed thirty million soul points, accounting for half of the over sixty million total soul points revenue.

The remaining twenty or so low-level teleportation channels combined can barely compete with the Third Tier Voodoo's permanent teleportation channel.

Therefore, in this situation, Zhang Yanhang indeed desperately needs a high-level permanent teleportation channel.

"But acquiring soul points and such is a matter for later. For now, let's first check the recently upgraded Swallowing Heaven and Earth Skill."

While speaking, Zhang Yanhang began to examine the active effect of the Heaven and Earth Devourer·Original LV.8.

[Heaven and Earth Devourer·Original LV.8 (Passive/Active)]

[Passive Effect: Artifact (Buff) usage (consumption) effect +80% (+20%).]

[Active Effect: After skill activation, the Heavenly Destiny Master can swallow matter and energy into the stomach space through the mouth, digesting the substances and energy there to grow in size and restore one's energy value, with no cooldown time and a slight consumption of physical strength.

Current stomach space volume is 1600 (+400) ×1600 (+400) ×1600 (+400) = 17,280,000 cubic meters + 40,960,000 cubic meters (+23,680,000 cubic meters).

Current stomach space absorption efficiency is 2489 [Energy Value Recovery Speed] ×8% (+2%) = 199 points (+50 points) energy value/second.]

......

"After Swallowing Heaven and Earth upgraded to Original LV.8, the artifact usage effect bonus increased again by 20%, from the original 60% directly to 80%. This way, when I use artifacts and consume Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures in the future, I can obtain 1.8 times the original enhancement effect, how wonderful."

Besides that, Zhang Yanhang also noticed that the volume of his stomach space had significantly increased again, from the original 1200 meters long, wide, and high cube to 1600 meters, meaning each dimension had increased by four hundred meters.

This increase in length, width, and height also led to a tremendous increase in the stomach space volume, previously 1.728 billion cubic meters, now grown to 4.096 billion cubic meters, or roughly 4.1 billion cubic meters, increasing the volume by nearly 2.4 billion cubic meters in one go.

"I was worried before that the stomach space would be insufficient if it held too many corpses, but now there's no need to worry. The stomach space volume has more than doubled at once."

Of course, compared to the often abundant stomach space volume, Zhang Yanhang naturally pays more attention to the absorption efficiency of the stomach space.

"Although my energy value recovery speed hasn't changed, still maintaining the original 2489 points, the conversion coefficient of the stomach space absorption efficiency finally received an enhancement, increasing from 6% to 8%, gaining a 2% improvement, really nice."

Previously, Zhang Yanhang's 2489-point energy value recovery speed could only translate to a mere 149-point energy value absorption efficiency, but now it has directly boosted to 199, approximately a 50-point increase, equivalent to approximately a one-third increment.

"Moreover, this is just the energy value absorption efficiency brought by absorbing ordinary matter. Currently, I am absorbing the subordinate sage stone at double efficiency, so practically, I can achieve a 398-point energy value absorption efficiency per second."

When Zhang Yanhang's energy value absorption efficiency was only 298 points before, he had conservatively set his next small goal at 300 points. Looking back now, he was indeed too conservative, as not only was the original 300-point small goal effortlessly completed, but even the 350-point small goal was also smoothly achieved.

"In this case, my next small goal is to reach a 400-point energy value absorption efficiency, and I'm only two points short of achieving this small goal at the moment."

Zhang Yanhang feels that at his current improvement pace, achieving this small goal should be quite easy.

"Calculating with my current 398-point energy value absorption efficiency per second, I can now automatically restore 23,880 points of energy value per minute, and 1,432,800 points per hour."

If calculating over an entire day, Zhang Yanhang can even automatically restore 34,387,200 points of energy value.

"Unfortunately, although there's been plenty of growth, true energy value freedom is still a distant dream. After all, as my rank increases, my energy value consumption also gradually rises, making complete energy value freedom rather challenging."

Despite the challenges, Zhang Yanhang is determined to keep striving, as not trying would certainly mean failure, but trying offers at least a sliver of hope for success.

"With the improvement in the stomach space absorption efficiency conversion coefficient, the gap between my current automatic recovery speed and standard energy value recovery speed has again increased significantly."

Previously, the difference between them was just 2931 times, and now it's surged to a 3915-fold difference, a further increase of 984 times.

Zhang Yanhang is not surprised by such a dramatic increase, as it wasn't his actual energy value recovery speed that improved; it still remains at 366 points, and with only one side progressing, the gap is naturally further widened.

Most importantly, while Zhang Yanhang originally needed 114 seconds to automatically recover one full energy value meter, he now only requires 85 seconds, reducing the recovery time by 29 seconds, which is quite impressive.

Zhang Yanhang estimates that when he can reduce the automatic recovery time to below 10 seconds, he might as well achieve energy value freedom. However, this long-term goal is bound to be quite challenging—achieving it might not even be possible in the fifth or sixth tier.

"But in any case, whereas I used to need almost two minutes to recover one full energy value meter, now it only takes a minute and a half. Reducing it further to under a minute might well mean the initial realization of energy value freedom."

As important as energy value freedom is the growth speed of Zhang Yanhang's size.

"Before my upgrade, it took about 67 seconds to grow one centimeter in size, but now it requires only fifty seconds, shortening the time by 17 seconds. It's evident that upgrading skills is the best way to improve."

After reducing the size growth speed to fifty seconds per centimeter, Zhang Yanhang can now grow 72 centimeters per hour. Twenty-four hours a day equals 1728 centimeters, an increase of 438 centimeters in growth efficiency compared to previously being able to grow only 1290 centimeters daily.

"At this rate, I might really soon manage to grow over twenty meters in size in just one day."

Zhang Yanhang initially thought this small goal might take quite some time, but now he feels it might be easier than he anticipated.

Considering the standard ceiling height of 2.8 meters per story, Zhang Yanhang used to grow only 4.6 stories in height daily, but now can achieve six stories of growth, a significantly noticeable improvement.

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