Stone Forest City, Zero Wing's headquarters.
The spacious reception hall was lined with over a hundred NPCs, all standing in orderly rows with listless, lifeless expressions. Among them were cripples and civilians whose life force was dangerously faint. They wore battered armor or rough linen garments, and their levels ranged from the mid-fifties at the highest to barely in the twenties at the lowest. The sight gave the opulent reception hall the surreal appearance of a refugee camp.
"Guild Master, everyone has arrived," Water Rose reported as she watched Shi Feng walk in. "But are you really sure you want to use our precious Water of Life on these people?"
She knew better than anyone how much Water of Life the Tree of Life produced each day. When Shi Feng was away, only three people managed the top-floor courtyard of the Freedom Inn to keep things running smoothly, and she was one of them.
When she had first laid eyes on the Tree of Life — a Holy Relic fragment-grade treasure — she had been completely stunned.
She had never imagined that their Zero Wing possessed something so extraordinary. Across the entire Divine Realm, forget Holy Relic fragments — even Legendary-grade items were things most superpowers couldn't lay their hands on. Holy Relic fragments were the kind of thing you didn't even dare dream about.
But Zero Wing had one…
And it produced seventeen drops of Water of Life every single day. The Water of Life was an unobtainable, priceless resource in the Divine Realm, because it could resurrect dead NPCs. For the major powers who constantly feared losing their NPC bodyguards in battle, it was the ultimate treasure.
After all, NPC direct bodyguards were vastly superior to players. They could effortlessly accomplish things that players currently had no hope of achieving. Yet even the largest superpowers could hardly acquire more than a handful of drops of Water of Life, which was precisely why they had never dared send their NPC bodyguards out on dangerous missions.
But Zero Wing could produce seventeen drops a day. They no longer had to worry about their most promising NPC bodyguards. They could send them out on all manner of missions and tasks with confidence.
Still, seventeen drops a day was still a somewhat thin supply for Zero Wing's current needs. Healing over a hundred NPCs at once would drain the entire stockpile they had accumulated over this period.
If these were NPCs with exceptional potential being resurrected or healed, that would be one thing. But every single one of these NPCs had mediocre potential at best. Even if the Water of Life restored them to their peak condition, their potential likely wouldn't rise to any impressive level. It was, in a word, a waste.
"Mm, I want to try my luck," Shi Feng said with a smile at the clearly reluctant Water Rose.
"Try your luck?" Water Rose was momentarily speechless.
Trying your luck wasn't inherently wrong, but using something as precious as the Water of Life to do so wasn't just extravagant — it was outrageous. If the major powers of the Divine Realm found out, they would probably lose their minds.
"You'll see soon enough," Shi Feng chuckled. "Besides, sitting on that Water of Life isn't doing us any good right now."
Using the Water of Life to heal these disabled NPCs was indeed an incredibly lavish act. No one could guarantee what kind of potential these NPCs would have after being restored to their peak.
NPCs like Cait were the rarest of the rare, after all.
But it wasn't as though he had asked Water Rose to indiscriminately collect injured NPCs. He had specifically selected those whose natural class was Tier 3 or above, and whose potential was at least 20 points.
In the Divine Realm, any NPC who had advanced to a Tier 3 class inherently had decent potential to begin with. On top of that, 20 points of potential served as a significant watershed.
In his previous life, more than a few superpowers had attempted similar experiments. The results were always the same: 20 points of potential was a critical dividing line. NPCs with potential below 20 points, even after being restored by the Water of Life, never once achieved Mythril Rank potential.