Chapter 969: The Strange Dzi Beads
Translator: Sean88888 Editor: Elkassar1
Despite the fact that his idea of selling mixes had been denied by the realm, Mogensha still smiled so brightly that his white teeth were fully exposed, but with a hint of slyness in it.
"Boss, Sanzi's passive ability to increase the drop rate is really crazy. I think any team will be reluctant to let him go. So, if we plan carefully, we might profit off this."
Reef's eyes suddenly lit up. "You mean, a betting match?"
Brother Black nodded. "It seems like Sanzi did not have a happy time in his old party. We can also help him get his revenge with this. Although they won't really die in the betting match, but it'll be good to see them lose everything, including their underwear."
When Sanzi heard about the betting match, his eyes lit up too. Young people were always looking for excitement. The three gathered together and began to pool all their twisted ideas to scheme ways to maximise their profits. Their discussions included the way Sanzi would show his weakness, the way Mogensha would provoke them, deciding the order of appearance, and so on and so forth.....
Zi sat down beside Sheyan with a glass of red wine. If one were to look closely, one would find a hint of emerald green in her black pupils, giving her a slight air of elegance.
She was tall and graceful, and her sexy black stockings were on full display as she sat cross-legged next to Sheyan. The pale, delicate skin of her legs peeked through the stockings, adding to her sexiness.
Sheyan could clearly see the Zi's profile from this angle, so her shapely breasts were accurately outlined in his eyes. They were not that large, but not that small either; just the right size to fit in one of his hands.... Zi's body carried a faint, elegant smell, which might be perfume, but he could not be sure. The smell, mixed with the flavour of a woman, made Sheyan slightly restless.
Zi did not notice that Sheyan was molesting her all over with his eyes. She gracefully picked up the glass of red wine and took a careful sip.
"Now that you've broken through into a dual-attribute Growth Hunter having accumulated strength for a long time, your base attributes are probably not inferior to some Awakeners, minus some details."
Sheyan smiled, but did not speak. He was not a modest man, so he would not deny it, but he also felt that an admission might cause Zi to be unhappy, because Zi seemed to have failed a dual-attribute breakthrough attempt before.
Zi slowly swayed the glass of wine while she said quietly, "Then I think you should be able to take a look at the string of beads I gave you."
"Beads?" Sheyan had forgotten all about the beads and only remembered after Zi reminded him.
Before Zi joined Party Ace, Sheyan had heard that one of the reasons Zeus pursued her to no end was because Zi possessed a powerful secret related to MTs. Then, in order to return the favour of saving her, she gave Sheyan a string of beads.(TL: Refer to chapter 778)
Sheyan still remembered that she had taken the string of beads from the neck of a fierce-looking Tibetan Mastiff dog. Apart from being particularly heavy, the string of beads could not be stored in his personal storage and he could not retrieve any information about them. The realm also informed him back then that he possessed insufficient strength and asked him to promote to a Growth-Hunter to satisfy the basic requirement of appraising the object.
The beads were truly wrapped in a veil of mystery.
Because he had so many things to take care of, Sheyan had long put the beads in the back of his mind. He did not carry the beads with him, but it was a simple matter of retrieving them. When the beads were in his hands, he could feel them gradually getting hotter.
Sheyan had a very strong will; he let the beads heat up in his hand without making a sound. Only when the temperature became so high that some smoke and a burning smell came out of his hand did he finally listen to Zi and put the beads down.
A clear burn mark was visible on Sheyan's palm as if it was burned by a red-hot iron. Some vivid patterns could be seen in the burn mark. There were circles, triangles and squares.
"Could the beads be Tibetan Dzi beads?"
(TL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzi_bead )
Sheyan had a strong memory and he had collected a large amount of information after entering the nightmare realm, storing it in his head. Of all the jewellery in the world, only the Tibetan Dzi beads upholded the concept of Tibetan secrets and had the symbols of earth, water and fire, which represented Creation, on them.
'○' - The circle, the cycle of the universe, the source of cosmic power. The colour of the vast openness was white. It symbolised the infinite light emitted by the sun, the moon and the stars.
'△' - The triangle, the human body's blood circulation system, the foundation of human energy. The colour of human was crimson (the colour of the blood of all animals on land. Also refers to the triangular relationship between red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets). It symbolised the subtle life formed by the spirit, the body and the mind.
