90: Chapter 90 The Incense Burner for the Deceased: A Souvenir for Su Wan

A touch of fish-belly white had just appeared on the horizon, but the morning light had yet to pierce through the thick clouds.

Hu Jinsi had finally completed the surveying task.

Standing beside the final survey point, he looked out at the gradually brightening horizon and let out a long sigh of relief.

This trip had certainly not been easy, and he could not be bothered to retrace his steps, so he took out a [Ship Return Talisman]. The talisman paper burned to ash between his fingertips, and his figure instantly vanished from the spot.

When he opened his eyes again, he was already standing on the deck of the supply ship.

This mission had taken far longer than expected, dragging on for the entire night.

There were two reasons for this.

The first was that the complexity of the terrain had exceeded his imagination.

Between the second and third survey points, a vast expanse of roiling lava terrain stretched out.

The scorching orange-red lava flowed slowly across the surface, and the rising heat distorted the air above, forming a visible barrier of heat waves.

Hu Jinsi had been forced to skirt the edge of the lava zone, taking a massive detour to bypass this death zone and reach the third survey point.

The other reason was that he had overestimated his own physical stamina reserves.

During the latter half of the journey, his legs felt as heavy as if they had been filled with lead, and every step required him to grit his teeth and exert force.

His breathing had gradually shifted from steady to rapid, and later, he was almost gasping for air.

Even though his Constitution attribute had been stacked to eighteen points through various bonuses, the movement speed bonuses provided by those expertise and equipment could not be converted into endurance.

He lacked the expertise to reduce stamina consumption, nor did he have any relevant equipment or skills to support him.

The tactic of long-distance sprinting came at a high cost for him.

After this run, Hu Jinsi had truly recognized his own shortcomings; no matter how fast he could run, if he could not keep going, it was all just empty talk.

He turned in the mission and received one hundred points.

Hu Jinsi exchanged ten points for an [Exit Talisman] and carefully tucked away this life-saving paper talisman.

He kept the remaining ninety points in his hand without spending them, planning to save them for a rainy day.

Afterwards, he took out his credits and swept the supply ship's grocery area clean, especially the food items; he bought everything, not leaving a single piece of dry ration behind.

After doing all this, he found a sheltered and quiet corner on the deck, sat cross-legged, and began to meditate.

The deficit in physical strength needed time to be replenished, and the expenditure of mental energy could not be ignored either.

Before the next round of tasks began, he had to return to his optimal state.

The sea breeze brushed against his face, bringing a salty, fishy scent. Hu Jinsi slowly closed his eyes, sank his consciousness into his body, and let the fatigue be dispelled bit by bit.

Near noon, Hu Jinsi woke up from his meditation.

The sunlight had become intense, spilling in through the cabin porthole and casting bright spots of light onto the floor.

He stretched, feeling that most of the soreness in his body had faded, and his mental state had recovered quite a bit.

He took out high-calorie dry rations from his backpack and, while chewing, walked over to the mission board on the ship to check the tasks available for the second round.

His luck was good.

The second round of tasks had the goal of finding a pyramid, and the difficulty rating was not too high.

Although there were no precise coordinates provided for comparison like in the first round, the mission provided a gilded compass as a guiding tool; as long as he followed the general direction indicated by the needle, he would not go the wrong way.

Hu Jinsi took the compass, the metal surface cool to the touch.

He nodded and turned to walk out of the cabin.

When leaving the supply ship, he stopped at the grocery stall again and bought two [Ship Return Talisman]s.

He was afraid that next time he might be in too much of a rush and forget about it.

It was strange; the teleportation items in this instance dungeon were all in the form of paper talismans.

Hu Jinsi had initially thought this was a deliberate choice by the designers of Water Blue Star to cater to the aesthetics of Eastern players, but he later realized that this was actually a built-in setting of the native world, having nothing to do with outsiders like them.

One of the three major sponsors of that world, the Taishi Mansion, followed this style completely.

Bagua mirrors, horsetail whisks, repeating crossbows, firecrackers... such items were dazzling in variety, each carrying a rich Eastern charm, with a style somewhat similar to the country he currently lived in.

Therefore, the functional items provided in the instance, such as [Fixed-Point Teleportation Talisman], [Ship Return Talisman], [Random Teleportation Talisman], and even [Ascension Talisman] and [Sinking Talisman], all existed in the form of talismans.

This kind of setting was actually quite unique.

