Chapter 342: 140. Treasury
Fisher gripped Moli’s hand tightly. The mont the teleportation portal opened, he felt his body lighten instantly as he began to float mid-air.
But when he looked around, he realized that they were no longer in the Royal Library. Instead, they were covered in a pitch-black hue that subtly shimred with a flowing light.
“Hold on tight!”
The massive pull made Moli nervous; a bit of sweat ford in her small palms. Fisher, worried he might lose his grip, quickly extended his other hand for her to hold.
However, as Moli struggled to reach out her other hand, the pulling force around them suddenly twisted into a suction. The next second, like a flash, they both appeared in another location, and gravity returned to normal.
“Cough cough…”
Fisher covered his mouth, his body touching a sowhat icy floor. When he looked up again, he realized that they were in an extrely unfamiliar room.
The whole room was pitch black, but as Moli also got up, crystal-clear phosphorescent light began to spread across the surrounding walls.
The phosphorescence was very similar to what they had seen beneath the Nali Lake waterways. It was typical of the Whale-man Species’ style—this soft, not very bright light was friendly to them in the pitch-black Sea Trench.
“Ouch… Did Blake and the others always feel this discomfort every ti they entered their vault?”
Moli cradled her head as she climbed out of a pile of Gold, which included large Nali gold coins and vessels made of gold. She had accidentally hit her head on so hard objects when she fell, making her speech sound pitifully soft.
“No, it’s an extra layer of Magic I used that disrupted the original magic’s effect, causing a slight deviation in our teleportation. We need to find Anna quickly. If Blake finds them first, there could be trouble.”
“Alright!”
Moli gently pushed off the gold coins from her body, slightly raised herself, but then turned back suddenly as if she sensed sothing. Fisher also looked in the direction of her gaze.
There, on the walls of the room filled with gold, enveloped by traces of phosphorescence, hung a large painting that was clearly visible under the light—so much so that even the surrounding gold seed sowhat lesser in comparison.
The painting, rendered in full-color oil brushstrokes, was extrely delicate. After the artist’s detailed work, a vivid scene seed almost replicated right in front of Fisher and Moli.
In the painting, on the deck of a ship, two people leaned against each other, both smiling towards the painter’s perspective.
A man and a woman; the man had extrely handso features, golden hair neatly tucked under a pitch-black captain’s hat. He appeared tall and robust, at least two heads taller than the woman beside him, though his skin seed sowhat tanned by the sun.
He was holding the woman next to him, who was dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt, closely with a gentle smile. The woman, likewise gentle, made a ‘V’ sign with one hand towards the painter while placing her other hand behind the man’s waist.
Below was a line of text,
“Gedelin IX, Blake Vasili and Mu Xi in the Northern Sea.”
“To commorate this precious ti.”
In the painting, Mu Xi still had the appearance of a human, which ant she was still under Ramasitia’s Blessing and hadn’t exposed her true Whale-man Species form due to any injuries.
“Let’s go, Moli…”
“…Oh, okay.”
Moli slowly withdrew her gaze and followed Fisher out of the treasure room. Once outside, Fisher realized that this vault was huge and complex in structure.
The corridors of the vault were completely suspended, below was a vast, dark space with the faint sound of flowing water—notably, it seed to be a perfectly-ford underground cavern, very deep, and it was a mystery how Blake had located it.
As they walked further into the building ahead, the walls along the corridor closed off again. Niches carved into the walls, used for storing items, lined their path. Fisher observed that the items in these niches were not any significantly valuable treasures.
There was Kado’s Prayer Windmill, its paper yellowed and crumpled due to age, leaning against the wall of the niche; there was Schwali’s Dragon Roar Whistle, a toy whistle made for children by Schwali that would emit a sound like a dragon’s roar when blown.
Even more outrageous was a stack of Northern Realm’s “female worship and male inferiority” romance tales in one of the niches, with the top book’s cover awkwardly inscribed in Nali text, “Blake’s favorite kind.”
Beside that inscription, in a completely different red ink, was a small cross with,
“Not really!”
Moli pursed her lips as she walked past these small niches, the items all not being any treasure worthy of note, but rather seed like recorded snapshots from a couple’s life.
