Chapter 410: Chapter 230: System Component; Two Kinds of Rewards
Perhaps it was due to the underground temperature, but everything here was exceedingly dry. While many paper books disintegrated at the slightest touch, items recorded on bamboo slips, Jade, and metal were still salvageable.
Looking at the books that had turned to dust, Cheng Zongyang sighed before taking the things he had gathered back to the third floor of the Preservation Warehouse.
He left the rest for the men arranged by Luo Dingran to handle.
On the third floor of the Preservation Warehouse, Cheng Zongyang took out the items he had brought back one by one.
They were mostly metal implements, Jade, and the like.
Although some of the bamboo slips were intact enough to be picked up, the cords binding them had long since rotted away. They would fall apart the moment they were unrolled, so Cheng Zongyang left them alone for now. He would have Ding Xing deal with them later.
—
[Jade Slab]
Description: An ordinary Jade Slab used to record some text. Nothing special.
Points: 1
—
[Jade Slab]
Description: An ordinary Jade Slab used to record some Sect information. Nothing special.
Points: 3
—
[Token]
Description: A Huining County clerk’s Token. Nothing special.
Points: 1
—
...
Cheng Zongyang identified them one by one, but in the end, he just shook his head. Nothing was valuable. Finally, he turned his gaze to the dozen or so bundles of bamboo slips and decided to identify them as well.
—
[Bamboo Slip]
Description: A bamboo slip recording information about personnel in the County Town.
Points: 1
—
[Bamboo Slip]
Description: A bamboo slip recording information about official administration.
Points: 5
—
[Bamboo Slip]
Description: A bamboo slip recording information about laws and records.
Points: 5
—
As he identified one after another, Cheng Zongyang grew increasingly irritated. It wasn’t because of their low value, but because he couldn’t read any of it!
It was like receiving a letter from a girl you adore, only to realize you’re illiterate and can’t understand a single word! The maddening frustration left him utterly dejected.
"This won’t do! I have to get my hands on the Huangfu Family’s translation manual as soon as possible!" Cheng Zongyang was getting desperate.
’He finally had a chance to learn more about this world through these artifacts, but he was completely unable to understand them!’
’How did the Huangfu Family learn to read this script? What’s their connection to the Stone Ring? Or... could it be that someone from the Huangfu Family was the previous master of the Stone Ring?’
’That’s right. The ring inside the Jade Stone was the Stone Ring!’
’The patterns on the inner wall of the Jade Stone matched those he had seen on the Stone Ring, and they were just as exquisite!’
’That was why he’d had to shovel all that dirt in here—to have the Soul Slaves sift through it for fragments of the Jade Stone!’
He organized the items and returned to the small hut.
"Hut! Tell me, was your previous master’s surname Huangfu?!" Cheng Zongyang couldn’t hold back any longer.
But the Ring Spirit gave no response.
"My Lord!"
"What is it!?" Cheng Zongyang snapped, his tone sharp from his foul mood.
The Soul Slave at the door jumped in fright and said, stammering in terror, "Th-the... the stone fragments have all been sifted... sifted through."
Hearing this, Cheng Zongyang’s head snapped around. He rushed to the door. "Bring them to me!"
"Yes."
The Soul Slave immediately turned around and came back with a small bowl.
"My Lord, they’re all here. We identified them piece by piece. Nothing was missed," the Soul Slave added.
"Mm, you’ve worked hard. Go and rest," Cheng Zongyang said with a nod.
"Thank you, My Lord."
After the Soul Slave left, Cheng Zongyang took the bowl to a counter and began to identify the contents piece by piece. The information displayed was just as he expected: they were all fragments of the Jade Stone.
Cheng Zongyang took out the large Jade Stone fragment he already had for comparison, then got some paste and began assembling the pieces.
The work was tedious, but thankfully there weren’t too many pieces. After more than two hours, Cheng Zongyang put down the small tweezers in his hand, rubbed his eyes, and rested for a moment.
Staring at the two reassembled halves of the Jade Stone cube on the counter, his expression was complex.
But just then, a faint light emanated from the seams of the two Jade Stone halves. The next moment, the cracks where they had been pieced together began to rapidly "heal."
Cheng Zongyang watched, completely dumbfounded.
’It can do that?’
A moment later, the two halves of the Jade Stone had fused back into identical, flawless blocks of Jade. Put together, they formed a perfect mold!
’So this is where the Stone Ring truly came from, isn’t it?’
Cheng Zongyang immediately used his identification ability on it.
—
[Jade Stone Box]
Description: Two hundred years ago, the Jade Box was dropped and picked up by someone. The first host received a random novice item as a reward. Afterward, the host was ambushed on the spot, the Jade Stone was lost and separated, and it was automatically unbound upon the host’s death.
Function: A box for storing the Jade Stone Ring, it is part of the Stone Ring itself. Can be recycled by the Marketplace Hut. Recycling it will grant rewards and update the hut.
Rewards (Choose Two): ①: +100,000 Points; ②: Select one previously purchased item; ③: One random Talent; ④: One random special and unique item; ⑤: One random Golden Level implement.
—
"Holy cow, it really is a part of the system."
As he read the information from the identification, Cheng Zongyang’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Staring at the list of rewards, he was practically drooling.
"Ring Spirit, I want them all," Cheng Zongyang said in anguish.
’At this moment, there was nothing he hated more than having to choose!’
After a moment, Cheng Zongyang managed to compose himself, reining in his shock at this completely unexpected windfall.
Finding the Jade Stone Box was an accident, and getting rewards for assembling it was an even bigger one. But the description, though brief, helped him understand the whole story.
’The first host found the Jade Stone Box, and as a novice reward for binding with it, they received the script translation manual and something else. But right after, they were ambushed by a friend or even just a passerby, and they died.’
’You could only get ambushed like that if you weren’t familiar with its functions. Otherwise, you could have hidden inside the Marketplace Hut in the blink of an eye. You could even enter to heal if you were injured.’
