The Shepherds Are Dense – Chapter 1093

Chapter 1092
Opening the Hrasal Secret Treasury

Eivass and Yulia had arrived in the Star Antimony Territory on May 28th.
The primary purpose of their journey was to accompany Yulia in opening the Hrasal Secret Treasury. After that, they would contact Landon Viness von Beyad to retrieve the Holy Sword that the Moriarty Family had deposited there.
The first objective could be accomplished in just one day.
This was because the entrance to the Hrasal Secret Treasury was located beneath the Victorious Palace in Lionheart City.
The reason the first generation Valentine chose this location to build the Victorious Palace was to prevent anyone else from obtaining the Hrasal Secret Treasury, thus preventing them from acquiring the power to resist the Star Antimony’s rule.
By placing the Royal Palace here, they could effectively prevent any unknown entities from opening the Secret Treasury.

The method to open the Hrasal Secret Treasury required the blood of the Hercules family—not dead, but fresh.
The Star Antimony King’s scepter was itself a key.
By inserting it into the single gap in the Basement and injecting mana of six attributes in equilibrium, the ground would begin to churn.
Runes would flow across the earth, unlocking protective barriers one by one.
These defenses were not made by the Hrasal people, but by the sealing device created by the first generation Valentine. This scepter was the key used to hide the Hrasal Secret Treasury.

With a series of complex mechanical sounds, the seemingly ordinary ground transformed into a colossal machine constructed from intricate golden structures. They stood in the center of the scene, on a small circular platform. A raised golden disk, resembling a self-service machine with a touch screen that Eivass recalled, rotated and appeared before them.
It was inscribed with numerous runes and ciphers, so complex as to be indecipherable. This was the true “lock” of the Hrasal Secret Treasury.
Even after so many years, it still rotated, emitting a peculiar dark gold radiant light.
Scholars had attempted to decipher this mechanism for a very long time, but they were unable to break through it through brute force or decipher its encoding rules. It was too precise; any act of violence could lead to the mechanism’s self-destruction, and they had no understanding of the rules upon which the device operated.
Perhaps the Mages of the Daffodil Territory could solve this puzzle. It was merely a problem of pure mathematics and coding, and finding the backdoor to crack it would not be difficult for them. The computational load would likely take them only a few months with the assistance of their Mage Towers.
However, just as it was the cause of the Star Antimony Kingdom’s downfall—the Valentine Family could never allow the Mages of the Daffodil Territory to access this device. It was related to the Hrasal Secret Treasury, a fortune so immense it could establish a nation.
Only internal members of the Valentine Family could interact with it.
This was also why the Valentine Family prioritized powerful Alchemists as their successors: they still hoped that a genius would emerge among their descendants to solve all these difficulties.
This puzzle had also stumped generations of Valentines.
But solving this puzzle was an unconventional method of access. Its true purpose was simply to inject the fresh blood of Hercules.

Yulia cut her palm before the golden disk, allowing her blood to drip slowly onto the compass from her fingertips.
Thick blood… *drip*. *drip*.
When the blood landed on the compass, it suddenly shone with a golden radiance, illuminating the dim space.
Immediately, it began to spin and disassemble—the blood was poured into hidden pipes in the center.
Then, one by one, runes lit up.
Four giant jewels in the Basement were gradually illuminated.
Green, red, blue, yellow.
The four colored gem lights turned on—
It was said to be a simple code.
It was originally supposed to be a riddle, but to prevent others from deciphering it and obtaining the treasury, the Valentine Family had destroyed the original question. However, the answer had been successfully deciphered by the Star Antimony Royal Family—the correct code was Three Red, Two Yellow, One Blue, Four Red. A second person would need to tap the jewels in sequence to activate the mechanism.
When the code was entered correctly, a faint, hazy portal shimmered into existence in the air.
Yulia still needed to maintain the posture of slowly dripping blood, standing before the disk. If she stopped the blood infusion, the portal would close.
And entering the Secret Treasury were Eivass and Noel, the last Queen of Star Antimony.
She was very curious about the Hrasal Secret Treasury, wanting to know what kind of treasures were hidden within—Red Phase had previously brought a Hercules’ heart and used it to enter the Hrasal Secret Treasury once. Because the duration was not long, he came out quickly.
Ever since then, he had been thinking about it constantly.
But when asked what was inside, he would only smile and refuse to say.
He had also taken out several Grimoires from within… this made Noel very curious. However, since then, they had never obtained Hercules’ blood again, and thus had been unable to open the secret door to this treasure.
So, upon Eivass’s invitation, she immediately agreed to witness the miraculous day when the Hrasal Secret Treasury was opened—
This portal seemed to be a form of ancient teleportation—upon entering, they experienced intense pulling and strong impact. It was like being in the trunk of a car whose car was engaging in a wild off-road drive. When the violent dizziness subsided, they were transported to a vault with no doors or windows.
—This was a giant underground vault.
Its shape resembled a reservoir… except that instead of water, it was overflowing with gold.
This gold was neatly cast into ingots and arranged within the “vault.” Because they did not know how deep the “reservoir” was, they had no idea how much gold it contained.
Other than that, there was almost nothing else inside.
“So, it’s just this…”
Noel murmured, “Only gold?”
She was somewhat disappointed.
While this was indeed wealth sufficient to establish a nation—this astonishing amount of gold might even surpass the total national wealth of Star Antimony. After all, it was the accumulated wealth of the Hrasal Empire for over a thousand years, so this level was not surprising.
She felt it was rather lacking… because, in the end, it was just gold. This amount of gold might be useful to a country, but for an individual, it had already lost its meaning—even if the quantity were reduced a hundredfold, it would still be impossible to spend.
For the newly established Neo-Hrasal Empire, this was a good gift.
If Star Antimony had been able to open the Hrasal Secret Treasury back then, they would not have been on the verge of economic collapse and forced into war…
—But, what about the Grimoires?
What about other treasures? Were there no extraordinary items?
“You’re looking for treasures from the extraordinary world?”
Eivass simply smiled, “That’s simple enough…”
Saying this, he pointed to the vault. “They’re all down there.
“The reason is also simple—extraordinary items wear out over time and therefore need to be enclosed within a barrier that isolates the interior from the exterior. And this gold is another layer of the barrier, used to block the attrition of extraordinary concepts…
“This gold is merely the lid.”

(End of Chapter)