Chapter 48: This Gaze Is Too Rude, Isn't It

Xia Zhi didn't wander too far.

Instead, he strolled and explored nearby.

He roamed around those ruins, guarding against whether any danger lurked within them, and by the way also wanted to see if there was anything valuable left behind in the ruins.

When he arrived before a dilapidated crumbling wall, he paused and stared for a moment, then knelt and picked up a book that seemed to have been mostly burned... casually flipping open the pages, that fairy script he had seen before leapt into view.

The youth raised an eyebrow, then merely waved his arm lightly. A whirlwind of magical power instantly erupted, sweeping in like a storm.

This power raged and swirled within a limited range, ruthlessly stripping away the rubble and gravel covering it, revealing the secrets buried beneath — rows of toppled bookshelves starkly appeared, books scattered on the ground revealing their existence.

Only in such a terrible environment, after such a long period of time, these books had long been severely damaged, suffering moisture and rain erosion under the ruins, most had already begun to rot and decay.

It seems the ruins here were indeed the Library from before; he had found this place again.

It can be called a place of great commemorative significance, also counting as the beginning and starting point of his journey anew...

It's just a pity those fairies were truly ruthless, not leaving a single trace of sentiment for him...

Facing this scene of devastation, perceiving those fairies' atrocities that left no room for mercy, a hint of coldness emerged in the youth's eyes; he lowered his head and continued flipping through the book in his hand, but in the process unexpectedly discovered a bizarre phenomenon —

He seemed to understand those fairy scripts.

Or rather, he could read the meaning of a small portion of the characters, but most still had no clues; he couldn't understand the information they contained...

However, compared to his previous complete ignorance, his current level of understanding had obviously improved significantly.

"When did I learn this stuff... clearly when I researched the Sword Hilt before, I couldn't read a single character."

The youth clicked his tongue in wonder; he was quite certain he had never consulted any relevant persons about fairy script knowledge, whether Vivian or Tetelot. Although he'd had such thoughts, the priority ranking was relatively low, and he hadn't yet gotten around to acting on it.

Of course, looking back now, he was glad he hadn't rushed to act at the time.

After all, this skill seems to only require idling and waiting to naturally master.

Just... what mechanism is this exactly? Xia Zhi thought with interest; he wasn't unaware of certain things, so he also couldn't help but suspect — was it because he transmigrated to this world that his existence began to deteriorate?

Or —

Was it that even in the original world, he was already an alien existence?

— For the time being, no one can answer this question.

Collecting his thoughts, he casually flipped through the book in his hand; regrettably, the recorded content was too severely charred and rotted, and with his currently limited quantity of identifiable fairy scripts, he couldn't read smoothly.

He could only barely distinguish that the story seemed to be a fable-like content, telling the story of "six unknown fairies, through some unclear method, at some location, winning a piece of land"...

The general plot should be roughly like that, right?

Due to the currently grasped character database being truly too fragmented, Xia Zhi could only guess blindly; his grasp of the content was not very exact.

In short, let's collect these damaged copies first...

He pondered slightly, surveyed his surroundings, then reached out and gently gripped the air.

Like it suddenly refreshed into existence, a key-shaped golden short sword was grasped in his palm.

If Gilgamesh witnessed this scene, he would definitely be furious; after all, in his world, only he takes others' things — when has there ever been a situation of others arbitrarily taking his things? The dignified oldest human fatty tiger naturally cannot suffer this grievance.

Xia Zhi, however, nodded in satisfaction.

This thing looks inconspicuous, but in reality is even harder to reverse engineer than Vimana.

From just now on the ship he had been analyzing it until now, attempting recreation again and again; only now did he finally truly succeed, obtaining this important warehouse key.

It is precisely the "King's Law Key" —

The key-shaped sword connecting to the "Golden Capital" —

As for whether Gilgamesh feels bad... let's put it this way: he generally rarely considers living people's emotions, let alone dead people's opinions.

Just staring at that exquisite warehouse key in his hand, Xia Zhi slightly raised an eyebrow again — how was this thing used again? It doesn't look like a normal key's usage.

