Chapter 109 Chapter 108 Dividing the Spoils
When the third gate of the treasure vault opened, the gems on the ceiling emitted a faint yellow glow, and the piles of gold coins on the floor were bathed in a dazzling halo, shimmering like stars falling from the night sky.
Ji Ma almost couldn’t hold back, like a greedy dragon, diving into the pile of gold coins. Her heart was filled with ecstasy, but soon she thought:
This is all my hard-earned money.
Suddenly, her passion dwindled by more than half.
The Shadow King Arkanis squinted his eyes, squatted down, and reached into the pile of gold coins, lifting his hands to let the pristine coins fall through his fingers, producing a delightful clinking sound.
Ji Ma’s heart immediately sank.
“So much money,” the Shadow King Arkanis turned his head and smiled at Ji Ma, “Why don’t we see who’s faster with a blade to decide how to split the loot?”
All the defensive spells of the vault had been completely frozen.
Ji Ma’s heart settled. She said:
“We had an agreement.”
“I don’t have a sense of contract,” he snapped his fingers, and a pitch-black dagger appeared out of nowhere, spinning in his palm while the tip brushed against Ji Ma’s nose, “After all, I’m the one risking my life; you’re just a runner-up.”
Ji Ma shrank her head in fright and took a step back, while the Shadow King Arkanis stepped forward with a smile.
She said, “I didn’t expect the Shadow King Arkanis to be so greedy.”
“My interests have always been quite lowbrow.”
I can’t believe one day I’d actually get robbed.
Ji Ma stepped back, her foot landing on the pile of gold coins, halting her steps while staring at the dagger’s tip, forcing a smile:
“Don’t scare me; you still need me.”
“Mm? How do you know I’m not trying to scare you?”
“You can wait until I’ve finished showing you around the vault before stabbing me; that would be in your best interest,” Ji Ma said, straightening her posture, the fear on her face reducing significantly.
“Wrong!”
The Shadow King Arkanis suddenly raised his hand as if to stab her, making a sound for effect.
Ji Ma didn’t even blink.
“Boring.” The Shadow King Arkanis showed a regrettable expression, “I initially wanted to make you cry; kids nowadays are really.”
Ji Ma secretly sighed in relief and noted to herself, saying:
“You youthful Shadow King indeed has a childlike heart.”
“I’ll be straightforward; don’t think you can manipulate my mind.” The Shadow King Arkanis sheathed the dagger, “I can roughly guess the color of your underwear.”
Ji Ma’s first reaction was that this ill-tempered half-elf was peeking under her skirt. But then she recalled how she had previously used the color of her underwear to metaphorically express the importance of confidentiality regarding her extraordinary abilities.
She cautiously asked, “What do you mean?”
“Don’t keep making little finger gestures at me,” the Shadow King Arkanis said, “Seeing so much gold doesn’t evoke any feelings in me; even I don’t believe I’m becoming an ancient sage.”
Ji Ma awkwardly smiled, blinking away her desires. She had just quietly “provoked” Arkanis’s greedy instincts.
The two passed through the hall filled with gold coins and arrived in front of a door.
“We had an agreement,” Ji Ma emphasized again, extending her hand and pressing “nishishabi” on the stone keypad in front of the door. “I’ll choose the magical items first.”
“The more you speak, the more curious I get about your true identity and purpose,” the Shadow King Arkanis stroked his chin, “Do you think I should satisfy my curiosity?”
“I won’t ask you what you need the magical items for,” Ji Ma said, “Besides, I know there are some well-hidden, one-time-use things in the vault that can create quite a ruckus.”
“How good are they?”
“If they’re on the stone bridge, they’d have to go into the coffin early.”
The Shadow King Arkanis smiled, touching his rough red gemstone necklace, saying:
“Then you can rest assured, I won’t turn on you; after all, I wouldn’t want to anger a brave warrior; I quite like him.”
The door opened, and Ji Ma walked in, asking:
“Is that the reason?”
“Yes, the only reason.”
Inside the room was like a small exhibition hall. On a stone platform rested softly glowing potions, gemstone necklaces, runic armor, and more; all appeared to be powerful magical items.
The Shadow King Arkanis walked over to a pair of curved daggers and, after admiring them for a moment, said:
“Tsk tsk, the craftsmanship of dark elves, what a nice pair of curved daggers.”
“I suggest you don’t touch those fakes,” Ji Ma walked to the corner of the room and pressed a button. “These are all for show; picking them up will trigger traps.”
She opened the real magical item vault. An obsidian throne stood at the center of the room, with magical items on stone platforms flanking it like courtiers.
On the obsidian throne floated a dark golden crown with four slots for gems, but only one red gem was set in it.
The Shadow King Arkanis’s gaze narrowed as he stared at the crown, his voice slightly hoarse, saying:
“The Demon King’s Crown? Do you want to become a demon king?”
Legend says that the Demon King’s Crown once had four gems, but eventually, it was broken into four pieces and claimed by four great demons, each declaring themselves to be the demon king.
“You want it, take it.”
“Most likely fake,” the Shadow King Arkanis shook his head.
Ji Ma bent down to pick up seemingly discarded compass on the stone platform, saying:
“I’ll choose this.”
“And what about the one that belongs to the stone bridge returner?”
“Not here.”
“What’s the use of this key?”
“It can open a door on any wall,” Ji Ma said, “The downside is that after long contact with the body, a door will appear where it touches.”
