Chapter 1032: Act 204 – Dawn’s Flame V
Blando and Charles seemed to wander aimlessly down Fragrant Street, the most prosperous commercial area of the imperial capital. Early on, festive drapes adorned the tall buildings flanking the street, while artisans prepared platforms filled with flowers and fine wines transported from the countryside estates.
The entire district appeared immersed in the atmosphere of the upcoming celebration, but a closer look revealed dissonant details; smiles were rare among pedestrians, and apart from carefree children, almost everyone wore a semblance of sorrow.
It seemed that the heated discussions about Countess Valarch’s marriage had not truly made people forget the war raging on the front lines. For those with some wealth, this conflict manifested as dwindling sums in their accounts. However, for those living in the imperial capital—indeed, for the poorest among the regions
around Cloak Bay—the war made their already dire lives even more untenable.
Prices skyrocketed, supplies dwindled, men were forcibly conscripted, and those who remained could barely survive.
The burden of war was inevitably passed onto these people, with only a few able to profit or fulfill their ambitions.
“It seems that Her Majesty the Queen of the Crusians isn’t having a great time either,” Charles observed, scanning his surroundings.
Blando silently nodded.
However, their presence here was not solely to comment on the current situation of the Silver Queen.
At Blando’s suggestion, the group began to split up. Faina, Delphine, and Romaine disguised themselves as merchants— the Mehotofen family retained significant influence in the imperial capital, and their clandestine remnants had been trying to rescue Duke Flowerleaf in recent months. Faina’s task was to make contact with these individuals; Delphine’s situation was similar, as the enemies of House Nidwen were numerous, but there were also many steadfast allies. Some had suffered losses in the conflict, while others, though having avoided trouble, were still not trusted by the Silver Queen. Among them, she would need to identify those who could be relied upon.
Their mission was to discern friend from foe and to rally potential allies. This task had its dangers, but if successful, they wouldn’t remain blind and deaf in this vast city.
As for Medisa and her companions, their task was to contact the embassy from the Principality of Antobrux that had entered the city a day earlier, to confirm whether Princess Margadale had already connected with them. This was a strategic move. Erluin’s embassy, having sided with the Crown Prince during the civil war, had completed its mission following the end of the conflict, but this did not concern Princess Margadale, who represented the Principality of Antobrux, which still stood with the Silver Queen. Thus, even after the war, she needed to proceed to the capital to reunite with her embassy.
Yet, this nun princess did not truly support the Silver Queen, as her religious stance was that of a staunch Temple traditionalist. With a direct descendant of the Grand Hierarch, Sidney, on Blando’s side, she naturally leaned towards him, not to mention that the latter was her savior.
Of course, she could not betray the interests of her own country, but on that basis, she could provide some assistance to Blando and others. At the very least, she could act as an extra set of eyes for them, preventing the duplicitous Crusian nobles from deceiving them. She could also offer cover for their movements in and out of the city.
Although the Silver Queen could not help but monitor the nun princess, who was quite close to the Erluin, this mattered little. The city was rife with her spies, and if one acted too cautiously out of fear of being discovered, nothing would get done. In fact, for Blando, who was very experienced in infiltration tasks—don’t ask where that experience came from—it was clear that being discovered by Her Majesty was not the scariest outcome; the most frightening thing was the information asymmetry.
As for his and Charles’s mission, he did not articulate it, but it was crucial.
He first wandered through the city, exploring all the places he remembered that had hidden events and items. Since it was a rare opportunity to visit Rustra, whether he’d return was uncertain, and he was not about to leave any hidden spots or treasures for the Crusian. After half a day, he had gathered a horde of miscellaneous items, including dozens of bottles of second and third-grade Holy Water. Most of the hidden spots near the capital were tombs or shrines, making such items relatively easy to acquire. Although he had inherited a large stock of Holy Water from Amann’s legacy, after multiple battles, much of the high-end supply had been used up, making this haul a significant replenishment for his elite collection—after all, the capital was also the center of the Temple of Fire, so the Holy Water produced in these places was far from ordinary.
