Chapter 180: Dwarf Secret Chamber, Confidentiality Agreement, Underground

After clarifying the other party's needs, Jier then asked: "Then, is there anyone who can explain the situation to us in detail?"

Originally, Mr. Bogete, who should have been more familiar with Jier, was supposed to explain the situation, but he actually did not know much about this matter; although this predicament had existed since he was a child, he clearly had not been very interested in it back then.

If he hadn't waited until he was older and been reminded by others in the family, he would have even forgotten about this matter long ago.

The current Baron's own brother, however, was more attentive to this matter; he had been running around the family's several castles since he was a child and was very familiar with every corner of the castles, so facing the Dwarf Secret Chamber under the largest castle that could not be opened, he had naturally kept it in mind, and so he was the one to explain the situation at this time.

As for the Baroness, she was not from Copper Mine County before marrying the current Baron, and naturally, she was not a member of the Bostafa Family. If the Baron himself had not taken her to visit the family's castle after their marriage, she would not have known that under this castle controlled by the Bostafa Family, there was still a Dwarf Secret Chamber left behind by dwarves who had evacuated a hundred years ago.

Over these years, she had also been curious about what exactly the dwarves had left behind in the secret chamber, but thirty-some years had passed, and no matter what methods the Bostafa Family tried, they had not been able to open the Dwarf Secret Chamber.

They couldn't even open the door to the secret chamber.

They couldn't even destroy it.

"After the family first settled here, the secret chamber under the castle was not originally discovered, because the evacuating dwarves had added an extra metal wall at the downward passage leading into the secret chamber, making it almost impossible to be discovered."

Mr. Kasi, dressed in bright noble attire, pointed to the original dwarven blueprint on the table to the side: "Later, it was only after discovering this hidden, important blueprint in the original dwarven document storage room within the castle that the family realized that beneath this sturdy castle, there actually existed a huge storeroom used for keeping treasures."

He rubbed his hands: "The family immediately mobilized all its strength, thinking of using the resources inside after opening the secret chamber to help develop the territory. But in fact, this was almost an impossible task."

Gesturing, Mr. Kasi said: "The entire underground secret chamber is made of thick, special dwarven metal; not only is it sturdy, but the metal walls of the entire secret chamber were also reinforced from the inside with powerful Protective Magic. The intensity of this Protective Magic is very high; one must first exhaust the Magic Power before one can touch the metal walls. This is not easy; the family consumed a massive amount of resources and only managed to break through the magic defense many years ago, but after laboriously digging a few pits into the metal wall behind it, that Protective Magic actually appeared again!"

Seeming to have witnessed that scene personally, Mr. Kasi looked helpless: "You must know that just breaking through the Protective Magic is a resource-consuming task, and that Protective Magic seems to refresh itself every single day. When the family spent a large amount of resources to start breaking through the Protective Magic from the beginning of a new day at midnight, it would take almost half a day, leaving only half a day for us to break through the metal wall."

He said dejectedly: "This is almost impossible to complete. There seems to be something inside the metal wall; when we forcibly dug a twenty-centimeter pit, we were completely unable to break through further."

He shrugged: "The last attempt to break into the secret chamber was fifteen years ago. Without being able to think of a solution, the family has almost half-given up on the action of opening the Dwarf Secret Chamber. So if you ask the young people of the family, most of them don't know about this. But now, perhaps among the dwarf mercenaries you, Knight Jier, have hired, that old dwarf mercenary who possesses a long life history might be able to provide help in this matter!"

Jier and the few dwarves listened carefully to Mr. Kasi's words; after the other party finished speaking, the old dwarf said a sentence in Jier's ear, and the corner of Jier's mouth twitched.

He then stood straight and asked the people of the Bostafa Family: "Then, my dwarf friend has a question: have you tried not to break through the secret chamber's protection violently, but instead tried to open this Dwarf Secret Chamber through the normal opening method? After all, I think that even for dwarves, it is impossible that every time they opened or closed the secret chamber to enter or exit, they did so by exhausting the Protective Magic and digging through the metal wall, right?"

Mr. Kasi and Mr. Bogete both smiled; it was a bitter smile.

"If there were a way to enter normally, we wouldn't be breaking through violently, young Knight." Mr. Kasi shook his head and said with a bitter smile.

Mr. Bogete also shrugged: "Our family has invited some dwarves active in human society before, but clearly not all dwarves can easily open the door to that secret chamber. That thing... how should I put it, is very complicated. The family has invited Mages to take a look, but even the well-known Mages in our Southern Province find it difficult to get a handle on those magic contraptions of the dwarves. What did that Mage say last time?"

