Dimensional Codex System: I'm really not a cultist!

Chapter 56: Chapter 55: Bumper Harvest!!

[Executor: Fang Zheng]

[Dimensional Count: 0]

[Crystal Energy: 40]

[Equipped Soulstone: Kerrigan]

[Activation Count: 5]

[Gains: Heart of the Swarm (permanent), Psionic Control (permanent)]

[Equipped Title: Holy Protector]

[Strength: D++ (Punching a bear to death is basic)]

[Agility: C+ (Your enemies can only see your afterimage)]

[Physical Quality: B+ (As long as your head isn’t blown off, you have no fear of death)]

[Perception: C+ (Everything within sight is revealed)]

[Charm: C++ (You have the capital and power to charm others)]

[Equipped Skills: None]

[Skill Expertise: Weapon Mastery]

[Talent Ability—Perfect Body (D): You possess the legendary perfect body, with immeasurable growth potential (recovery speed increased by 20 percent, defense increased by 20 percent, learning speed increased by 20 percent, additionally gained skills: “Awakening,” “Regeneration,” all attributes increase when leveled up)]

[Talent Ability—Gene Absorption (D): You can absorb gene sequences from powerful beings to strengthen yourself and reach the pinnacle of evolution (specified targets have a certain chance of having their gene sequences captured and absorbed)]

[Talent Ability—Time Manipulation (E): The power of time flows through your body, allowing you to sense and harness its mighty force (freely manipulate the flow of time within a radius of five meters, duration up to 10 minutes)]

[Exclusive Task: Home]

[The Swarm desires a home of their own, and as their ruler, you must find a place for them to proliferate and thrive———in the next three instance journeys, find and occupy a territory for the Swarm’s nest, succeeding will unlock exploration mode, failure will consume three uses of the Kerrigan Soulstone]

What a windfall!

After seeing the brand new attribute panel, Fang Zheng couldn’t help but clench his fists excitedly. This adventure was totally worth it in his eyes!

Not only were all aspects of his physical attributes greatly enhanced, but he also got rid of that uncomfortable shell. Most importantly, though, were those three talent abilities!

[Perfect Body] was an unexpected delight for Fang Zheng, especially with its innate abilities “Awakening” and “Regeneration.” “Regeneration” was a passive skill, exactly as it sounds, quickly healing any damage Fang Zheng takes. “Awakening” was an active skill. When Fang Zheng triggered “Awakening,” all his attributes would be boosted by one rank. Moreover, during Awakening, Fang Zheng would transform into a form similar to Kerrigan as the Zerg Queen.

However, possibly because Fang Zheng had not mastered Psionic powers, his “Awakening” enhancements were more focused on physical attributes. Upon “Awakening,” Fang Zheng’s whole body would be covered with pitch-black scales, he’d grow a long lizard-like tail, and huge bat-like wings. In this form, Fang Zheng couldn’t use Psionic powers but possessed incredible protective capabilities; even grenades and rockets couldn’t penetrate his body. The hard scales formed a thick armor, protecting Fang Zheng from any harm.

But the most exciting part of [Perfect Body] for Fang Zheng was the last line of its description: “all attributes increase when leveled up.”

As the designer of the Dimensional Codex system, Fang Zheng naturally knew the structure of the attribute display he designed———attributes had hierarchical levels; for instance, Strength D was definitely inferior to Strength C. But victory or defeat within the same level wasn’t that simple, hence the amplification setting.

In other words, even within the same Strength attribute, Strength D in a contest with Strength D+ would definitely lose to the latter.

But make no mistake, amplification itself is just an auxiliary attribute. To give an analogy, it’s like a naturally strong person whose base strength is D; if he learns Iron Sand Palm, he’d become even more powerful, as Iron Sand Palm amplifies the destructive power of his strength, making his strength D+.

However, amplification is just amplification; no matter how you train your strength to D+++, you’ll never be a match for Strength C. It’s like while you can snap a towering ancient tree, you can’t punch down a mountain.

[Gene Absorption] was within Fang Zheng’s expectations, given that Mirune used Zerg genes to fuse the Time Gene sequence. Naturally, Fang Zheng would possess Zerg abilities too. And [Gene Absorption] was its most representative power, so Fang Zheng wasn’t surprised, though he was a bit concerned… absorbing genes like the Zerg did wasn’t exactly pretty.