'□' - The square, the energy (magnetic field) produced by all matters in nature, the ability to gather and strengthen. The colour of the earth was yellow. It symbolised the opportunities formed by water, fire and wind.
Now that the beads were out of Sheyan's hand, their surface was black and smooth, appearing no different from ordinary plastic beads besides their weight. The patterns were no longer visible. If it wasn't for the burn mark on Sheyan's palm, he would have thought that it was all an illusion.
When Sheyan asked Zi about it, she shook her head slightly and said, "I don't know what this thing is either. But although you can't fully understand the mystery behind it, at least you triggered some reaction from it. Keep it safe for now until the day you can fully activate it."
Sheyan wanted to ask Zi for more information, but Zi kept skirting around the topic and in the end, stopped talking altogether.
*************
Time passed quickly. With the support of the party, Sanzi no longer had to train with rats to familiarise himself with the command of summoned creatures. Instead, he trained with police dogs and the likes, and had retired ex-professional special force members as training partners for his summoned creatures.
In addition, as a contestant who had not joined the nightmare realm for long, Sanzi could still increase his base attributes through vigorous training, so he could not slack off. It caused Sanzi a lot of suffering.
Finally, it's the time to enter the realm again. According to what they had discussed, the first thing Sheyan did after entering the realm was not to retrieve the mission rewards, but to upgrade his military rank! In a company, people in higher positions would get better benefits and bonuses. With this thought in mind, they all agreed that there were only pros to upgrading his military rank first.
Sheyan originally had 183 achievement points. After eliminating five giant mutated ovums with Aziz, his achievement points now had reached Major (198/175). Even without the 13 achievement points from the 'Unknown mysterious item: Rare precious metal', he had more than enough to raise his rank.
Right after stepping into the realm, Sheyan's nightmare imprint sent a continuous stream of notifications to him to remind him to retrieve his rewards. Sheyan simply muted these reminders and went straight to the honour area, before sitting down in his usual spot to deal with his business.
He actually had to wait for nearly five minutes before a voice came from the other side. It was neither the hoarse voice that had made contact with him before, nor the usual synthesised electronic voice. Instead, it was the sharp, emotionless voice of a woman.
He could not help but form an image of a bitter, meticulous old hag in her fifties in his mind when he heard the woman's voice. He believed that the voice had the ability to turn the hardest morning wood into the limpest earthworm.
"Growth Hunter No. 1018, please submit the Bloody Invitation Letters you've collected to confirm the completion of your mission. "
Sheyan was stunned. He then said firmly, "I'm sorry, Ma'am, but I'm here to raise my rank."
The chilly voice said after a moment of hesitation, "Don't you have the Bloody World mission on you? Please submit them together."
'You must be joking. If I submit the invitation letters now, what would happen to my Golden Side Mission?' thought Sheyan.
Sheyan thus said in a firm tone, "Ma'am, let me repeat that again. I'm here to raise my rank. It's my prerogative when I would like to submit the Bloody Invitation Letters. I don't wish to repeat myself for the third time. "
There was no sound coming from the other side. It seemed that the contact had been interrupted. While Sheyan was feeling puzzled, the cold voice appeared again. "If you submit the Bloody Invitation Letters now, you will get some bonus rewards."
"What are the bonus rewards?" asked Sheyan nonchalantly.
"Honour, pride, dignity! And the highest praise from the Empire!" answered the cold voice.
Sheyan sighed and said, "Not interested. The promotion of my military rank is a little more important to me right now."
At this point, he had become really reluctant to have any further discussion with the old hag, so he simply abandoned the current window and went to queue up at the next window. This time, he successfully promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel without any fuss.
The most direct benefit of being a Lieutenant Colonel was that, on the premise that Sheyan was the leader of a small party, every member of the party could get a free honorary dosage in each world.
In addition to some other commonly-known benefits, there were several privileges that he could choose from. All the options Sheyan chose were those that were beneficial to the party, such as a 5% reduction in skill cooldown time for all party members, a 5% increase in attack damage for all party members, and so on.
After all that, Sheyan finally returned to his private room and, together with his visibly impatient party members, began to check out the rewards for the Golden Side Mission.