In this pitch-black cave, apart from the sound of water dripping, there was only the sound of footsteps.
* Swoosh. *
The addition of alchemical accelerant caused the torch's light to become even brighter, allowing me to clearly see the decorations around me.
The crude cave obviously wasn't the official entrance. It was a vast area as far as the eye could see.
The rock wall above me was more than a hundred meters tall, and a series of gray palaces stretched as far as I could see. Gray brick stairs formed a path between the palaces.
Under the palace complex, there were small brick bungalows, but now all that was left of them were broken brick walls.
This place should have once been the ruins of some civilization, but it was obvious that it had been robbed more than once. Apart from the stone statues that couldn't be moved, the robbers didn't leave anything behind. The golden skin and gems on the statues had all been dug out.
Perhaps it was because the craftsmanship wasn't good enough, or perhaps it was too ancient, but the murals on the walls were all gray and black. Even the parchment scrolls were so rotten that they were unrecognizable.
"Did I miss again?"
The silly cat's words caused my heart to tighten. If I really did encounter a target that was stolen by a robber, then it would truly be like searching for a needle in a haystack.
"… Let's ask the gatekeeper first."
Skeletons walked out from the ruins. Most of them were dressed like grave robbers, but there were also some skeletons with bird heads.
"Undead?"
I actually heaved a sigh of relief when I saw the enemy. The most common type of undead in ruins and ruins were all sorts of undead.
As far as I could see, most of the undead here were skeleton-type. There were low-level skeleton soldiers (commoner version), skeleton archers, and skeleton laborers. However, the highest-level undead here were probably only a few skeleton mages. There were no liches here.
The existence of these undead here meant that this ruin hadn't been repeatedly cleaned out yet. There should still be valuable items here.
Even if there were high-level undead here, they wouldn't be intelligent existences. After all, even the solitary liches would occasionally want to go out for a stroll. It would be acceptable for them to stay underground for several hundred years, but several thousand years or tens of thousands of years would be too much.
Many people believed that the older the undead were, the stronger they would be. In a way, this was a misconception.
Generally speaking, the more intelligent the undead were, the less likely they were to be weak.
"Tsk, they're already eroded. Don't break them too much before I extract their memories."
The negative energy of the Skeleton Soldiers in front of him was starting to dissipate. Their bones were about to turn into fossils. Some of them even fell apart on their own as they walked. What kind of combat strength did they have left?
It wasn't that the longer the undead lived, the stronger they would become. It was that only the powerful undead could live for so long.
Low-level unintelligent undead that had been alone for a long time would gradually weaken as their negative energy dissipated, and they might even return to dust. If the negative energy density in that area was very high, it was also possible for a new undead to appear in a pile of corpses and broken bones, which was completely different from a natural undead.
Only the intelligent undead would consciously gather more negative energy, gradually becoming stronger, more cunning, and more solitary.
The skeletal creatures in front of them gave off the feeling that a gust of wind would blow them to the ground. Perhaps the enclosed environment here gave them enough protection.
These undead guards could bully graverobbers who didn't have much power, but they were useless against a necromancer like me.
A few low-level enslaved Undead went down and seized control of these masterless Undead.
I directly extracted the memories from the Skeleton Soldiers' soul fragments, but I furrowed my eyebrows.
"The oldest undead here are less than a thousand years old. They crawled out from the remains of this place. At the time, this place was already in ruins. Later, the earth's crust shifted, making it even harder to find the entrance. There aren't any treasures here, so nobody ever comes here. "
I would rather have an undead bone dragon block my way than encounter such a situation … If I searched bit by bit, who knew how long it would take? It was even possible that I wouldn't find anything in the end.
I was even more unwilling to just turn around and leave like this.
"I smell the scent of the living. Who dares to disturb the glorious Grimm Card's slumber?"
I suddenly heard an angry roar from the palace. This was a secret conversation between souls, something only high-level undead were capable of. Judging from the mana fluctuations and the dragon's tone, it seemed to be a bone dragon?
Soon, a ghost dragon flew out from the palace. Although it was only a small dragon that was less than five meters long, its voice reached me before it even arrived.