It was just a pity that this instance could only explore the island area and could not delve into other parts of the native world.

Otherwise, Hu Jinsi would have really liked to see if a world that had gone so far in talisman technology could provide some inspiration and reference for his Monk profession.

He secretly hoped that after saving enough points, something that truly excited him would appear in the redemption list.

For example, skill books related to talismans or some special inheritance from the Taishi Mansion.

---

Stepping onto the beach again, the salty, fishy sea breeze hit his face, only to be immediately replaced by the fresh scent of grass and trees from the dense forest.

The gilded compass in his palm vibrated slightly; the needle was not fixed firmly on any one point but persistently tilted toward the depths of the island, vaguely pointing toward an unknown place.

There was no precise path, no clear markings, only this vague direction guiding him to advance into the hinterlands of the wilderness, to seek the legendary golden pyramid standing in the land of the ancients.

The island by day was completely different from what he had seen last night.

Looking along the coastline, Hu Jinsi soon discovered quite a few patrolling native figures.

These natives were not human; to his eyes, they looked more like large, bipedal lizards, with an average height approaching two meters, covered in rough, dark green scales that shimmered with a metallic cold light in the morning sun.

They carried bone spears and wooden shields, their steps heavy and rhythmic, and they maintained a tight formation while patrolling, clearly possessing a certain degree of organizational discipline.

Hu Jinsi did not want to have too much contact with them.

The language barrier was the most critical problem.

The guide had mentioned that if there was someone in the team proficient in linguistics, such as someone like Zhou Wen, they could exchange gifts for passage or even ask for the location and intelligence of nearby villages.

But Hu Jinsi was currently on his own, without a single person around who could speak.

With his strength alone, the result of a meeting would most likely be a clash of weapons.

The other side had the advantage in numbers and held the home-field advantage, so the outcome was unpredictable if they really fought.

Furthermore, his purpose for entering this instance was points, not to pick a fight.

Unnecessary conflicts should be avoided whenever possible; this was the experience he had summarized from the previous rounds of tasks.

There was another point that made him particularly wary.

He had no idea what level of combat power these lizardmen were at, or what level their weapons were.

If the other side suddenly pulled out some equipment beyond common sense, such as energy weapons or some strange talisman, he did not think his Agility attribute could dodge shots from such things.

Better to avoid trouble than to invite it; making a fortune in silence was the right path.

Hu Jinsi lowered his body, using the cover of reefs to bypass the patrol route, his footsteps as light as a fallen leaf, silently slipping into the depths of the jungle.

The trees became increasingly vigorous and thick, with some ancient trees having a diameter exceeding three meters, requiring several people to embrace them.

The sunlight was cut into fine spots by the dense branches and leaves, sprinkling onto the leaf-covered ground like stars, forming a mottled picture of light and shadow.

The vibration of the compass gradually weakened, and the needle pointed steadily forward, no longer wavering.

The path wound between giant rocks and dead trees, with scattered, broken stone statues and weathered stone carvings along the way; the characters on some stone tablets had long since blurred, and only faint outlines could be discerned.

An ancient and mysterious aura permeated the air, thick enough to be almost tangible.

This land was ancient and silent, as if it had never been disturbed, waiting only to welcome a fated visitor.

Along the way, Hu Jinsi saw quite a few special architectural ruins.

Among them, several giant stone statues were particularly eye-catching; they were four or five meters tall, their faces blurred but still majestic, standing quietly in the depths of the jungle like silent guardians.

Various offerings were placed at the base of the stone statues, including fruit that was still relatively fresh, crudely made bone spears, and some finely carved, artistic crafts, which were likely the proud works of nearby villages.

Hu Jinsi stopped and looked at those offerings.

He knew that taking these things back to the ship could exchange for some credits, and accumulating them bit by bit was also a source of income.

But once these offerings were touched, it would create a feud with the corresponding village, and the other side would likely send pursuers relentlessly, hounding you the entire way.

Although it was not certain that he could not defeat those natives, getting into endless entanglement for such a small profit was not worth it, no matter how one looked at it.

If there were a powerful weapon here, or a valuable item that could be exchanged for hundreds of points, he might have taken the risk.

But the offerings before him probably were not worth many credits in total, so it was not worth causing himself trouble for this.

Hu Jinsi shook his head, dismissed the thought of pilfering, and continued on his way.

