Chapter 698 Four Pillars: The Shard
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[Shard of Defiance] (Item)
Rarity: ???
The seed of chaos.
The sign of rebellion.
The wishes of a being aiming for greater change, crystallized for eternity.
Needs the user to have comprehended a full Force. Needs the user to have reached the peak of Rank 5.
Using this item increases the user's Authority stat by 1 point.
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Though the description of the overall item was very short, Valyr still spent a long time staring at the screen that popped up before him, trying to understand what the description meant.
Nevertheless, even after spending a few minutes trying to infer the underlying meaning behind each word, the young man was forced to give up on his attempts.
Instead, he shifted his attention towards the final sentence of the item's description.
"Increases the user's Authority stat by 1 point..." With his attention focused on this sentence, Valyr scratched the back of his head as he tried to remember if the stat was known by players before.
However, no matter how much rummaging he did through his treasure trove of memories, there was no such mention of the Authority stat at all.
With that, the young man shrugged his shoulders, letting out a bit of laughter as he looked at the item with a faint smile.
"Well then."
"I guess I've come across an opportunity to obtain quite the unique hidden stat."
Though hidden stats would become a staple of a player's status screen by the time they broke past Rank 5 and entered the ranks of Myths, that only applied to the most common hidden stats, such as Mana Purity or Vigor.
In fact, according to the company that created Greater Beyond, they told the players that there was an infinite number of hidden stats available for the players to obtain through the game's universe.
Of course, that ignited the players' motivation to scour the ends of the universe in search for the strongest and rarest hidden stat one could find.
As far as Valyr could remember, there were some hidden stats that truly turned the logic of the game on people's heads, such as the hidden stat Rebirth.
From what he could recall, the Rebirth stat gave the player a considerable boost to their stats whenever they got close to death.
However, rather than it being a temporary boost that disappears once the player returned to full health, a small portion of the boost would continue to linger on, becoming greater in effect the more often the player was close to death.
At some point, that player had even pushed their Rebirth stat beyond a certain threshold, allowing them to keep on fighting for a few more minutes even after they were effectively dead.
Then again, aside from strong hidden stats like Rebirth, there were also incredibly rare hidden stats did not really do much for the player.
One great example of that was the Blank stat.
Once the Blank stat had been picked up by one player, all of the players in the forum surmised that the Blank stat could be considered as one of the strongest hidden stats in the existence of Greater Beyond.
After all, from the name of the stat alone, it suggested that there were infinite possibilities as to where the stat would head.
Unfortunately, reality was often cruel, with the Blank stat instead offering nothing substantial to the user whatsoever.
Even increasing the Blank stat did not change anything about it, prompting the player that obtained it to wonder why such a stat existed in the first place.
"Well, with how imposing the name of the stat is, I'm sure Authority would definitely be a great hidden stat to have," said the young man, returning his attention to the item before him.
If it wasn't for the fact that the item hovered off the ground, Valyr would have thought that it was just some random shard of glass, being reminded of the key fragments and the memory fragments he used to collect.
Though, unlike those fragments, the glass-like shard in front of him seemed to contain a rift that felt like it would lead him to another world.
In a way, it felt as if the shard housed a path towards another part of the universe.
Shaking his head as he felt like staring at the shard for too long would do him more harm than good, Valyr shifted his attention to the screen he had brought up, taking note of the requirements needed to use the item.
"A full Force and the peak of Rank 5," murmured the young man.
"In short, you need to be a Legend to make use of the item."
Similar to how the formation of Intents started from Intent Seeds, to transform one's Intent into a Force, one would have to go through an intermediary step first before doing so.
In this case, the intermediary step would be to ascend the full Intent into a Sapling of Force.
Then, with enough nurturing, the Sapling of Force would bloom, allowing one's full Force to come into fruition.
"Yeah, the first requirement would take longer than the second," said Valyr as he wryly smiled, thinking about how he wouldn't be able to make use of the shard anytime soon.
"After all, reaching the peak of Rank 5 without caring for anything else is incredibly simple."
"You'd just need a ton of XP to do so."
Closing the screen he had brought up, the young man then moved closer towards the shard. "Can I move this thing?"
With that, he began to poke the shard a couple of times, curious as to what would happen.
Surprisingly, the shard did not react that much, with the space inside the shard only shifting a bit as it was moved from its original position.
"Hmm..." Slightly frowning after seeing that poking the shard around wouldn't work, Valyr proceeded to grab onto the shard with his hand.
Swoosh!
Yet, at the very moment he did so, the shard phased through his hand entirely, causing an unpleasant sensation to briefly cover Valyr's hand.nove(1b)1n
"Do I really need to meet those requirements first before I could take this with me?"
Letting out a faint sigh, Valyr scratched the back of his head for a bit as he continued to ponder over other ways to possibly obtain the item.
Then again, it did not take long for such an idea to appear as he began to envelop the shard with his own mana, being reminded of items that he had obtained through similar methods in the past.
However...
"Huh. I guess it doesn't work."
Even though he had smothered the shard with his mana for a few minutes already, the shard did not show any reaction whatsoever.
Slightly disappointed by the outcome, Valyr began to retract his mana from the shard.
Only for something unexpected to happen next.
...
...
...
Whoosh!
