Sablaid had dropped a total of six items. Besides the Epic-grade item fragment Shadow of the Demon, the remaining five items were all quite ordinary.
Even Shi Feng felt a twinge of surprise when he first stored them in his inventory.
Because those five items gave the impression of being a complete set. Four of them were Crystal Mirrors — four mirrors constructed entirely of crystal. Unlike the Epic-grade fragment Shadow of the Demon, which radiated an intimidating pressure that even Tier 2 class players didn't dare approach casually, these four crystal mirrors of wildly different shapes exuded not the slightest aura of oppression. Not even a trace of mana could be felt from them. They were utterly, indescribably ordinary.
The fifth item was a dark crystal roughly the size of a basketball, equally unremarkable, without the faintest ripple of mana.
"Interesting!" Shi Feng regarded the four crystal mirrors and the dark crystal laid out before him, a glint of cunning in his eyes. "I didn't examine them closely before, but it turns out all five items have been fitted with magical disguises. The craftsmanship is truly impressive — absolutely at the level of a half-step Grandmaster."
In the Divine Realm, apart from special items, most required an Appraisal skill to reveal their true item information. Beyond that, there existed another category of items — those fitted with magical disguises that completely concealed their information. From the outside, they appeared to be nothing more than ordinary junk.
But such items were exceedingly rare, because the process was a tremendous hassle.
Each time the item was used, the disguise had to be reapplied. Such intricate disguise arrays were something that even a Master-level Artificer would need several hours to complete, let alone a disguise at the half-step Grandmaster level.
Because of this, such items were extraordinarily scarce. The vast majority of players could go an entire lifetime without encountering a single one. More often than not, even when someone did come across one, they would simply treat it as ordinary junk and discard it.
But Sablaid was no ordinary NPC. He was the Vice Commander of Dragon Heart City's City Defense Knight Order, a Level 160 Tier 4 NPC. In terms of standing within the Divine Realm as a whole, Sablaid outranked the city administrators of the major kingdoms' capital cities.
Dragon Heart City was itself a kingdom, and in terms of city status, it was comparable to an empire's imperial capital. As the Vice Commander of the City Defense Knight Order, his position was far above that of a Tier 4 NPC serving a kingdom's capital.
On top of that, Sablaid was a high-ranking member of the Silent Hand Society — the single most powerful faction on Dragon Heart Island. For such an NPC to drop nothing but junk? Forget Shi Feng not believing it; even the most ordinary player wouldn't think so.
Of course, identifying such masterful disguises was no easy feat. It had nothing to do with a player's Appraisal skill. Even using Omniscient Eyes to observe the items would only reveal the disguised information. One had to be a true expert in magic arrays to pick up on any telltale signs.
And that was precisely the situation with the five items before him.
On the surface they appeared perfectly mundane, but beneath that mana-less normalcy, the way mana seeped into them was subtly unnatural. Unless one possessed exceptional control over mana flow and was deeply familiar with mana circulation, there was no way to notice anything amiss.
"Good thing I'm already an Advanced Magic Master now, or I never would have picked up on this exquisite disguise."
Shi Feng looked at the five items and couldn't help but begin cheerfully dismantling the disguises layered upon them.
Dispelling a magical disguise was, for a mage, a process of learning and growth — one that tested both one's understanding of magic arrays and one's control. You had to identify the precise mana pathways and the exact manipulation techniques before you could successfully break through the disguise.
Forcefully shattering the disguise would only damage the item itself, so apart from the path of careful, methodical dismantlement, there was no other route available.
And for this kind of work, mages were only too happy to oblige.
Players who wanted to improve their magic array proficiency would typically purchase disguised items from magic shops, using them as practice to deepen their understanding and mastery of array work.
However, the more advanced the disguise, the rarer and more expensive it became. Master-level disguise items were virtually nonexistent on the open market.
The reason was simple: a Master-level Artificer could make far more money crafting ordinary arrays than spending the same amount of time on a single disguise item — and in far less time to boot. It was a thankless endeavor that simply wasn't worth the effort, which was why master-level magical disguise molds were all but impossible to find. Most players remained permanently stuck at the Advanced Mage level.