Mr. Bogete asked the other two; the Baroness seemed to have been present last time, and she added: "That Mage said that if we lent this castle to him to use as his dwarven magic research lab, gave him twenty thousand Gold Coins for research expenses, and at least forty years of research time, he estimated he could probably open the door to the secret chamber normally by dismantling the dwarven magic. Gods above, what kind of terrifying demand is that?"

Not to mention whether such a demand could actually be granted, just hearing such a demand was unbearable for a normal person.

And hearing such a demand, the old dwarf also curled his lip, because many of the dwarves' creations do not simply use Magic to produce and reinforce; often, whatever is useful and whatever can be used, the dwarves will just pile it all on for you.

Like this kind of critical and important underground storeroom, how could it be possible to use only Magic for protection? It is impossible not to install a few sets of dwarven God of Strength's reinforcement and maintenance Divine Arts inside!

"So, Knight Jier, please ask this elderly dwarf mercenary leader to see if he has any way? Facing this secret chamber, being able to break through one layer is good. Of course, the resources consumed cannot be too much; after all, if it really is like that Mage, consuming too many resources, this matter itself becomes a very risky affair. If—I am saying if—if the dwarves emptied this secret chamber when they left a hundred years ago, and they just happened to open the secret chamber's protective measures when they left, then if our family goes to the trouble of consuming a large amount of supplies to get in, only to end up facing an empty secret chamber interior, this matter would become a joke about our family that would be passed down forever."

Mr. Bogete said with a bitter smile.

Jier spoke a few words with the old dwarf, appearing to relay all the information to the old dwarf as if he knew the Dwarven Language.

And the old dwarf also pretended to mumble a few "uh-huhs," then said a few words back to Jier.

"My friend says he can go over and take a look, but this matter itself is a secret affair of a Human Noble family, so for the sake of safety—the safety of us few outsiders—we need to be armed. To avoid the Bostafa Family secretly detaining or killing us if something goes wrong, *cough-cough*."

Facing this kind of demand from Jier, the few people of the Bostafa Family chuckled: "Having safety awareness is a good thing, but you are overthinking this kind of matter. Although this matter is a secret, facing a secret that no one has made any progress on, its own confidentiality requirements are not high. Not many people in the family know about this; it is not that it needs to be kept secret, but facing a situation with no progress, the young people are already uninterested, and we, the managers of this family, have also gradually let go of this regretful vision handed down by the family's predecessors."

Facing Mr. Kasi's statement, Jier nodded, also expressing understanding.

"Moreover, regarding confidentiality to outsiders, we will later sign a confidentiality agreement witnessed by the gods with everyone, and regardless of whether there is any progress in this matter, the Bostafa Family will have gifts to offer; we will not let everyone make the trip in vain."

Mr. Bogete said at the end.

Subsequently, Mr. Bogete took out four confidentiality agreements imbued with Divine Power by the God of Contract. The agreement stipulated that the Bostafa Family would provide a sum of wealth to the signatories, and the signatories needed to keep the Dwarf Secret Chamber matter confidential; once the Dwarf Secret Chamber was disclosed to a third party, the signatory would suffer a severe injury sufficient to threaten their life.

No one would go against their own life; although it was said to be a severe injury sufficient to threaten life, rather than a harsh stipulation of immediate death, no one would take such a risk, and the ambiguity of "sufficient to threaten life" in the agreement—whether it was just a heavy blow to the body or something else—this ambiguity actually made people afraid to act rashly.

After checking that there were no problems, Jier and the three dwarves beside him all signed their names on their respective agreements; among them, Jier, 'Shishou', and the Wild Priest of the dwarf God of Strength all left name imprints containing supernatural power on the agreements.

Only the old dwarf, whom the Bostafa Family valued most, just dutifully wrote his name on the parchment of the agreement with an ink pen.

And it was a dwarven name, the kind that humans could not understand.

This made the people of the Bostafa Family somewhat unable to understand; this elderly dwarf mercenary leader himself had no special abilities, yet his subordinates possessed extraordinary abilities, which was almost impossible in human society.

You must know that the three Bostafa Family members present were all quite capable; the Baroness not only had a body full of expensive Magic Tools, but the Silver White Short Staff in her hand could also control the Magic Crystal that decorated this small meeting room; she herself was also a member of the system of the God of Human Nobility, and in terms of the Divine Power of the God of Nobility, she was about the same as an ordinary Pastor of a general divine church; paired with suitable tools, she could have a certain level of strength in protection, offense, and healing.

