Chapter 78: Treasure-Hunting Token
There was no need to say more about the Storage Ring; Yan Qing directly wore both of them.
This might be one of the rare advantages that reality had over games: in games, ring-type accessories were quantity-limited, but in reality, who would care about that? Yan Qing wished he could wear rings on all ten fingers and ten toes. The reason Zhou Ye and the others only wore one Storage Ring each was because Storage Rings were extremely rare—even they only had one apiece.
The Heartguard Mirror, however, was worth mentioning.
"Heartguard Mirror"
"Grade: Third-Stage Rare"
"Durability: 80/80"
"Equipment Requirement: 15 Vital Energy and Blood, 15 Spirit"
"Effect · Sevenfold Mirror: After activating this effect, you will be protected by seven mirror layers. The mirror defense is 0, and the HP is linearly related to the number of mirrors. Each mirror grants 100 HP. When all seven mirrors are active, each mirror has 700 HP; when only one remains, it has 100 HP. Activation requires 70 Spirit Energy. Replenishing a mirror consumes 10 Spirit Energy per mirror. When all mirrors are shattered, the cooldown before reactivation is five seconds."
"Evaluation: I’ll test you—when all seven mirror layers are active, what’s the maximum amount of damage it can absorb?"
Although it had only one effect, the Heartguard Mirror was truly worthy of being a Third-Stage Rare Token. If one could maintain the Sevenfold Mirror, it would be equivalent to exchanging just 10 Spirit Energy for 700 shield HP—enough to resist standard Third-Stage attacks. Even against a single high-burst attack, it was reliable. The Sevenfold Mirror could collectively absorb up to 2800 damage—roughly the output of a Foundation Messenger’s single strike.
No wonder every Third-Stage Messenger of Great Liang had one. It was indeed a must-have defensive Token for killing, arson, and tomb-raiding!
The only issue was that Yan Qing didn’t have enough Spirit Energy to activate the Heartguard Mirror. Unlike the enfeoffment from Bingzi Pepper Forest, which allowed continuous Spirit Energy output, the Heartguard Mirror required an instantaneous release of 70 Spirit Energy. Even with a Second Job Change, he likely wouldn’t meet the requirement.
Nevertheless, he had already formulated a plan in his heart and set it aside for now.
The next loot was a Secret Technique Book that Jiang Ten had obtained from the treasure chest.
"Secret Technique Book · Left Curve, Right Sweep"
"Learning Requirement: Advanced Two-Handed Blade Technique MAX / Advanced Two-Handed Sword Technique MAX / Advanced Blade Technique MAX / Advanced Sword Technique MAX"
"Effect: Allows you to learn Left Curve, Right Sweep."
"Left Curve, Right Sweep (Level 1): Consumes 5 HP. Your next blade or sword attack expands to a 180° arc. When dual-wielding, it covers a full 360°. Has a 5-second cooldown. If triggered again during cooldown, HP cost +1, stackable with no limit."
"Evaluation: The Left bends with force, the Right returns with momentum—unmatched across the realm."
A Secret Technique!
Yan Qing’s eyes burned with excitement. With this Secret Technique Book, the road to his Third Job Change was wide open.
The reason he snatched up the Secret Technique Book immediately was because a hard requirement for advancing to Third Job Change was full mastery of a Secret Technique. Even if he had overflowing experience, he couldn’t achieve the Third Job Change without one. If the difficulty of comprehending an Advanced Martial Technique was 1, then comprehending a Secret Technique was at least 5. Even players with high Comprehension wouldn’t deliberately torture themselves by trying to comprehend a Secret Technique. They’d usually just learn a simple one to fulfill the Third Job Change requirement.
Yan Qing was well aware of his own limitations. Someone like him, who might not even comprehend a Basic Martial Technique on his own, would certainly need a Secret Technique Book to reach the Third Job Change. And he had his preferences—something like Jiang Ten’s self-comprehended Shadow-Split Blade was clearly not suited to him.
"Shadow-Split Blade (Level 1): Consumes 10% of max HP + 80 HP. Your next blade or sword strike splits into two phantom slashes, dealing three simultaneous attacks to the target. Has a 120-second cooldown. If triggered again during cooldown, HP cost +40, stackable with no limit."
"Evaluation: The visible blade is not frightening; the invisible one is."
Was Shadow-Split Blade strong? It was much stronger than Left Curve, Right Sweep!
But which Secret Technique was easier to max out? That would undoubtedly be Left Curve, Right Sweep!
