Chapter 78: Buried Treasure

The excitement in Lancaster City changed nothing in Grey Fjord Port, many miles away.

Now that she understood the significance of Warty Tidal Flat to the frogmen tribe, Princess Leah abandoned her plans to lay an ambush for their enemies there. After some discussion with the leaders of the various player parties, they decided to attack from the woods about two kilometers away from the cliffs. According to Edward, who’d infiltrated the Society of the Secret Eye to provide information on where they were gathered, unless the enemy forces purposely extended their route by another fifteen or sixteen kilometers to go around the woods, they would definitely be passing through there.

The scouts they’d sent to spy on the Secret Eye’s camps had been discovered by the enemy, and immediately slain. Things were really getting exciting now.

Currently, the players still lacked the ability to exchange instant messages over long distances, but party leaders were able to monitor the status of their teammates. When those scouts fell afoul of the enemy sortie, they used a code that had been arranged ahead of time, applying a certain series of buffs upon themselves in a specific order. With this rudimentary coded message, they were able to inform their team leaders—a dozen kilometers away—that the enemy was on the move.

In response to this alert, the players leapt into action.

Transportation methods in this setting were generally unimpressive. Ordinary people travelling in such weather should only be able to move at a crawl. At best, they could maybe get some sleds, and somehow find some Huskies to pull them through the snow. The warrior-type classes were unable to use magic to summon up any mounts, but they could run at the speed of bullet trains, and easily surpass the speed of sound. Inclement weather meant nothing to them.

The members of the Society of the Secret Eye couldn’t come anywhere close to such superhuman feats. Even Black Whip, the mightiest among them, was only comparable to a player at Level 40 or so. Without any high-level divine gifts, he probably couldn’t even go toe-to-toe with a high priest of the Rotten Bones. All things considered, the very fastest he could go was only at about the speed of a horse-drawn chariot.

Moving out immediately upon receiving that signal from the scouts, the players were easily able to find good ambush positions, and lay in wait to catch the Secret Eye troops by surprise.

Xi Wei himself granted all the participating players a limited-time consumable item, Eggnog: Even if they had to lie in the freezing snow for half the day, one mouthful of that Eggnog and they’d be back on their feet at full strength, untouched by the cold!

Besides that, perhaps inspired by the players’ astounding abilities, the normally sedate frogmen had become alive with energy, positively swarming from the nest to assist the players with their ambush on the Society of the Secret Eye!

Even the frogman elder had produced some long, crooked staff from a corner of his great conch shell of a home, and came following after them along with Croakatoa. In his own words, this ambush would do little to help their situation, but he would come along anyway, and support his fellow frogmen with combat buffs.

This meant there was no one in the frogmen village at the moment.

To the frogmen, this would be a last, desperate stand. Removing themselves from their homes meant distancing themselves from distractions. Whatever might happen to those empty houses was of no concern to them now. They’d left nothing of value behind besides some salted fish.

It wasn’t as though the Society of the Secret Eye was after their material goods. Their only interest was in the land. Even if they somehow got around the ambush and occupied the village, it wouldn’t serve any purpose. It was hard to imagine that they’d go to so much trouble for something that would gain them no merit.

However, this presented a delightful opportunity for Xi Wei.

Descending to the mortal world straight away, he strolled through the frogmen village.

Truth be told, the players had already turned over the soil three feet deep, all throughout the village. Not even a metal detector would find you any treasures here—besides the salted fish.

But Xi Wei was looking for something hidden much deeper.

“I knew it. This ain’t no ordinary village.” He’d already had his suspicions: The frogmen shouldn’t have the ability to bring down a monster over ten meters in length, and even use its shell for a home. As such, the massive structure at the center of the village raised certain questions.

Prior to their alliance, the frogman elder had told them that it was this Aquatic Lord of theirs who had helped their ancestors settle the land here.

Nearly a thousand years ago, these frogmen had to have been little more than primitive cavemen. How had they all been anchored to a specific spot like this? What would have been the simplest way to accomplish this?

By creating a highly conspicuous landmark.

And what sort of landmark would inspire the frogmen to willingly take residence upon this sandy beach?

The answer was as clear as day: A ready-made home with many rooms within, which could endure for millennia.

“It’s more than a landmark…” Xi Wei knocked upon the chitinous walls, and sensed faint traces of magic flowing through them. Realization dawned upon him. “It also serves as a magical focus. Ah, the patterns on the surface are actually runic symbols… Interesting. A shell like this would already be infused with magical energies, and should be able to repair itself to some degree. Channeling the power of their faith, it could lure an abundance of fish to the shallow waters nearby. Maybe it wards off sea monsters, too?”

Whichever the case, this leviathan seashell was a landmark not just for the frogmen ancestors, but for Xi Wei as well.

It didn’t take him long to figure out the pattern behind the enchantments. Judging by the alignment of the shell, he was able to locate the nexus point. Standing at that spot, he opened his senses to the world.

In an instant, his perception pierced through the earth below.

Approximately one thousand and five hundred meters below the surface, there was an altar. It wasn’t something humans could have made—it looked like a holy symbol which had somehow manifested into a physical thing, and it was still emanating a faint hint of divinity.

There, at the center of the altar, lay what Xi Wei was looking for: The body of the Aquatic Lord!

Not shattered remnants, as Xi Wei had assumed at first; it was a whole, complete body!

Well, perhaps not completely whole—examining the body more closely, he discovered numerous defects.

Comparing a divine avatar to a crystal ball, the Aquatic Lord was cracked all over, like a crystal ball that had been shattered all to pieces, and then put back together again.

And filling up those cracks, like the glue holding everything together, was a thousand years of faith from the frogmen!