As for artifacts, those within the Temple of Fire were quite rare, so most of what he obtained were the most common items, like blessed prayer beads, holy remains, or similar things, which provided substantial boosts against demons and the undead but were mostly useless otherwise. The one item that did bring Blando some satisfaction was the Gauntlet of Ghandur and the Wings of the Angel he acquired from the Tomb of St. Fulwar; St. Fulwar was a renowned saint in the history of the Temple of Fire, but the exact location of his remains was an age-old mystery. This mystery was eventually solved by a Crusian player from Cloak Bay, who stumbled upon the saint’s tomb in the public cemetery of the Lion’s Holy Palace, uncovering the sacred artifacts used by the saint during his lifetime.
This discovery became a widely circulated tale in “Amber Sword,” as prior to it, most secret finds were discovered in remote locations. Few would think to search for “lost treasures” in plain sight in novice villages, since the subconscious perception was that one’s birthplace likely held no hidden treasures—or if it did, they would amount only to trivial easter eggs.
However, the discovery of the Gauntlet of Ghandur and the Wings of the Angel taught everyone a lesson—proving that the locations of hidden treasures in “Amber Sword” were only related to their histories—in other words, theoretically, as long as they aligned with the game’s historical context, one could even uncover the Azure Spear at the starting point. Following this, a frenzy of historical inquiry and background exploration swept through the game, and from then on, players like Blando began to deliberately document much historical information and data. It’s worth mentioning that Jirande’s tomb was discovered under similar circumstances.
The Tomb of Fulwar became famous not only due to this broader context but largely because of the Gauntlet of Ghandur and the Wings of the Angel found by that player. Of the two artifacts, the relatively lower-value Gauntlet of Ghandur was considered a Fantasy-grade equipment, while the Wings of the Angel were genuine Legendary items that even had qualities close to that of a divine artifact.
Although the Gauntlet of Ghandur bore the name of armor, it was, in fact, a pair of gloves forged from an unknown silvery metal. Apart from its astonishing base attributes (Strength +35, Constitution +40, 10% Light Resistance), as Fantasy-grade armor, it also boasted a highly envied special effect—namely, as long as the holder was in a lit area, they could activate the unique ability “Ghandur’s Sanctuary.” This ability formed a stationary invulnerable barrier lasting five seconds, with a radius of approximately ten meters.
You read that right, it granted immunity to all damage and control effects for five seconds, with a recharge time of about four hours. While movement was not possible during this period, its effective use could turn the tide in battle. During the time when “Amber Sword” was experiencing the opening of various dungeons, this equipment was once regarded as a game-breaking item. The player who possessed it led their guild miles ahead in PVE progress, leading to numerous protests from players. However, as more Fantasy-grade equipment emerged with a slew of game-breaking effects, player reactions soured, and the disputes largely dissipated.
After all, a game-breaking item was revered when a single person possessed it, but when everyone had one, it became a different story.
If the Gauntlet of Ghandur was merely decent, the Wings of the Angel as a holy robe were a bit hard to accept, especially since they could be obtained with little effort from a novice map at the early stages of the game. The robe appeared to be a typical clerical garment, and since its version was before the opening of the Legendary-grade equipment, its attributes far exceeded those of common Fantasy equipment (Will +21, Bloodline +110, Light Affinity +10), which amazed players at the time. Although they couldn’t clearly understand that there were even higher-grade equipment beyond Fantasy-grade, they aptly dubbed this robe “Ultra-Fantasy-grade equipment.”
Later, when Legendary items were introduced, the Wings of the Angel upgraded to Legendary status, becoming the only early Legendary equipment in “Amber Sword” witnessed by players during its promotion, making its fame easily imaginable.
However, the crux of the matter was the robe’s special attribute—Light-Illusion Feathers: Your Light Affinity can be converted into Wind Affinity. This ability remained unknown to players for three versions because, in the early stages, element affinity was akin to a type of attribute enhancement. In short, it increased the proficiency in casting spells of a certain type, encompassing damage, casting speed, elemental penetration, etc. It sounded potent, but the actual results were often disappointing.
This was because the affinity attribute was calculated by affinity levels, which had an experience bar; the extent of proficiency reached on this bar determined the level of affinity. Thus, all increases in damage, casting speed, and elemental penetration seemed trivial as a player could hardly pile up several thousand elemental affinities without sacrificing other attributes.
