56

Cheng Yang's defense before and after becoming a Cryomancer werer incomparable. The unique subclass had given him two new Innate Abilities that boosted his natural Physical and Mental Defense by three points each.

This was the power of a unique subclass. Frozen Flesh and Icy Mind were the exclusive Innate abilities of a Cryomancer. In addition, he now had one enhanced original Innate ability. These two powerful buffs were what separated a unique subclass from the common ones.

Every time he leveled up, Cheng Yang's Magic Attack would increase by 40%. This gave him an Innate Ability above S-Rank, which was something that had never happened in his past life.

Although more than a dozen people had obtained a unique subclass, none of them had S-Rank Innate Abilities. After all, there were few people with unique sub-classes; the number of people with S-Rank Innate Abilities was even smaller. A person having both was a miracle.

This wasn't a bug, right? Perhaps God didn't consider the possibility that someone could get an Innate Ability higher than S-Rank since it was the limit in Cheng Yang's past life.

In addition, the attributes of Cheng Yang's skills changed. Magic Missile and Wind Bondage were replaced with ice themed variants.

The biggest change was that both skills gained the ability to slow a creature. Magic Missile changed to Icicle Blast, gaining a thirty percent chance to apply a frozen debuff. Although it wouldn't matter when facing ordinary enemies, stronger monsters would become easier to deal with. Wind Bondage became Hibernation Chill; in exchange for being weakened, it's biggest disadvantage had been removed. The cast time less than the effect duration so he could infinitely chain the skill.

Although slowing a monster won't be as useful in certain situations as completely restraining a monster, removing the cast time limiter made Hibernation Chill better.

Wind Bondage was only suitable to use when in a team or trying to escape due to the long cooldown. By the time you finished casting another skill, the target would already be free.

The limitation reduced the practicality of Wind Bondage to Cheng Yang since he preferred go solo. Besides, if he needed access to the skill, he could always make one of the soldiers use it for him.

Although these skills were powerful, they weren't actually Cryomancer skills. When performing a class change ceremony for a subclass, previously learned skills were turned into a fusion between the two classes.

However, Cheng Yang didn't understand the Cyromancers skills. So he opened the panel of the Cyromancer to figure it out.

Cheng Yang had opened it to take a peek, but he found a learning skill, which made him happy.

Regardless of the high practicality of this skill, it's good to have one more skill in the early stage.

Cryomancer Skills

Petal Blizzard (Low-Grade): Conjure hundreds of razor sharp ice petals to dice your enemies | Damage: 27.4 | Cost: 20 MP | Cast Time: 1.5 sec | Effect Radius: 3 m | Level Needed: High Grade Apprentice | Price: 200 Experience Fragments

Cheng Yang widened his eyes. How cool was this? It turned out to be an area of effect skill!

The excitement in Cheng Yang's heart couldn't be expressed with words. The only person to become a Cryomancer in Cheng Yang's previous life had learned this skill, but he was already a Low Grade Scholar at the time. At that level, all Mages were able to learn area of effect skills so it wasn't seen as being special or overpowered.

However, Cheng Yang was only a High Grade Apprentice and everyone else was a Low Grade Apprentice. Having an area of effect attack this earlier would be overpowered!

How big was a three meter radius? Enough to fit seven or eight monsters. If the monsters were grouped up like the skeletons in the Forgotten Grave hitting ten would be easy. Cheng Yang would only need to use Petal Blizzard twice to kill ten monsters! Compared to using Icicle Blast, it was far more efficient. As he leveled up the skill, its efficacy would only increase.

Without hesitation, Cheng Yang purchased Petal Blizzard. For now, as long as he could kill eight monsters every two times he used the skill it would be worth the Mana cost.

Next, Cheng Yang instructed his generals to collect all of the Experience Fragment he had loaned by the time he got back from hunting.

Cheng Yang began hunting only after he had traveled four kilometers from the outer wall. Although monsters would constantly spawn in the areas he had cleared on previous nights, only large hordes could meet his needs. Besides, if he cleared out all of the small fry, what would his soldiers hunt?