Their records of changing exploration ships; the first villa they bought at Nali Lake; photos taken when Mu Xi, dressed as a wealthy miss, was secretly brought by Blake into a Gedelin social gathering…
At the end of the corridor, there hung another huge fra, but this ti it wasn’t an oil painting inside, but a clear black and white photograph, which also featured Magic for preservation and Reinforcent, which Fisher noticed at a glance.
In the picture appeared a holy church, yet no priest was seen within it, and under the compassionate Mother Goddess Statue, there were only Blake and Mu Xi.
Blake was dressed in a pure black ceremonial suit, gently holding Mu Xi’s hand; and Mu Xi entirely revealed her Whale-man Species appearance, with long ears and a fishtail similar to Moli’s, extending down along her slender white dress.
The gentleman was handso, standing tall and straight; the lady was beautiful, with a soft physique.
The hands of two people from different races were tightly clasped together, exchanging a gold ring twinkling with a faint luster on their ring fingers.
Indeed, at that mont, the Whale-man Species nad Mu Xi was wearing a Nali wedding dress, and she and Blake had held a wedding in a certain church in Saint Nali…
But in that church, there were no priests, no guests, no flower children or bridesmaids, just the two of them, wearing smiles and leaving behind this unique photograph.
Similarly, under this photograph was a row of elegant Nali text,
“Happy honeymoon!”
In the end, Blake truly chose to marry a demi-human, a deed considered taboo, made by the esteed “the first pioneer,” unacknowledged by society, an unrecognized marriage that could only be held silently in so church in Saint Nali without witnesses.
He had once been imnsely wealthy, betrothed to a princess by Gedelin IX, yet he decisively refused and never approached any other woman because he had a secret Whale-man Species wife…
In this regard, Fisher certainly felt inferior; even he had to admit that Blake, who took this action, had courage beyond ordinary people.
But perhaps it was this type of courage, unbounded by social norms and daring to forge a new path, that eventually made Blake Vasili beco a historically renowned Pioneer.
“Blake, he… and auntie…”
“They were deeply in love once.”
Looking at the black and white photograph that recorded the past, Fisher finally said so.
And behind that photograph wall was where Blake’s true vault lay, aning, the path that Moli and Fisher had walked before was rely the route leading to the entrance of the vault.
It seed that Xiayat and Anna had been directly teleported inside the vault since the Teleportation Magic was a bit unstable earlier…
Fisher and Moli had already heard so faint noises inside, so they hurried to the entrance gate of the Blake Vault.
The entrance gate was a stone door about ten ters high, with no access control system set, just needing physical force to push open, and the Nali text on it read,
“This is the entrance to a place housing treasures collected over a lifeti by a ruthless Pioneer, not the entrance to the Blake Vasili Vault.”
“All his treasures you have already glimpsed before this gate.”
After those two lines of impactful text, Fisher paused for a second, then gently pushed open the giant door, and a chilling breeze blew in, broadening their view once again.
Before them was a luxuriously decorated golden hall, although there was nothing inside it, the air was already filled with the scent of gold, treasures, Magic fluctuations, and relics.
At the very top of the hall, the Mother Goddess Statue, carved from precious gemstones, looked down rcifully at the underside of the hall, where corridors stretched in all directions, packed densely with treasures of various classifications; sounds of horseshoes and rustling footsteps could be faintly heard from them.
“Fisher! Look, the floor here is even inlaid with rubies…”
“Yes, he traveled back and forth across the world’s corners in over a dozen different Pioneer ships, collecting any valuable object along the way and bringing them back here; given the scale of this place, the collection is at least forty tis that of the treasures in the Royal Museum upstairs… and that’s not even counting those priceless items.”
“Click-clack-click-clack!”
Just as Fisher entered the bustling hall, a sudden burst of rapid hoofbeats ca from deep within the corridor beside the first floor, and Fisher’s expression slightly changed, knowing now was not the ti for a leisurely stroll and explanation with Moli, as they were still in danger.
“Let’s first find Anna and Xiayat, this way.”
The two quickly moved their feet, heading deep into the dark corridors.
Above the hall, the crystal-carved Mother Goddess Statue looked down rcifully at the now empty hall, and behind the colorful glass at the rear of the hall was an even broader space; from this vantage point, one could see a tall figure in a cloak, leaning against the wall and slowly walking out, panting as he looked towards them.
“Hah…”
“Hmm…”
And from many rooms continued to co terrifying low growls, and Fisher and Moli, after running to that corridor, quickly moved towards there…
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