"How does it feel a bit strange?" Zhang Yanhang shook his head and then quickly stepped into the transmission channel.

When he truly entered the volcanic area, Zhang Yanhang started feeling the overwhelming vitality of the volcano group. The red magma that covered the mountains and plains seemed to light up with a pollution effect instantly. Even the thick volcanic ash clouds in the sky couldn't prevent this area from being bright.

It was uncertain whether fighting on home turf gave it a psychological advantage or if seeing Zhang Yanhang's reduced size made it feel confident again, but the previously escaping Molten Fire Demon actually teleported back to Zhang Yanhang's side.

However, it had to be said that home field advantage was indeed real, for it was only then that Zhang Yanhang starkly discovered that the Molten Fire Demon's strongest ability was to manipulate magma and lava.

The massive Magma Lake stirred up layers of waves like a tsunami, rising dozens of meters high and crazily surging toward Zhang Yanhang. In the next second, it engulfed him completely, while an invisible force within the magma controlled the hardening lava that relentlessly struck his energy shield.

Although Zhang Yanhang's 'Indestructible Golden Body' was still only activated at its most basic enhancement, the spell blessing he had received earlier considerably improved his defensive power. As a result, aside from normal attacks, he could even be immune to the Molten Fire Demon's skill attacks.

Most importantly, Zhang Yanhang possessed a 200% Flame Resistance which allowed him to easily become immune to this type of fire damage.

After realizing that the sea of magma could not harm Zhang Yanhang, massive chunks of lava and magma began to attach to its body, gradually forming a giant molten lava, dozens of meters tall.

It had to be said that the construction of this molten lava giant was rather scientifically reasonable. The outermost and innermost layers were made of lava while the middle layer was magma, a non-Newtonian fluid responsible for buffering and neutralizing forces. Moreover, the magma also acted as an adhesive in the gaps to a certain extent.

Looking up at this towering molten lava giant, Zhang Yanhang guessed that this might really be the Molten Fire Demon's true strength, which it previously couldn't fully display in Parallel Space due to an environmental disadvantage.

Zhang Yanhang even began to think that perhaps the continuous charges and attacks from numerous monsters, forming artificial magma pools at his feet, were also to provide an environmental advantage for the lord monster, the Molten Fire Demon, allowing it to display its genuine strength. However, regrettably, this was destined to be in vain against absolute power.

Moreover, Zhang Yanhang could clearly see that the Molten Fire Demon seemed to be able to draw power from the magma. After a brief accumulation, a beam of magma as thick as a house, tore through the sound barrier and shot straight at Zhang Yanhang with ease.

It had to be said, Zhang Yanhang might not fear a straightforward energy attack, but the magma beam, being a dense semi-solid, semi-liquid non-Newtonian fluid heavier than ordinary rocks, presented a unique characteristic. Rather than considering it a regular ray attack, it felt more like the Molten Fire Demon was continuously poking him with a big stone rod.

Because as the speed of the magma increased, it hardened, especially at sound speeds. Although it was normally a mix of solid and liquid, at this point, it was almost entirely solid. Yet, it still retained liquid properties, allowing it to freely flow. As a result, it could continuously and persistently poke the hardest tip against Zhang Yanhang's energy shield.

This caused Zhang Yanhang's 200% flame resistance to falter, and the shield value of his energy shield began to drop crazily, decreasing by over a thousand points each second.

"This is more like it, this is the true strength of a Fourth Tier Monster."

Zhang Yanhang had now somewhat understood why Zhou Muxi had initially prevented him from charging directly into the transmission channel. It was because the environmental factors providing certain monsters with devastating advantages were truly formidable.

Zhang Yanhang even began to suspect whether the previous Molten Lava Giant Turtle could also continuously draw magma to spurting magma beams at him without intermittent breaks as before, instead of spurting like a water gun which stops every now and then.

