Apocalypse: I Can See the HP Bar, Killing Monsters Drops Loot

This is essentially equivalent to boosting Wang Tao's defensive power by several notches!

Plus, there's an "All basic attributes slowly enhance" effect!

This effect talks about slow enhancement, but in Wang Tao's view, whether slow or not, this is actually a passive ability that can grow infinitely! He really likes it!

However, compared to his previous abilities, [Steel Body] actually lacks one ability—the previous [Berserk Enhancement] had a [Berserk] ability.

The [Berserk] ability triggers when HP falls below 30 percent, removing negative status effects, restoring all attributes to full value, increasing body size, and boosting speed and attack while reducing defense. It lasts for an hour and can be triggered once a day.

It's a pretty good ability and has saved Wang Tao's life. But Wang Tao has always been very cautious, so he didn't trigger Berserk very often. Now, even though Berserk is gone, it doesn't really matter to him. After all, he's gained much more than he's lost.

And Wang Tao feels that Berserk isn't really gone; it's merged into the Awakening, like his "weaken negative status," which must be somewhat related to Berserk's removal of negative status. Normally, a System Awakening wouldn't have such an extra attribute...

Anyway, no matter what, just looking at [Steel Body]'s description and Wang Tao's personal experience, Wang Tao is very satisfied.

However, to see how strong it really is, he still had to test it.

So Wang Tao asked Jiang Shixue to attack him.

"You go ahead and hit hard; you won't hurt me."

"Okay~"

Although Jiang Shixue nodded, she didn't use much strength in her first attack on Wang Tao.

"So hard..."

Jiang Shixue touched her little fist. It felt like she just hit a steel plate.

"Come on, put some effort into it."

Wang Tao said with a smile.

This time, Jiang Shixue used much more force, punching Wang Tao in the abdomen.

But Wang Tao still acted as if nothing had happened.

"Such strong defense, and I feel your body is too hard, hardly like a human's..."

Jiang Shixue was somewhat astonished.

"Ha-ha, come, touch again."

Wang Tao stretched out his arm, and Jiang Shixue lightly pinched it. This time, it didn't feel like steel.

"Eh? Can you control the hardness of your body?"

Jiang Shixue was a bit surprised.

Human muscles can also be soft or hard, but Wang Tao's skin had hardened, so obviously, this wasn't as simple as controlling muscles.

"Actually, it's not me controlling it; it's automatic..."

Wang Tao explained.

Simply put, whenever someone attacks him, his skin hardens. If it's a normal day, his skin is the same as any normal person's.

Wang Tao thought this feature was pretty good since it increased defense without affecting daily life.

Moreover, not only his defense was enhanced, but Wang Tao's attack power had also increased considerably.

If he had this strength during his battle with the Golden Eagle, he could have halved the fight duration at least; the Golden Eagle probably wouldn't even have had a chance to surrender!

"So strong!"

Jiang Shixue's eyes shone as she looked at Wang Tao.

"Ha-ha!"

Wang Tao laughed as he ruffled Jiang Shixue's hair, his vanity greatly satisfied. But he quickly shook his head again.

"Still, this isn't my strongest state..."

Wang Tao's three abilities hadn't yet leveled up; they were still at the basic stage of Level 5. The strongest state would definitely be using a Sixth-Rank Promotion Crystal Core to ascend to Level 6 +1.

Of course, he doesn't have a Sixth-Rank Crystal Core at the moment, so ascending to Level 5 +10 would be okay.

Then, Wang Tao currently only had three abilities, but he could still learn one more ability! And for this ability, Wang Tao had already made a choice.

He flipped his palm, revealing an Orange Crystal Core.

[Fifth-Order Crystal Core: Omnipotent Shield]

[Quality: 100% (Epic)]

[Purity: 30% (Side effect: Reduces max HP by 200,000)]

[Omnipotent Shield: Passive Ability, forms an invisible shield around the body that can block any attack, but has a limit. When the damage taken reaches the limit, the shield will shatter. It can be reformed using Awakening Energy. (Only System Awakeners can use this.)]

This was the spoil of war he had obtained after killing the Hammer Zombie, which had given Wang Tao a lot of trouble.

When Wang Tao had initially obtained the crystal core, he had wanted to fuse with it. However, his level was not high enough at the time, nor was he a System Awakener, so he had had to give up on that idea.

Now, Wang Tao had already ascended to level five and had successfully awakened a system ability. He could finally fuse with this crystal core!

However, there was still one problem; the side effect of this crystal core was to reduce the max HP by 200,000.

Since such crystal cores were extremely precious, Wang Tao didn't have time to synthesize it into a side-effect-free crystal core, but the reduction in max HP was something he could tolerate.

Previously, Wang Tao had hunted a large number of mutated plants and obtained many [High-Level Tree Essence], which increased his max HP to 210,000.

In theory, that was just enough.

But after his recent awakening, he had lost 100,000 max HP, leaving him with just 110,000...

Wang Tao wasn't sure what effect fusing with the crystal core would have under these circumstances, and he wasn't interested in finding out if it might kill him instantly. Hence, he planned to go out and hunt zombies or mutated plants to replenish his max HP.

Once he got back to 210,000 HP, he could fuse with the crystal core he had been longing for!

At that moment, Ding Yuqin and the others arrived.

They guessed Wang Tao had woken up, so they all put down their work to check on him.

Wang Tao put away the crystal core and briefly demonstrated his new awakening to everyone.

"Wow! Your defensive power has increased so much... that's great!"

Lan Yulian was somewhat astonished.

Wang Tao had just let them all attack him, and in the absence of weapons, the others could still inflict a bit of damage, although it was minimal. Lan Yulian, however, couldn't inflict any damage at all... even though she was a healing-type and a level 4 healer with decent physical quality!

She probably couldn't even make a dent with a weapon if Wang Tao stood still and let her chop at him...

Seeing the astonished Lan Yulian, Wang Tao suddenly remembered he hadn't tested his Mana and HP regeneration ability yet.

So, he put on the Flowing Bracelet, letting his HP start to decrease. He also swung a few attacks outside, using up some Mana.

Moments later, Wang Tao took off the bracelet and looked at his health bar.

[+500]

[+500]

[+500]

[...]

"500 HP and 500 Mana per second? That's strong!"

Seeing the result, Wang Tao's face broke into a smile.

The numbers might not seem much, but considering it's a passive ability that regenerates every second, that's 30,000 HP per minute!

From the perspective of the HP regeneration alone, it was like having an average healing-type Ability User continuously healing him!

Not to mention it also replenished Mana! Currently, means to regenerate Mana were scarce, so this ability alone was already strong.

With such HP and Mana regeneration abilities, Wang Tao's endurance level had immediately improved. And as he grew stronger, this effect was bound to increase.

If he were to also fuse with the [Omnipotent Shield] Ability, Wang Tao couldn't even imagine how strong his endurance and defensive power would become!

As for Wang Tao's attack power... he didn't plan on testing it within the base, because it was highly likely that no one could withstand his attacks, and such a test would definitely result in injuries. It was better to do it outside.

Therefore, Wang Tao said to everyone:

"I'm going out tomorrow, how about you?"

"Together!"

Everyone responded in unison.

They were not only curious to see Wang Tao's current strength but also eager to experience riding on a Golden Eagle again.