Chapter 192: Mysterious Bronze Piece (Six)

As the saying goes, even the aroma of wine fears a deep alley.

Yinxiang Incense, as a strategic material, is powerful, but honestly, few know about it.

After all, compared with players whose level is high enough to go to the capital for Tasks, players under level 10 constitute the overwhelming majority now.

If he wants everyone to know about this, he must spread the word widely, but in reality, aside from posting on Jiuzhou Software, there are no other channels.

Selling it piece by piece on a forum is nothing but a daytime dream.

As for players who proactively want to get to know him, their words are even more evasive, and he doesn't want to push sales himself, after all it's a seller's market.

And those people gave him their phone numbers just for Yinxiang Incense?

They want him, the one who can make Yinxiang Incense! They're despicable!

Now, a quick‑witted player approached proactively and threw a straight shot that hit Chen Shicheng right in the gut.

He believes that this thing, comparable to a return scroll, will spread through word of mouth and become known to more and more people.

"Tell me, how many do you want?" Chen Shicheng sized up the player and kindly reminded, "Although the teleport distance is a bit short, it can still serve as a daily consumable return scroll, but this price…"

It's not that he looks down on people; the players who can join this Task are generally quite strong, and in this game where power belongs to oneself, having strength means having money. Some players whose moral boundaries are beyond imagination can even loot a village to become rich.

The person before him, though his clothes look splendid, are merely mortal attire, not the most expensive kind. Divine Perception scans reveal no cultivator's artifacts, so Chen Shicheng truly doesn't think he can buy much.

"Price is not the issue!"

Without a word, the player pulled a bunch of bottles and jars from the storage, "These are healing Elixirs; the quality is mediocre, but the quantity is definitely enough."

There are six Elixir bottles in total, each filled to the brim, looking somewhat cheap.

But after Chen Shicheng used Eye of Bai Ze to appraise them, he found, as the player said, they are indeed healing Elixirs, and their names are odd—just Healing No. 1, No. 2, etc. —very perfunctory.

"Are you an alchemist?" Chen Shicheng suddenly had a flash of insight and asked in surprise.

"Just a humble alchemist, compared to you, big brother, I'm insignificant."

Though he says that, the player's smugness is obvious even to a fool; his mouth corner is already twitching, clearly about to burst.

"Impressive, impressive."

Chen Shicheng took a batch of practice Yinxiang Incense from storage, counted the same amount as the Elixirs, and slipped them into the player's hand, "Your Elixirs aren't very effective; roughly the Yinxiang Incense is comparable, so one stick for one Elixir. Can you accept this price?"

"Of course!"

Just as Chen Shicheng didn't care much about his own Yinxiang Incense, the other side didn't care about his own Elixirs, so he immediately agreed.

The player quickly stored the received Yinxiang Incense back into storage, then, eyeing the small half‑handful of Yinxiang Incense still in Chen Shicheng's hand, blinked, "Big brother, besides the Elixirs, will you take the other items?"

"The rest?"

"To upgrade my alchemy Skill, I've turned all my good stuff into medicinal herbs; nothing valuable, but when someone bought Elixirs from me, they once gave me some weird items as payment. Want to take a look?"

"No one appraised them?" "I did, but couldn't make sense of them."

Speaking, the player produced some miscellaneous items; as he said, Eye of Bai Ze's appraisal yielded chaotic information, even some ancient script, like gibberish.

However, one of the items caught Chen Shicheng's attention.

【Mysterious Bronze Piece (6): A fragment shrouded by mysterious forces, its specifics cannot be identified; gathering three will reveal its contents, visible only to Returnees.】

Puzzle game?

Only players can see it? Putting the bronze piece's function aside, the fact that even Eye of Bai Ze can't appraise it makes Chen Shicheng a bit intrigued.

Such a mysterious item, useful or not, must be gotten into his own hands; a few practice Yinxiang Incense is worthless to him.

"I'll trade!"

Chen Shicheng handed over all the remaining Yinxiang Incense to the player, then took the mysterious bronze piece from the other's hand.

Indeed very mysterious.

The bronze piece appears to be made of bronze; it should feel icy to the touch, but once in his hand he was surprised to find it warm, making his whole body feel cozy, and its texture resembled jade—smooth and slick.

After fiddling with it for a moment, Chen Shicheng asked, "Any more pieces like this?"

"None. This came into my hands by coincidence, but if I encounter similar items later, I'll keep an eye out for you."

"Sure enough, none…"

Chen Shicheng thought it a pity, yet understandable; if such things were easy to obtain, he'd doubt their rarity.

After asking the other to watch for similar bronze pieces, he gave the title of his post on the official forum, stating that future contact can be made via comments there, and he'll reply promptly.

He then lit the Yinxiang Incense and began teleporting toward the capital.

Three sticks!

After using three Yinxiang Incense sticks, Chen Shicheng finally, guided by the celestial artifact compass, arrived at the City God Temple near the capital.

Compared with the desolation elsewhere, the City God Temple in the capital still has some incense, even an elderly, dim‑eyed temple caretaker, and occasionally a few townsfolk come to offer incense.

Chen Shicheng waited until no one was in front of the statue, then emerged in a puff of black smoke, immediately activated Compress Earth to an Inch to appear outside the City God Temple, fearing being seen.

He hadn't forgotten that a token had once emerged on Icefield, which allows one to learn a new Skill at the major sect outposts in the capital.

Seen that way, the capital could be a dragon's pool and tiger's den for players; a moment's inattention could lead to being mobbed to death.

Fortunately, the City God Temple, being somewhat linked to the dead, is usually built outside the city, with few passersby, so Chen Shicheng's sudden appearance went unnoticed.

He looked around left and right, found no idle people, then removed the Evil Ghost Mask, put on the long‑unused "Thousand Transformations", and activated the Relic's unique ability, changing his ID.

After confirming nothing was missed, Chen Shicheng stepped onto the official road, merged into the passing caravans, and set off toward the capital.

(End of Chapter)