Four Split Personalities

"This bottle of chili... powder?"

Ji Xiaoge hesitated for a moment after taking out the chili powder from his bag, looking blankly at Jadka whose expression was extraordinarily fervent, completely unable to guess why the other party would be interested in this stuff.

In fact, Jadka was more than just ’interested’ in this thing. Upon seeing the bottle of chili powder... to be precise, the [Purified Spicy Powder], the Old Mage had become uncontrollably tremulous, as excited as a man who stumbled upon an oasis after a grueling three-day journey in the desert, or like a person who had held onto their heterosexuality after two decades of picking up soap in prison and then suddenly encountered a stunning beauty. In short, he was ecstatically beside himself, so much so that he lost all composure.

As for the reason, let’s take a look at the specific attributes of this bottle...

[Purified Spicy Powder]

Creators: Night Song, Luwei Fizelban

Category: Consumable

Quality: Limited Excellent

Weight: 450g

Consumption: Suffers a great deal of fire damage and is silenced for 15 to 20 minutes, with an extremely low chance of death.

Use: Flavoring, adds the [Explosion], [Flame Poison] traits to any dish; significantly increases the concentration of Fire Element in a certain area, enhances the effects of corresponding skills, items, talents, etc. by 25%.

Traits: Fire Concentration, Blazing Hell

[Note: After the Lady Night Song created a mysterious crystal that was almost identical to the Flames of Origin, Luwei Fizelban further purified these substances based on this foundation, reinforced the structure of these powders at the molecular level, and made them resonate with the surrounding Fire Element. Experiments show that rice sprinkled with a little Purified Spicy Powder exhibited highly active and joyful traits, spontaneously combusting into something akin to a carbon-like substance of considerable scientific value within one-third of a second. See "Good Disciple’s Experiment Journal•017" for detailed content and reaction processes.]

Clearly, this was not a simple spice. In fact, this thing was so far from simple that it was a bit perverse.

Honestly, in the eyes of most players, this bottle of [Purified Spicy Powder] was quite useless. Although the description of the item seemed fierce, its practicality was extremely frustrating.

First off, eating this would be very tragic for the consumer—there was fire damage, respiratory distress, and a low probability of death—but to trigger these effects, there was an exceptionally strict requirement, which was... to eat it.

Who would put something that feels hot to the touch and whose smell alone could cause significant discomfort into their mouth?

The answer is no one. Setting aside players who could tell the properties of an item at a glance, not even NPCs would do such a foolish thing. Besides, if there really were some death-wishers, why bother having them eat this when hanging themselves anywhere would be much simpler?

Second, some might argue that this stuff could be used for poisoning—mix it into heavily flavored dishes and serve it to someone, right?

Well, strictly speaking, there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, there are plenty of perverse foods even in The Realm of Innocence, but anyone who has taken a close look at the notes will realize that something that can easily turn a bowl of rice into some... perverse substance in less than half a second could not possibly be used for poisoning.

Third, this powder could put nearby Fire Elements into a highly active state, which seems pretty cool; however, for most players, the value of this effect was basically zero. Even players who specialized in casting Fire Magic cast their skills based on their own ’Magic Points,’ not on how many Fire Elements were floating around.

Of course, since it’s ’most players,’ this does not apply to everyone, such as Double Leaf. The concentration of Elements around her did have some effect, but a talent so close to MAX wouldn’t need this thing, making it superfluous.

So, we can come to a conclusion...

Leaving NPCs aside, as far as players were concerned, this bottle of [Purified Spicy Powder] was absolutely useless. If it were a reward for a quest, it would be the kind of stock that nobody wanted to sell but also couldn’t use, the kind that remained hidden away until they quit the game.

But for some NPCs, this thing might not be useless, like... Jadka.

It was well-known that Jadka Diesel was a very poor Mage. Note that it wasn’t just poor, but very poor. To give a simple example, even a Bear Goblin with almost no talent for spellcasting could have reached the Middle-Rank Mage level if they devoted themselves to studying magic for over seventy years, like he did. If he had chosen the path more suitable for him, namely that of a warrior, at the very least, he could have become an Advanced Stage professional, and might even have had a chance at reaching higher Realms.

However, Jadka—his race was human, which in every aspect except Constitution was more talented than Bear Goblins; his lineage was the Diesel Family, who could single-handedly defeat three Bear Goblins of the same age when they came of age; his Knight Talent gave him the chance to become a Great Lord before the age of thirty; his Intelligence was not below average either, making him sort of smart.

Logically, even if he had chosen a distanced path, forsaking the role of a Knight to become a Mage, with his years of dedication, he would have been at least a decently successful Mage by now, and with his rare affinity for Fire Elemental Constitution, specializing in a single path, he could have become a Great Mage. As for reaching the status of a Sage, parallel to a Great Lord, it was unlikely, but not impossible.