His harvest for the night was two thousand Experience Fragments. However, these types of gains didn't come without danger. Due to a moment of carelessness Cheng Yang had been surrounded by a monster horde six hundred strong. Unable to kite them like he normally would, Cheng Yang was drawn into an intense, bloody battle.

Three factors contributed to his victory tonight: the Petal Blizzard skill, his overpowered potions and his natural Physical Defense increase. The first two ensured he had an amazing efficiency when it came to monster killing while the last allowed him to face the attacks of Low Grade monsters without fear.

Normally there was no way to totally negate damage other than a Shield's Damage Reduction attribute however, this was only in regards to equipment. As long as your natural Physical Defense was higher than the initial damage adjusted for Damage Reduction, there was a chance to ignore damage entirely.

Previously, Cheng Yang's chance to ignore damage was less than 8% but now he had a nearly 30% chance to ignore damage. This made it much easier to face large hordes of monsters.

After returning to Phoenix Village, Cheng Yang collected the four thousand Experience Fragments he had loaned out for training from Yu Kai.

He then went into his house to Meditate. When he woke up the next morning, his experience bar had been filled a mind boggling three and a half percent! For a High Grade Apprentice, such a fast rate of progress was scary.

Suddenly the smile on Cheng Yang's face disappeared. According to the calculations and data derived in his past life, that number was wrong. Considering the training speed of the High Grade Meditation skill multiplied by sixteen, the various bonuses from the Meditation Hall and his Innate Ability, his experience bar should have only increased by three point two percent. Why did it increase by point three percent more than it should have?

Although Cheng Yang had been calculating his training efficiency everyday and noticed tiny discrepancies, he figured it was due to algebra errors. But no matter how many time he recalculated the figure, there was no way to write off the difference.

The numbers for the Meditation Halls and sixteen times training speed had been confirmed in his past life, so the source of the error must lie with his Innate Ability!

Cheng Yang pondered over the issue for quite some time but couldn't come up with a reasonable solution. The best one he had was that his Innate Ability was affecting some hidden stat for the Meditation Hall.

It took Cheng Yang a while to calm down but in the end, no matter the reason, the increase was a good thing. He was sure that, with enough time, Phoenix Village would stand at the top of the world. By then it wouldn't be Phoenix Village but Phoenix City!

Once he calmed down, Cheng Yang walked outside. As for the seven hundred and twenty Experience Fragments he used for training today? He had already forgotten about them.

Today was the ninth day of the apocalypse and Cheng Yang was starting to feel the pressure. All of the weakest and most cowardly survivors were already dead and even the others would soon follow them without intervention.

Fortunately Cheng Yang had already rescued people from most of the outer city while the military should have covered the entire inner city. Without either of those groups acting, the number of casualties would have grown exponentially.

Cheng Yang tried not to think too hard about it since every life he saved was one fated to die in his previous life. All he wanted to do was take advantage of the time he had left to save as many people as he could. At the same time, he could collect Experience Fragments and strengthen the territory

Before leaving for Cloud City Cheng Yang quickly cleared the Blood Soaked Cathedral, earning back double what he lost that night. Afterwards he gave all of his Experience Fragments to Yu Kai.

This was so that Yu Kai could pick ten people in his Brigade to grant sixteen times training speed. From now on, all ten thousand would be passed from team to team when they trained. First up would be Yu Kai's Brigade followed by Lau Hui's.

Old Lee had worked through the night to tightly micromanage the territories Experience Fragments reserves, allowing him to finish performing class change ceremonies for all of the new soldiers a short time after Cheng Yang cleared the instance dungeon. As such, he was no longer needed in the village so Cheng Yang brought him to Cloud City.

It seemed that for at least a while longer, Phoenix Village would remain nearly broke.

As the group advanced to Cloud City Cheng Yang purposefully took a route they hadn't gone through yet. Tons of monsters assaulted them along the way, but their only role was to feed Cheng Yang and his soldiers more Experience Fragments.