System: A player has discovered the Cursed Philosopher's Hand.
System: Epic main quest "The Philosopher's Wish" triggered. Quest objective: Use the Philosopher's Hand to find the World Forest and open the World Gate. Reward: the Philosopher's Hand.
"A Legendary item?" Shi Feng stared at the system notification, his heart surging with emotion.
He hadn't expected to have the chance to obtain the Philosopher's Hand in this life!
As for the Philosopher's Hand, any alchemist in the Divine Realm would be familiar with it.
Because, like the Philosopher's Stone, the Philosopher's Hand was one of the supreme treasures of alchemy — and he actually knew quite a bit about it. It was a genuine Legendary item, and unlike the Philosopher's Stone, the Philosopher's Hand was complete and undamaged. Its abilities were something countless life-skill players dreamed of.
If the Philosopher's Stone excelled at refining materials, then the Philosopher's Hand enhanced the player's own skill level, allowing them to easily break through various bottlenecks and continuously advance.
In the previous life, the Philosopher's Hand had appeared in the first-rate guild Kingdom Sword, causing the crafting skills of Kingdom Sword's life-skill players to skyrocket. The news had rocked the entire Dark Night Empire at the time, and Kingdom Sword's guild trade house quickly surged into the top three among all trade houses across the Dark Night Empire, making every major first-rate guild green with envy.
After all, the Dark Night Empire was an empire — more powerful even than the Black Dragon Empire — and a full four superpowers had been vying for control. The final outcome could be imagined.
The four superpowers demanded that Kingdom Sword hand over the Philosopher's Hand for "trade" — though calling it trade was just a nicer way of saying they were forcing a sale. At the time, Kingdom Sword was a formidable guild in its own right, already among the top first-rate guilds, brimming with expert players and well on its way to becoming a super first-rate guild.
Naturally, they refused such a deal.
After all, possessing strong financial resources and supply chains was a prerequisite for becoming a super first-rate guild. Trading away the Philosopher's Hand would have been cutting off their path to that goal entirely.
And the outcome was as one might expect. A single superpower would have found it troublesome enough to deal with a top-tier first-rate guild like Kingdom Sword — but no one had anticipated that the four superpowers would actually join forces…
And so Kingdom Sword became nothing but history.
However, Kingdom Sword's guild leader had been adamant to the very end — he never handed over the Philosopher's Hand. None of the four superpowers obtained it, and the Philosopher's Hand vanished without a trace, never to reappear.
Now, with the Philosopher's Hand right in front of him, Shi Feng couldn't help but feel both shocked and elated.
If it hadn't been for the four superpowers targeting Kingdom Sword, the guild would have been virtually guaranteed to become a super first-rate guild. The further one progressed in the Divine Realm, the more vital life-skill players became to any guild — many weapons, equipment, and items all depended on them. Random drops alone simply weren't enough.
Staring at the Philosopher's Hand in his hands, Shi Feng's mind raced with possibilities.
Silver Wing Town might seem fine on the surface now, but the crises looming ahead were severe — he needed sufficient power to guarantee the town's safety.
Previously, he had obtained the design blueprint for a Bronze-Rank Guard Puppet, but there was simply no way to craft it.
An ordinary Guard Puppet would be manageable — the crafter wouldn't need to be a Master in every category. But for a Bronze-Rank Guard Puppet, the minimum requirement was sub-Masters across four disciplines — Smithing, Alchemy, Engineering, and Enchanting — with each discipline requiring at least two Masters and up to four Masters working in concert.
Only with that level of expertise could they even attempt to craft a Bronze-Rank Guard Puppet, and even then the success rate would be abysmally low. To actually produce one, they would need to exceed those minimums — intermediate Masters or advanced Masters would be needed. Relying on entry-level Masters simply wasn't reliable enough.
For the current Zero Wing Guild, such requirements might as well have been a pipe dream.
Becoming a crafting Master wasn't something one could will into existence. Even ten years into the Divine Realm, an entry-level Master was still highly respected and exceedingly rare among all the major guilds, let alone intermediate or advanced Masters.
But if he could obtain a supreme alchemical treasure like the Philosopher's Hand, he could cultivate several entry-level Masters — perhaps even intermediate Masters — in a short period of time. And then he could begin crafting Bronze-Rank Guard Puppets.