Chapter 429: Section 217: Where is my treasure?!
Hun Tong came to the dining table.
On the table were gold plates, with toast, milk, salmon, eggs, bacon, spiral noodles, and more.
To the left of Hun Tong, there was a small cup filled with Golden Level sea salt. Each grain of sea salt was worth twice its weight in gold.
Hun Tong sighed, “The great battle has just ended; we can only keep things simple.”
He sat down and began to enjoy his breakfast.
Soon, at the entrance of the City Lord’s mansion, noisy voices could be heard.
It was those merchants.
Under the leadership of the five major guilds, they gathered once again at the entrance of the City Lord’s mansion to demand an explanation from Hun Tong.
Hun Tong ignored them and continued eating slowly.
His personal servant grew increasingly restless, “My Lord, might I report to you about the salvage of the seabed treasure now?”
Hun Tong shook his head, took a sip of his milk, and smiled, “No need, my loyal servant. Forget that order for now, there’s no rush. You need to learn to patiently experience the present moment. Whether bitter or happy, all of it is the beauty of life.”
“So, don’t tell me how much we have dug up. Could you let me have some expectations?”
Having said that, Hun Tong couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
In fact, he had already made an estimate in his mind.
It was definitely a tremendous amount of wealth, far surpassing anything he had accumulated in his lifetime!
The main contributor was the Wealth Church.
In those days operating on Twin Eyes Island, the church was also a huge gold-consuming beast. Hun Tong earned gold coins, but he also had to contribute a portion to the church regularly.
Because the Wealth Sect monopolized Twin Eyes Island.
Demanding a Divine Officer to perform Divine Arts required a fee.
Every time the Wealth Sect presided over large prayers, Priestly gatherings, or funerals, they would collect substantial fees.
The public was always “bleeding” for the church.
The Wealth Sect was best at Contract Skill. This Divine Art could bind partnering parties, establishing a foundation of trust.
Thus, the various guilds were also sources of funds for the Wealth Sect.
“The Wealth Church was almost completely plundered by the Jidian Pirate Group.”
“It was well robbed.”
“Without them, how could this wealth have fallen into my hands?”
“Besides, all the large and small shops were robbed, and two Mercenary Corps’ stations had quite a lot of valuable stuff.”
“In my territory, there were many wealthy households among the residents. Although individually they might not seem impressive, the pirates robbed the entire island. Adding up the small amounts, the total is certainly very substantial.”
Hun Tong couldn’t help but fall into blissful daydreams, oblivious to his personal servant’s increasingly difficult-to-conceal anxiety.
After finishing his breakfast, Hun Tong cheerfully walked towards the warehouse.
He pushed open the door and entered an empty room.
“Huh?” Hun Tong was stunned for a moment.
In his imagination, this warehouse should have been filled with gold and silver treasures. But the scene before him was completely different from his expectation.
Hun Tong blinked in disbelief.
“Did I go to the wrong place?”
He stepped back a few paces, came to the door, and looked at the door number.
“It’s Warehouse No. 3 alright.”
Hun Tong blinked again, then glanced at his servant behind him, “I should have given the order.”
“Yes, Master. Last night, you ordered that all the treasure salvaged from the seabed be brought here to Warehouse No. 3.”
“And you specifically instructed your subordinates that if Warehouse No. 3 didn’t have enough space, it could be placed in the adjacent Warehouse No. 5.”
Hun Tong frowned and interrogated, “So, where’s the money?”
“Where are those seabed treasures?”
“Where are my treasures?!”
The personal servant turned pale, sweating profusely, swallowed his saliva, and said hoarsely, “Lord, my Master, this is exactly what I’ve been wanting to report to you! I don’t know why, but the Alchemy Puppets searched several times, and only retrieved, um, a few copper coins.”
“Those few copper coins are placed in the corner of this warehouse.”
Hun Tong: …
He was shocked by this news.
His eyes widened.
He couldn’t believe it!
“How is this possible?” He suddenly turned his head and looked at the corner of the room.
Indeed, there were three copper coins quietly laying there.
The coins were the normal type circulated in the market.
The Deep Sea Salvagers were not perfect and had missed three coins.
Hun Tong stared fiercely at those three copper coins, intensely fixating on them.
The interior of Warehouse No. 3 was deadly silent.
The personal servant didn’t dare to breathe, fearing the storm of rage might descend upon him.
Hun Tong’s eyes flashed coldly.
The three copper coins were so piercing.
They seemed to mock him, telling him: Your beautiful dream is shattered!
Better to have nothing at all!
“Impossible!” Hun Tong suddenly roared, nearly causing his servant to faint.
Hun Tong raised his arm and shouted as if he were a lion enraged, quickly circling the empty Warehouse No. 3, sticking close to the wall.
“This is impossible!!” He shouted again, his voice filled with murderous intent.
He strode menacingly toward his personal servant.
The servant instantly knelt down, pleading, “Master…”
But in the next moment, Hun Tong strode past him and quickly left the warehouse.
He soared into the sky without a moment’s delay, bursting from the City Lord’s mansion, out of the new island, straight into the clouds.
Hun Tong had a Flying Combat Technique.
He was like a streak of light, piercing directly into the clouds, entering into the Golden Shiny.
“It’s Hun Tong.”
“He flew away!”
“Does he want to slip away? How long does he plan to hide?”
