The Righteous Player(s)

Chapter 327: Sacred Bone Wine Concoction

Wandering Child witnessed Annan falling and disappearing into the curse shaft.

The sudden event put him into a panic. He hurried over, “Hey, watch out! What if you hit the back of your head? Even if you don’t hit your head, you may get stuck in a hole instead.”

“I appreciate your concern, but something feels off to me.” Annan’s young and cold voice came from the front.

Since they were in a structure, his voice seemed distant and muffled.

Annan questioned the Child’s concern over him blatantly, “Think about it, Boffis is such a cute little girl, and yet you take her to such a dangerous place. It seems like you don’t care if she is willing. In contrast, I’m a man about to come of age, right? Also, I’m a Transcended with dual professions. Nothing terrible will happen to me.

“If I were to follow them down, I would have missed this place,” said Annan confidently.

Only now did the Child realize that Annan did not jump directly to the bottom of the Silverstone Curse Shaft.

Annan did the opposite instead.

Relying on his young body, he leaped backward like an Olympic diver. Then, he slipped into the gap and entered the next floor smoothly.

Previously, Citalopram noticed this particular floor right after the ground floor; it was filled with rubble and was about five meters in height.

Of course, it was inconvenient for Annan to disclose his findings to the Child.

When he watched Citalopram’s stream previously, he vaguely saw something here, but Citalopram didn’t notice it. The group surely did not visit this place either. After all, only people with a small figure and a flexible body like Annan could get into it. Even Dove could not achieve this.

“You may catch up to them first, or you can wait for me here!” Annan yelled, “I think I saw something in there. I’ll be back very soon!”

“…Then I’ll wait for you at the entrance first in case you get stuck when you come back.”

The Child said helplessly, “If there is anything wrong, just shout, Your Highness. I can also help!”

He was now brimming with confidence.

He just learned a fantastic new skill — [Aero Strike], which sent wind blades through his sword. He didn’t have a chance to try it out yet, thus the eagerness. Also, his comprehension of [Geo Strike] was further improved.

Most notably, his achievement was witnessed by many other players.

All the Child wanted was to act cool, so much so that he hoped Annan was endangered so that he could rescue the damsel in distress… Rather, saving the noble child in distress smoothly.

Sure enough, Annan would probably let him down in his fantasy.

After Annan got into the crack of the building, he slowly turned around inside the narrow and dark space, crawling forward with his eyes closed, relying on the perception he had been training for half an hour.

Since his destination wasn’t too far away, it only took him less than three minutes to crawl over and find the thing he saw on Citalopram’s live stream earlier.

It was a head-sized object covered in bandages and gauze.

Hundreds of years have passed. The bandages and gauze had become dry and brittle with a dusty surface.

Then he maintained the lying posture on the ground, raised both of his hands above his head, and carefully removed all the bandages and gauze on it.

He quickly felt around the bottle to identify its material.

It kind of resembles the texture of a gem…

Its shape is a bit like a medicine bottle used for infusion and probably the largest model too.

After Annan removed all the bandages, new information popped up in front of his eyes.

[Sacred Bone’s Extract (Justice)]

[Type: Raw Material/Consumable/Ritual item/Mystical item (Gold)]

[Description: After soaking the sacred bone in the Wyrmrest Reagent, it has absorbed all the available anesthetic effects. There seems to be some new power but may contain unknown venoms if not purified.]

[Description: It cannot be exposed to sunlight and must be sealed completely.]

[Description: The reagent’s original material contains curse energy, and some of that energy is still left in it.]

[Description: You have never heard of its usage as a ritual item (the “Advanced Mysticism” check has failed).]

[Effect: There is a 13% probability of unknown mutation after drinking it. Upon consumption, your erosion rate increases by 57%, and you will be granted [Advanced Influence: Remains of the Heart of Justice]. Moreover, temporary levels will be added, pushing the current level to Level 45. The awakening percentage of the element [Brilliance] shall increase randomly after drinking, with the minimum increment being 3%. You will be afflicted with the “Dragon’s Blood Poison” LV43.]

[Effect: There is a 75% probability of immediate death after injection. When your level is boasted above LV43, there is a 3% probability of an unknown mutation relating to an unknown dragon. The injection will inflict [Curse: Creator’s Death]. It’s guaranteed to acquire “Advanced Influence: Remnants of the Heart of Justice” upon injection.]

“Damn…” Annan was stunned.

It was the first time he had seen such a long description explaining the item’s effect.

If Annan learned [Advanced Mysticism], there should be paragraphs describing the item’s effect as the “ritual item”.

As a raw material, the rarity was actually Gold Rank before being purified.

Is this the wine brew to preserve the sacred bone?

Or rather, is it more accurate to see it as a dragon blood wine?

In general, drinking it would cause great side effects. In addition, the cost of injecting it into the body was completely unacceptable too.

Annan coughed twice, stirring up the dust into the air. Then, he murmured, “Ah, I miss the senior a little.”

Wait, Senior Brother Sal (Salvatore himself) may not be very good at this.

But if it’s “Senior Sister Vatore” (the Shadow), she might possibly extract the active ingredients from it.

It had a similar effect to Hermetic’s Sage’s Stone; both were top-tier reagents that granted temporary levels.

It was just that the effective time of the temporary level was not written on it; there was also the erosion inflicted upon the soul.

Annan wanted to extract that influence and element in the wine and leave the rest to senior.

When he took Sage’s Stone before, he found that his [Brilliance] element had awakened 63%. At that time, he used the Book of Divine Transporter’s Truth, [the Way to Rise and Change], and discovered that his [Brilliance] element’s safe extraction limit was capped at 85%.

This meant that if he didn’t burn his soul to the limit, the element of [Brilliance] could not achieve 100% perfection after reaching Gold Rank in his current state.

His talent… Or, the talent of “Annan’s” soul for the element of [Brilliance] was limited to this extent.

In other Xianxia [1] Isekais, he could probably resolve this issue with some nourishment, improving his spiritual roots. However, it seemed that the awakening progress could only be enhanced through the rewards issued by nightmares.

Annan acquired 10% progress for the awakening in the nightmare regarding Kafni’s childhood.

Then, Annan confirmed that the [Brilliance] element could only be perfected till the maximum percentage of 95% through Vasily. But this was clearly not enough.

After seeing the properties of this sacred bone extract, Annan had a bold idea.

It was not entirely about the 5% gap.

Instead, Annan was well aware that aside from his [Frost] element that was innately perfected, and the [Brilliance] element that was as high as 65% in Bronze Rank, he had other four elements he had to awaken: [Wisdom], [Glory], [Beauty], and [Strict].

Although the combined awakening progress of the last two elements was below 5%, Annan seemed to have a certain degree of affinity with these two elements to attain the awakening in his current state.

If Annan could fill up the two elements of [Brilliance] and [Wisdom] in terms of the awakening progress before reaching Gold Rank, he had the option to opt for soul burning to awaken the remaining elements.

The ascension and attainment might be different if he ascended while having six elements perfected.

At present, the nightmares created by Advanced Influence seemed capable of improving the awakening progress of elements.

Annan was thinking seriously about his options.

Should I go to Silver Sire or the Man in the Mirror after advancing into the Silver Rank and ask for the real names of some deities related to his elements?

On the other side, Dove’s group had finally reached their destination through the sewer.