Lin Yiyi’s group had lived underground for two days.
The players accepted the jewelry Nieusel gave without any hesitation.
Not only did they accept the gifts, Lin Yiyi and Jiu Er even put them on.
Lin Yiyi also thanked Nieusel, “It was a great help.”
Nieusel passed those words to Nefertari too.
Nefertari was taken aback and immediately told Nieusel not to approach them again.
She felt that the players should be keen and had already seen through her purpose. Yet, they did not even shy away from it and relayed the corresponding message to her.
This meant that they had brains and confidence.
It felt like a dangerous probing attempt.
It directly determined Nefertari’s attitude toward the three players.
Wearing silver and gold jewelry was common for the average person.
In fact, whether it was silver jewelry or gold jewelry, they did not directly signify transcendence — only “silver coins” and “gold powder” had those effects.
But when ordinary people did not understand occult knowledge, it was perfectly normal to use gold and silver ornaments to ward off evil spirits.
Ordinary people could wear it casually too.
The situation varied for the transcenders.
Only the transcenders would use bronze accessories. Therefore, people who knew somewhat about the transcended world could directly infer that someone was probably a transcender after seeing him wearing bronze jewelry.
It carried a symbolic meaning. Some remote villages who did not understand “transcender” even called the “transcender” as “bronze man” and regarded bronze as an evil metal.
Of course, the “bronze” accessories did not mean that it was metallic brown.
Some bronzes were more golden, while others were more white. The color difference largely depended on its component and ratio. But even the most golden bronze, its luster was different from real gold.
But in any case, bronze was not a suitable metal for jewelry.
Not only because it would oxidize quickly when it was corroded by sweat, but the more important factor was also because “it was not expensive enough”.
Hundreds of years later, some people might like oxidized bronze watches that experienced the precipitation of time. But in the eyes of rich people in this era, bronze jewelry was too cheap.
In fact, bronze rings were even cheaper than iron rings. It could hardly be used anywhere other than as a curse vessel. In terms of luxury, it was too cheap.
This was why many disposable curse vessels came in the form of bronze rings.
It was cheap.
However, when ordinary people would not wear bronze accessories, transcenders were particularly fond of bronze accessories.
Even after advancing to Silver Rank, many transcenders would still wear bronze accessories openly.
This was not about modesty but hiding the number of curses they possessed.
Silver Rank Transcender would have at least two curses. If you could make others think that you were a Bronze Rank, then even if they figured out the repercussions of your curse through behavior patterns, you would only suffer with a single curse’s jinx.
After all, curses were strange, and it was not easy to activate the jinx. The more you wanted to achieve multiple jinxes simultaneously, the more difficult it was to set up a plot.
As long as the transcender did not violate all the curses, he would not be killed by jinx.
Moreover, acting in a low-key manner could also be used to prevent ritual and magic attacks.
The essence of the Ascension Path was the sublimation of the soul. Bronze Rank’s spell effects would reduce tremendously against Silver Rank Transcender and would be utterly invalid against Gold Rank Transcender.
As for the wizard apprentices who had not attained a rank yet, their spells were ineffective against the Silver Rank Transcenders.
As long as the gap encompassed two ranks, the transcended power applied would be ineffective against the opponent. The effect of rituals worked the same too.
Supposed a Silver Rank Transcender pretended to be a Bronze Rank. Even if he revealed his real name or accidentally fell into someone else’s ritual, he could survive if the opponent only applied a ritual capable of killing a Bronze Rank Transcender. Of course, that was provided that his opponents were not vigilant enough.
After all, the cost would increase exponentially every time the ritual’s effect was raised by one rank. It was hard to imagine having malicious passers-by who would mess with him regardless of the cost.
If it weren’t for the Bronze Rank Transcender, it would be difficult to hide one’s curse vessel. Many Bronze Rank Transcenders would also wear lower-level products as cover. But they had no other way. The Bronze Rank vessel was already the lowest level.
That was why “Bronze Rank Transcenders” traversed humbly on the ground.
There was not such a big gap between Bronze Rank Transcenders and those who were Bronze Rank or above.
Instead, under the constraints of “curse”, everyone acted more cautiously and prudently. No one dared to act particularly arrogantly.
Those who were particularly arrogant usually failed to reach the Silver Rank. They would have already been killed by the detectives hired by the local priests.
Those who needed to act in the name of a transcender were almost always “Bronze Rank” on the surface. At the same time, those who wore Silver Rank jewelry. For example, Annan’s displayed identity was not a transcender but an ordinary person.
The only exception was Gold Rank.
They had to empty their elemental power to pretend to be a Silver Rank with slightly higher attribute points. Otherwise, their status as a Gold Rank could not be hidden. Instead, they could only be physically hidden. In other words, it was staying away from the world of mortals.
As long as the elemental power was stored in the brain, it would gradually distort the surrounding world. Moreover, if the Bronze Rank Transcender looked directly into the eyes of the Gold Rank Transcender, it would cause a sanity drop.
For example, there was a Gold Rank Soul Snatch Wizard who hid his identity by modifying the cognition and memory of others. However, he could disguise himself as a Silver Rank at most.
Silver Rank was the limit of mortals.
Attaining Gold Rank would signify a person throwing away his humanity.
But even for a Gold Rank powerhouse, it was possible to face a lot of trouble to have the details of his curse leaked.
It was possible to fall into a plot and lose one’s life.
But it wasn’t because Lin Yiyi and the others were too arrogant and reckless in accepting these jewelry pieces. On the contrary, none of the three of them were fools.
Lin Yiyi guessed that the other party wanted to see if they were liars.
In other words, were they stray transcenders? Did they have any organization? Did they know the rules that had emerged in the past ten years? There might be more detailed considerations, such as testing their mode of action, but taking this step was enough.
Obviously, it was too dangerous for a transcender to wear silver jewelry; if the three of them were Silver Rank Transcenders disguised as Bronze Rank, gifting silver jewelry could also be regarded as a bluff that “I already know your identities.”
However, Lin Yiyi also had plans in choosing to accept the silver jewelry instead of returning it.
Lin Yiyi had prepared a silver bracelet beforehand, but neither Jiu Er nor Suuankou did so.
They would stay here for a long time and probably go through advancement here.
Instead of going out to buy silver jewelry for advancement and revealing that “they are transcenders who came here to advance”, it was better to accept it openly and admit that they were about to advance.
However, Lin Yiyi did not anticipate Nefertari to misunderstand her actions.