Chapter 1742: Philosopher’s Hand

Translator:

Exodus Tales

Editor:

Exodus Tales

Chapter 1742 – Philosopher’s Hand

System: You have discovered the Cursed Philosopher’s Hand.

System: Epic ranked Main Storyline Quest “Philosopher’s Wish” activated.

Quest Content: Locate the World Forest using the Philosopher’s Hand and activate the World Gate.

Reward: Philosopher’s Hand

...

A Legendary item?

Shi Feng’s heart pounded rapidly when he saw the system notifications.

He had never thought that he would have the opportunity to acquire the Philosopher’s Hand in this life!

Any alchemist in God’s Domain would definitely have heard of the Philosopher’s Hand!

Like the Philosopher’s Stone, the Philosopher’s Hand was a treasure of the alchemy world, so Shi Feng knew quite a bit about it. It was a bona fide Legendary item. Unlike the Philosopher’s Stone, the Philosopher’s Hand was a complete, undamaged item. Countless Lifestyle Players dreamed of using its abilities.

If one were to say that the power of the Philosopher’s Stone focused on refining materials, then the Philosopher’s Hand focused on strengthening the standards of Lifestyle Players, allowing them to break through all kinds of bottlenecks easily and continuously elevate themselves to a higher level.

In his past, the Philosopher’s Hand had appeared in the hands of the first-rate Guild Kingdom’s Sword. With the help of the Philosopher’s Hand, the Lifestyle Players working under Kingdom’s Sword were able to develop rapidly. Back then, this incident had shaken the entire Dark Night Empire. The trading firm operated by Kingdom’s Sword also quickly became one of the top three trading firms in the Dark Night Empire, inciting the other first-rate Guilds’ envy.

However, the Dark Night Empire was an empire even stronger the Black Dragon Empire. There were a total of four superpowers fighting over the empire. One could easily imagine what kind of end had awaited Kingdom’s Sword!

In the end, the four superpowers ‘requested’ that Kingdom’s Sword sell its Philosopher’s Hand. Although it was presented as a request, in reality, it was closer to coercion. However, Kingdom’s Sword had already grown to become an extremely powerful first-rate Guild by then. The Guild had plenty of expert members and was already well on its way to becoming a super-first-rate Guild.

Naturally, Kingdom’s Sword had refused the superpowers’ requests. After all, the requirement to become a super-first-rate Guild was to have sufficient financial strength and resources.

If Kingdom’s Sword sold its Philosopher’s Hand, that would be equivalent to severing its path towards becoming a super-first-rate Guild.

Originally, it would’ve indeed been very difficult for one superpower to deal with a powerful first-rate guild like Kingdom’s Sword. The surprising thing was that the four superpowers had actually worked together to deal with Kingdom’s Sword...

As a result, Kingdom’s Sword had become history from then on.

However, the Guild Leader of Kingdom’s Sword was also ruthless. Even when his Guild had been on the brink of annihilation, he had still refused to hand over the Philosopher’s Hand. In the end, none of the four superpowers had gotten their hands on it, and the alchemy treasure had vanished from God’s Domain with the Kingdom’s Sword Guild.

Shi Feng found it truly surprising that the Philosopher’s Hand had appeared before him.

If not for being targeted by four superpowers, there was no doubt that Kingdom’s Sword would’ve become a super-first-rate Guild. After all, the further one progressed in the game, the more important Lifestyle Players became to Guilds. Many weapons, equipment, and items had to be crafted by the various Lifestyle players. It was simply impossible to sustain a Guild’s development with dropped items alone.

Looking at the Philosopher’s Hand, many ideas danced in Shi Feng’s mind.

Although Silverwing Town seemed free of issues right now, the town would face great danger in the future. Sufficient power would be needed to maintain the town’s safety.

Although he had acquired the Bronze Guardian Puppet Design, Zero Wing simply wasn’t capable of producing the Bronze Guardian Puppet right now.

It might be fine if he had obtained a design for the Common Guardian Puppet, as it did not require Master-ranked Lifestyle Players to be produced. However, the Bronze Guardian Puppet’s minimum requirement was to have a Master Forger, a Master Alchemist, a Master Engineer, and a Master Enchanter. In addition, some parts needed to be made by two different kinds of Masters, while some needed all four kinds of Masters working together to make them.

The Bronze Guardian Puppets could only be crafted after meeting the requirements. Even then, the production success rate was very low. If one wished to produce the Bronze Guardian Puppet reliably, the Master Lifestyle Players selected had to be Intermediate or Advanced Masters. Basic Masters were too unreliable.

