“Young Mistress Su, this one’s yours too. This little Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion had good taste — the staff it dropped happens to be exactly your style.” Ye Tianxie held up a staff giving off a faint golden glow.
Su Feifei caught her lower lip between her teeth, a trace of petulance in her voice. “Did you forget already? It’s Feifei.”
Zuo Pojun and Murong Qiushui both spun around at once, doing an excellent impression of two men who’d heard absolutely nothing.
“…Right, Feifei. I’ll hold onto this one too, and once it’s identified—oh?”
Ye Tianxie’s voice caught. His gaze had locked onto a small ring of light on the ground that he’d overlooked until now.
It was a circlet about the thickness of a wrist, jade-smooth all the way around, giving off an impossible, warm, many-colored light. Buried under a few pieces of equipment until now, none of the four of them had noticed it — but the moment it caught the light out in the open, that dreamlike rainbow glow pulled every one of their eyes to it at once.
This was…
Ye Tianxie picked the colored circlet up off the ground. A warm, silken sensation spread up through his hand the instant he touched it, and, deeply startled, he and the others all looked to its properties at once:
Seven-Colored Bracelet (Right): Special Unique-grade equipment. 3% chance to drop upon killing the Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion. Requirement: Female, Priest-class.
Among the Twelve Sages who once upheld order and the balance of power across the Lost Continent, there was a Sage of the Holy Word who carried a sacred power all her own — beautiful, noble, the guardian shadow the other eleven Sages leaned on most deeply. But in the war to seal the demons a century ago, the Sage of the Holy Word died at the hands of the Eight Demon Kings. In the instant before her body and spirit were both erased entirely, she used the last of her power to scatter her belongings across every corner of the Lost Continent, shielding them from destruction — the Seven-Colored Bracelet from her wrist, the Seven-Colored Sash from her waist, the Seven-Colored Soft Jade from her throat, the Seven-Colored Hairpin from her hair, and the Seven-Colored Staff that had stayed with her her whole life. Legend says that if the Seven-Colored Bracelet, the Seven-Colored Sash, the Seven-Colored Soft Jade, the Seven-Colored Hairpin, and the Seven-Colored Staff are ever gathered together on a single person again, something extraordinary will happen.
Property: All healing and support skill effects increased by 100%.
Additional: The Seven-Colored Bracelet comes as a pair — one belonged to the Sage of the Holy Word; the location of the other is unknown, and it can only be worn by a man. Rumor holds that the two bracelets share some strange connection, and that if two people wearing them both come close to one another, something even more extraordinary will happen.
Ye Tianxie’s hand jerked, and he very nearly flung the Seven-Colored Bracelet away on reflex.
Bracelets were an extremely rare category of accessory in this game — over his whole time playing, Ye Tianxie had seen plenty of decorative bracelets, but never once had he heard of one that actually carried a stat bonus… and never mind how rare a bracelet with an actual property was, never mind that it was a Unique item with no second copy in existence, never mind the 3% drop chance, never mind its impossible backstory — its property, its single solitary property, was a flat 100% increase to all healing and support skill effects!!
“…How can there be… a property this broken!!” Zuo Pojun’s eyes went wide, and he said exactly what Ye Tianxie had been dying to shout himself.
This was — or rather, it was yet another piece of gear devastating enough to completely shatter the game’s balance, the kind that would make every Priest on the server go green with envy until they died of it. It wasn’t hard to imagine: if a Priest ever got their hands on this Seven-Colored Bracelet, their healing output would instantly double, leaving them towering over every other Priest of their level. A flat 100% effect bonus — no amount of gear, no stat, however powerful, could make up the difference against that.
Murong Qiushui’s gaze drifted off the Seven-Colored Bracelet and settled on Su Feifei, and he let out a long sigh toward the sky. “Ah, heaven really is never fair. It already blessed her with beauty beyond compare and wealth beyond rival — why does it keep doting on her like this on top of everything else? Is she God’s favorite, same as Second Brother? Oh! I’ve discovered that I’m jealous, deeply, deeply jealous… oh, my poor heart, won’t someone come soothe this heart of mine, so overrun with terrible envy?”
Ye Tianxie took hold of Su Feifei’s hand and pressed the Seven-Colored Bracelet into her palm, watching her eyes fill instantly with a brilliant light. “Feifei, this one’s yours.” He paused, as if something about that felt incomplete, and quickly added: “Only a Priest can use it, though.”
“Mm.” Su Feifei accepted it gently. A flat doubling of healing and support effects — she understood perfectly well what a property like that meant. Without exaggeration, the moment she put this bracelet on, she could become, more or less instantly, the single strongest support Priest in the entire World of Fate.
But more than any of that, what mattered to her was who had given it to her.
This was the first time he’d ever given her anything… and it was a bracelet of rainbow glass that any woman alive would fall hopelessly in love with just looking at it. A color this purely, naturally beautiful didn’t exist anywhere among the finest luxury jewelry of the real world — no amount of wealth, however vast, could ever buy it.
“In my next life, I want to be a woman too.” Watching Su Feifei slip the Seven-Colored Bracelet onto her wrist with delight written all over her face, Murong Qiushui let out a dreamy, thoroughly outrageous line.
“Tch! You’re already halfway a woman. Anyone who says otherwise, I’ll fight them myself.” Zuo Pojun said, curling his lip.