Outside the City Lord’s mansion, the merchants burst into commotion, verbally attacking.
Hun Tong flew into the Golden Shiny with one sole purpose: to fetch the surveillance Magic Image from the great battle.
His eyes were filled with bloodshot, glaring fiercely as he examined the images.
He had clearly used the beam cannon, hitting the pirate groups and Fishman so hard that they cried for their parents, knocking those treasures into the sea.
Why is it gone?
How could there only be three copper coins left?
“Who is it?!”
“Who on earth is it?!”
“I want to know who would dare to take my money!”
But there were no valuable clues in the images.
The Golden Shiny had strong reconnaissance capabilities, but it was not good at underwater exploration and was more oriented towards range.
It could only observe down to a depth of two to three meters underwater.
However, it was an experimental demon energy ship of the Holy Bright Empire, and since mass production was planned, it was certain to be equipped with various alchemy components suitable for different battlefield environments.
Only the appropriate components for underwater exploration had not yet been developed.
Hun Tong, of course, understood this disadvantage, which was why he had spent a fortune to acquire the Golden Eye.
With this Golden-Level component, even if the Golden Shiny couldn’t specifically observe underwater, it could lock onto high-value targets and guide the beam cannon for precise artillery fire.
This was also why Hun Tong hadn’t realized sooner the presence of the active Deep Sea Salvagers on the seabed during the melee.
The fact that War Merchants equipped the Deep Sea Monster Fish with Deep Sea Salvagers, rather than other models of similar puppets, indicated their capabilities.
These alchemy puppets were really great at salvaging sea resources.
During the melee, several of them had been destroyed by the beam cannon fire, but Zi Di had successfully recovered all the alchemy fragments.
And this point was the clue left for Hun Tong.
After reviewing the images and finding nothing, he checked the artillery fire records from the melee!
Suddenly, his eyes turned blood-red.
He had found the culprit!
“It seems you are the thieves!!”
“Naga! A group of Naga-shaped alchemy puppets!!”
“It was you who took my treasure, damn it, detestable!”
Hun Tong roared.
After a long while, he slowly calmed down.
His face distorted and ferocious, his eyes emitting an intimidating cold light, “Damn, did the Naga Priest bring these alchemy puppets?”
He first suspected the Naga Priest.
“No, that mysterious Undead Mage is also possible,” Cang Xu remembered.
The Iron Lump had been captured by a mysterious force of alchemy puppets, and these puppets clearly belonged to the Undead Mage.
Since he had one group of alchemy puppets, it was normal for there to be another group.
“But I didn’t notice these treasures being brought onto the Iron Lump?”
Hun Tong guessed for a long time, unable to pinpoint the real culprit.
“Damn it, damn it!”
He clenched his fists and smashed them hard onto the ship’s helm.
Unable to pinpoint the real culprit, how could he reclaim this huge treasure?
If he had a target, he might have already chased after them in the Golden Shiny.
It was so frustrating.
His meticulous plans had become possessions of others.
Hun Tong felt so upset that he wanted to vomit blood.
His plans had been good. He had controlled the overall situation during the melee and, per the developments at that time, he would have emerged as the biggest winner, taking everything.
But the Devil’s gold coins, the sudden appearance of giant Fishmen, and so forth, had ruined his favorable situation.
The melee ended, and Hun Tong was not panicked.
In his plan, the immense underwater treasure would have helped him quickly rise again, and his future achievements were expected to be much more significant than before the war!
This treasure was too important to him, too important for the entire Twin Eyes Island!
Critically important!
But now, it was gone.
Everything was gone.
Taken by someone else.
And Hun Tong didn’t even know by whom!
Hun Tong couldn’t help but cover his chest, closing his eyes tightly.
Pain.
Heart-wrenching pain.
As a devout believer of the Wealth Sect, the heartache from losing immense wealth felt a hundred times more intense than physical injuries.
The loss was severe, too severe.
For a moment, Hun Tong could hardly breathe.
“What now?”
He slowly opened his eyes, his face blank as he looked at the Magic Image.
The image showed the entirety of the new island.
Ruins which had been pillaged by pirates and battered by a Fishman army, a sight too grievous to bear.
Hun Tong’s heart chilled.
He had planned to use a part, just a small part, of the underwater treasure to extensively rebuild the new island.
But now it was gone.
The money was gone.
“What am I supposed to use for rebuilding?”
“Can I only dip into my savings?”
He still had some savings, but they were a drop in the bucket.
“Damn, how am I supposed to handle the Guild’s trouble under such circumstances?”
He hadn’t thought it a bother before, but now his brow deeply furrowed.
In the Magic Image, traders gathered in groups at the entrance of the City Lord’s mansion, pointing and making a clamor towards the clouds concealing the Golden Shiny.
“If I had known this would happen, I wouldn’t have paid the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps so much last night!”
Hun Tong felt a great regret.
Without money, everything was different for him.
“Hm?”
Just then, Hun Tong saw a group of people disembarking from the sea ship, heading towards the City Lord’s mansion.
Leading them were Long Fu and Lion Flag.
Besides them, there were a few carrying boxes.
Hun Tong recognized his familiar boxes.
Last night, he had given these boxes filled with silver coins as a reward to Lion Flag, also taking the opportunity to undermine them.
“They are bringing heavy funds to find me, what’s the matter?”
“Do they think the reward was too high and want to return some of it to me?”