Chapter 137 - 128: Ore Vein, Member-Restricted Quest

Chapter 137: Chapter 128: Ore Vein, Member-Restricted Quest

Shi An held the Fragment in his hand, examining it closely. He hadn’t expected the loot options to include a "map" category.

He had previously thought about issuing a task to let Advanced Members like Profound Sword map out areas such as the Pale Wasteland and the Ghost Forest. It was just that it was very difficult to implement. The deep Nightmare was too vast. When Dream Descenders fell into it, they were like a grain of rice tossed into the ocean, with no way to determine their location.

Perhaps in the future, when the number of powerful members grew by a hundred or a thousand times and spread across the deep areas, a map could slowly be drawn.

But not now.

Now that he saw a "map" option, Shi An naturally chose it without hesitation. He knew better than anyone how crucial intelligence was when navigating the Nightmare.

"The bad news is that this map seems to have been drawn by a traveler. It isn’t one hundred percent accurate and only records a corner of the Pale Wasteland Area," he mused. "But the good news is that this map doesn’t just record the topography and terrain; it also includes some special areas!"

A corner of an abandoned city was drawn on the torn parchment. Judging solely from the map, this place wasn’t much different from a modern city. The only issue was the scarcity of areas that could serve as landmark references. Hills, rivers, and wooded areas could occasionally be seen within the city.

In the upper center of the map, there was a black skull symbol. Shi An guessed that a powerful anomaly existed there.

On the left side of the map, near the edge of the Fragment, there was a fiery red mark. Next to it, there was an annotation in small Daxia Language characters.

"Fire Stone Ore!" Shi An murmured. "A mineral deposit existing deep within the Nightmare!

"Everything deep in the Nightmare is real. There are various wonders and Treasure Lands, though these areas are also accompanied by danger."

"And this Fire Stone..."

Fire Stone, fully known as Fire Radiance Stone, was an incredibly important Material for humanity! The Ability of the Fire Radiance Stone was singular: to repel anomalies.

A single piece of Fire Radiance Stone had weak power, even inferior to an Incomplete Level Ghost Candle. However, these stones were like bricks building a city wall; a quantitative change was enough to trigger a qualitative change. When there was an ample supply of Fire Radiance Stones, and they were forged into buildings and walls using special methods, humanity could carve out a sanctuary in the Nightmare World.

"The Fire Radiance Stone is arguably an essential Material for humans to build camps. The demand from various factions is extremely high," he pondered.

"Aside from camp construction, High Tier Dream Descenders walking Deep in the Nightmare sometimes carry specially processed Fire Radiance Stones. They can use them to set up a small, temporary camp to rest."

In the Shallow Nightmare Area, Dream Descenders could occasionally scavenge a few Fire Radiance Stones, but usually only one to four pieces at most.

Yet, there was a Fire Shimmering Stone Vein in that area?

"I also need Fire Radiance Stones to build a Watchtower. Although the demand isn’t huge right now, there might be buildings in the future that require large amounts of Fire Radiance Stone raw materials. This possibility is very high.

"In addition, Fire Radiance Stones can be sold to factions like the Countermeasures Bureau and the Wizard’s House. For major factions, they can never have too many of them."

Shi An wasn’t necessarily looking to make money. At his level, Dream Crystals were just a string of numbers. He needed Dream Crystals, but he generally wouldn’t lack them.

"But now, I am in the same boat as the Countermeasures Bureau, the Wizard’s House, and other factions. If Baijiang City falls, my situation will also become precarious.

"As long as this batch of Fire Radiance Stones is mined, more camps can be built, giving humanity more possibilities in the Nightmare World.

"Not only that..."

Although camp construction was said to be exclusive to major factions, who said the members of his Safe Zone couldn’t build their own camps?

An Advanced Member could form a ten-person squad. The Safe Zone of the future might even introduce higher-specification groups like Battle Groups. When the time came for these Senior Members to establish camps, the influence of his Safe Zone would naturally expand as well.

"However, whether this Fire Stone Ore still exists and confirming its exact location is a problem," he thought.

The biggest difficulty in mapping the Nightmare World lay in the fact that Dream Descenders had no idea where they were. Profound Sword and the others also had no clue where they were. They simply used their member privileges to travel directly to the area where another group of members was located.

Shi An quickly came up with a solution to this problem. He raised his field of vision, allowing him to overlook the Safe Zone and the area surrounding Tower One. At this moment, a portion of the map around Tower One perfectly matched the Incomplete Map!

"Makes sense. The area Profound Sword and the others are exploring is a certain part of the Pale Wasteland’s outskirts. The Incomplete Map likely displays this same area, so it shouldn’t be too far from Tower One, which acts as the Map Entrance."

That the maps aligned was unexpected but made sense. The short distance meant he indeed had the possibility of developing these Fire Radiance Stone mineral deposits.

Of course, the immediate priority was to confirm whether the mineral deposits still existed. How to mine them and how to anchor their coordinates were matters to consider later.

"Should I send Zhuo Ling or Li Feng to investigate?" he wondered. "No, there’s no need. There’s a simpler way."