“What a strange downside,” the Shadow King Arkanis said, “My Shadow Blade’s downside is merely inducing a desire to steal after use.”
“Do you want it?”
“Of course.”
The Shadow King Arkanis reached out and took the key.
Ji Ma grabbed a blood-filled ram’s horn cup. Drinking from it grants a regeneration speed like a troll and restores magic. The downside is that carrying it will lead to anemia, and excessive drinking will cause one’s body to grow mushrooms uncontrollably, leading to an irreversible, insane growth, turning one into a constantly writhing mass of flesh.
However, as long as one doesn’t drink more than three sips, it’s fine.
Ji Ma slung the heavy ram’s horn cup at her waist, her complexion turning significantly pale.
Magical items are good, but you can’t carry too many or use them excessively. Carrying too many means that besides a multitude of debuffs, the seemingly harmless debuffs piled together can cause mysterious conflicts, leading to catastrophic consequences.
Generally, carrying three items is most suitable; exceeding that can pose life-threatening risks.
Wait, those gold coins…
Ji Ma asked: “Are the gold coins you gave me a magical item?”
“Definitely.”
Then doesn’t that mean I can only carry one more magical item?
Ji Ma said: “This thing must mean something very important to you. I won’t take what you love.”
The Shadow King Arkanis, thick-skinned as he was, said, “What do you think I’m so kindly giving you this gold for?”
Ji Ma had no choice but to take back the gold coins and asked: “What’s the downside?”
“The love for gold, if after use you don’t have close contact with a large amount of gold, you’ll suffer a backlash and become very weak, to the extent that you could die from a fall.”
Ji Ma suppressed the impulse to run back into the treasury and grab more gold.
The Shadow King Arkanis chose a lute that could make his voice more enchanting and inspiring.
Ji Ma picked a lucky ring that could save her life at the cost of sometimes having very bad luck but not fatal.
After finishing the selection of magical items, Ji Ma then found a large number of one-time-use spell scrolls for the Shadow King Arkanis.
Later, Ji Ma found a dimensional bag and began to stuff gold coins and gems into it.
“What do you need so much money for?” Arkanis took a bag of gold coins and said: “We need to hurry; your man already sent tracking signals as soon as he was kicked into the portal.”
“Let me fill this bag with coins first.”
“Goodbye.”
The Shadow King Arkanis simply walked away, and Ji Ma ignored him, focusing on pouring the gold coins into the dimensional bag. Until the coins overflowed, she lifted the bag, estimating there might be two thousand coins inside. Unfortunately, carrying magical items in it could cause problems.
At this moment, a loud noise came from outside the door. The entire treasury trembled slightly.
“What’s happening?”
Ji Ma grabbed the brown dimensional bag and rushed out. After running for over a hundred meters, she saw the silver-haired Arkanis at the control panel near the door, his hair rooted up and the tips darkened.
He dropped a charred paper from his hand and said:
“You lied to me; the password you gave me was fake.”
“Don’t wrong me; when I gave you the paper, I didn’t expect to be captured by you as well,” Ji Ma said. “I might have remembered it incorrectly.”
“Come here.” The Shadow King Arkanis, with the lute on his back, said, “If you don’t get struck by lightning, I’ll kick your butt.”
When Ji Ma approached the control panel, the glass screen displayed a bright line of text: “Password Incorrect, Locking for Fifteen Minutes.”
She said:
“It’s locked.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means nothing can move.”
“Forget it; I won’t kick your butt; quickly close this vault filled with gold coins.”
Just like before, the hall filled with gold coins was almost ten in total. The Shadow King Arkanis was worried that if it fell into the hands of the great benefactor, his plans would be thwarted.
Ji Ma picked up the paper and said:
“Let me see which part of the password is wrong.”
She pointed at the line of English with her finger, pretending to think hard, reading aloud: “HelloWord, missing an L; it should be HelloWorld.”
“Hurry up; if your man shows up at the front door, I want to see you still dawdling here.”
Ji Ma felt an unexplainable panic; she turned her head and glanced at the tunnel leading to the door, fearing that George’s familiar voice might echo from within. She estimated the time, recalling the position of the vault, feeling that if George rushed ahead, he should be finding it quickly.
Suddenly, she felt anxious.
Finally, after the long fifteen minutes passed, Ji Ma quickly input the password, selecting “Vault Shutdown Mode.”
For a while, the vault door would remain tightly shut, and even with a “key,” it couldn’t be opened, only forced open with brute strength, unless one found a secret passage.
Closing the vault door, she walked out of the rocky tunnel. The tunnel entrance behind her closed again, looking like normal rock.
The moon had set, and the starlight was dim. The sky was dark, just like the darkness before dawn.
Ji Ma gazed at the pitch-black night sky, feeling as if she had been dreaming. Not only had she sealed the vault and obtained two magical items, but she had also secured a “clue” in advance. It felt so smooth that it was a bit frightening, just like staying at an internet café all night without parents searching for her.
She felt that with the successful plot, she had completely mastered the ability to manipulate nightmares.
Just as she was preparing to check her newly acquired powers, she vaguely heard the sound of hooves. She quickly rushed to the edge of the cliff and saw at the foot of the mountain a row of torches climbing the only path to the top, within which there were figures she recognized.
“Arkanis, how much does it cost for kids to hide from their parents?” Ji Ma turned around and asked.
But the back was empty, and the mountain wind blew, sending small stones swirling; it seemed that the Shadow King Arkanis was merely a figment of her imagination.
———
There would be an update at seven o’clock.
