Chapter 93: The Luck Elixir Shows Its Power! Quest Materials Acquired!

Do you know our purpose? the one-eyed giant asked, fixing Aibo with a stern glare.

“It has nothing to do with Aibo,” Wang Chen said. “This is easy enough to guess. Your Wind-Hunting Tribe is skilled with bows, so of course you cut down Heavenly Star Cedar to make them. Its timber is ideal for bow-making.”

“Especially after I saw your reaction to the Bull-Tough Tendon, I became even more certain.”

“Though I do wonder why the bows you carry are not strung with Bull-Tough Tendon,” Wang Chen asked curiously. “Could it be that the tendon must be used on a specific kind of bow?”

The one-eyed giant looked at Wang Chen for a long moment, but did not answer.

Wang Chen shrugged. “If you do not want to tell me, that is fine. But I advise you to trade with me anyway. Bull-Tough Tendon is not easy to find on the market these days.”

Because I already bought up the whole supply, Wang Chen thought to himself.

After a moment of silence, the one-eyed giant waved over one of the others and ordered him to fetch the Heavenly Star Cedar for Wang Chen.

The giant turned at once and ran back the way they had come.

Before long, he returned carrying two Heavenly Star Cedars. The one-eyed giant motioned for him to set them down before Wang Chen.

At the side, the scar-faced giant could not hold himself back and began arguing with the one-eyed giant.

The giants’ deep, rolling voices thundered back and forth, and for an instant the forest seemed shrouded in a storm cloud.

At last, the quarrel ended with the one-eyed giant’s resolute roar, and the scar-faced giant stalked off to one side with a dark expression.

Wang Chen stored the Heavenly Star Cedar away in his spatial storage and smiled at the one-eyed giant. “Pleasure doing business.”

The one-eyed giant had his men secure the Bull-Tough Tendon and instructed Aibo to escort Wang Chen out.

Wang Chen complied and followed Aibo, though when he passed the scar-faced giant, he flicked his fingertips in the palm of his hand, spilled a vial of potion into his palm, and snapped the beads of liquid toward the giant with a curved finger.

He did all of this while staying within the scar-faced giant’s blind spot.

Needless to say, the potion was Fortune-Boosting Elixir.

After a while, the giant’s skin would absorb the potion through contact; after a brief spell of luck, misfortune would begin.

Given the scar-faced giant’s enormous build, such a small amount of potion was like a few dewdrops on a thicket of shrubs—he would not notice it at all.

Wang Chen silently instructed the system to reverse the effect of the Fortune-Boosting Elixir that had clung to him.

[Reversal effect activated. Please inspect it yourself. Reversing again will restore the original effect.]

Very soon, Wang Chen would run into a minor bit of bad luck, but after that, fortune would come rolling in.

Since they were in this forest, the most likely thing was an attack by marrow-sucking mice.

So as he followed Aibo through the trees, he kept scanning his surroundings warily, alert for that possibility, when he suddenly heard an odd sound from his clothes.

Riiip—

Wang Chen looked down in astonishment and found that some of his clothes had been snagged and torn by branches.

He could only laugh inwardly. So this was the extent of the bad luck.

No wonder Manager Liu had said the Fortune-Boosting Elixir was practically useless. After the system reversed it, the bad-luck effect was exactly as strong as the original luck had been.

To endure a greater wave of misfortune just for this little bit of trifling luck was hardly worth it at all.

Still, this would make for a bit of suffering on the scar-faced giant’s part.

Wang Chen smirked to himself and followed Aibo toward the secret realm’s exit.

The scar-faced giant, who had been glaring at Wang Chen with deep resentment, saw Wang Chen’s clothes snag and tear and could not help feeling a burst of schadenfreude.

The gloom left behind by the one-eyed giant’s earlier scolding vanished in an instant. He thought himself truly fortunate to be able to see that human brat stumble before Wang Chen departed.

What the scar-faced giant did not notice was that behind him, several thin afterimages slipped through the branches and raced toward him.

...

Aibo escorted Wang Chen to the exit of the secret realm, and after an affectionate farewell, turned back alone toward the camp.

Just as he entered, he saw the scar-faced giant sitting on the ground with a grim expression while Gao Na beside him bandaged his hands.

“What happened?” Aibo asked.

“Not long after you left, those mice attacked us again,” Gao Na replied.

“Then is everyone all right? Was anyone badly hurt?” Aibo asked with concern.

“No. Strangely enough, they kept attacking Lie Mai and would not even look at anyone else. Look at his hands—they’re practically a bloody mess already...” Gao Na noticed the cold look in the scar-faced giant’s eyes and abruptly fell silent.

At this, Aibo let out a breath of relief and looked at the scar-faced giant named Lie Mai. “What a pity Wang Chen is gone. He is a shaman—he could have healed you in no time. Look at my hand; it was badly injured before, but now it is almost healed.”

“Do not mention that human brat to me! Just thinking about him makes me furious!” Lie Mai said in anger, and his palm lashed out unconsciously, striking the ground.

A thunderous howl of pain instantly rang through the camp.

...

Wang Chen returned to Luzhou through the teleportation array. He had not even walked far along the street before receiving a call.

He answered. “Hello? Manager Liu, what is it?”

“Mr. Wang, we have found the Cold Radiance Stone you asked for,” Manager Liu’s voice sounded as spirited as ever. “But the other party is asking a very high price. Would you be convenient to come to the trading hall? We can discuss the price with him together.”

“All right, I’ll be there right away. Keep him there for now—don’t let the goods be sold to anyone else.” Wang Chen hung up and hurried toward the United Ambition Trading Hall.

When he arrived at the VIP room in the trading hall, the seller called out as soon as he saw Wang Chen, “My benefactor!”

Manager Liu, who had been preparing to make the introduction, and Wang Chen, who had come all this way in haste, were both stunned.

After a round of explanations, Wang Chen finally understood: this seller was an adventurer he had once rescued from the hands of the scavengers.

He had no criminal record. He had gone there purely to gather some rare equipment materials unique to the Dark Plateau, only to be captured and enslaved by the scavengers.

After leaving the Dark Plateau, he joined an adventuring team through a friend’s introduction.

This team had an interesting way of making money: they did not hunt fierce beasts for loot or equipment, but instead went into certain secret realms without resurrection points and carried out the bodies of the dead.

These corpse-retrieval commissions were, of course, issued by the deceased’s family members. In addition to the advance payment, whatever items were on the bodies also belonged to them.

Perhaps fortune had turned in his favor. Not long after joining, the team completed a mission and made a huge profit.

The corpse they had been hired to retrieve had died in the Lost Mine Forest, and before his death he had gathered a batch of ore unique to that forest.

At once, the adventuring team held a rare commodity in their hands and sold the nearly extinct ore through the major trading halls.

The adventurer Wang Chen had saved had been assigned some Cold Radiance Stone and brought it to the United Ambition Trading Hall to exchange it for money.

Once he realized that Wang Chen was the one who needed the Cold Radiance Stone, he immediately said he might as well give it to him.

Wang Chen naturally refused. After all, the man had risked his life venturing into a secret realm with no resurrection point to earn it; he could not let him work for nothing.

After some back and forth, and on Manager Liu’s advice, the adventurer sold the Cold Radiance Stone to Wang Chen at a proper price lower than market premium.