Book 7, Heaven and Earth Turned Upside Down – Chapter 13, A Major Treasure
“Prince Shaq, thank you once again for your assistance. Let us part ways here.” Prince Louis said with a smile.
Shaq’s face immediately turned stern. Unhappily, he said, “Prince Louis, what’s the rush? Right now, this area is covered with magical beasts, and you only have seven people left. If you meet any more magical beasts on the road, it’ll be very dangerous. Come along with us. With our combined strength, we will be safer as well.”
Prince Louis hurriedly said, “Prince Shaq, no...”
“Don’t refuse. Otherwise, I’ll get angry.” Shaq said with a stern, angry look.
Prince Louis looked very awkward, but in his heart, he was furious. He, Prince Louis, wasn’t an idiot. He knew that his subordinates’ earlier actions of collecting off the bags of the deceased had aroused suspicion.
It was true.
The bags of his subordinates contained the major treasures of the royal clan of the Kingdom of Hanmu. The royal clan of Hanmu had been in existence for over a thousand years. Although its history wasn’t as long as that of the royal clan of Fenlai, it still possessed an astonishing amount of wealth and major treasures. However, their royal clan didn’t have any interspatial rings, and so they had to carry their treasures with them.
Actually, in such a chaotic period, the various noble clans of Fenlai and Hanmu had all thrown their valuables and magicrystal cards in bags and fled. The number of people in the entire continent who had interspatial rings was very low. Even a powerful entity such as the Proulx Gallery had only one, belonging to Managing Director Maia.
“This Shaq is full of bad intentions.” Louis was extremely worried.
He wanted to refuse, but he was afraid that Shaq really would have a falling out with him.
A knight by the side of Prince Louis nudged him, then stepped forward. This knight was the instructor for Prince Louis. “Since Prince Shaq is so sincere, then we shall travel alongside your squad. Only, we’re sorry to have troubled you, Prince Shaq.”
“No trouble at all. Haha, let’s go together.” Shaq laughed loudly.
Just judging from appearances alone, this two-meter tall, burly man looked like a foolish boor. But having grown up in the royal clan, how could Shaq truly be foolish? He, too, could guess what the other party was thinking. Nonetheless, he led everyone travelling north.
“Boss, the atmosphere seems really weird.” Bebe said mentally to Linley.
Linley laughed inwardly. That Prince Louis didn’t dare to offend Prince Shaq too much, but he had to be careful so as to prevent Prince Shaq from acting against him. Naturally, this expedition became rather...special. Watching both sides, Linley knew exactly what was going on.
After chatting for a while with Prince Louis, Prince Shaq separated, then rode over to Linley. In a low voice, he said, “Lord Linley, did you see?”
“See? See what?” Linley looked at Shaq.
After making sure that no one belonging to Prince Louis was nearby, Prince Shaq said in a low voice, “The royal clan of Hanmu is in flight. They surely took with them many of the major treasures they accumulated over their thousand years of existence. In my estimation, those knights’ bags are all filled with major treasures.” Linley knew that the existence of the Golden Bank of the Four Empires had made magicrystal cards quite popular.
Even large clans and royal clans used magicrystal cards. To these clans who possessed hundreds of millions of gold coins in wealth, most treasures weren’t a big deal. For example, when they were fleeing, these nobles couldn’t be bothered to bring something like Blueheart Grass, which was worth 100,000 gold coins.
The only things they would take were the most important treasures, all worth over a million gold coins, such as magicite cores of magical beasts of the ninth rank or of the Saint-level, or perhaps treasures from other planes. Or divine artifacts...
“Lord Linley, as long as you are willing to assist, when we divide the treasures, naturally you will have a share as well. No. Two shares. What do you say? In my view, those treasures must be worth several million gold coins at least.” Shaq said in a low voice.
Shaq knew very well what an astonishing amount of wealth a royal clan possessed. Because in his own hands, there were five hundred million gold coins in magicrystal cards.