Thinking of this, Zhang Yanhang instantly felt that other monsters could probably also utilize this environmental advantage. It could be said that not rashly charging into the transmission channel might indeed have been a good decision; after all, if there really were ten Molten Fire Demons transforming into Molten Lava Giants and focusing their magma beams on him at the same time, he might not necessarily be able to withstand it, well, under normal conditions.

Despite acknowledging the strength of the Molten Fire Demon, it didn't mean Zhang Yanhang would let it continue shooting indefinitely. As losing a thousand points of shield value per second was actually not that bad, he started to forcibly push forward against the magma beam. Then he punched the chest of the Molten Lava Giant, the exact spot where the Molten Fire Demon was embedded.

A several hundred-ton fierce iron fist, moving at three times the speed of sound, easily generated a force greater than a missile, forming a tremendous shockwave that violently struck the Molten Lava Giant.

The outer layer of black magma on the Molten Lava Giant instantly shattered, and the magma behind it, acting as a cushion, though a non-Newtonian fluid, ultimately had its buffering limits and immediately splashed out under such a powerful attack.

After Zhang Yanhang's fist penetrated the layer of magma and broke through another layer of solidified lava, it directly hit the chest of the Molten Fire Demon. Along with the sound of twisting metal, the thick metal armor on the exterior of the Molten Fire Demon was forcibly torn apart.

The Molten Fire Demon might be very powerful, but in front of Zhang Yanhang, its fragile, crimson body under the massive impact seemed like an over-inflated balloon that burst instantly, along with the outer shell of the Molten Lava Giant that it had formed.

Accompanied by the scattering fragments of lava and mixed blood and tissue floating in mid-air, the final kill notification sound finally rang in Zhang Yanhang's ears.

[Successfully killed a Fourth Tier One-star Monster 'Molten Fire Demon·Purgatory Walker' (Lord Monster) x1, Soul points+35000.]

"Now that even the Lord Monster, the Molten Fire Demon, has been completely eliminated, this transmission channel should be totally cleared now, right?"

Having just killed the Molten Fire Demon, Zhang Yanhang was already eagerly wanting to head home, mainly because he wanted to hurry back and upgrade his skill levels.

"In theory, there should be no more monsters, but just to be safe, it's better to search the entire area again," Zhou Muxi nodded.

"Search?" Zhang Yanhang found Zhou Muxi's suggestion very reasonable. Therefore, he immediately triggered Time Pause; doing something as time-consuming as searching surely cannot be done in the usual way, using Time Pause for the search would be more convenient.

...

After conducting a thorough search under the Time Pause state, Zhang Yanhang had to admit that there were indeed no Lucky Slot Machine, Achievement Vending Machine, or Evaluation Settlement Treasure Box; of course, the original purpose of the search, monsters, were also nonexistent—he had indeed wiped out all the monsters in this region.

"I've finished the search; there are no other monsters here." Zhang Yanhang immediately answered Zhou Muxi's question after casually choosing an option to end the Time Pause.

"Although you did mention before that you have a clairvoyant type of ability, it shouldn't extend that far, right? This volcanic area is at least a few thousand square kilometers in size; can you see through all of it?"

Zhou Muxi seemed oddly uncomfortable upon broaching this topic, perhaps wanting to find something to hide behind, likely due to a sense of shame.

"To be precise, it's 2300 kilometers. Although I can't scan it all at once, scanning in batches is quite simple; anyway, I have completed the scans."

Zhang Yanhang had scanned everywhere, both underground and in the sky, and he could responsibly say that it was absolutely impossible for any living monsters to still exist in this volcanic region.

"Well then, okay." Zhou Muxi didn't know exactly what Zhang Yanhang meant by having completed his scans, but she knew he had plenty of tricks up his sleeve and was not likely lying for no reason.

However, though she trusted Zhang Yanhang's words, as the person in charge from the relevant department, she still felt the need to take on certain responsibilities, "Since there are no more monsters, you should go ahead first. I'll search through the entire area myself later."

Now that the Lord Monsters were all gone, if there were any remaining monsters, they would only be Second or Third Tier at most, certainly no match for her, which is why Zhou Muxi took on this task.