---

Just as he was passing through a dense thicket, a stranded pirate ship suddenly appeared in his field of vision.

The ship was docked against the side of a steep cliff, its hull tilted severely, with one side of the bulwark almost pressed against the rock face.

The mast had long since broken, the tattered canvas flapping loudly in the wind, and the rigging was tangled together in a mess, like a knot that could not be untied.

Something that should have been sunk on the seabed had inexplicably run aground on land, showing just how strange and violent the crustal movements of this island were.

Hu Jinsi had also encountered a similar pirate ship last night, but he had not cleared it out because he found it troublesome.

The one right before him was close at hand, and clearing it out in passing did not seem like much effort.

Anyway, the enemies in the ship were all skeletons and would not trigger any linkage with the village's hatred system; killing them was just killing them, and there would be no subsequent trouble.

If he was lucky enough to have them drop something that could be exchanged for points, it would count as a windfall, just treating it as adding a small task for himself.

He decided to do it.

Hu Jinsi leaped onto the gunwale, his feet landing on the rotting deck, which emitted a harsh, creaking sound.

A clattering sound of bones colliding immediately came from the depths of the cabin, like some kind of response.

These skeletons were much trickier than the ones he had encountered in the [Dragon King Warrior I] instance.

Some held iron shields and rusty scimitars, possessing both offense and defense; some carried flintlock muskets, their pitch-black barrels pointed forward; and even worse, some held shotguns, which nobody could withstand if they fired a shot at close range.

Even more absurdly, some skeletons clearly were not formed from the remains of humans or humanoid creatures; the number of arms was wrong—some had four arms; the shape of their spines was strange, bent beyond reason; and that ridiculously long tailbone exposed their non-human identity from when they were alive, measuring at least half a meter long.

Fortunately, they were skeletons in the end.

Their strength and agility were what they were; they could not be that high.

These things had long since lost their intelligence and judgment; hearing the noise, they would swarm out in a flock, which was exactly what Hu Jinsi needed to use the terrain to defeat them one by one.

His fists whistled through the air, and bone fragments flew everywhere.

Hu Jinsi's figure moved nimbly across the deck, every punch accurately striking the weak joints of the skeletons.

In less than a quarter of an hour, the previously crowded deck was covered in broken bones, and the sunlight shining on them cast a ghastly white luster.

But searching for loot actually took more time.

The shipwreck was in relatively good condition, but the keel had snapped in the middle, splitting the entire ship into two sections, with the rear cabin collapsed into a pile of rocks. Hu Jinsi had to crawl into the narrow, dark cabin, hunched over, searching bit by bit for anything of value. The air was filled with the salty, fishy smell of seawater and the scent of rotting wood, making one unable to help but frown.

At this moment, he couldn't help but think that some strange and peculiar professions might be better suited for this dungeon than his own.

For example, the Treasure Hunter.

This type of profession possesses special passive skills that allow valuable items to appear with distinct visual effects in their eyes; treasures would glow, while ordinary items would remain dull. There would be no need to search around like a headless chicken as he was doing now, trying his luck like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Unfortunately, it was too late to think about these things now.

He couldn't get equipment with similar effects on short notice, and he didn't know any friends with such professions. At the very least, among the students in his year at school this year, he hadn't heard of anyone being a Treasure Hunter or any other rare profession like that.

Empty thoughts are useless; better to do it himself.

After struggling for half an hour, Hu Jinsi finally searched every corner of the entire shipwreck, not even sparing the collapsed half of the cabin. The harvest, on the whole, was worth the time invested: two weapons with additional attributes, several blank weapons, and some miscellaneous consumables and odds and ends.

As well as a special incense burner that radiated a faint magical aura.

To be honest, the two weapons with attributes were not very good and were full of ridiculous flaws.

One was called the [Blackened Flintlock Pistol], and its attribute description was a disaster: there was a 25% chance it would fail to fire when triggered. A pistol that couldn't even perform its most basic firing function stably, with a one-in-four chance of misfiring—holding it wasn't about killing enemies, it was about committing suicide.

Hu Jinsi didn't know what expression to make when facing this piece of equipment; he could only marvel at how truly bizarre the ideas within the dungeon were.

The other was called the [Rusty Captain's Scimitar], and its effect was equally laughable: it increased damage against undead creatures.

