Chapter 13 Quest
"Heartless Parting, hurry up, we'll be teleported back in fifteen seconds." Purple Lily suddenly let out a low cry as a quest completion countdown appeared.
Lixiang searched through the table and finally spotted a letter inside a journal, stamped with the mark of a dagger at the bottom. The letter was addressed to the leader of the Guyue Empire's Thieves' Guild.
"Could the Guyue Empire's Thieves' Guild be connected to the military?" Lixiang paused, his brows furrowing slightly.
"Time is running out..." Purple Lily and Fengyun Die watched speechlessly as Lixiang stood there in a daze.
"Oh, let me check again; there shouldn't just be gold bars." Coming back to his senses, Lixiang put the letter away and resumed rummaging through the desk.
Suddenly, Lixiang's eyes lit up. Inside a pen holder sat a small bottle containing half a bottle of milky-white liquid. At first glance, it looked similar to a potion bottle, and anyone would surely take it for an ordinary recovery potion at first sight. However, Lixiang clearly spotted a specific pattern on the bottle.
It depicted a holy priest spreading their hands in prayer. Just as he picked up the bottle, his vision went black.
"Ding! Calculating quest completion evaluation!"
"Quest progress: sixty-eight percent. Subsequent quest extension: three hours and sixteen minutes. Quest rating: eighty!"
"Rewards obtained: 100,000 EXP, two bottles of advanced stage recovery potions, 50 gold coins. Subsequent quest rewards: 5,000 EXP! 50 gold coins!"
After tallying their rewards, Lixiang shot from level 22 to level 24, while Purple Lily and Fengyun Die both surged to level 28, temporarily taking first and second place on the rankings!
Meanwhile, Lixiang was examining the potion in his hand. This had to be something far better than gold bars for the subsequent quests.
"Holy Potion: Special item. Can be used anywhere. Upon use, instantly restores the user to peak condition, and permanently increases Stamina by 10%. During the current quest, Stamina is temporarily doubled until the quest ends. Can be given to story characters to consume, immediately doubling their combat power!"
"Usage requirement: Using this item will deduct 1 point from all attributes and cost 10,000 gold coins (Note: Insufficient gold coins, cannot be used!). Note: When servants, summons, or dominated story characters use this item, the effect is identical to personal use!"
Seeing Lixiang's expression, the two women curiously walked over. Their eyes widened upon reading the description. What kind of potion was this? It actually required deducting attribute points to use, and 10,000 gold coins was a sum that even the guild leaders of major guilds might not be able to scrape together.
Especially since this potion could be given to designated individuals or pets to drink; its value was simply incalculable.
Seeing Lixiang look over, Die suddenly glared coldly and snapped, "What are you looking at? Whatever you found is yours. I've already harvested enough from this."
"Don't look at me. I'm already more than satisfied to have gained this many levels; I can't afford to use an item like that," Purple Lily chimed in.
"Actually, I just wanted to ask if you two are done. Once you're finished, we can turn in the subsequent quest," Lixiang said as he put the Holy Potion away.
The two women immediately shot him looks like daggers, but Lixiang seemed to have anticipated it and had already taken a step ahead.
At the palace gates, the Mage was already waiting. Seeing the three return, he immediately walked up with a smile. It was clear that the elimination of the prairie thieves had put him in a great mood.
"Welcome back, brave warriors of the Empire."
"Greetings, respected Mage. We are delighted to have completed the quest. This is what we found at the bandit leader Bill's hideout, and we hope it will be of some help to the Empire." Lixiang handed over the journal and the letter together.
The quest was finally all done, and it was truly exhausting.
The court magician's expression turned grave as he told the three of them, "This letter is extremely important. I must report to the Great Emperor immediately. To thank you, I will have someone send three royal skill books to you."
With that, the magician hurried away.
They were actually rewarding skill books? This quest was incredibly generous, and as long as you didn't die, the returns were massive.
Before long, a guard returned carrying three books. He glanced at the three of them and handed a book to each.
Lixiang received the Healing Art. To be fair, this skill book was truly powerful for a Priest, but since Lixiang already possessed it, he could only place it in his inventory.
The skill book Purple Lily received was Shooting Mark. This was a peculiar skill that placed a mark on the target, visible to all allies on their side, and increased attack damage against them by fifty percent.
Note: The increased attack damage only applied to Purple Lily's own attacks.
Purple Lily's eyes lit up at this archer skill. While its current value might only seem like a slight damage boost, it would be absolute powerhouse material during guild wars and castle sieges, even allowing her to designate a clear target for focused fire within her team.
Grinning broadly, Purple Lily tapped the book to learn it immediately.
Fengyun Die was even more excited. Setting aside her haul of equipment, this was already her second skill book from this quest. She flipped through it casually: Reinforced Ambush.