These Vital Energy and Blood Secret Techniques all required HP consumption to activate. A high-output, high-cost, long-cooldown technique like Shadow-Split Blade would probably leave Yan Qing hypoglycemic after one use. In contrast, Left Curve, Right Sweep had low cost but high utility. Yan Qing could treat it like pelvic-floor exercises—practicing it whenever he had time without disrupting gameplay.
It was just that Yan Qing did not yet meet the learning requirements and could only store it in his Personal Storage for now.
Besides the Secret Technique Book, Jiang Ten also drew a Return Token, which Yan Qing stored in his Storage Ring. Although he didn’t think he’d need to use it himself, he figured he might let his alternate character use it in a fit of rage—still, it was better to have it on hand.
Unfortunately, they only cleared ten stages of the Mansu Woodland. Had this been in-game with a high-level team, combined with the Woodland Messenger’s ability to select extra rewards, Jiang Ten’s gains from this Secret Realm would have been far beyond imagination.
With that, all the loot Jiang Ten had brought back was accounted for—except for one last reward.
Yan Qing opened the game’s "Bulletin Board," selected "Regional Event: Mansu Woodland," and clicked to claim the reward.
The game popped up a prompt: "Each account may only claim the event reward once. Claim now?"
So there was an anti-abuse mechanism like this in place. Moreover, since the Treasure-Hunting Token was non-tradable and only circulated within the same account, players couldn’t accumulate multiple Treasure-Hunting Tokens quickly through the event.
The event reward could only be claimed through the event page, which existed solely within the game system—it didn’t exist in reality. This meant that although the people of Great Liang participated in the Mansu Woodland every year, they couldn’t even obtain the most basic event rewards.
However, this wasn’t exactly good news for Yan Qing. He was the only one in the world who had a Treasure-Hunting Token—so what was the point?
"Treasure-Hunting Token: Using this token, you may access the Treasure Pavilion from anywhere to conduct trade. You are granted ten item slots, with a 30% transaction fee. Collect ten Treasure-Hunting Tokens to upgrade into a Treasure Token."
Yan Qing tapped on it, and the game instantly popped up a trade interface. The interface was completely empty—there was nothing there at all, just like the market in a ghost server.
As expected, it wasn’t very useful.
Besides these items, there were also two Blood Weapon materials capable of upgrading Token rarity. To maximize profit, one should use such materials on a valuable Token—like what Shang Xinlei and the others had done—to obtain a Legendary Token. But Yan Qing didn’t think he’d lack Legendary Tokens in the future, and those with mediocre attributes might not even match Rare or Precious Tokens. What mattered most right now was increasing his combat strength.
While the Hoarding Rat might not waste anything, it could still die.
Yan Qing planned to use these two materials before the next Thieves’ operation, though he was still considering which Tokens to use them on.
After finishing that up, Yan Qing finally had time to eat and shower. With nothing better to do, he held the Treasure-Hunting Token in his hand, wondering if he could use it directly.
He pressed the token hard, and suddenly, light shot from its engraved pattern straight toward his eyes, startling him into shutting them immediately—he thought he was about to go blind. When he slowly reopened his eyes, he realized the light hadn’t entered them. Instead, it had woven a screen the size of a glasses lens one inch before his face. Though the screen was small, it was crystal-clear and close enough for Yan Qing to see everything clearly.
"So you really can log into the Treasure Pavilion from anywhere..." Yan Qing muttered.
The light screen emitted by the Treasure-Hunting Token was, naturally, just the empty trade market. Yan Qing tried turning his head and noticed the screen followed his movements. When he stopped pressing the token, the screen vanished.
Then, could he sell things?
Yan Qing stared at the Roasted Lamb Leg in his hand and pondered. Suddenly, the screen popped up a small window: "List ‘Roasted Lamb Leg’? Price range: 1~3 Spirit Jade (or equivalent). Transaction fee: 30%."
Yes.
Then Yan Qing watched as the Roasted Lamb Leg in his hand vanished. The Treasure Pavilion now displayed one—possibly the first in all of history—trade item: ‘Roasted Lamb Leg’, priced at 1 Spirit Jade.
Seeing the ‘Roasted Lamb Leg’ pinned at the very top of the Treasure Pavilion, Yan Qing actually waited there dumbly for a few seconds before realizing how foolish he was. If anyone else possessed a Treasure-Hunting Token, the Treasure Pavilion would already have become an active marketplace. There was no way it would be this empty.
The empty Treasure Pavilion could only prove one truth: he was the sole holder of the Treasure-Hunting Token.
He sighed and decided to buy the Roasted Lamb Leg back to see if it was still edible. But just then, he saw the ‘Roasted Lamb Leg’ vanish from the Treasure Pavilion, and a Spirit Jade missing one-third of its mass landed with a pa in his palm.
Hmm?