A scimitar dropped by an undead captain that had a damage bonus against the undead—Hu Jinsi felt this drop was full of ridiculous flaws, practically a bad joke. But then he thought about it, and realized that weapons invented by humans cause the most damage to humans themselves; from that perspective, perhaps the whole world was just one giant, bad joke, and everyone was playing an absurd role within it.

As for the incense burner, it actually gave him an unexpected surprise.

[Incense Burner of the Dead]

[Type: Magical Apparatus]

[Smoke of Meditation: Ignite the incense and carry it with you to restore one used spell slot every half hour. It defaults to restoring from the lowest tier, with a maximum recovery cap of second-circle spell slots.]

[Item Description: The smoke is pale blue, carrying a mixed scent of salty, humid sea breeze and aged incense. After inhaling it, the mind becomes calm, distracting thoughts gradually fade, as if one were in a tranquil ancient temple by the sea.]

Hu Jinsi stared at the description of this equipment for quite a while, his heartbeat unconsciously quickening a little.

If Su Wan could use it, that would be perfect.

As the spellcaster in the team, Su Wan's spell slots were her lifeline. Restoring one spell slot every half hour wasn't exactly high efficiency, but its advantage was that it was free and continuous. With this incense burner, Su Wan wouldn't have to meticulously calculate the usage of every spell slot during battle; she could just let it slowly recover while traveling, handling combat and recovery without interfering with each other.

He just didn't know how the drop rate was.

If his luck was good enough, Hu Jinsi planned to farm another one to give to Zhou Wen. Although Zhou Wen followed a support route, he also needed to consume spell slots to use magic, so having such an incense burner on him would always be a good thing. This could also be considered a small token of appreciation for his friend.

He carefully packed away the incense burner, brushed the dust off his body, and looked up at the sky.

The sun was already slanting westward, the horizon dyed in a layer of warm orange-red, and the clouds were gilded with gold by the setting sun. The compass needle was motionless at this moment, steadily pointing straight ahead, and his fingertips could even feel a trace of warmth coming from the metal surface.

Hu Jinsi climbed over the last ridge, and his field of vision suddenly opened up. At the end of the vast wilderness, a towering pyramid stood between heaven and earth, like a silent ancient giant.

The stone body shimmered with a faint golden glow under the daylight, majestic and solemn, with an imposing aura.

The long search finally had a destination.

The mission requirements were just to find the pyramid, record the coordinates, and then return to the supply ship to submit it; theoretically, there was no need to explore deep inside.

But Hu Jinsi was a bit hesitant.

After all, he had spent the entire day traveling through the jungle and climbing over ridges, finally making it here with great difficulty. If he turned around and left without looking at anything, it would be a bit of a pity; he felt like something was missing.

He pondered for a moment and finally decided to go in for a look, but his bottom line was to look only and not touch anything.

According to the original game's settings, as long as any item inside the pyramid was taken, it would 100% trigger traps.

The severity of these traps varied. Some would cause the entire area's terrain to sink, dragging the pyramid along with everything around it into the seabed; some would cause magma to erupt from underground, turning the surrounding miles into a sea of fire; and some even involved the outbreak of curses, with endless swarms of insects and highly toxic spores attaching themselves to the body, bringing continuous torture and damage.

The punishments in the dungeon would only be more brutal than in the game; they would never show mercy.

Hu Jinsi did not want to lose his first life in such a place because of a moment of greed. He only had one life; if points were gone, they could be earned again, but if a person died, everything was gone.

He took a deep breath and stepped into the entrance of the pyramid.

The walls on both sides of the passageway were covered with ancient murals depicting sacrificial scenes of some ancient civilization. Hu Jinsi held up a torch and walked slowly forward; the firelight cast his shadow onto the murals, distorting and deforming it, as if those ancient totems had come to life at this moment.

In the deepest part of the tomb, a coral staff lay quietly on a stone platform, glowing with a warm luster under the reflection of the torch.

The staff body was carved from shallow-sea blue coral, crystal clear throughout, with its surface covered in dense shell patterns that looked like naturally formed magical runes. At the top was a creamy white coral flower, with layers upon layers of petals, and a common seawater pearl embedded in the center, shimmering with a soft halo under the faint light.

The handle was wrapped in faded hemp rope, which felt warm and smooth to the touch with a hint of a faint salty taste, as if it had just been taken out of the seawater.

Hu Jinsi reached out to touch the staff lightly, perceiving all of its attribute information.

[Shallow Sea Coral Staff].

