"I remember my original energy value limit was 14,245 points, and now it has dropped to 14,131 points, equivalent to another decrease of 114 points in the energy value limit. Surprisingly, the consumption wasn't as much as expected."

Zhang Yan originally thought that the Ash Source and Legendary Essence over there would consume at least hundreds of energy value limits, but now, it only consumed 114 points in total.

Zhang Yan simply calculated and believed that the bulk of this hundred points of energy limit consumption probably wasn't from the Ash Source and Legendary Essence, nor was it likely from the Divination Tarot Card. It could only be caused by the Small Nuclear Fusion Reactor.

After all, a Small Nuclear Fusion Reactor is a legendary sixth tier equipment, which is two ranks above his current level, so consuming the maximum hundred points of energy value limit is quite normal.

And the leftover, which is the 14 points of energy value limit consumption, might be from the Ash Source, Legendary Essence, and Divination Tarot Card.

The main reason for this speculation is that 6 points from the Ash Source, 6 points from the Legendary Essence, and 2 Divination Tarot Cards add up exactly to 14, so Zhang Yan found it hard not to suspect.

In response, Zhang Yan felt that in the Multiple Choice evaluation, the Ash Source and Legendary Essence were undervalued, while the Divination Tarot Card was inherently undervalued.

After all, the current Divination Tarot Card, although being set equipment, is still just Dark Purple equipment, merely third tier early stage equipment, while he is now at the peak of the fourth tier, soon to advance to the fifth tier.

Though the set effect of the complete set of equipment is really strong, individual components that aren't part of a set indeed have little value, just ordinary Dark Purple Quality Equipment, which might cause them to be undervalued in the Multiple Choice criteria compared to their actual worth.

Yes, this actual value is also relative. To those without other components or the same three-piece set, an individual Divination Tarot Card is just ordinary amulet equipment, with a quality relatively low, only offering a marginal effect bonus.

But for an Awakener like Zhang Yan, who has successfully assembled a large number of components into a nine-piece set, every single component is extremely valuable.

Therefore, Zhang Yan speculated that the two Divination Tarot Cards symbolically consumed only one point of energy value limit each.

And the six points from the Ash Source and six points from the Legendary Essence likely did the same, symbolically consuming one point of energy value limit each, totaling to a deduction of twelve energy value limits.

In this way, the total energy value limit consumed neatly adds up to 114 points.

Of course, the exact calculation formula might differ, but Zhang Yan has another EX-grade Ashen Treasure Box to open later. Once he acquires additional Ash Sources from that box, he can verify this hypothesis.

By observing how much the Ash Source over there consumes in terms of energy value limit and comparing the two, the real answer can easily be deduced.

However, Zhang Yan also favored the current answer as the real one, given that there genuinely wasn't any bug in the related logical formula.

After checking the energy value limit, Zhang Yan immediately began sorting through the items obtained from the drop treasure box, starting naturally with Talent earnings.

But this time, due to the few drop treasure boxes opened, the talent earnings were disappointingly low. Furthermore, he hadn't selected the Talent Option from the Lord's Treasure Chest yet. In total, he only opened nine B-grade [Muscle Regeneration], with no other high-level talents.

Previously, Zhang Yan had 2,007 [Muscle Regeneration] remaining. Adding the numbers he just acquired brings the total to 2,016 [Muscle Regeneration], nearing a number coincidentally similar to the year he currently resided in.

"Nonetheless, 2,016 Muscle Regenerations might have been many in the past, but for now, they seem insufficient."

If Zhang Yan's XXX-grade Talent, Infinite Life wishes to advance to EX-grade, it requires a total of 6,561 [Muscle Regeneration], but the amount he currently possesses is not even a third, still short by 4,545 [Muscle Regeneration].

Based on his current drop rate of a treasure box per seventeen Third Tier monsters defeated, he would approximately need to clear four-fifths of another Umbrella Biochemical Test Field to assemble such a large quantity.

Of course, given his success in assembling a new three-piece of Divination Tarot Cards, his luck value should soon increase again, indirectly boosting the drop rate.

However, considering the Umbrella Biochemical Test Field has been thoroughly cleared, this luck value increase would surely have little impact now.

Moreover, even if the luck value increases by a point or two, he would still need to kill tens of thousands of monsters to advance. But currently, the Umbrella Biochemical Test Field's remaining monster count is zero, and a refresh is still a long way off, making it impossible to promote the Talent Level of Infinite Life.

After placing the nine [Muscle Regeneration] into his Waist Bag, Zhang Yan then began to check his Soul points balance, as he intended to upgrade his skills first. However, as his main skills were completely maxed out, the focus this time would be on upgrading Alchemy.

After all, he had long wanted to upgrade Alchemy, and soon he would utilize Alchemy to fuse orange Quality upgrade materials, so it would indeed be prudent to advance Alchemy beforehand.

Of course, Alchemy only consumes the Ash Source, but he checked his Soul points balance out of habit since he usually liked to verify it before skill upgrades. So this was just a casual check.

[Soul Points: 108,862,907 (+3,240,000)]

"Normally, if I had selected all Three Soul points options, these nine Drop treasure boxes from the Ancestor Virus Infected should provide nearly five million Soul points.

However, due to selecting the Dark Gold Quality Omida Nuclear Energy Cannon for one option this time, he only opted for two Soul points options, resulting simply in 3.24 million Soul points from the combined nine Drop Treasure Boxes."

For Zhang Yan, whose current Soul point balance has surpassed one hundred million, these 3.24 million Soul points seem a bit underwhelming, only increasing his balance from 105.62 million to 108.86 million.

Primarily, this was due to only obtaining Soul points from the Ancestor Virus Infected's drop treasure boxes, whereas the Lord's Treasure Chest of the Ancestor Virus Aggregation didn't yield any Soul points.

