Chapter 227: How Do You Use This Thing?

"No good, this is too slow—only found a second one in three hours; stacking stats this way will take forever!"

Three hours later, the warrior picked up the second Talisman and grumbled—elemental magic was DPS, required skill, and the cultivation alt gained XP easily, so it had no reason to complain; but as a warrior, he got zero positive feedback from grinding.

"Maybe there's another use? Look, this one's different from the last one." The cultivation alt leaned over, pointing at the pattern marked ( ) on it:

"The previous one was uncertain, but this ( ) pattern clearly indicates it's a Bagua Talisman. The text behind is unreadable, but the differences are obvious—either you need to collect a full set to activate it, or there's some special usage method, or maybe you just hand it to that cultivation NPC for a quest."

"Makes sense. I remember there's an appraiser NPC in Wang Cheng—let's ask him first if he can decipher this script. If he can't, we wait and see if we run into that NPC. Either way, we're leveling you up anyway; grinding and collecting Talismans is fine."

But a real online game would never waste resources designing a "unique" hidden quest that triggers only once per player; thus, at the same time, numerous squads were encountering similar situations.

Undead minor monsters always fled after dropping a compass; using the compass let you locate a Lingji Talisman—some Talismans were on the monsters themselves, others embedded in tree trunks, buried under stones, and there were even cases where players hadn't obtained a compass but accidentally killed a monster carrying a Talisman, only to have the monster track them down afterward.

At first, everyone kept this secret as a hidden quest, but once a player followed a compass and found another player, the Talismans were finally exposed.

After forum statistics, there were ten types of Talismans total: the eight Bagua plus Yin and Yang. Wearing them slightly increased stats, but effects varied.

The compass defaults to locking onto the nearest Talisman; if you or your team are wearing one, it prioritizes that. So when searching for Talismans, you must store any Talismans you're wearing in your inventory.

Though this much information was compiled, it was practically useless. The only known fact was that bringing a Talisman into a new five-man boss dungeon triggered extra dialogue, and the wearer would be targeted by all attacks—if the wearer died, the Talisman dropped, and the boss's power increased, making it a perfect gift to the enemy, with zero discernible counterstrategy.

After several teams who refused to believe it tested the enhanced five-man dungeon, all players abandoned the idea of bringing Talismans into dungeons—just then, that cultivation NPC reappeared in the city…

…

"Senior! Senior!" Feng Xue had just entered the city when someone rushed toward him shouting; seeing the massive crowd about to engulf him, Feng Xue pointed his fingers like a sword and slashed forward.

In that finger-slash, an invisible wall of air materialized, halting every player instantly; he calmly scanned the throng and frowned:

"Who are you? What do you want?"

The players erupted into chaos, but after a moment, whether through paid influence or inherent in-game prestige, a cultivation player stepped forward proudly, speaking respectfully:

"Senior, we are the inheritors guarding the Demon Dragon's seal. Recently, we noticed minor demons searching for something—we've collected some too, but don't know their purpose. Now that we've met you, we hope you can enlighten us."

"Oh?" Feng Xue's voice carried a hint of interest; he extended a finger, and the player pressed against the air wall suddenly felt nothing before him—he stumbled forward involuntarily, arriving right before Feng Xue.

"Senior… this is it!" The player, clearly articulate, instantly adjusted his demeanor and pulled out a Talisman engraved with 【(Qian)】 on its face.

Feng Xue's expression visibly shifted; then the player heard the "NPC" speak:

"This is the Demon Dragon's magical essence, mixed with the local earth veins, forming a Lingji Talisman. The one you hold is the 【Qian Talisman】, embodying the force of sternness—it makes your attacks unstoppable and wounds hard to heal."

"How do you use it?" The player's question had barely left his lips when he realized he'd asked the wrong thing—he saw the NPC's face twist into the expression of a teacher confronted by the class's bottom student asking a question any idiot should know.

"Don't let him get mad and leave again!" the player prayed frantically; luckily, the NPC seemed to be honoring the Talisman's value and didn't storm off—instead, he casually pinched the Talisman, and instantly, a white light enveloped his hand—

"Shua!"

In a flick of his fingers, the white light shot out like a blade, slicing a distant tree cleanly in half.

"Use the Talisman the same way you use your Talismans normally—but since your cultivation is shallow, attaching it to spells or magical artifacts will yield better results."

With that, the NPC turned and vanished from sight once more.

"I normally cast spells just by thinking about them," the player muttered, clutching the Talisman, instantly imagining the thought: "Activate Linghuo Talisman"—but no change came; instead, he received only—

"Combat skills cannot be used in safe zones."

"Ah… this…"

…

"Gidora, the ore you wanted!" In Wang Cheng, Wolf arrived at Feng Xue's workshop with a squad of dog-headed… uh, werewolf monsters, carrying sacks of various sizes. Feng Xue poked his head out from a pile of Talismans and smiled:

"Thanks, just set them over there. The red sack on the left—hand it to the common demons below, same as before: one squad per demon…"

"No problem," Wolf lifted the red sack, glanced inside at the Talismans, then asked, as if remembering something: "But Bi Gelei asked me to ask you—what exactly are these for? Lately, plenty of heroes have been bringing these to challenge her tower—she's already got two full sacks stored."

In fact, not just Bi Gelei—recently, in several early dungeons, many heroes who died dropped Talismans, and their combat power had clearly increased; it was hard not to suspect that "Gidora" was aiding the enemy.

Hearing Wolf's question, Feng Xue shot up abruptly from the pile of Talismans, eyes bright with curiosity: "Oh? There are already usable ones? Then please collect them—I'll trade you some useful items in return!"

(End of Chapter)