Chapter 221: The Lost Ring

In a dark room, a man dressed in a black robe lit over a dozen candles and arranged them in strange positions. On the ground, under the flickering light of the candles, strange crimson patterns were drawn, and the air was filled with a strong scent of blood.
The man held a large golden bowl in both hands and slowly placed it in the center of the pattern. Then he took out a dagger and cut his wrist. Red blood flowed into the bowl until it was completely submerged; only then did he pull his hand back. He closed his eyes tightly and murmured words under his breath.
After about three to five minutes, an image of a puppet appeared in the air, followed by Ye Feng’s face.
“It’s a witch clan’s puppet. How did this kid get it? How many has he bound?” The dim candlelight shone through the hood of his cloak, illuminating the young man’s face—it was clearly Dil, the one who had traded with Su Rui.
“It seems soul attacks won’t work. To kill him, we must destroy all his hidden puppets first. Or find the one who created them and have them remove the witchcraft from them…” Dil clearly knew how to deal with Ye Feng’s death puppets. “But the second method seems impossible—those old guys who could create such things are probably all dead…”
“I must find out where he hid those death puppets. It’s likely in a storage ring…”
…
After obtaining 750,000 mid-grade spirit crystals, Ye Feng felt an uncontrollable joy.
“Mid-grade spirit crystals—750,000 of them, worth 7.5 billion points at the second-tier domain level.”
“A breakthrough of 1 billion points grants the privilege to exchange items!”
“Three privileges for purchasing items beyond one’s current level!”
“Three privileges to upgrade the grade of items!”
“One ultimate exemption privilege!”
“What privileges did I get?” Ed suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
“There’s an item exchange privilege. It sounds a bit complicated—I’m not sure what it does,” Ye Feng said, guessing that Ed must be aware of this privilege.
“It’s a great thing!” Ed smiled. “It’s the right to exchange various non-permanent privileges. For example, one item upgrade privilege can be traded for one privilege to purchase items beyond one’s level. In other words, you can turn non-permanent privileges you don’t need into other privileges. Of course, once exchanged, those privileges cannot be reversed unless you obtain a reversal privilege.”

“Oh, I see!” After hearing Ed’s explanation, Ye Feng finally understood what this privilege was for.
“Buying privileges beyond one’s rank? Does that mean I can purchase items beyond my class’s limits?” Ye Feng had long desired this privilege as well.
“That’s right. With this privilege, you can buy items one rank higher than what your current rank allows. You don’t even need to convert domain value. An item requiring 1,000 points of third-rank domain value can be purchased with just 1 million points of second-rank domain value, without any loss from conversion,” Ed continued to explain.
“The privilege to upgrade item ranks? Sounds great!”
“Under normal circumstances, this privilege can force an item to be upgraded by one rank, but it’s not cost-effective to use it that way! Think about it—upgrading a low-grade spiritual weapon to a mid-grade one still results in something useless; it doesn’t make much sense,” Ed continued with an example. “But this privilege becomes truly valuable when an item has room for improvement. For instance, the Xuanling Armor you currently possess is just an elite-grade spiritual weapon armor. You can directly upgrade it to the top-grade immortal weapon, Xuantian Armor, instead of upgrading it to a useless low-grade immortal weapon.”
“Also, the items here aren’t limited to tools only; they can be other things as well, like pets…” Ed said this before closing his mouth and glancing at Ye Feng, who was looking at him in surprise. He was well aware of the rules of the Virtual Realm and knew what could and couldn’t be said.
Ye Feng naturally understood what Ed was trying to tell him—it was just that due to the rules of the Virtual Realm, some things couldn’t be fully revealed.
“Alright, I get it. I also got one ultimate pardon this time,” Ye Feng added.
“That means you now have three ultimate pardons—great!” Ed nodded.
Ye Feng checked his current domain value, which was over 8.5 billion. There weren’t many valuable items in the Asura Ring; aside from that magic sword, the total value converted was less than 100 million points of domain value. At this point, he could truly be considered wealthy.
“First, use the privilege to upgrade item ranks to turn Xuanling Armor into Xuantian Armor. Then use one ultimate privilege to turn an elite-grade spiritual weapon into a top-grade immortal weapon. It shouldn’t be a loss!” Ye Feng acted on his thoughts. At this stage, he firmly believed that arming oneself was the key.
“Use the privilege to upgrade item ranks 1 time!”
“Item to be upgraded: Xuanling Armor (elite-grade spiritual weapon)!”
“Upgrade completed: Xuantian Armor (top-grade immortal weapon)!”