Additionally, aside from this, she needed to write a report, or rather, a mission record; she really needed to walk around here to see if there were any resources worth developing, of course, these exploratory missions were mainly the responsibility of other related Awakeners later on; she was just doing some preliminary work.

"Alright, if you insist on doing it yourself, go ahead and scan by yourself." Since there genuinely were no monsters in the vicinity, Zhang Yanhang really wasn't worried about Zhou Muxi's personal safety.

"I will now remove the Parallel Space Barrier."

As Zhou Muxi spoke, she began to remove the barrier, but then took out many new materials to set up a new barrier; after all, although there were no monsters left, the Transmission Channel could not be left unprotected in the Main World—that would be too dangerous, so it needed to be covered with a Barrier Shield first.

But Zhang Yanhang wasn't concerned with these things at all; as soon as Zhou Muxi began removing the Parallel Space Barrier, he had already teleported away.

...

October 29, Thursday, four days after the Double Ninth Festival and also the first day Zhang Yanhang left the Ashen World. At 10:31 AM, in the middle of the Yellow Sea, atop a deserted island.

That's right, Zhang Yanhang didn't go straight home but had returned to this isolated island in the middle of the Yellow Sea because he was going to enhance his skill levels and attribute values, which inevitably required some testing. Instead of upgrading at home and then teleporting here for testing, it was more convenient to just teleport here right from the start.

"Although I initially estimated that clearing the entire Fourth Tier Transmission Channel might only take about one or two hours, I was actually just hoping for the best. I was prepared for it to battle until noon; however, I didn't expect that it would really take only one hour and fifteen minutes to kill all 87,510 monsters in the Fourth Tier region."

Zhang Yanhang could only say that when monsters could teleport, especially those that liked to barge in, the cleaning efficiency truly was unparalleled. However, if he encountered other types of monsters that couldn't teleport, cleaning efficiency definitively wouldn't reach this level—it would take at least two hours to clear the entire Transmission Channel.

After briefly contemplating, Zhang Yanhang soon began checking his Soul points balance. Even though he had used three million Soul points to upgrade Death Wave·Original to LV.MAX, he should still have seven or eight million Soul points left.

[Soul points: 10935346 (+8655950)]

"Good heavens, I really underestimated myself before. Just the additional Soul points amount to 8655950 points, plus the 2279396 points I had left. My current balance of Soul points has actually broken through ten million, reaching 10935346 points?"

Though Zhang Yanhang had previously imagined how high the Soul points acquisition rate at Third Tier could be, he never anticipated that he would gather over ten million Soul points just in one hour and fifteen minutes after advancing to Third Tier.

Moreover, this was after he had already spent 3070000 Soul points, leaving nearly eleven million Soul points remaining. If we consider the portion he had spent as well, this single Fourth Tier Transmission Channel had astonishingly contributed nearly fourteen million Soul points in earnings.

At this level of Soul points, even if reduced by ten times to only 1.4 million, it was still far beyond what he could have acquired at the Second Tier. Regarding this, Zhang Yanhang's only thought was that he had previously thought too small and completely underestimated the real level of the Third Tier.

"Now that I have so many Soul points, I should indeed be able to max out the Limitless Universe Skill to Third Tier LV.MAX first, then consider enhancing other skill levels. After all, although upgrading the Limitless Universe Skill might indeed consume a lot, it still wouldn't surpass the demand for other Professional skills that easily require millions of Soul points."

Zhang Yanhang initially thought that if he had a smaller amount of Soul points, he might only be able to max out the Limitless Universe Skill level for now and delay the Promotion of the Heavenly Destiny Master Profession level. But now, it seems he could straightforwardly also raise the Heavenly Destiny Master Profession level.

Even if he maxed out the levels of both the Limitless Universe Skill and the Heavenly Destiny Master, it actually wouldn't consume too many Soul points, well, at least not as much in comparison to the upgrading costs for various Professional skills.

At this thought, Zhang Yanhang felt incredibly excited because he might just reach the Peak Third Tier immediately after his Promotion.

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