The Kingdom of Hanmu wasn’t inferior to the Kingdom of Fenlai. They probably possessed the same amount of wealth. How could the major treasures they carried out be of low quality?
“Fine.” Linley nodded. “When you plan to make your move, notify me as to what you wish.”
Hearing this, Shaq was extremely excited.
Perhaps when they were fleeing, magi were hindrances, but when they were able to engage in a battle, their power was astonishing. Linley was a dual-element magus of the seventh rank. With their opponents totally caught off-guard, he alone could probably kill half of them.
Linley carefully inspected those seven people on Prince Louis’ side. Right now, each of them were carrying four or five bags. In particular...
“Hrm?”
Linley suddenly noticed that the sound of hoof steps of one middle-aged man’s horse was particularly loud. In addition, that horse seemed more tired than the other horses as well. More importantly, that middle-aged man had another horse running alongside him! He had two horses to himself!
Clearly, this middle-aged man needed to frequently change horses.
“These horses are both fine horses. Even if they were carrying three or four people, they would gallop like the wind. Why would this middle-aged man cause these horses to be so tired, to the point where he would have to frequently change horses?” Linley instantly understood the reason.
This middle-aged man was very heavy.
Or, to put it another way, the things he was carrying was very heavy. “But this middle-aged man is only carrying a short sword. Can it be that within his bags...” Linley’s only explanation was that the four bags the middle-aged man was carrying included something extremely heavy.
The wind howled.
Both Prince Louis’ and Prince Shaq’s men had retired for the night. No matter how strong one was, they would still need rest. Prince Louis’ and his six warriors all rested together, while Prince Shaq’s men were divided into four or five units. These two forces were located in separate areas.
“Master, when should we leave?” Prince Louis said in a soft voice. The other five men were all feigning sleep.
“Wait a bit longer. When they’ve all fallen asleep, we’ll mount and leave.” That middle-aged man said quietly.
Fleeing into the dark night was a very common strategy. It was a common strategy because many people used it...and many people used it because it was effective!
The thirty people on Prince Shaq’s side were feigning sleep as well. Not a single one of them was truly asleep. Everyone knew that there would be a battle they had to fight tonight.
“Lord Linley.” Prince Shaq was by Linley’s side. He called out to Linley in a soft voice.
“Hrm?” Linley turned to look at Shaq.
Prince Shaq continued, “Lord Linley, prepare to secretly cast a magic spell. This will catch them off-guard and make them suffer heavy losses. And then, my squad will charge over and finish them off. Lord Linley, it’s up to you now.”
“Fine.” Linley nodded.
A sudden sneak attack via magic at night was something which opponents definitely would not be able to foresee.
Linley’s lips began to move slightly as he quietly began to chant the words to a magical spell. By his side, Prince Shaq could only wait impatiently. Poor Prince Louis and his men actually wanted to wait a while longer and flee after Prince Shaq and his men had fallen asleep.
“Swish! Swish! Swish!”
In a circular area with a radius of ten meters, dozens of sharp earthen spears suddenly jutted out of the ground. “Ah!” A series of agonized screams sounded out as those sharp earthen spears suddenly pierced through those warriors’ bodies, and one of them was directly impaled through and through. That poor Prince Louis was instantly killed as well by those spears. He was, after all, the weakest person amongst them.
The thickly clustered array of earthen spears was enough to freeze one’s heart.
Earth-style magic of the seventh rank – Earthen Spear Array.
Four of the seven people in Prince Louis’ party died in agony on the spot, while the three remaining warriors of the eighth rank suffered serious injuries as well, due to being caught off-guard.
“Kill!”
The thirty members of the Wildthunder squad were previously feigning sleep, but hearing those miserable screams, they all charged towards the other camp as though they had received orders. They immediately attacked those three wounded warriors of the eighth rank, in a thirty against three fight.
This wasn’t a fair contest at all. What’s more, the Wildthunder squad had ten warriors of the eighth rank.
“Slice.” “Slice.”