If Zhang Yan had selected the Soul points option then, his Soul points earnings would be over fifty million, and his current balance would approach one hundred and sixty million. But, alas, compared to Soul points, the Legendary Essence indeed weighs heavier in importance, so Zhang Yan felt no regret at all.

He simply pondered over which rank must be reached to transform the current Dual-choice system into a true Multiple Choice, allowing him to pick all three options at once.

Though, looking at the difficulty he had to undergo to reach changes at the Fourth Tier, he surmised that the Fifth Tier might not be hopeful, but aspirations could be made for the Sixth Tier.

After all, upon reaching the Sixth Tier, he becomes god-like, akin to transitioning from a regular Transcendent to the Legendary Stage of the Fourth Tier, likely undergoing a significant qualitative change. In such scenarios, the chance of changes in Multiple Choice greatly increases.

"Choose! Skill Level Enhancement!"

After briefly checking the Soul points balance, Zhang Yanhang quickly began to trigger the relevant upgrade options.

Accompanied by a familiar sense of resistance, Time Pause immediately descended again on the Umbrella Biochemical Test Field. At the same time, a large selection of text option boxes appeared in front of Zhang Yanhang.

[Would you like to perform a Skill Level Enhancement?]

[Option One: Upgrade 'Gun Mastery·Original LV.6' to 'Gun Mastery·Original LV.7' (consumes 26,214,400 Soul points.)]

[Option Two: Upgrade 'Martial Arts Master·Original LV.6' to 'Martial Arts Master·Original LV.7' (consumes 26,214,400 Soul points.)]

...

[Option Five: Upgrade 'Limitless Universe Skill[4th Tier]LV.MAX' to '???' (cannot be enhanced)]

[Option Six: Upgrade 'Alchemy·Original' to 'Alchemy·Origin' (consumes 3 Ash Source points)]

...

[Option Twelve: Upgrade 'Heaven and Earth Devourer·Original LV.6' to 'Heaven and Earth Devourer·Original LV.7' (consumes 26,214,400 Soul points.)]

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

"Speaking of which, this Alchemy is indeed a bit special. Clearly, other skills require Soul points to upgrade, but Alchemy only needs Ash Source points.

Moreover, for other skills, by the time they reach the stage of Alchemy, they would probably need to consume Legendary Essence, but Alchemy still only requires Ash Source.

The drawback is the increased consumption of Ash Source; other ordinary skills need only one Ash Source point per promotion, but currently, Alchemy requires three Ash Source points, three times that of other normal skills."

Fortunately, Zhang Yanhang had just opened a Lord's Treasure Chest and acquired fifteen Ash Source points. Adding the one Ash Source point he had from the start, he had a total of sixteen Ash Source points, so the upgrade cost of just three Ash Source points is certainly affordable.

Although promoting tier level also requires ten points, even after deducting the ten points for tier promotion and the three Ash Source points for upgrading Alchemy, Zhang Yanhang still had three Ash Source points remaining.

Furthermore, when he opens the Ashen Treasure Box later, he will be able to obtain some more Ash Source points. At least in the short term, Zhang Yanhang can achieve Ash Source freedom, though with tier promotions and subsequent skill upgrades, he might soon return to the current state of scarcity.

"So, I choose Option Six, to upgrade Alchemy·Original to Alchemy·Origin."

Since there was only one skill needed to upgrade, Zhang Yanhang immediately made his choice after reviewing the skill list, and Time Pause immediately vanished.

"With this, the sixteen points of Ash Source I just accumulated are now down to thirteen, but fortunately, it's not a big issue."

After upgrading his skill, Zhang Yanhang immediately began to check the Skill Effect of Alchemy·Origin.

[Alchemy·Origin (Active Skill)]

[Skill Effect: Transmute one object into another, no cooldown time. Each use will consume 1-??? Energy Value points depending on the complexity, quality, volume, and other related factors of the transmutation.]

[Additional Attribute: Manufacturing]

[Additional Attribute: Fusion]

[Additional Attribute: Enchantment]

[Additional Attribute: Extraction]

[Additional Attribute: Repair]

"How should I put it, although Alchemy has indeed advanced from the Original Stage to the Origin Stage, the skill effect is still exactly the same as before, without any change."

But this is part of an old tradition that Zhang Yanhang is somewhat accustomed to.

After all, while the textual description of the skill effect has not changed, Zhang Yanhang was immediately infused with a ton of relevant knowledge upon completing the upgrade of Alchemy.

In short, for skills like Alchemy, knowledge is indeed the most important aspect, and everything else is merely a byproduct of transforming this knowledge into results.

Moreover, after upgrading Alchemy, Zhang Yanhang could clearly feel an enhancement in his Alchemy capabilities. As for the specific degree of improvement, that would only be known after actual fusion practices later.

"Besides the original Manufacturing, Fusion, Enchantment, and Extraction, this upgrade to the Origin Stage adds a brand-new additional attribute—Repair.

However...this Repair is not particularly useful to me."

According to Zhang Yanhang's understanding, although Alchemy, when well-utilized, is equivalent to having an inherent repair ability, the Repair in Additional Attributes is a more specialized and refined capability, enabling efficient and automated repairs, akin to having a built-in repair program.

To put it simply, from household appliances to nuclear bombs and reactors, everything can be automatically repaired. For instance, if a circuit board in an appliance breaks, there's no need for Zhang Yanhang to grasp related circuit board knowledge. He could utilize transmutation capabilities for certain levels of analysis and automatic repair.

In other words, instead of calling it a repair ability, it's more appropriate to call it an analytical program, with a core of Alchemy knowledge and an integrated supercomputer.

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