Chapter 269: Zombie Insects

Joo Joowon plunged straight into the water and then rushed directly toward the waterfall. The mountain rocks, which had been smoothed by the constant flow of water, still had some places where a person could find footing. He quickly climbed to the middle of the waterfall, found a suitable spot, and used spider silk as a safety rope to secure himself firmly in place.

Although being washed by the waterfall’s rushing water was somewhat uncomfortable, it did not affect his breathing. Moreover, with a supernatural being’s physical constitution, holding his breath for ten or twenty minutes was not a problem. Naturally, he was not worried that this situation would endanger him.

He closed his eyes. Under a strange kind of vision, his "body" gradually rose into the air, and everything around him became somewhat illusory, as if covered by a hazy gray filter.

Soul Projection!

But Joo Joowon looked back at his own body. His heart was still beating faintly, and his body had not lost its vitality simply because his soul had left it. It was as if he had fallen into a coma.

Judging from the situation earlier, those flames most likely belonged to the category of physical damage. Under soul form, ordinary physical attacks were completely ineffective against him. Perhaps only elemental attacks could have some effect. Therefore, Joo Joowon planned to go over and investigate the situation in spirit form.

He was not worried that his soul would be destroyed if he encountered trouble. The soul and the material world were originally on different dimensions. Once he encountered an attack, he would not even allow it to make contact with him. He would immediately hide in the Sea of Quanta and return to his body. Why would he stay there and fight the other party?

After all, Joo Joowon knew that he himself could not cause such a series of fires or that earth-shaking disturbance. Clearly, the other party was much stronger than him. Therefore, it was only natural to consider the consequences of failure first.

Moreover, this kind of soul projection did not bring out his entire soul. Most of what came out was still his mental body.

There seemed to be a "line" between his body and soul. No matter how far he went, he could still locate where his main body was. However, Joo Joowon did not remain there for long. He quickly flew toward the place where the incident had occurred.

Because he did not need to worry about obstacles at all and was using "flight mode," Joo Joowon’s return speed was much faster than the speed at which he had descended the mountain.

This time, he also managed to understand what the basic numerical values of the game’s skills represented.

In theory, even skills of the same quality should have different damage values, with some being higher and others lower. However, based on all the rare-grade skills Joo Joowon had seen so far, their numerical values were all limited to the range of "1 to 40," as if there had been no breakthrough at all.

This was a very strange phenomenon because it was impossible for every skill to have the same damage. Quality levels represented more than just a skill’s numerical values. They also represented a skill’s potential.

Now that he was in a soul projected state, his perception was even sharper. Only then did Joo Joowon notice what these numerical values represented.

They were a kind of bonus that the Age of Apocalypse gave to skills.

In other words, if Joo Joowon used a skill entirely through his own abilities, its damage might be ten. However, under the game’s basic numerical bonus, the skill’s damage could be increased within the range of 1% to 40%.

However, Joo Joowon was not entirely sure whether the bonus was calculated as a percentage or whether it was actually a numerical increase such as +1 or +2. Still, he could feel the existence of this bonus.

What maintained his soul’s presence in the material world and kept it stable was not only the connection provided by his body. There was also another mysterious force transmitted from the void that was helping to stabilize his spiritual form.

In fact, this transmitted force was even more stable than the connection provided by his body. It felt like some kind of higher-dimensional power, making him feel that the material world’s rejection of him was no longer as obvious.

The material world rejected all non-material existences. Because of this, the vast majority of souls would dissipate after death. Only a very small number had the chance to remain for a brief moment, and even then, they could not stay for long.

Perhaps it was because of his semi-digitized state. It was also possible that his soul was simply too sensitive. Only because of this could he perceive such a situation.

Just as he had guessed before, skills that were not compatible with his main body would be used purely through the numerical values provided by the basic bonus. However, for skills that his main body could use on its own, those basic numerical values served as an additional bonus.

In most games on the market, every skill has differences in base damage, critical hit rate, and critical damage.

Therefore, the equipment worn by players usually increases values such as critical hit rate, damage, and defense penetration. This ensures that players have a reason to make and upgrade equipment. However, it now seemed that the apocalypse game had moved these features, which should originally have belonged to equipment, onto skills instead.

Did this mean that, in the future, it would no longer be possible to rely on items to increase these basic bonuses?

As he thought about this, Joo Joowon continued moving forward at incredible speed. The material world’s rejection of his soul made his sensory system extremely unstable. It seemed that the real world had distorted his understanding of space, creating a strange sensation in which moving forward one meter felt as though he had advanced three meters or only half a meter.