Chapter 369: The Battle for Super Items
[Note: It can only steal one item from a single person. Of course, as a peculiar item, it sometimes steals things according to its own whims.]
Xu Huo retrieved the item and found it to be a metal black snake as thick as a little finger. He glanced at the accessories he carried on himself, then placed the snake on the umbrella handle. As soon as the black snake touched the solid object, it attached itself, coiling its body around and pressing its head against the umbrella ribs, looking like an ornament that had always been on the handle.
He casually gave it a grip—nothing felt awkward—then set the umbrella aside and moved on to examine the D-grade item.
[Mona Lisa Veil: The smile of the Mona Lisa possesses a captivating, mysterious beauty, and mysterious things are often elusive. When you think you see it, it is as illusory as smoke; when you think you can grasp it, it is as ethereal as mist.]
[Note: This is an item that can conceal traces within a small area, suitable for hiding private collections in various environments, such as secret savings. But if your secret savings are alive, please spare them.]
True to its name, it felt like a veil in hand. When casually placed, it slowly blended into the environment, even mimicking light and shadows. To the naked eye, it was almost impossible to spot any difference. Accidental brushing or touching would not lift the veil either. In short, unless one carefully examined it, this veil was like an invisible handkerchief, taking root wherever it landed.
Xu Huo tried wrapping it around the umbrella handle. Once covered, the Gluttonous Snake became completely invisible, showing no abnormalities under different lighting conditions. Only when gripping the handle could one physically feel something there.
He decided to leave the gauze on the umbrella and then checked the potions one by one.
Evolution Agent, Self-Healing Agent, and Cleaning Agent were the usual three. There were also several bottles of Strong Painkiller, Hallucinogenic Spray, Pleasure-Enhancing Potion, and others. The Strong Painkiller, in particular, could numb a person's nerves, making them unable to feel any pain for five minutes—an emergency medicine.
Additionally, there was an extra D-grade ticket: "Sea World."
Xu Huo noticed that after each instance ended, the game's rewards tended to have a focus. If the items and traits were good, other aspects would be correspondingly weaker. This time, he had achieved an S rating, but the potions, tickets, and money were not abundant. Still, one primary trait and one special item were worth it.
Just then, several broadcasts popped up on the game panel:
[The exploration of the legendary figure Carmen Field's ruins has come to an end. The super item "Field Battle Angel," which earned Carmen Field the nickname "Morning Star," is suspected to have been obtained by the super player Paper Servant Master.]
[Recently, Platinum Eye, known for its precision instruments, had a batch of the latest weapons worth five hundred million White Notes stolen. It is reported that after all armed personnel responsible for transporting the weapons were killed, the dimensional starship, costing tens of billions, was subsequently lost in a spatial rift.]
[Recently, war has broken out in Zone 012, and it is expected that the conflict will not end within thirty days.]
Xu Huo had briefly glanced at news about the Field ruins before entering Rose Castle but hadn't looked into it in detail. Now that he had received the broadcast, he sat down to investigate the matter.
Such major events concerning the entire wormhole point were not hard to find. Using Shi Youzhi's communicator, he could search for over a hundred million pieces of information, including reports from official institutions in Zone 011.
According to reports, the Field ruins were where Carmen Field had defended against external enemies from other wormhole points. He had perished there alongside three super players from other zones. The relics of those three players had long been recovered, but Carmen Field's super item remained missing.
The Field Clan had sent many people over the years to search for the "Battle Angel," but to no avail. It wasn't until half a year ago, when Carmen Field's grandson, Carol Field, took control of the family, that he decided to make the ruins public, inviting players from all wormhole points to search for the super item.
This matter had been brewing for half a year and only recently concluded. The results, as reported by the game, did not only mention the super player Paper Servant Master. Many well-known high-level players had shown up, and before the official search began, several small-scale wars had broken out among players.
Super players and super items might still be too distant for a D-grade player, but Xu Huo felt that the earlier invasion of players from Zone 014 had not fully escalated into a global disaster for several reasons. Besides the game's restrictions on high-level players entering low-level instances and the special items required to enter Zone 014 from instances, the Field ruins incident was also a significant factor.
Zone 014 had not yet fully merged with the game, and instances were isolated from the real world. Thus, entering Zone 014 from an instance required special methods and channels. Xu Huo had already verified this earlier—a single message cost 200,000 White Notes, showing the high price.
However, these costs might not be significant for high-level players, let alone super players. With so many zones in the E27 wormhole point, how many players wouldn't be interested in a super item?
As it turned out, the Field ruins had drawn away most of the firepower, allowing Zone 014 to narrowly escape disaster. If more players from other zones had arrived and killed more players, Zone 014 might have followed the same path as Block Fairy Tale City Station.
Being targeted by other zones over a super item was a calamity for Zone 014, but the tug-of-war between the game and current events gave Zone 014 a chance to survive. Such twists of fate were unpredictable and hard to explain.
"...Super items often possess special abilities that transcend time, space, and life. These abilities are key to tipping the scales in large-scale wars."
Xu Huo looked at the projection displaying information about super items. Their forms were diverse, not limited to rewinding time or altering space. According to legend, the super item of the renowned super player Paper Servant Master in E27 was paper itself. Compared to abilities invisible to the naked eye, super items were more intuitive in terms of range and impact.
General items and special items had strict usage restrictions and ranges, and their results were not absolute. However, the range of super items was unpredictable, and within their scope of use, any person or object fell under their power.
Xu Huo recalled the incident in Decibel Town. "Three Seconds of Life" had seemingly only saved his life by rewinding time by three seconds. But afterward, when he compared some clocks, the three seconds rewound by the super item did not appear on other timepieces, and other players were completely unaware.
In other words, during those three seconds when he rewound time and was reborn, everything in Decibel Town had also rewound three seconds with him. In a game world with such advanced technology, three seconds could indeed change the fate of an entire zone.
(End of Chapter)