Murong Qiushui: “…”
“Man, what a broken thing… by rights, something with a stat this absurd shouldn’t even be able to exist in a game, so why—” Zuo Pojun murmured half to himself. Game balance was the one thing every virtual game and every player who played them held sacred, and the cardinal sin of any virtual world was letting something break that balance loose — a skill, a class, a piece of gear, anything. But here, in the World of Fate, this Seven-Colored Bracelet was undeniably a piece of gear that broke the balance, and broke it badly… so why did it even exist?
And then there was Ye Tianxie’s own attack power on display earlier — power so far beyond what any player at this stage should be able to reach that it wasn’t even worth comparing. His class, his skills — at this point, “breaking the balance” barely even covered it anymore.
Ye Tianxie crouched down beside the little Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion’s corpse and began working his Gathering skill on it, one attempt after another.
“Ding… You have successfully harvested a Thunder-Might Crystal Horn. Gathering proficiency increased.”
Thunder-Might Crystal Horn: The strange horn that grows atop a Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion’s skull — remarkably tough, and carrying a certain density of raw lightning power. Can be forged into short-blade weapons that deal bonus Lightning damage.
“Ding… Your Gathering attempt has failed.”
“Ding… Your Gathering attempt has failed.”
“Ding… You have successfully harvested one Thunder-Might Bead. Gathering proficiency increased.”
Thunder-Might Bead: An elemental gemstone of concentrated lightning power, formed only inside the bodies of high-tier Lightning-attribute beasts, holding an extremely dense charge of raw lightning energy. Can be set into a staff to enhance Lightning-magic damage.
“Ding… Your Gathering attempt has failed.”
“Ding… Your Gathering attempt has failed.”
“Ding… Your Gathering attempt has failed.”
“Ding… You have successfully harvested the special item: ‘Wang Cai’s Deed.'”
“Oh?” Ye Tianxie stared, puzzled, at the thin slip of paper that had appeared in his hand — and a heartbeat later, a flicker of realization crossed his mind, and he snapped his attention to the item’s description without a second’s delay.
Wang Cai’s Deed: Three years ago, a merchant from the Lost Continent named Wang Cai poured a fortune into founding a large chain business guild on the central north street of the City of Stars. For reasons unknown, he later traveled into the Demon Shadow Forest — already beginning to be corroded by demonic energy at the time — where he unwittingly disturbed the sleeping juvenile Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion and very nearly died beneath its claws. He escaped by a hair, but died of exhaustion shortly after returning to the City of Stars. The deed to his chain business guild was lost during his flight and ended up in the Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion’s possession. Whoever holds this deed, once granted permission by the lord of the City of Stars, will gain full, unrestricted control and use of the North Street chain business guild in the City of Stars for 67 years, free of charge.
Ye Tianxie gripped the thin deed tightly in his hand, and as his gaze fell on the thoroughly, unambiguously dead little Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion, he suddenly found it just about the most adorable thing he’d ever seen.
This was the reward for killing an Immortal Spirit Beast! This was what came after the miracle!
The price of going a little mad might be brutal — but once it paid off, the reward could turn out to be worth far more than anyone could have hoped for.
“Look at this — no more worrying about where to set up the Chamber of Commerce.” Ye Tianxie waved the deed in his hand and held its properties up for the others to see.
Sure enough, two startled cries rang out at once — one loud, one soft, one rough, one delicate — and Ye Tianxie, having already braced for exactly this, took it in stride. Su Feifei, on the other hand, jumped half out of her skin, because both their yelling and the looks on their faces were the kind you’d only expect from someone who’d just seen a ghost in broad daylight.
“S-Second Brother, this is just too… too… too—”
Well, damn. He suddenly found he couldn’t come up with a single word to describe the surging, uncontainable feeling in his chest right now. One shock after another was starting to overwhelm his own sanity.
Murong Qiushui’s eyes glimmered, his gaze drifting dreamily, his voice soft and delicate: “Second Brother, with this in hand, Big Sister is bound to fall for you… oh no, wait — she’s bound to fall for you even harder.”
Su Feifei lowered her head slightly and bit her lip. She knew exactly how much other girls envied her beauty and her family’s standing, but ever since she’d seen Liu Qiyue’s presence with her own eyes… something uneasy had stirred up in her chest, something that felt uncomfortably close to a lack of confidence.
What did this deed actually mean? It meant they’d just been handed, for free, a fully built, ready-made base for their Chamber of Commerce — one even bigger than anything they’d been planning themselves. The money it would save, the time, the manpower, the sheer mental effort, was almost impossible to calculate. And more importantly… North Street of the City of Stars, sitting right up against the busiest square in the entire city! A location that couldn’t be any better if they’d tried, one that no amount of money or effort could ever have secured on its own!
With this deed in hand, it was practically guaranteed the July Chamber of Commerce would make a splash the moment they opened their doors. Add to that the kind of resource that was bound to pull every eye in the room… by now, both Zuo Pojun and Murong Qiushui already knew exactly what resource Ye Tianxie meant. He could pull out practically any one piece of his golden-grade gear at random and it alone would be enough to send a flood of top-tier players scrambling to get in.
Ye Tianxie ignored Murong Qiushui’s comment completely and said, “Here, take this and give it to Big Sister.”
Neither Zuo Pojun nor Murong Qiushui reached for it. Almost in unison — even their tone matching exactly — they said, “Second Brother, it’d really be better if you gave it to Big Sister yourself.”
(End of Chapter 155)