Fortunately, after carefully studying the ability, Fang Zheng found it much more convenient than he initially thought. In fact, Fang Zheng didn’t need to devour his targets’ flesh and blood like other Zerg; he could directly acquire and modify himself with their gene sequences. But, considering the process, Fang Zheng didn’t intend to use it on humans, as absorbing another person’s gene sequences into his body was too disgusting to even contemplate.

As for [Time Manipulation], it was Fang Zheng’s goal in “Edge of Tomorrow,” and now he had successfully obtained it. After using it, Fang Zheng was amazed to find this ability was even more incredible than he imagined!

Initially, Fang Zheng was disappointed because Time Manipulation only lasted for ten minutes and had a maximum range of ten meters. But after practical experiments, Fang Zheng was shocked to discover its terrifying potential. Although Fang Zheng could only manipulate time for ten minutes, he could fast forward, rewind, and even pause time at will during that period.

Wow, this ability is insanely powerful!

Realizing this, Fang Zheng was stunned. He now truly thought of that alien boss as an idiot. If used even a bit better, this ability could have definitely posed a threat to him and the Zerg. But that fool only knew how to save and reload?

That’s just Hollywood movies for you, nowhere in the real world would you find such a stupid boss.

Thinking it over, Fang Zheng decided it wasn’t the boss being dumb but rather that they probably hadn’t fully researched this ability. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have restricted time manipulation to just the main and sub-controller, leaving grunts without it. However, regardless of the reasons, this power now belonged to Fang Zheng; he had gained a formidable weapon.

Fang Zheng also found that if the duration was limited to ten minutes, he could manipulate time without pressure. But exceeding ten minutes caused intense strain, massively draining his strength. Even gritting his teeth, he could only last another three seconds.

Though Fang Zheng considered using a loophole by stopping time for a second every minute to achieve infinite time control, he discovered after experimentation this method didn’t work. Time manipulation was relative, and Fang Zheng found that whether he controlled time for one minute or thirty seconds, the skill would enter cooldown, with the cooldown period matching the manipulation duration. So, if Fang Zheng controlled time for thirty seconds, the cooldown was thirty seconds; for one minute, it was one minute… well, that’s only natural.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Using this, Fang Zheng also tested his skills’ “rarity.”

Of course, the rarity of talent abilities and skills couldn’t be discerned by appearance, but Fang Zheng knew a method to gauge a skill’s rarity.

That was———Dimensional Point Testing Method!

As mentioned earlier, in the Dimensional Codex system, players could use Dimensional Points to enhance skill proficiency and ranks, with each skill requiring a different number of Dimensional Points for proficiency upgrades. Rare and powerful skills consumed more Dimensional Points. Fang Zheng had also set an insane design where each proficiency and rank upgrade required five to ten times the previous Dimensional Points!

In other words, if the first upgrade cost 1 Dimensional Point, the next would be 10 points, then 100 points…

Through this, Fang Zheng was grateful Frostmourne boosted his swordsmanship to A… Fang Zheng used this method to test the rarity of his skills.

[Perfect Body] required 500 Dimensional Points to upgrade; considering it was leveling up from (D), this seemed reasonable.

[Gene Devouring] needed 100 Dimensional Points, as it was just one Zerg ability, useful but not highly rare.

[Time Manipulation] shocked Fang Zheng with its cost———upgrading from (E) to (D) required 1000 Dimensional Points…

Well, that’s rare.

As for the exclusive task, [Home], Fang Zheng had no choice. He couldn’t let Mirune proliferate on this Earth; she agreed on account of him being the master. However, the Zerg were Zerg; you couldn’t ever convince them to become meek rabbits. As the Swarm’s ruler, Fang Zheng was obliged to find them a home… So, he had to wait and see which world would be unlucky enough to catch the eyes of the Zerg next.

Although somewhat frustrated internally, Fang Zheng had to admit he had massively profited in the “Edge of Tomorrow” world. So, this minor frustration didn’t bother him much. After sorting everything out, Fang Zheng was ready to return to the Main World.