This skill had a much stronger attack power than Die's original stealth attacks, though for this fierce woman who treated an assassin like a warrior, it wasn't an earth-shattering surprise.
After all three of them finished examining their rewards, Die spoke to the other two first, "I'm leaving." She smiled, and Purple Lily slung her grand bow over her shoulder, saying, "I'm heading out too."
The two girls moved quite fast; even as Lixiang raised his right hand to say goodbye, they had already vanished.
Scratching his head, Lixiang walked a few steps before suddenly remembering he had also harvested quite a bit of gear. Though none of it was top-tier, he did have a few green-tier weapons with stats.
He found a relatively uncrowded spot and laid all the equipment out on the ground.
It felt just like setting up a morning market stall, and Lixiang actually felt a slight thrill. These items hadn't been terribly difficult to acquire, and he quickly estimated their prices.
"I'll take the lot." A warrior walked over, took one look at the gear, and immediately bought out everything in one go.
From setting up the stall to finishing up, it took less than a minute. The warrior was in high spirits; he had just popped back to repair his gear and pick up some potions, never expecting to stumble upon such cheap equipment, with even green gear priced at a mere 3 gold coins.
"Brother, hit me up directly next time you've got stuff. My name is Fengyun Tao."
Lixiang smiled and nodded. He had calculated the value of these items himself, so he didn't feel shortchanged. If he priced them too high, not only would it waste time, but they might not even sell. He didn't care to explain his pricing logic—if people wanted to misunderstand, let them. Still, the "Fengyun" prefix in the warrior's name matched Die's.
......................
Inside the cathedral, Draenei and the Pope stood side by side. Draenei's stern face carried a hint of reverence. The Pope was a towering figure whose name was engraved within the temple itself. Even just standing there, he exuded an aura of a crouching tiger and a coiling dragon.
"Teacher, Heartless Parting actually completed the quest. I hope you can give him a chance."
The Pope remained silent, his hands clasped behind his back. His face was calm and unruffled, yet his eyes looked as terrifying and turbulent as a category twelve typhoon!
After a long silence, the Pope slowly turned around and muttered somewhat to himself, "How long has it been since the last War of Demon Sealing?"
"Reporting to Teacher, a thousand years have passed."
Nodding, the Pope sighed with emotion, "Has it been that long? Back then, I was nothing more than a guard knight before the sanctuary."
"Draenei, do you think Heartless Parting can earn the title of one of the Ten Supremes?"
The Ten Supremes roamed the continent freely, causing both gods and demons to give them a wide berth. Back then, even the Pope had vied for the honor, but in the end, he hadn't even secured the qualifications to be a follower of a Supreme.
"Teacher, Heartless Parting is the most studious and diligent person I have ever met. I believe we should give him a chance. Furthermore..."
"Furthermore what? Speak your mind. How is it that your timid nature hasn't changed at all over all these years? That Heartless Parting strikes me just like you, and that is not a good thing," the Pope said.
Draenei's voice rose a notch as he replied, "Teacher, the Ten Supremes are chosen once every millennium. In the last generation, our Holy See dispatched over ten thousand people just to snatch a single 'Light Envoy'. This time, we must prepare early; the moment we discover a promising sapling, we ought to give them a chance."
One had to admit that an honest, studious, and polite child would always win a teacher's favor. Even though Lixiang had turned down Draenei's quests a few times, this attitude of learning for the sake of learning made Draenei not angry at all, but rather immensely satisfied.
Combined with the fact that Lixiang had barely learned any skills yet had now completed a rather high-difficulty quest, reaching level 25 in the process, all these conditions coming together were what prompted this request.
The Pope paced back and forth a few times before saying calmly, "Fine, then let him go in to seek enlightenment. Whether he can obtain it will depend on his own destiny."
Lixiang had no idea he was stumbling into such a monumental opportunity. A year later, when millions of players converged on the Guyue Empire to fight for the so-called "Battle Berserker" title, he would finally realize just how ridiculously lucky he had been.
Draenei quickly said, "Teacher is wise."
Draenei had truly pulled out all the stops for this student. Even the Pope felt a wry internal smile watching his proud pupil; since when had the stony-faced Hongyi Cardinal learned to pull strings and play favorites?
Nor was the Pope a rigid man. In his immense power, he too had recently felt as though the heavens were about to change, likely on account of those newly born mortals.
Draenei went into the inner room and returned shortly with a small, golden, locked chest. "Teacher, this is a black dragon's gallbladder collected by our men in the Twilight Forest."
The Pope glanced at the chest. Black dragons were top-tier magical beasts with magical immunity, and a single drop of dragon blood was worth ten thousand gold, let alone an entire gallbladder.
"You've put thought into this. Once Heartless Parting returns, let him go give it a try." In a wonderful mood, the Pope accepted the chest from Draenei's hands, toyed with it for a moment, and nodded.