Like a key-shaped sword, but actually more like a decryption device; the sword hilt area is nearly cylindrical in shape, those parts composing the cylinder rotate and transform like a Rubik's cube continuously, yet always remain connected.

And the shapes on the cylinder's surface, amid this constant rotation and transformation, constantly decompose and recombine, changing into brand new shapes and patterns, looking just like a constantly changing code awaiting the user's decryption.

"..."

"..."

Looking at this key whose shape changed without pause, the youth pinched his chin, thinking very seriously.

After a good while, he suddenly reached out, gripped the transforming cylinder part, gently pressed, and twisted.

A very faint, almost inaudible click sounded; faintly there were also sounds of mechanisms turning and gears meshing; the key rapidly absorbed magical power, emitting a bizarre fluctuation, instantly opening an invisible door in the void.

"Pretty handy... Mr. Jin really is my loyal number one supporter."

Xia Zhi couldn't help but exclaim.

He is currently in the stage of farming various useful equipment; being able to farm equipment so smoothly is still thanks to enthusiastic citizen Mr. Jin's strong ranking support.

After all, in the Noble Phantasm intelligence records stored in the Great Holy Grail, Gilgamesh alone contributed ninety-nine percent of the data... if that doesn't count as strong support, what does?

"Alright, sure enough it's empty..."

After using the key to open the Vault, his spirit also seemed to link with the treasure catalog built into the key.

Only the catalog was empty inside; no treasures at all.

Probably like Vimana's situation — that Shining Ship wasn't Gilgamesh's, and this current "King's Law Key" likewise isn't Gilgamesh's, so naturally there's no reason for it to have any collection.

But as a portable storage warehouse, it's already completely sufficient for use.

Xia Zhi stood up, directly carefully searched the surrounding ruins once, throwing all the books he could find into the void Treasure Vault.

After confirming nothing was missed, he stopped, and took advantage of the night to look at that incomparably huge World Tree that seemed within arm's reach.

It's a pity now isn't the time; otherwise he'd quite want to go over and take a look, conduct field research.

At this moment, with the distance to the World Tree so close, Xia Zhi keenly perceived —

This majestic giant tree that seems to bear the world contains vast boundless magical power; its magnitude far exceeds the magical power he currently has stored... he even suspects whether the Great Holy Grail's magical power could reach even one-thousandth of its magical power quantity.

————

————

The night grew even deeper.

Like thick ink that could not be dissolved.

Along the direction he had come from, he turned back toward that open stretch of land; beneath the distant High Execution Platform, a golden-haired figure came clearly into view, the girl sitting there with her knees hugged.

Xia Zhi's heart gave a slight start; he discovered Vivian sitting there just like that, hugging her knees, eyes vacant, her red swollen eye rims and the undried tear tracks on her cheeks clearly visible, looking as if she had just cried.

This scene made him slightly taken aback.

Could it be that her old sickness had relapsed, and she had fallen back into that muddled state?

He thought for a moment, then slowly walked over, just about to open his mouth to say something. Hearing the movement, the golden-haired girl's eyes flickered, and she instinctively lifted her face, looking toward his direction.

"……!!"

Originally hollow and lifeless eyes, the instant they captured his figure, seemed to fall into a brief stagnation, only then reacting as if belatedly; something in those dead, dull pupils began to gradually loosen—

Light appeared in those emerald green eyes……

Her expression also began to change bit by bit……

"……"

"……"

emmmmm……

Having extremely keenly captured the process of the changes in expression and gaze on the girl's face, Xia Zhi's complexion instead became very strange; this gaze is too impolite.

It seems I just walked a circle around the side……

How does it feel like in Vivian's eyes I look as if I've already died……

Those dead, dull, hollow pupils, because of seeing me, immediately underwent a process of gaining light…… that kind of shock, delight, disbelief in her eyes, even carrying careful anticipation and full surprise.

One totally feels that if I don't die once, it's not too suitable.

(Chapter End)