Chapter 346: Statue of the Divine Birth
"That’s incredible," Ethan repeated to himself, his eyes still fixed on the screen floating before him. "Ah... I wonder if the other Golden Lords have systems as broken as mine."
[How could any system be superior to the great me? No way. But some probably have special capabilities that set them above everyone else.
Still, don’t become arrogant or complacent. That path leads to little more than an early death.]
Ethan didn’t question those words.
He knew full well that his start had been miserable compared to that of many other Golden Lords.
Some started out in cities of hundreds of thousands, with gigantic armies at their command, blessed by luck from the very beginning.
From what he’d heard about the system, everything came down to destiny and, of course, the level of danger.
The system sent Golden Lords with high destiny to grander starting points, where far more enemies waited for them.
Those with low destiny, on the other hand, had to start from scratch. In return, they faced weaker enemies in smaller numbers and enjoyed more opportunities to grow.
In the end, it all balanced out. The whole thing was designed so that, by the final stages, every capable Lord would stand at a similar level of power despite such different beginnings.
Of course, Ethan was an anomaly. His own system treated him that way, just as the Gaia System did, even though the latter had no defined form of ego.
[In any case, put this artifact to good use. It can be configured in various ways—including destroying the bodies of your women if they’re about to be harmed. Their souls are saved and teleported back to the artifact, where they’re revived.]
Ethan nodded with satisfaction.
Being able to configure exactly which situations would trigger the artifact’s protection only made it better.
But for now, there were more urgent matters.
His eyes fell on the reward list. The spins had been paused ever since the Rank SSS item.
The moment he dismissed the notification, they resumed, icons flashing and cycling at high speed before him.
After ten spins, another Rank A item appeared—a top-tier pop card worth five thousand pops—accompanied by a Rank B item worth two thousand five hundred pops and a handful of things that didn’t interest Ethan much.
Potions, low-tier artifacts, weapons, armor, tools, seeds.
The only other Rank S item he received was a sword with a troop command bonus.
Ethan planned to give it to Theron in the future, since none of his wives would have much use for something like that.
On the 180th spin, something finally came up that truly piqued his interest. A Rank SS recipe book!
[Congratulations! You have received: The Gluttonous Emperor’s Cookbook (Rank SS)]
[Name: The Gluttonous Emperor’s Cookbook
Description: Despite his name, the Gluttonous Emperor was not a hedonist, merely a great connoisseur of delicacies—one of the strongest seventh-stage human experts of the ancient era, even with his short life.
For a thousand years, the Gluttonous Emperor gathered the finest delicacies from around the world, creating a cookbook that became the culinary foundation of his nation.
Many recipes in this book possess special magical effects.
Recipes for potions and medicinal culinary items are included.
In total, the book contains about fifteen thousand recipes, detailed across just over thirty thousand pages.
Each recipe has a minimum quality rank of A.
Rank: SS]
Ethan didn’t hesitate for a moment, retrieving the item from his system inventory.
For a split second, he worried about the absurd size a thirty-thousand-page book might have.
Fortunately, what appeared were thirty volumes, each a thousand pages thick, arranged neatly across his desk.
Together, they weighed over one hundred kilograms.
Each refined, greenish cover bore a finish worthy of an imperial library, and every volume held a multitude of different recipes.
"I wonder if Alice has any magic capable of duplicating this..." Ethan murmured, opening the first volume. The paper felt smooth and cool beneath his fingers, every page dense with elegant script.
There were even recipes for military rations in there! Dried bars capable of keeping a man fed for days, with effects that boosted stamina and even healed wounds.
Seeing the ingredients, Ethan smiled.
Anywhere else, recipes like these would be nearly impossible to reproduce. But in Goldenveil, his farms could churn out an almost unlimited supply of magical ingredients.
That dried bar alone called for a mixture of first-stage magical beast meat, low-level magical rice, soybeans, purified water, some kind of second-stage wine, and a little sugar and salt.
Of all these, salt would be the hardest to obtain. But since it made up less than 3% of the recipe, he could simply import it until Goldenveil produced enough on its own.
With a sigh, Ethan stowed the books in his spatial ring.
If duplication proved possible, he would keep the thirty originals in his vault and create ten copies to send to Tom for replication.
With the exception of a few specific recipes—too miraculous to be made public—he would invest in turning this into the culinary foundation of all Goldenveil.
Soon, his eyes returned to the status screen.
He had won yet another item from the Luck System!
[Congratulations! You have received: Statue of the Divine Birth (Rank SSS)]
[Name: Statue of the Divine Birth
Description: The life’s work of an architect from the mythical era, made in honor of the deceased wife and daughters of a past emperor. Blessed by the Goddess of Beauty and Life, it became the foundation of an entire nation.
The statue stands fifty meters tall and depicts a woman nursing a child, golden tears streaming down her porcelain face.
It is equipped with protective arrays that prevent its destruction by anyone below the sixth stage.
Effects: +100% talent, health, and strength for newborn children. +250% chance for children to be born with random positive traits. +150% chance for children to be born with powerful bloodlines or constitutions. +1,500 prestige points for the leader of the city where it is placed.
Replicas will be linked to the original and will apply lesser effects.
Effects applied at the national level are about 20% as effective as those applied to the user’s family.
Rank: SSS]
Ethan reread the effects twice, a slow smile spreading across his face.