Chapter 29: Get Me One Too

Jiang Qiao continued pondering what other improvements could be made to this Plane Fragment while inquiring with the old Mage about any more mysteries of the high tower.

The old Mage didn't provide Jiang Qiao with any useful information, instead lamenting about his own past romantic exploits...

Halfway through listening, Jiang Qiao lost patience and opened a web browsing tool to search for posts related to the Holy Spirit in various game forums.

Posts about the Holy Spirit had already appeared in major game forums. In the VR game section, three out of the top posts were discussing the Holy Spirit, but two of those posts were asking for Holy Spirit activation codes, and the remaining one was complaining about the limited number of official test slots.

Jiang Qiao glanced around and chose to close the forum page. If everything went smoothly, the Holy Spirit would be able to continuously release play qualifications for players starting tomorrow.

Just about half an hour passed when Jiang Qiao saw a flash of light from the distant Tower of Trial. The surface of the first stone tablet erupted in fiery flames, which burned around the tablet, instantly altering the text on its surface.

The old Mage's team was ranked second. The stone tablet displayed the top fifty teams, and the last fifty teams had already been kicked off the tablet. The team ranked first was the team that had entered earlier.

First place, Segman Xuraifym, North Phoenix... A string of names that Jiang Qiao couldn't be bothered to read. Jiang Qiao focused on the completion time instead.

Thirty-nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds.

This group of NPCs had beaten their mentor's youthful completion time by a full three minutes.

The moment the old Mage saw the new name appearing at the top of the first stone tablet, he sighed, reminiscing about his own lost youth. Then he continuously stroked his beard with a satisfied expression on his face.

"Mentor! We did it!"

The young Spellcasters were even more excited than the old Mage. Jiang Qiao observed from the side, still more interested in what rewards were recorded for the first place on the tablet.

The Mage named Segman Xuraifym indeed held a mini statue emitting a faint glow in his hand.

Jiang Qiao cast another detection spell on the statue.

Holy Mana Gathering Sculpture.

Quality: Guild Holy Relic.

Guild Level Requirement: 2.

Description: A tool that can provide an enhancement effect when placed in a guild.

Equipment Attributes: When activated by the guild leader, the guild members' experience gain will increase by 10% for two hours—cooldown of seventy-two hours.

Warning: This equipment carries a strong Otherworldly aura and needs purification before use.

The so-called strong Otherworldly aura was just a guise, as players could not use equipment from the Otherworld due to system incompatibility.

Therefore, when players obtained items from the Otherworld, they had to seek out specialized NPCs for purification, which essentially meant Jiang Qiao would modify it to fit the Holy Spirit World system.

"A holy relic! Lord Segman, you have truly won another holy relic for our country," the old Mage was more excited about the statue than about breaking the completion record.

"With this, our Flowing Water Country now possesses two hundred and seventy-seven holy relics, twice that of your Dark Flame Country!" The Mage named Segman basked in his pride and didn't miss the chance to taunt Jiang Qiao.

"Huh?" Jiang Qiao was momentarily stunned upon hearing Dark Flame Country, but then realized they must have mistaken him for a Mage from a rival country. "Oh, impressive, impressive."

Although Jiang Qiao said this, his inner thoughts were... I need to find a way to get myself one too! Not just from inside the tower but also from their hands.

Equipment of the holy relic tier in the Holy Spirit was categorized separately from individual player equipment, belonging to guild or national-level equipment. Player manors could also store holy relics. Jiang Qiao hadn't even updated the game to include the holy relic tier yet, but it was indeed part of the plan.

Jiang Qiao defined holy relics as equipment that could significantly impact player activities on a large scale. For example, this Holy Mana Gathering Sculpture could increase the experience gain of all guild members by 10% for two hours.

This ability fit Jiang Qiao's definition of holy relics perfectly.

So the question arose, how much Creation Energy was needed to make a holy relic?

Not too much. For a small effect, like this Mana Gathering Sculpture, with a guild limit of one hundred members, Jiang Qiao would only need about three hundred points of energy to create it.

Alright... maybe it's a bit much, but it also meant that throwing a wild holy relic into a disassembler could yield a lot of energy for Jiang Qiao as well.

"How many countries do you have?" Jiang Qiao carefully pondered. The native inhabitants of this Plane had been challenging this high tower for hundreds of years, and during that time, they must have won quite a few holy relics, right?

"How many countries? Don't you know how you got into the Tower of Trial?" The young Spellcasters looked at Jiang Qiao as if he were an alien.

"I'm quite young, after all," Jiang Qiao admitted frankly.

"Besides our Flowing Water Country and the Dark Flame Country, there are four major empires. Do I need to list the remaining kingdoms for you, young man?" The old Mage seemed quite willing to teach.

"No need, thank you..."

Jiang Qiao refrained from asking further. Four empires, countless small countries, hundreds of years... These nations had likely dispatched numerous people to challenge the high tower, and the holy relics they won were probably treated as national treasures.

The old Mage chatted with Jiang Qiao a bit more, but it was all trivial. However, during this time, Jiang Qiao slipped him two bottles of powerful MP potions.

The old Mage recognized the value of the potions and knew how to reciprocate, offering Jiang Qiao two items called "Magic Stones" in return.

Finally, Jiang Qiao watched the group of NPC experts who had set the instance record leave, only then did Hai Lan's figure materialize beside him.

"Hai Lan, can you consume this?" Jiang Qiao tossed the two thumb-sized Magic Stones to Hai Lan and asked.

"I can, but I can only absorb one or two energy points from each. What are you planning now?" Hai Lan looked at Jiang Qiao's expression and felt he was up to no good.

"As long as I can extract some energy, it's fine. How about the holy relic? How much can you convert?" Jiang Qiao asked again.

Hai Lan couldn't directly consume an entire Plane. To do so, they first needed to locate the Plane Core. This required either exterminating all life in the Plane or directly finding the core's location.

Jiang Qiao and Hai Lan currently didn't have that capability.

Besides, the Plane Fragment itself was like a gold mine, one that could produce gold automatically and continuously. Jiang Qiao didn't see the need to uproot everything. It was enough to let the players, as seasoned miners, come to dig for gold. Jiang Qiao's job was to ensure the players had sufficiently sharp pickaxes and well-prepared backup plans.

"That statue just now... I could convert it into a hundred or two hundred points of energy," Hai Lan said. "Including the people and their equipment, I could convert each person into about twenty points, and the equipment ranged from a few points to twenty.

"It's not a lot, but it's better than nothing." Jiang Qiao opened the system editing page and directly called up a feature he had not yet implemented into the Holy Spirit.

Equipment Enhancement System.