And the seemingly unremarkable Mr. Bogete and Mr. Kasi, although they were already middle-aged and their bellies had become bloated, had actually undergone Knight Training when they were young; although they were only 'Whiteboard' Knights trained by the quick-fix Magic Potion training of noble families, their Life Energy had actually reached the limit of what their own bodies could contain due to years of accumulation.

Although they could not possibly be Jier's match in a fight, they would have no problem protecting themselves or retreating to call for help.

If they wore the Knight Armor the family had prepared for each of them (which hadn't been worn for many years, and the armor probably wouldn't even fit their bellies), they might even be able to exchange a few rounds with Jier.

The three members of the Bostafa Family did not understand that in dwarf society, people from big families like the old dwarf could easily manage and subdue bottom-tier dwarves who climbed up from the common folk, like 'Shishou' and the Wild Priest of the dwarf God of Strength, just by the power brought by their surnames.

Not to mention that the old dwarf's subordinates had been managed by him in the Zhenbao mine for over a hundred years; everyone had long since determined that the old dwarf was their leader, and for stubborn dwarves, once they have determined a leader, they generally do not change.

Having signed the confidentiality agreement, the three members of the Bostafa Family, led by Mr. Kasi, took the others—without the need for servants or attendants to follow—first upward, into a secret passage in the upper layer of the castle, and quickly went down the stairs all the way to the first underground level of the castle.

"We will go out from the secret entrance next to the wine cellar, and then make two turns to reach the entrance of the underground secret chamber. The family built a large door there, and in earlier years, we even arranged for guards to protect it, but later, the guards on duty couldn't stand guarding a door all day that no one ever passed through, so as early as twenty-some years ago, there was only a locked door there, with no one else around."

Mr. Kasi seemed to be very familiar with everything inside the family castle, holding a lightweight metal lamp made of Glowing White Stone, leading everyone out of the narrow, deserted secret passage.

In the wine cellar, a faint aroma of wine drifted in the air, along with the oak scent of oak barrels. Because there was a banquet in the castle above tonight, the wine cellar, which usually had no lighting, had been opened by servants with magic lighting that did not use open flames.

He pointed to the Glowing White Stone on the sturdy rock ceiling: "Not to mention anything else, the castle left behind by the dwarves possessed a complete set of lighting and ventilation systems. Fifty-some years ago, our family used our own Magic Source to install the empty Magic Source that the dwarves took away when they left, and most of the internal facilities of the entire castle can be used directly. It is still very convenient."

Mr. Bogete smiled: "I heard that for similar things, wanting to fill an entire castle, if you go to some Magic Towers to find Mages to customize it, it costs a particularly large amount of money, and many times it is not even a matter of money; you have to prepare the materials yourself, and it also depends on whether you are familiar with the Mage circle and whether they are willing to set aside a large amount of time to lay out the magic system modification for such a castle."

Jier nodded, expressing understanding.

They walked out from next to the wine cellar, and as Mr. Kasi said, after making two turns on the first underground level of the castle where there were few people, they could see a separate metal door appearing on the wall on one side of the passage.

And a Magic Padlock hanging on the door.

The thick metal door was almost impossible to be silently destroyed by conventional violent means, and the Magic Padlock on it could only be opened by the high-level members of the Bostafa Family. Therefore, there was indeed no need to station guards here to keep watch.

If a full day's work was just standing at this deserted underground passage entrance, guarding a door that might not be opened for a dozen years, I guess no guard with a resilient mind could stand this boring, dull, and even arguably torturous work, right?

Jier saw that the Baroness, Mr. Kasi, and Mr. Bogete all took out a Magic Crystal Key, but in the end, it only required the Magic Crystal Keys of two people to be brought close to the Magic Padlock to make the Magic Padlock automatically pop open and unlock.

Seeing Jier watching them open the lock, Mr. Bogete gave a bitter smile: "If only the Dwarf Secret Chamber below could be opened as easily as this. In fact, the family has almost exhausted all means and tried almost all methods, but none of them could do anything about the protection of the secret chamber below."

Jier shrugged; he naturally had no way, it just depended on whether the old dwarf had any way. However, he was not optimistic about this; after all, although the old dwarf 'Iron Fist' was a dwarf manager and ruler from a big family, the place they were in before was Sasi County in the south, and this was a different dwarven institution. Besides, what need did the old dwarf have to help a human noble open a secret treasure chamber that his compatriots had closed over a hundred years ago?

Just bored, right?

Most of them in this line of work just took a look, shook their heads to indicate they were unable to help, and took the hush money given by the Bostafa Family.

Heh, getting a sum of money for free so easily, that's really not bad.

Jier thought to himself with great satisfaction.