Chapter 148: Mine! Mine! It's All Mine!

"Are you saying there's a passage to the palace right here?"

Lan Qingyou looked doubtfully at Little Spoon, who was waving its front paws wildly in the air.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak!"

Like a child desperate to return to its mother's embrace, Little Spoon completely ignored Lan Qingyou, merely repeating the exact same motion over and over.

Lan Qingyou glanced over, only to find that the area was still nothing but a pile of ruins.

But since the Treasure Hunting Rat was acting so incredibly anxious, it meant there was definitely something there.

Promptly, Lan Qingyou stepped forward and used a Card to absorb and spit out all the scattered Stones, wood, and other debris.

Relying on this constant cycle of absorbing and depositing, she quickly cleared out the entire area.

To prevent anyone from seeing what she was doing, she arranged the cleared building rubble in a neat circle around the perimeter.

After all, this was a treasure hunt. Wasn't this exactly how it played out in all those novels and TV shows?

No matter how careful you were, the only certainty was that something unexpected would eventually happen.

Knowing that, it was only natural to be extra cautious.

After clearing the ruins and setting up her desired safety cover, Lan Qingyou began her search. Eventually, under Little Spoon's guidance, she uncovered a downward-facing iron door that resembled a cellar entrance.

The iron door wasn't large.

It measured about two meters by two meters and was a double-door design.

Judging by the rust on the surface, which was at least half a centimeter thick, this door had clearly been here for a very long time.

It perfectly fit the concept of a "treasure location."

Impatiently, Lan Qingyou pulled out her Appraisal Glasses and placed them on her face. After thoroughly checking the area and confirming there were no issues, she handed Little Spoon over to Steel Wool and reached out to open the door.

The moment the door opened, a strong gust of air rushed through the entrance and deep into the space beyond.

Since it had been sealed for so long, it was completely normal for the air inside to have been depleted.

Poking her head over to look down the pitch-black Basement entrance, Lan Qingyou decided it was best to wait a moment.

After waiting outside for about ten minutes, she slowly pulled out a Magic Carriage Lantern, then brought Steel Wool and Little Spoon down into the depths.

Originally, Lan Qingyou thought this place would be like a cellar, especially since she had seen similar setups at Albert's place.

But who could have guessed that it was actually a tunnel.

From the moment she entered, Lan Qingyou had been continuously flying forward.

Fortunately, the passage was quite spacious. The two-meter by two-meter space meant she didn't have to claw at the walls and drag herself forward slowly like an astronaut in zero gravity.

It was obvious without even looking closely that this place had been artificially excavated.

Both the walls and the floor were completely paved with bluestone slabs.

Of course, due to years of disrepair, some of the stone slabs on the ceiling had long since fallen off, exposing the Soil beneath.

However, it was extremely strange.

Soil like this should naturally grow some form of vegetation, yet there wasn't even a single weed sprouting here.

It was impeccably clean.

Aside from the musty odor of stagnant air and the earthy scent of dirt, the place was so clean that Lan Qingyou found it somewhat unbelievable.

Yet, the Appraisal Glasses didn't provide any special information. It was just ordinary soil laced with trace amounts of magic power.

The magical concentration wasn't even as high as that of a Slime.

Therefore, Lan Qingyou was exceptionally cautious for the remainder of the journey. Just to be safe, she even set up numerous Frost Potion traps along the way.

That way, whether there was danger lurking ahead or an unexpected ambush from behind, she would be able to handle it calmly.

When it came to her own Potions, Lan Qingyou was brimming with confidence.

The tunnel was incredibly long. Lan Qingyou herself couldn't even tell how long she had been walking, knowing only to keep moving forward, endlessly forward.

After an unknown amount of time had passed, where even the concept of time seemed to blur, Lan Qingyou finally arrived at an open area.

Pfft!

The moment she stepped inside, just a simple sweep of the Magic Carriage Lantern in her hand revealed an absolute hoard of good things.

And they were all items she could actually use.

This made her so overwhelmingly excited that a nosebleed sprayed from her nostrils, giving Steel Wool and Little Spoon a massive fright.

"Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap! What is that?! What am I looking at?!"

Hardly daring to believe her eyes, Lan Qingyou pulled off her glasses and rubbed them. After putting them back on, she realized she wasn't seeing things or suffering from hallucinations.

Normally, Lan Qingyou would never swear, unless she absolutely couldn't hold it in.

And the scene before her was exactly the kind of situation that pushed her over the edge.

What was the one thing that had constantly plagued Lan Qingyou's Alchemy all this time?

The answer was exceedingly simple: tools.

Although she had inherited some of the legacy left behind by Albert, it was barely half a set of tools, perhaps even less.

But here, from Crucibles to alchemy pedestals, from Stirring Rods to Medicine Pounding Mortars, they had absolutely everything.

Lan Qingyou even spotted quite a few Humanoid Magic Puppets.

However, just like everything else, the relentless passage of time meant these items were, without exception, heavily rusted and terribly fragmented.

But that didn't matter. At the very least, Lan Qingyou wasn't picky.

"Could this be some sort of wholesale warehouse for an Alchemist's tools? Or maybe a storage bunker?"

Even as Lan Qingyou voiced her doubts, her hands didn't slow down for a single second.

Although these tools were rotting and broken, didn't she have her omnipotent group chat members to rely on?

Especially that guy, Chariot. If she gave the items to him for some tinkering and patchwork, even if he had to scrap some to fix others and she only ended up with a third of the haul, it would still be an absolute victory for her.

That was especially true for the Humanoid Magic Puppets.

Even if she could only salvage one functional unit, she could use it to study exactly how people in the past constructed an entire magic puppet from scratch.

That alone would definitely count as a massive leap forward in her own progression.

Thankfully, she had her Cards on her, which allowed her to stack identical items.

Otherwise, there was no way she could carry away such a massive haul in one trip. If that had happened, Lan Qingyou reckoned she would have suffered from insomnia for days.

Mine! Mine!

It's all mine!

Hehehe!

Like a starving person who had suddenly stumbled upon a massive feast, Lan Qingyou's eyes glowed with a crimson light. Muttering under her breath, she swept all the items into her inventory, occasionally letting out a burst of eerie laughter.

It was a good thing there were no outsiders around. Otherwise, her unhinged behavior would have definitely traumatized some poor kid for life.

Hm?!

Right after Lan Qingyou finished harvesting every single item in the grand hall, she noticed a strange symbol etched into the floor.

This symbol looked incredibly similar to the leaf-shaped Shelter authentication mark on her hand, yet it was distinctly different.

It was formed by four leaf-like shapes—three arranged on top and one at the bottom—creating a minimalist symbol that resembled a claw.

According to the principles detailed in "Symbology," a symbol like this clearly carried some sort of profound meaning.

Unfortunately, Lan Qingyou had no idea how to decipher it.

Or rather, she simply didn't possess the capability to decipher it yet.

When in doubt, taking a picture was the way to go. Her omnipotent group chat members could always provide her with some novel insight.