It added two core abilities: Water Walking and Underwater Breathing. In hot environments, it granted immunity to the Thirst status. It could also transform into a coral float board every day, to be used as a simple boat, with a load capacity sufficient to support the weight of two or three people.

This was a staff geared towards exploration and water element manipulation; for water-type mages or professions that frequently operated in water areas, it could be called a sharp tool.

Unfortunately, Hu Jinsi was a Monk, and close-quarters combat was his specialty; a thing like a staff was no different from a fire poker in his hands.

No one in his team would use this type of equipment either.

He withdrew his hand, stepped back, and there was no look of greed in his eyes.

Some temptations are enough just to look at. Knowing how to restrain oneself is the only way to live longer.

Hu Jinsi took out the [Return-to-Ship Talisman] and tore it apart.

The talisman paper turned into specks of light that enveloped him. When he opened his eyes again, he was already standing on the deck of the supply ship, with the salty, fishy sea breeze blowing against his face.

All the miscellaneous things he had collected along the way, along with the two weapons he considered full of ridiculous flaws, were all packed up and sold to the recycling station on the ship. Added to the 300-point reward for completing the second round of missions, Hu Jinsi suddenly had 347 points in his hands.

He walked to the mission board to check the content of the third round of missions.

The third round was to find a missing explorer.

According to the walkthrough descriptions online, this mission was slightly more troublesome than the previous two. The process was roughly: first, use the compass to find the camp where the explorer went missing. After finding it, the other party would give you a treasure map and three special shovels, and you would need to dig out the treasure according to the locations marked on the map.

It sounded simple, but it was not so easy to do.

Treasure that could often be dug up with one shovel in the game, when placed in the reality of the dungeon, was estimated by experienced seniors to require at least a dozen shovels to reach the target.

Although these shovels were special dungeon items that could automatically dig if placed in the correct location, the real world was not a top-down view. It was very difficult for you to find the accurate location at once, and if the gifted shovels were used up, things would become very troublesome afterward.

Either prepare extra shovels on the ship in advance just in case, or teleport back to the ship to buy more shovels and walk back to dig again. Running back and forth was exhausting, and a lot of time was wasted on the road.

Therefore, this mission had a bit of an element of relying on luck; if you were lucky, a few shovels would get it done, but if you were unlucky, you would have to run back and forth several times.

Fortunately, the treasure map did not mandate that the treasure must be dug out; it was just that if you couldn't dig it out, the final reward would shrink by more than half, so you wouldn't be making the trip for nothing.

This mission was obviously not suitable to be carried out at night; in low-light conditions, there was no way to compare the map to find the location. Hu Jinsi looked at the darkening sky; the last glimmer of sunset on the horizon was fading, and night was about to fall. He decided to take a good rest in the dungeon tonight, recharge his energy, and wait until tomorrow morning to set off and complete the third round of missions.

He walked to the point exchange counter to see what valuable things he could exchange for with over 300 points.

Because his cumulative points had broken the 300-point mark, the shadows that had originally shrouded the exchange list had dissipated quite a bit, revealing the true appearance of more exchangeable items. But to be honest, these things still didn't have much high value: basic medical kits, basic food, bandages, rations, lemonade, simple batteries, and miscellaneous items like firecrackers were all consumables for emergencies.

The only thing that Hu Jinsi felt was somewhat useful was a talisman that could dispel evil spirits.

He hadn't encountered any evil spirit-type enemies yet, but if his memory was correct, such troublesome things should appear in the later stages of [The Cathedral] dungeon. Those evil spirits were immune to physical attacks and had all sorts of bizarre curse skills; without targeted items, one would be very passive.

Taking precautions is never a bad thing.

However, he still suppressed the urge to exchange.

Hu Jinsi planned to continue saving up points and wait until these two dungeon runs were about to end and the points were about to be cleared, to see how many he could save up to the maximum, and then plan the exchange scheme in a unified way at that time. Anyway, the points in the dungeon could be accumulated; they wouldn't be cleared once every round, so there wasn't much difference between exchanging early or late.

The night wind gradually picked up, blowing the canvas on the ship and making a flapping sound.

Hu Jinsi found a sheltered spot and lay down, looking at the stars filling the sky, with the monotonous rhythm of waves hitting the ship's side in his ears. He slowly closed his eyes, casting the fatigue of the day to the back of his mind.

Tomorrow would be a new day, and there were still missions waiting for him to complete.