Xie Zhaofan suddenly had a flash of inspiration and tried a different way to communicate with the system.
“This treasure’s use is unknown. Can I perform a blood-recognition ritual to claim it? Are there any hidden potential dangers?”
The system, which had been as silent as a crashed computer, actually responded.
【Masterless object. Harmless. Feasible.】
“Oh?”
Xie Zhaofan immediately perked up.
“So you’re the type of fellow that needs precise questions to be activated?”
She finally began to understand.
No wonder it had never paid her any mind when she asked it random questions before. It wasn’t that it couldn’t answer; her way of asking was just wrong.
Xie Zhaofan’s interest was piqued. She reached into her jewelry box and pulled out an ordinary gold hairpin that Madam Shen had given her.
“What about this one? What is its value?”
The system fell silent once again. Xie Zhaofan waited for a long while, but still received no response.
She understood instantly.
“I see you really aren't my personal encyclopedia.”
“Could it be that only things with special value or extraordinary origins are worth you opening your golden mouth?”
Xie Zhaofan rubbed her chin. The more she thought about it, the more plausible the guess seemed.
A Century-Old Spiritual Ginseng could trigger attribute points, and the Teal Jade Hairpin before her could elicit a reaction from the system. In contrast, ordinary gold and silver jewelry were completely ignored.
From this perspective, the things the system paid attention to likely possessed some kind of value that transcended the mundane.
Unfortunately, she didn't have anything else on hand to verify this for the moment.
“Whatever, I’ll test it slowly later.”
Since the system had confirmed it was harmless, Xie Zhaofan no longer hesitated.
She took a silver needle from her sewing box, carefully pricked her fingertip, and squeezed a drop of fresh blood onto the Teal Jade Hairpin.
As soon as the blood touched the body of the hairpin, the originally dull teal surface suddenly shimmered with a soft jade luster.
The light wasn't dazzling; it was merely a flash that vanished in the darkness.
Immediately after, Xie Zhaofan’s heart jolted. She actually felt a subtle connection form between herself and the Teal Jade Hairpin in her hand.
That feeling was difficult to describe accurately with words; it was as if a previously lifeless object had suddenly gained a consciousness that could respond to her.
“Is it really that simple?”
Xie Zhaofan couldn't help but blink.
“One drop of blood and it’s done?”
Although she knew novels often wrote it this way, seeing it actually happen to her felt a bit like child's play.
At that moment, the system finally provided actual information.
【Teal Jade Hairpin — Top-grade Magic Tool】
【Combined offense and defense; carries one mid-tier wind-element technique; power is decent.】
Xie Zhaofan stared at those two lines for several seconds before suddenly springing up from her bed.
“Whoa! I really did pick up a treasure!”
She rolled across the bed in excitement, her mind already beginning to fantasize about scenarios where she would fly on a sword with the Teal Jade Hairpin in hand, traversing the world.
This was a Magic Tool! And a Top-grade Magic Tool at that!
A mere Century-Old Spiritual Ginseng had only given her two attribute points, but this thing before her seemed far more precious than just two points.
However, after a moment of excitement, she suddenly froze.
“Wait...”
Xie Zhaofan slowly sat up, the smile on her face gradually stiffening.
“Top-grade Magic Tool? What does that mean?”
It was as if something had violently exploded in her mind.
“Does this world... actually have cultivators?”
Xie Zhaofan felt her scalp go numb.
“Good heavens above, where on earth have you dropped me?”
She had always assumed that although there were people with high martial arts skills in this world, it was essentially a normal ancient feudal dynasty.
She thought she only needed to work hard to collect attribute points—constantly increasing her Strength, Agility, Constitution, and Spirit—and use her infinite lifespan to grow slowly. One day, she would surely become the most powerful existence in this world.
But now, the sudden appearance of a Top-grade Magic Tool had completely shattered her established worldview.
Martial arts experts and cultivators were two entirely different concepts.
No matter how strong the former was, they still belonged to the category of humans in her eyes. At most, they could use Lightwork to scale walls and leap over roofs or have deep internal energy.
But what were cultivators?
They flew on swords, moved mountains and filled oceans, summoned wind and rain, and could even go into seclusion for decades or centuries at a time.
The cultivation worlds in novels were never peaceful or harmonious places. It was a world where the strong devoured the weak, where power reigned supreme, and where killing someone to steal their treasures was as common as could be.
She was just a minor daughter of the Prime Minister’s residence. If she accidentally provoked some great cultivation master one day, they could crush her to death with a single finger.
Thinking of this, Xie Zhaofan’s face turned slightly pale. She sat on the edge of the bed in a daze for a long time, the future looking darker the more she thought about it.
But just as she was about to fall into self-terror, she suddenly slapped her own forehead.
“I must be crazy. Why am I worrying about nothing here?”
She quickly calmed down.
The Great Zhou dynasty had been established for nearly two hundred years. If this world were truly teeming with cultivators, how could mortals have lived so peacefully until now?
At the very least, from the original host’s memories, there were no rumors of immortals flying all over the place in the capital or within the territories of the Great Zhou.
Even the so-called strange tales were mostly just folk legends.
This indicated that even if cultivators existed, it was absolutely impossible for them to appear randomly in the mundane world.
Perhaps true practitioners simply looked down on the mortal realms, or perhaps there was some kind of restriction she didn't yet understand.
Whatever the reason, for the time being, the lives of ordinary people had not been affected.
“Alright then.”
Xie Zhaofan took a deep breath, her optimism returning quickly.
“Since I won’t be running into them for now, what is there to be afraid of?”
“In the future, I’ll just keep a low profile. I’ll play it safe as much as I can and definitely won’t go looking for trouble in front of those immortals, gods, demons, or ghosts.”
She had always been open-minded. Since things couldn't be changed for now, there was no need to scare herself.
After re-accepting the fact that cultivators might exist in this world, Xie Zhaofan shifted her attention back to the Teal Jade Hairpin.
After being claimed through blood, the hairpin seemed to have completely shed its superficial disguise.
The originally dull teal-gray color now revealed a clear, warm jade glow. The patterns on the hairpin had become sharper, with faint streaks of light flowing within them.
Xie Zhaofan held it and looked at it for a long time, liking it more the more she saw it.
“It would be a waste to leave such a beautiful thing to collect dust in a jewelry box.”
She decided she would wear it on her head from now on. In any case, this item had already recognized her as its master, and it was far better than those ordinary gold and silver pieces of jewelry.
As for the wind-element technique mentioned by the system, she didn't dare test it recklessly for the moment.
“This is a spell!”
Xie Zhaofan felt her scalp tingle just thinking about it.
According to the tropes in the novels she had read, if a wind-element technique was even slightly powerful, flipping a house shouldn't be much of a problem.
Rate on N.U.