Fulfilling these conditions was wishful thinking for the current Zero Wing.

Master Lifestyle Players were not available on demand. Even ten years after God’s Domain had launched, Basic Masters had been extremely rare and had been greatly respected by the various large guilds, let alone Intermediate and Advanced Masters.

However, if Zero Wing acquired the Philosopher’s Hand, it would be possible to nurture a bunch of Basic Masters within a short time. Building up some Intermediate Masters might even be possible! At that time, Zero Wing could start the production of the Bronze Guardian Puppet.

Just thinking about such a future was incredibly exciting!

Bronze Guardian Puppets possessed combat power at the peak of Tier 3. Moreover, players could control them fully since they were much easier to control than summoned creatures. A Void Realm expert that was ignorant of the Realms of Truth could still, at the very minimum, exhibit combat power at the Refinement Realm when controlling a Guardian Puppet.

Most importantly, unlike summoned creatures, Guardian Puppets could be used permanently. They even dealt additional damage to buildings and magic arrays!

Whether they were used in a siege or defensive battle, Guardian Puppets were the perfect tool. Countless Guilds had dreamed of obtaining Guardian Puppets in the past. Guardian Puppets were so powerful that the first-rate Guilds that had them could even afford to provoke superpowers and get away with it.

If he could produce several dozen Bronze Guardian Puppets now, nobody in God’s Domain could threaten Silverwing Town.

Even if ten Mythic monsters charged at the town, the monsters could be easily stopped with forty Bronze Guardian Puppets. After all, Guardian Puppets had extremely high Defense, rivaling Tier 4 monsters!

If he had a hundred Bronze Guardian Puppets right now, he would immediately set out to annihilate Ancient Rock City’s Evil God Branch Temple right now!

Of course, these were only fantasies...

However, with the Philosopher’s Hand, it was entirely possible to turn these fantasies into reality!

Setting aside those ideas for the moment, Shi Feng quickly inspected the Philosopher’s Hand’s statistics...

...

[Cursed Philosopher’s Hand]

As the creator of the Philosopher’s Hand failed to complete his wish before death, the creator’s soul had attached itself to the Philosopher’s Hand and cursed it to lose all of its power. Only after removing this curse will the Philosopher’s Hand recover its original abilities. Twenty stalks of Soul Dissolving Flower are necessary to activate Soul Guidance and remove the curse.

...

Soul Dissolving Flower? What a ruthless price!

Shi Feng could not help but frown after reading the item’s introduction.

In God’s Domain, any item pertaining to souls was extraordinarily valuable!

Shi Feng knew a little about the Soul Dissolving Flower. It was an extremely rare Epic material and the main material needed to produce the Master-ranked Meditation Potion. The Meditation Potion was one of the rare few Potions capable of helping players learn combat techniques more easily.

After consuming a Master Meditation Potion, the Potion would offer players guidance that would help them grasp combat techniques very quickly. In the past, the Potion had been highly sought after by the various major powers.

Unlike Skills and Spells, players needed to train arduously to learn a combat technique. Even expert players struggled to learn Basic Combat Techniques, not to mention Advanced Combat Techniques and above.

Hence, one could easily imagine how valuable the Soul Dissolving Flower was.

On the market, each stalk could sell for 300 Gold. Even so, nobody would be willing to sell a Soul Dissolving Flower they had obtained as they were exceedingly rare... so rare that even the various superpowers could only get their hands on a small number.

The flower’s rarity was because it did not exist on the continent of God’s Domain. Instead, it only existed in Otherworlds and Higher Planes, which made them extremely difficult to acquire.

Yet, the Philosopher’s Hand actually required twenty stalks of Soul Dissolving Flower...

At this moment, Shi Feng finally understood why the Philosopher’s Hand had only appeared after mainstream players had already reached Level 80. At that time, the pathways connecting the continent of God’s Domain and Otherworlds had already been opened.

Most likely, Kingdom’s Sword had only managed to collect the twenty Soul Dissolving Flowers after that event!

It seems there’s a need to make another trip to the Ice Crystal World.

The only Otherworld Shi Feng could freely travel to right now was the Ice Crystal World. Although there was also the option of visiting a Higher Plane, it would take a very long amount of time to collect twenty Soul Dissolving Flowers all by himself. Meanwhile, there were many players in the Ice Crystal World!

Done thinking, Shi Feng contacted Lifeless Thorn and the other members of the Asura adventurer team and had them gather in White River City. After grouping up, they headed towards the Ice Crystal World.