Employees were a last resort, unnecessary to deploy lightly. Manager Shi utilized the ultimate "Task Issuance" trick! The members were always complaining about a lack of high-level tasks. Well, now they had one.

...

"DING!"

In the Safe Zone hall, a new task refreshed. The task emanated a faint golden glow. The Contribution Points reward was in the hundreds, along with rewards of Dream Crystals, Spell Scrolls, and Curse Objects.

"Hiss! The rewards for this task are so generous!"

"Even the large-scale commission the Countermeasures Bureau issued here last time didn’t have such generous rewards!"

"To be fair, the total bounty for the Countermeasures Bureau’s task was higher, and the powerful members got a good share of the payout. But this task rewards Contribution Points—a whopping several hundred of them!"

This was more than they could earn from conquering ten Nightmares! If they could complete this commission, they could immediately be promoted to official Safe Zone members!

However, the requirements read: "Task Acceptance Conditions: Ordinary Member & Has entered the second layer of the Nightmare World."

"Ugh... we don’t even have the qualifications to accept the task! Damn it!"

"Just a bystander here, but this is to be expected, right? Such generous rewards must come with extremely high risks, which means only very powerful people are qualified to execute it. It’s completely normal to restrict it to certain members."

"You upstairs member, shut up!"

"Although I’m a member, I haven’t stepped into the second layer of the Nightmare yet, so I can’t take the task either ┓(′?`)┏."

It wasn’t that the members weren’t tempted, but compared to those Dream Descenders who weren’t yet familiar with the Safe Zone, they had a better sense of their own limits. They knew one thing very clearly: the value of Contribution Points was extremely high. That being the case, how could they be so easy to earn?

Membership status and stepping into the second layer of the Nightmare were merely the foundational requirements. Whether they could ultimately accept this task still required a review.

They were just a bit curious.

"What exactly is this task? It says it’s an investigation in a certain area of the Pale Wasteland, but we can’t see the specific details. Only the squad that ultimately receives the task will be able to see all the information. What a pity."

...

In addition to various rewards like Dream Crystals and Curse Objects, the commission also rewarded a total of 1,200 Contribution Points. However, these 1,200 Contribution Points would be divided equally among a three-person squad.

Shi An mandated that the task be accepted in the format of a three-person squad. After all, it was a long journey.

Furthermore, when Dream Descenders fell into the deep layers, they couldn’t determine their own locations. The only way to navigate to the Fire Stone Deposits using the map was to depart from Tower One. Shi An estimated that this journey would take the Dream Descenders a few days, perhaps even a dozen.

A team of three was relatively safer and more secure.

Fortunately, after falling into the deep layers, the Dream Descenders became more deeply entangled by the Nightmare, significantly extending their Fallen Dream duration. By equipping the Dream-Dropping Treasure Pearl, the duration of a single Fallen Dream was no longer just five or six days, but half a month, a full month, or even longer.

Only with such long Fallen Dream durations did the members have the conditions to execute certain tasks.

Many Senior Members had already begun rounding up their buddies, wanting to form squads to compete for this task. Shi An handed the preliminary screening over to Lina; he only needed to be responsible for the final check.

He went to the Alchemy Workshop and inputted the two newly obtained blueprints.

[DING!]

[Notification: The Alchemy Workshop has registered the ’Frenzy Potion’ blueprint.]

[Notification: The Alchemy Workshop has registered the ’Life Potion’ blueprint.]

[Notification: The Refined Alchemy Workshop can stably concoct Ordinary Quality Potions. Under ’mutation’ conditions, there is a chance to concoct Premium Quality Potions, and a minute chance to concoct Perfect Quality Potions.]

Ordinary, premium, and perfect potions—according to the rules of the Nightmare World, these were all merely Ordinary Tier potions. They didn’t even enter the Rare Grade.

But, the difference between the three was enormous!

A Perfect Level potion not only had zero side effects, but its medicinal efficacy far exceeded that of the Ordinary Level. It wasn’t a quantitative difference, but a qualitative one.

Shi An had already tested this with the Curse Power Potion. When an Ordinary Level Curse Power Potion was used consecutively up to the third or fourth vial, its corrupting side effects would be massively amplified. Even if he could use Purifying Water as an antidote and continue drinking the Curse Power Potion, the potion’s effects would be severely diminished.

Shi An, a Krypton Gold style Dream Descender, noted that by the time he drank the fifth vial of the Ordinary Level Curse Power Potion, the effects were already much weaker, unable to recover much Curse Power. This could be due to building a drug resistance, or because the body’s potential could no longer be squeezed.

However, for the Fine Level and Perfect Level, the usage limit was far more than five vials.

"Usually, Dream Descenders wouldn’t use this many potions consecutively in a short period of time. However, a perfect potion also means that Curse Power recovery is faster and more stable, and its effectiveness in battle far surpasses that of an ordinary potion," he analyzed. "What about the Life Potion? A Perfect Level might mean that the upper limits of its healing power and recovery effects are even higher."

What the Ordinary Level couldn’t cure, the Perfect Level could. But even an Ordinary Level Life Potion was already a Divine Medicine for the Dream Descenders.

Filled with anticipation, Shi An began concocting the two Potions.