For this reason, along with the fact that most clerics did not require wind elemental affinity except for clerics of the Wind Temple, most players deemed this Light-Illusion Feathers ability as useless. Moreover, since the majority of clerics primarily dealt with light elements, it was a common notion that fire clerics were merely showcasing light elements through demonstrations of their doctrines related to fiery paths. In Vaunte, as long as it was a divine spell, it surely fell within the light elemental domain.
Consequently, most players believed that Light-Illusion Feathers was merely a redundant ability, and the reason this holy robe possessed this attribute was likely to balance its exceedingly high base stats—indeed, until the war and turmoil concluded, players still thought the main strength of Wings of the Angel lay in its substantially better attributes compared to peer gear.
After all, the title of ‘Whiteboard Divine Artifact’ was not undeserved.
However, with the advent of more Legendary items, players began to notice that Wings of the Angel’s attributes were rather mediocre when compared to others, even not ranking in the top tier. This inevitably led players to question whether such an item with average base attributes and poor special abilities could truly be classified as a Legendary item?
Some players believed this was a bug by the game company, while others began to suspect that the so-called Light-Illusion Feathers held a deeper significance. Indeed, they eventually discovered that in the era of the Stone Tablet War, as players began to master the ultimate powers and their own realms of rules, they were astonished to realize that rules bore elemental inclinations.
This was quite normal, considering the entire world of Vaunte was rooted in elemental foundations. Martha made a pact with the four great elemental kings and constructed the world on this basis, governing the flow of magical energy with the rules, creating the world from which all beings thrived. Consequently, the world and the rules established therein inevitably exhibited various elemental inclinations. Just like the Temple of Fire founded by King Gilt and the Wind Temple established by Queen Wind, their doctrines were all closely related to elements, while the near-divine four temples’ faith represented one of the world’s most fundamental rules.
Thus, the inclination of rules towards elements was evidently established within the game’s backdrop.
This wasn’t surprising, but what shocked players was that elemental affinities functioned within the realm of rules. Moreover, this efficacy didn’t merely enhance the strength of elemental powers; it could even alter the nature of elements. In other words, if a player’s elemental power leaned towards light, under the influence of elemental affinity, it could transform into something like a gale or hurricane. This enhancement wasn’t just a quantitative increase; it was a qualitative transformation.
In such a scenario, Light-Illusion Feathers appeared exceptionally formidable.
This was because it could shift an element leaning towards light to one purely inclined towards wind, conveniently, as most clerics’ elements were inherently leaning towards light. Therefore, obtaining this holy robe essentially meant mastering two elements at once: one aligned with light and one aligned with wind.
This was nothing short of heaven-defying.
In practical terms, should Blando’s temporal element lean towards light, this robe’s conversion could allow him to acquire a subsequent wind element of equivalent quality—say, something not inferior to his original temporal element, like the element of Oblivion. While both elements belonged to the same tier, their functional effects were entirely different; for those who could wield both, the augmentation in power was far from simple arithmetic.
Once this fact was revealed, Wings of the Angel immediately reclaimed its throne as a divine item, even earning the title of near-divine artifact.
It wasn’t classified as an artifact due to the high requirements it set for its bearer’s quality—this is easy to understand. A novice equipped with just the most rudimentary elements would remain a beginner, regardless of the transformations involved. Thus, it was supplementary equipment rather than something that could provide rescue in dire situations.
Theoretically speaking, this robe was indeed best suited for Blando. After all, what element could be superior to the elemental tier of time? What element would surpass the transformed equivalent of a temporal element? Unfortunately, the temporal element was speculated to be a light-based element, but in Vaunte, it was a dark-based element, rendering this gear entirely ineffective for him.
Blando actually prepared the equipment for Himelam, as there was no one under his command more suitable than her for this holy robe. Her elemental authority was a high-grade light and earth law—Holy White Earth. Once transformed into a corresponding wind element, she would essentially possess three elemental authorities, and Holy White Earth primarily provided defense and support, while the wind elements were mostly offensively inclined, perfectly complementing each other.
After securing these items, Blando summoned Charles.
After all, it was peculiar to find several hidden treasures in a single location, and it was better to send Charles off on some other errand for the time being, waiting until his personal matters were settled before calling him back. Anyway, the traveling mage system had a minimal distance restriction—just one command could summon a secondary permissions holder to his side at any given moment.
His next destination was Summan Street; at the street’s end was a magic item shop named ‘Drowned Rose,’ and this little-known establishment was the final stop on his journey.
