Chapter 115: The Mad Treasure Chest

From his backpack, Ye Chen carefully took out a can of monster-revealing powder. He glanced at the small map in his hand: three silver treasure chests and one golden chest were gleaming brightly, all nestled deep within the sea of wisteria blossoms. Besides the chest markers, the map was peppered with countless tiny red dots—signifying bloodthirsty demon vines.

In truth, Ye Chen could have simply traversed the wisteria sea relying solely on the map. But that would mean forfeiting these treasure chests. After all, leading a dozen teammates to each chest one by one would be foolish—no sane person would do that. It wouldn’t be surprising to complete the quest using the library as an excuse, but clearing every chest’s location would be too contrived. Of course, focusing only on the silver and gold chests was acceptable; such significant treasures might only be mentioned in passing in the books, and rare-level chests were never detailed fully.

After examining the locations of the four high-quality chests, Ye Chen drew up a rough route and joined the others in the treasure hunt.

The wisteria sea was vast, so the group spread out. Except for two holy priests, who lacked independent survival abilities and thus followed Tiger and Dingyuan Monk respectively, everyone else moved solo. With the monster-revealing powder to preemptively neutralize demon vines, if the vines were too numerous along a path, they could simply change direction. Even smaller numbers of demon vines posed no challenge to this group of second-tier players.

Ye Chen naturally chose the route with the fewest demon vines, so he advanced fastest. Within minutes, he neared the first silver chest, while two lucky teammates had already found rare chests.

“Haha, a rare chest! I just found a rare chest!” Longface shouted excitedly, circling a water-blue chest. “Xianyun, didn’t you just get a rare chest key? Lend it to me, will you?”

The elemental mage named Xianyun cast a jealous glance at Longface, shook his head like a rattle, and said, “No way, I’m still holding onto it. Brother Bu is about to find a chest himself.”

“Damn, stingy!” Longface gave him the middle finger, snatched up his bow, and furiously attacked the surrounding bloodthirsty demon vines.

The other rare chest finder was luckier—he had the key before finding the chest. While Longface and Xianyun bickered, this player was busy worshipping some deity before finally unlocking the chest.

“Ding! Player ‘Resist Superstition’ has opened a rare chest and obtained a level 28 rare item: the Emerald Orchid Necklace.”

“Thanks to the Three Pure Ones, Amitabha, God, and Jesus! A level 28 rare necklace that adds a full 22 points to Constitution! I’ve made it—I’m never wearing a level 19 junk necklace again. Hey, you—this one’s for you!” Resist Superstition jubilantly announced in the team chat, provoking a chorus of envious and resentful eye-rolls. The person he gifted to looked ready to bite him.

Before Resist Superstition could finish, Longface excitedly shouted, grabbed the dropped key, and dashed to the chest—opening it immediately.

“Ding! Player ‘Longface’ has opened a rare chest and obtained a level 30 rare item: Blue Feather Serpent-Eye Bow.”

Upon hearing this, the team erupted in shouts with red eyes.

“No way! Level 30 blue weapon straight away? Crazy!”

“Damn, those two losers have such insane luck. I’ve been searching forever and found nothing.”

“Don’t rush, didn’t you see the night team went so far and got nothing? We’re patient—there are 32 of us, we’ll get one for sure.”

As the group chatted, Ye Chen suddenly disappeared while fighting monsters ahead. Moments later came a chest opening notification.

“Ding! Team leader ‘Ye Chen’ has opened a silver chest and obtained a level 28 silver item: Water-Blue Medal.”

Silence blanketed the team chat, then burst into uproar. Silver equipment—only Dingyuan Monk had a silver weapon; the rest barely had bronze, and this silver medal was the rarest of all.

“A silver medal! Who said the night team got nothing? This one piece of equipment is worth dozens of rare items. Jealous, envious, and resentful!”

“Night team, share the stats! Let us see!”

Ye Chen chuckled, pleasantly surprised. The medal was the hardest accessory to find. Silver medals were treasures among treasures, conservatively valued at thousands of gold coins, and much more if auctioned. Of course, he had no intention of selling such a prize.

[Water-Blue Medal] (Silver): +20 to all attributes.

At the sight of the medal’s stats, everyone gasped. A 20-point boost to all attributes was extraordinary—compare that to the Emerald Orchid Necklace with 22 Constitution points; this was truly overpowered.