“Two extra privileges to upgrade the grade of remaining items!”
Ye Feng looked at the newly acquired armor and felt extremely delighted. Although its appearance hadn’t changed much, a top-grade immortal artifact was far beyond anything a supreme spiritual artifact could compare to.
Proudly, Ye Feng put on the Xuan Tian Armor, his confidence soaring even further. He was sure that if he encountered another powerhouse like Xiu Luo, he could handle it on his own without the help of Xiao Yu or Bernard.
At that moment, he suddenly realized that the invisibility ring on his finger had disappeared.
“Huh? I never took that ring off. When did I lose it?” Ye Feng was puzzled.
That invisibility ring was now of little use, as its shielding ability couldn’t block the detection of those with cultivation levels above that of immortals. Yet Ye Feng had kept wearing it to deceive others, making them think it was just a storage ring. He had worn it from Earth all the way here without ever taking it off.
After recalling carefully, he remembered that after completing the transaction with Fat and the others the previous day, he was walking on the street when he was bumped into by a young man. The man apologized and left in a hurry.
“Could it be that person?” Ye Feng pondered. He had only had direct physical contact with that person these past few days. “Never mind. That ring wasn’t very useful anyway. I don’t need to hide from those with cultivation levels below that of immortals, and it’s useless against those above that level too.”
“However, given the current situation, I need another ring. This time, I’ll use a real storage ring!” Saying this, he selected a decent mid-grade spiritual artifact ring from the Virtual Realm and put it on his left little finger. It wasn’t expensive—only 100,000 domain points were required.
“The ring can be used to store miscellaneous items that aren’t needed right away but don’t need to be cleared out, thus freeing up some space in the Virtual Realm’s storage cabinet.” Although Ye Feng’s current storage cabinet was sufficient, it was indeed occupied by quite a bit of clutter.
Just as Ye Feng realized his ring had been stolen, in a dim room, a young man was holding the invisibility ring, frowning deeply.
“What on earth is going on with this ring? I’ve tried over a dozen methods to open its space, and it doesn’t seem to be a spiritual artifact either. Is it just an ordinary ring?”

“It shouldn’t be like this. Ye Feng has only ever worn one such ring. If he was able to summon that magic sword out of thin air, it must be a ring that can store items. Could it be a space ring from the Technology Planet?” Dil kept fiddling with the ring in his hands but still couldn’t figure out its secret. “It seems I need to find someone to examine this thing.”

Wearing the ring, Dil arrived at a dim path. After walking dozens of meters along it, he stopped in front of a weapons shop. The door was wide open, and a tall man, with his upper body bare, was swinging a hammer vigorously against red-hot iron.

“Tie Man, long time no see!” Dil stood at the door, forcing a smile.

“Dil, I don’t think we’re very familiar, do I? I remember warning you not to come looking for me!” The man lifted his eyes slightly, seemingly not taking Dil seriously at all.

“Brother Tie, no need to be like this. We were once colleagues who worked together…”

“Get to the point! I’m busy right now!” The man named Tie Man didn’t even lift his head this time.

“I’m here just to ask you to check something for me—whether it’s a storage ring or a space ring from the Technology Planet. Just take a look!” Dil still stood at the door, not daring to step forward.

“Fine! But after you’ve taken a look, you better disappear right away!” Tie Man finally put down his work and said to Dil.

Dil tentatively stepped forward, trying to enter, but was stopped by Tie Man’s shout, “Who the hell gave you permission to come in? Just throw the ring to me!”

Dil hesitantly pulled back his foot and threw the ring to Tie Man. Tie Man examined the ring for a few seconds before slowly lifting his head. “Are you trying to trick me?”

“Brother Tie, I…” Seeing that Tie Man seemed genuinely angry this time, Dil waved his hands frantically. “I stole this thing…”

“You idiot! This is just an ordinary invisibility ring, made on the planet Taikroleki. Storage rings have spiritual energy fluctuations—don’t you know that? Space rings are tiny and extremely expensive. Which idiot in the cultivation world would use such things?” Tie Man cursed again.

“Invisibility ring?!” Dil was speechless upon hearing this conclusion. “Brother Tie, are you sure you didn’t missee it?”

“Take your crap and get out!” Tie Man clearly disliked it when others questioned him. With a casual flick, he sent the ring flying, causing Dir, who tried to catch it, to spew blood. He picked up the iron object he had been working on, swung it casually, catching Dir’s blood without a single drop spilled, then resumed hammering the iron object. Hearing the order to leave, Dir immediately vanished. When he reappeared, he had already crushed the ring in his hand. “Hmph, really thinking you’re something special. If one day you fall into my hands, even the proudest lion will become a docile dog!”