Chapter 123: Suspected Treasure Map (Happy New Year! Please Subscribe!!)

A small wood carving?

Xia Duo immediately thought of that slightly mysterious small wood carving. Aiwa had said the material of that carving was a type of tree very precious in the Elf Kingdom, and the figure in the carving had an indescribable, indefinable quality to it.

The masked person wanted this item; Xia Duo could roughly guess why, but Xia Duo had long since sold that item. Since this masked person could find out that he had taken some things, did they not know he had already disposed of them?

As for the Account Book, Xia Duo did keep that, but it was clearly something Lao Neil had recorded himself; otherwise, the masked person would have gone to Lao Neil to demand it long ago, so how would it have had the chance to fall into Xia Duo's hands?

"I have no use for the Account Book, I've already burned it!"

"How could you?!"

The masked person was somewhat surprised, but mentioning the Account Book was just a casual remark; it would be best if they could get it, but if not, so be it. There was no need to offend someone from the Mage Tower for an ethereal, illusory treasure, especially someone who had just received a reward.

Compared to the Account Book, he was more concerned about the existence of the small wood carving; if that had also been burned, he would be absolutely furious.

"What about the small wood carving?" the masked person asked repeatedly.

The urgent tone, even after careful concealment, was still detected by Xia Duo, which made Xia Duo regret selling the small wood carving once again.

"The wood carving has already been sold. You've investigated me, so you must know who I sold it to!"

"Impossible! Tena said you didn't sell it in the end!" the masked person retorted subconsciously, but he quickly realized that Xia Duo had no reason to lie to him; after all, if Xia Duo knew the purpose of that wood carving, how could he have possibly brought it out!

And once brought out, given his understanding of Tena, how could he not have kept it for himself!

"That damn Tena!"

The masked person cursed bitterly. At the thought that Tena had actually embezzled the wood carving, the masked person wished he could kill Tena immediately and make him hand it over.

"Apologies, Mage Xia Duo, for the disturbance!"

Having said that, he hurried away.

Xia Duo watched the figure gradually moving away; he felt that the other party would likely come up empty-handed, which made him even more curious about the function of that small wood carving.

But he didn't; overthinking was meaningless. After finishing the last stretch of the stone path, Xia Duo returned to the Mage Tower.

……

The first thing he did upon returning was to go to his dormitory to check those two Account Books. Previously, he had only thought they were secret accounts or evidence deliberately kept, so he hadn't paid much attention to them and had just left them in the dormitory.

But the masked person had demanded these two Account Books and the mysterious wood carving together. Xia Duo immediately valued them at 500 Gold Coins; referencing the black market middleman Tena's quote for the wood carving, the actual value of these two Account Books might far exceed 500 Gold Coins.

Opening the two Account Books again, Xia Duo examined them carefully with the intent of treasure hunting. One is always afraid of being thorough, and this look really allowed Xia Duo to discover some clues.

The secret was not in the Account Books themselves, but in the two pieces of paper with Secret Symbol Paper tucked inside the books.

Placing these two palm-sized pieces of Parchment together and holding them up to the candlelight, he saw that the Secret Symbol Paper on the front and back pieces of Parchment actually connected—

Vaguely forming a map!

Xia Duo hurriedly took out a loose piece of Parchment, and while carefully distinguishing the map against the secret symbol paper, he carefully copied it onto the other paper.

It took Xia Duo more than half an hour to copy this strip-shaped map, which was two fingers wide and one finger long, with most of the time spent on identifying the traces.

The ink marks on the secret symbol paper itself were not very clear, and when stacked together, it was quite straining to the eyes to see through the traces on the other sheet. If there were a strong light source, it might be easier.

But the room itself had soft natural light, which was hard to shine through the Parchment, and facing the flickering candlelight that occasionally dimmed suddenly, Xia Duo's eyes became sore, and only then did he finish copying this small map completely.

There was a special mark on the map; presumably, if there really was any treasure, it should be right here.

Now he had the map, and he had the suspected treasure location, but the problem arose—

Where exactly did this map represent?

Maps from people of another world naturally could not be like the maps Xia Duo had seen on Earth, which had precise scales and standard, relatively uniform landmark symbols.

This might just be something someone drew casually; the scale was entirely based on feeling, and the landmark symbols were even more arbitrary. Unless one really got lucky and happened to encounter a familiar place, who could recognize this kind of map!

At this moment, Xia Duo's first reaction was to go to the Library to look up books related to maps to see how the locals drew maps and if there were any conventional symbols.

But he quickly dismissed this thought; this was just a suspected treasure map, and it might turn out to be nothing more than a trap carefully designed by Lao Neil.

Even if it were truly a treasure, how to excavate, transport, and handle it were all problems. At the very least, it would be difficult for the current Xia Duo to swallow a large treasure alone.

Rather than that, it would be better to study it slowly in the days to come; it could also be considered a pastime and entertainment outside of his Magic research.

The most urgent task was to become an Official Mage as soon as possible. Only by becoming an Official Mage could one truly change their world; the status possessed by an Official Mage was far from comparable to that of an Apprentice.

Apprentices had to address Official Mages as "Lord," and only Official Mages were considered to have relatively complete immunity; under normal circumstances, it was difficult for others to use the rules to kill them.

Even if a superior wanted to kill a low-level Mage, as long as they didn't die on the spot, there were many channels to obtain protection either before or after the fact.

Whether it was defecting to another lord or the Arcane Union, at the very least, one could save their own life.

In reality, Netheril was not without strong enemies externally and was not wealthy internally; on the contrary, the Empire was in a period of active expansion and struggle against the wilderness, and every Official Mage was a precious talent.

Consequently, being an Apprentice was actually not that bad.

Just look at Xia Duo's situation; the Mage Tower was still peaceful and stable. If one really wanted to retire here, it wasn't impossible; at the very least, a skilled Apprentice was much more useful than a novice.

Xia Duo had long since understood the basic Principles of 0 Ring Spell and the essence of the Shallow Magic Weave, but he had never been able to touch the Deep Weave.

If there were simply no way at all, that would be fine, but Xia Duo clearly had a way, yet could not realize it due to various reasons, which was truly distressing.

Researching on his own took time, and if he wanted to exchange for a 1st Circle Spell Learning Scroll, his Permission Level was not high enough; he needed to complete at least 1 year of Territory Task to obtain the exchange permission.

Of course, one could also pull strings or something; such backdoors might or might not exist, but the price to pay was definitely not something Xia Duo could accept.

What Xia Duo trusted most was naturally the upright path. At present, the speed of his self-directed research had actually reached its fastest, because self-directed research required the use of the Spell Laboratory, and the time he could spend on Spellcasting experiments every day was quite limited.

Outside of experiments, besides charging himself in the Library, he could only communicate with the people in the Study Group, hoping to spark some useful things that could accelerate his progress.