When Ye Chen hung the medal around his neck, everyone’s eyes nearly popped out, cursing that the silver chest wasn’t theirs.

“Look at this! Haven’t seen equipment like this before. Can’t you all be as calm as me?” Dingyuan Monk scolded the group, feeling embarrassed by their excitement. Suddenly, the holy priest behind him pointed forward excitedly. “Brother Monk, a chest! A bronze one!”

“Where? Where? Get away, this is mine!” Dingyuan Monk pounced on the bronze chest like a starving tiger.

The others were speechless. But the appearance of silver and bronze chests only heightened their excitement—they dashed through the wisteria sea as if energized by adrenaline.

“Ding! Player...”“Ding...”“Ding...”“Ding...”

As time passed, more and more chests were discovered. After about an hour, almost everyone had a chest, and over ten rare items were added to their inventories. The luckiest even upgraded their gear dramatically. Ye Chen opened the other two silver chests, one yielding an earth-element sword technique—Earth Flame Burst, and the other a rare magic skill book—Consecutive Fireball. The latter was a universal skill, learnable by any fire magic class.

The rare skill books made the others drool with envy, but none complained about Ye Chen taking the best loot. They all understood that without him, they wouldn’t have gotten any treasure, and might have lost gear and levels. Now, with over ten rare items and a chance to clear the illusion realm, everything was thanks to Ye Chen.

The wisteria sea was vast. Even with Ye Chen’s guidance, it took two full hours to uncover every chest hidden within, securing numerous rare and bronze items. Ye Chen also cleared all demon vines near the golden chest, which dropped a golden key.

“Night team, it’s your turn to open the golden chest.”

“Golden equipment, golden equipment! We have to get a golden item!”

“Amitabha, the Three Pure Ones, God, Jesus—please bless the night team to get a golden item!”

The group gathered around the golden chest, watching as Ye Chen inserted the key. Breath held, they anxiously observed him turn it slowly.

Click. The lid creaked open slightly, but no golden light burst forth. The team sighed quietly—golden equipment was never easy to obtain.

Ye Chen gently lifted the lid and reached inside. To his surprise, he pulled out a thick bundle of scrolls. Checking the attributes showed they were blank and unknown.

“Seriously? A golden chest just gave a blank unidentified item? What a rip-off!”

“Complaint! This is pure cheating!”

“Damn, golden chests have only a one-percent chance to drop blank items. This is just unbelievable...”

Frowning slightly, Ye Chen felt a tinge of disappointment. Just as he was about to stash the scrolls, a voice from 2058 whispered in his ear.

“Hmm, you actually opened this. I don’t know if you’re lucky or unlucky.”

The tone held faint surprise, indicating this was no ordinary blank item.

Curious, Ye Chen whispered back, “What is this?”

“Chaos Scroll, a forbidden divine artifact,” 2058 replied.

‘Forbidden divine artifact.’ The phrase sent a chill through Ye Chen’s heart. He had heard of these before—supremely powerful relics in the divine realm. Their overwhelming power always came with equally terrible side effects. Many top-tier players had lost their accounts after using such artifacts, yet some still dared to wield them for a moment of unparalleled glory.

Every appearance of a forbidden divine artifact signaled the fall of a supreme expert, thus players regarded them as ominous.

Ye Chen pondered deeply, tracing the countless incantations inscribed on the scrolls. “Can I use this?” he whispered.

“You? You’re not qualified yet. Or rather, you have half the qualification. Only when light and darkness merge can the power of chaos be harnessed. You only possess the darkness—the Black Dragon Break of the dragon lineage. If you can learn a holy light-type heaven magic of the same level, then you’ll be qualified to use it. But the price for using it is heavy—so heavy you may not be able to bear it. I hope you never use it,” 2058 said gravely.

“Let’s hope so,” Ye Chen replied softly. He ended the secret communication and stood slowly. Turning to the still disgruntled teammates near the golden chest, he said, “Let’s go. The wisteria sea holds no more value. I heard the canyon ahead is called the Devil’s Trial Ground in legends—probably an excellent place to level up.”

At this, everyone’s eyes lit up. Longface exclaimed excitedly, “What are we waiting for? Let’s storm the Lie Mountain leaderboard!”

(Thank you for subscribing and supporting—the greatest motivation for me.)