"So the jinx is still useful …"
Two minutes later, the ghost dragon that had been baring its fangs and claws earlier was now clutching its head and lying on the ground. At my "friendly request," it "enthusiastically" explained the situation around it to me.
"Mirror? Something that shines? Something that can reflect the light of other objects? "
This small ghost dragon didn't even seem to know what a mirror was. However, with my "enthusiastic help," it soon recalled something.
"I think I saw it a long time ago, but I couldn't bite it, so I casually threw it away. I don't know where it is now, but it should be here."
I couldn't even be bothered to get angry at the ghost dragon's foolish expression.
It would be quite difficult to extract memories that even the ghost dragon couldn't remember. I had no intention of slowly searching through several hundred years of this ghost dragon's memories.
In that case …
"This dragon is still useful. At the very least, it means that it's sturdy enough and doesn't fear torture. In that case, all of you, get moving! Find it even if you have to dig three feet underground! "
One skeleton soldier after another stood up from the ground and picked up their hoes, knives, and forks as they began their treasure hunt.
I was worried that we wouldn't have enough people, so I even summoned an additional group of undead to help with the search.
As a veteran tomb robber — er, adventurer — it wasn't like I hadn't experienced exploring ruins before. Treasures wouldn't be placed in treasure chests for you to open like in games, nor would they naturally drop when you killed some monster.
Judging from the intense magical waves, it was obvious that these treasures were good items. They were most likely cursed items or traps. Nobody would casually bring their entire treasure trove around. Even monsters with low intelligence would have plenty of disguises and traps in their treasure troves.
Without a good eye for appraising treasures, even a valuable antique would be treated as scrap metal. I had already seen a dozen amateurs who would treat shiny, gold-plated swords as if they were treasures. In those legendary stories, the lucky ones who picked up God Equipment from grocery stores were usually idiots who treated the God Equipment as scrap metal and sold it off.
Although this was ninety-nine percent likely to be a scam used by unscrupulous merchants to scam newcomers, there were indeed a few precedents. After all, not every adventurer's team would bring along a veteran appraiser. Some goods were obtained through illegal means, especially when it came to tomb robbers who robbed nobles' tombs. They would be satisfied if they could get their goods out safely. It was quite common for them to sell their goods at a low price.
"In that case, you've picked up leftovers before? Bought something good at a low price? "
The silly cat was rather astonished.
"No, I've seen others pick up leftovers before. For example, Cavendish, Cavendish, Adam, Adam …"
I felt more and more that the world was unfair. Why was it that these low-intelligence creatures always succeeded in picking up leftovers? Even though I repeatedly appraised and inspected items, I never found any treasure, so …
"That's why I opened my own shop in Sulfur Mountain City, specializing in selling 'unappraised stolen goods' and 'antiques picked up from underground tombs.' I sold them for five hundred silver coins each. At first, business was quite good."
"… You're still able to maintain a long-term supply of those random items? You must've arranged for someone to 'win' them, right? "
"My antique craftsmanship was quite good, and I also had all the random items my System gave me …"
Heloise shook her head. She had also guessed what had happened after that.
"You were exposed later, so you couldn't continue your business?"
"… No, although I indeed couldn't continue my business afterwards, that wasn't the reason."
"Then what was it? You felt that it was boring? "
"… I was careless and made a mistake. I really sold a God Equipment for five hundred silver coins. I lost so much that I cried, so I couldn't continue my business anymore."
"With your personality, you actually couldn't think of a way to get it back? Oh, I get it. Don't tell me that the one who bought it was Adam? "
I nodded heavily. This incident had left a shadow in my heart. I had lost at least ten years' worth of business. I would never open my shop again.
I chatted with Heloise from time to time to pass the time.
The low-level undead were helping me search for the mirror, but I really didn't know how long it would take for them to find it.
"Reflective shards," "Hard stones." These were the crude orders I gave these low-level undead. They were so complex that they couldn't understand them. Some skeleton soldiers were already holding strangely shaped stones in front of me. It would seem that I would have to look for them for a long time.
One year? Half a year? But the God of Luck actually favored me just once. After the broken stones piled up into a small mountain in front of me, a skeleton worker who was almost rotting brought me the magic mirror in less than a week.
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