Those three wounded warriors of the eighth rank were easily killed. They were barely able to resist at all.
“Second Prince, all of them are dead now.” The captain of the Wildthunder squad, an energetic, golden-haired middle-aged man reported.
Shaq was overjoyed. “Haha, wonderful! Quick, bring those bags over to me. For this action alone, I will award all of you a hundred thousand gold coins. When we reunite with my royal father, I will disburse the gold.” Shaq was extremely excited.
There were thirty people in the Wildthunder squad. A hundred thousand gold coins each was only a total of three million gold coins. But the wealth contained within those ten bags surely was worth more than a hundred million gold coins.
“Come, Lord Linley. You pick two bags first.” Shaq said very magnanimously to Linley.
The usefulness of a magus in pitched group battles had been totally put on display. This sneak attack by magic of Linley’s had killed four and heavily injured the remaining three. If Shaq had ordered his men to directly attack, quite a few of them probably would’ve died.
Linley walked directly over to Prince Louis’ master’s corpse, the middle-aged man. He hefted each of the four bags. As he did so, Linley indeed noticed something strange. Three of the bags were very light, very ordinary.
But the last bag...it seemed very small, and the object inside was only the size of a man’s palm, but its weight...was over a thousand pounds.
“Something the size of a hand but over a thousand pounds in weight?”
Linley was stunned.
He had never heard of anything this dense and heavy. Even gold and diamonds were much lighter than this material. The size of a hand, but over a thousand pounds...
“Lord Linley?” Shaq walked over. “Have you chosen?”
“No need to choose. I’ll just go with these two.” Linley randomly grabbed another bag from the remaining three, then slung the two bags over his back.
Seeing this, Shaq felt very happy as well. What he worried about the most was that Linley would open every single bag to take a look inside, then make his decision. This would be quite unfair to him. But Linley had just casually hefted the bags on a single person, then chose two of them.
All of Shaq’s subordinates were now carrying bags.
“Let’s go.” Shaq was now in a wonderful mood.
Linley was riding on a horse as well, but while riding the horse, Linley had cast the Floating Technique on himself. Given his power as a magus of the seventh rank, using a spell of the fifth rank was extremely easy. Linley used the levitational powers of the Floating Technique to counteract the extra weight of that mysterious object.
This allowed the horse he was riding to continue galloping without strain.
“Grandpa Doehring.” Linley immediately pressed him. “Take a look and see what I have inside these two new bags of mine?”
“Oh, you got some treasures?” Doehring Cowart, who had been napping inside the Coiling Dragon ring, was suddenly full of energy. He immediately used his spiritual energy to directly sense what was inside Linley’s two bags.
“Within that first bag is a brocade box wrapped in several layers of cloth. Inside the box there is a matching pair of beautiful jade crystals. They should have quite the history, but I don’t know where they are from.” Doehring Cowart said.
“The second bag...ah?!”
Doehring Cowart cried out in surprise. “What is it?” Linley’s heart clenched in excitement. He knew that the second bag had to be the one containing the strange item weighing over a thousand pounds, because the item inside the second bag wasn’t a perfectly rectangular box.
“Adamantine. Adamantine ore. There’s actually a fist-sized chunk of adamantine ore in the Yulan continent. This...this is astonishing.” Doehring Cowart said in amazement.
Hearing the words ‘adamantine’, Linley’s heart clenched yet again. Adamantine didn’t actually exist in the material plane. It only came from other planes, and it was so tough and durable that supposedly even most Deity-level combatants couldn’t easily break it. When he was jailed in the Radiant Temple, that lock with some adamantine alloyed into it would’ve been hard for even a Saint-level combatant to break. From this, one could tell how tough adamantine was.
“A fist-sized chunk of adamantine ore. This...this is more valuable than even a Saint-level magicite core. How could there be such a huge chunk in the world?” Doehring Cowart simply couldn’t believe it.
“A fist-sized chunk is ‘huge’?” Linley was rather confused.