Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich Chapter 729 - Treasure Hunting

Chapter 729: Treasure Hunting

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

Inside the pitch-black cave, only the sound of my and Harloys’ footsteps and water dripping broke the sound of silence.

*Sizzle!*

I used an alchemical potion to brighten my torch, allowing to better see my surroundings.

This rough cave evidently wasn’t the proper entrance. I saw nothing but wide space before .

The cliff above was actually more than 100 ters tall. A group of silver palaces was at the end of my field of vision. Steps made from silver bricks created a path between the palaces.

Underneath the palaces were small brick houses. However, only broken brick walls now remained.

This ruin probably belonged to so civilization from the past. It was evident that this ruin had been robbed multiple tis already. Apart from the stone statues that were too heavy to move, the robbers hadn’t left anything behind. All of the gold and gems on the statues had been cleaned out.

Perhaps the craftsmanship wasn’t high in quality enough, or maybe things here were just too old. The wall drawings were now completely black. Even the sheepskin scrolls had rotted away and were incomprehensible.

“Did we miss yet again?” Harloys’ comnt caused my heart to skip a beat. If the magic mirror that I was searching for had really been stolen by a graverobber already, then it would’ve beco impossible to find as it could be anywhere in the entire world now.

“...Let’s ask the guardians here first.”

I summoned various undead to walk out of the ruins. Most of them were previous graverobbers. Still, there were a few who were bird-headed mbers of the Sun God’s old species.

“Undead spirits?”

Seeing these, I actually heaved a sigh of relief. Undead creatures of all sorts were quite common in these types of ruins.

Looking around, most of these undead were skeleton types. There were low-level skeleton soldiers (commoners), skeleton archers, and skeleton laborers. Even the highest level were only a few skeleton mages. There were no liches among them.

The fact that these undead still existed here was evidence that these ruins hadn’t been cleaned out completely yet. There were probably still valuables inside.

Even if there were high-level undead here, it was likely that they wouldn’t have any intelligence. Even ga recluses like liches would still want to go out once in a while. It might be acceptable for a lich to stay underground in a ruin like this for a few centuries, but several millennia or tens of thousands of years would be too much even for a lich.

Many people thought that the older an undead was, the more powerful they were. In a way, this was a mistaken impression.

Indeed, an intelligent undead who had lived for a long period of ti usually wouldn’t be weak.

“Tsk, they’re already weathered almost to nothing. I need to be careful not to break them before I draw out their mories.”

The skeleton soldier before was already losing its negative energy. Its bones were almost fossils. So other skeletons fell apart before they even reached . They had no combat strength at all.

It wasn’t that the longer an undead lived, the more powerful it would be. It was actually that only powerful undead would be able to live that long.

A low-level undead with no intelligence that was left alone for too long would see its negative energy begin to dissipate. In normal situations, this undead would gradually beco weaker, and even die again. If this area’s negative energy concentration was very high, then it would be possible for new undead spirits to appear from the corpses and bones, but that was sothing completely different from natural undead.

Only intelligent undead would intentionally gather more negative energy and gradually beco stronger, slyer, and more isolated.

The undead creatures before seed as if even a light breeze would blow them over. It was likely that they were still intact only because this environnt had given them enough protection.

Back in the day, these undead guardians might still have been able to bully so graverobbers who weren’t too powerful. However, these undead were completely aningless in front of an undead mage like myself.

I used a low-level undead magic spell, and easily took control of these masterless undead.

I directly drew out their mories from their soul shards. I then frowned at what I learned.

“The oldest undead here is less than 1,000 years old. Not only that, it crawled out from all these remnant bones. This place was already a complete ruin by then. After that, this place beca even more hidden due to tectonic movents. Since there wasn’t any treasure here to be found, nobody ca at all.”

I far preferred to et with an undead bone dragon blocking my way rather than this current situation... If I had to slowly search through this ruin, just how long was I supposed to look? I might not even find anything in the end.

Yet, I was unwilling to just turn around and leave like this.

“I sll the scent of the living. Who dares to disturb the magnificent Grinka’s rest?”

An angry roar suddenly sounded from the direction of the palaces. This was a soul roar that only high-level undead could use. Judging from the magical wavelength and the fact that it was spoken in the dragon language, apparently it was a bone dragon?

Soon, a ghost dragon flew out from the palaces. However, it was only a tiny dragon that was less than five ters long. It wasn’t even at the standard of an infant dragon, although its voice reached far before it did.

“My jinxing ability was useful for once...”

Two minutes later, the ghost dragon which had been roaring at now clutched its head as it submitted to . I made a “friendly request”, and he “passionately and welcomingly” introduced the situation around this ruin to .

“I’m looking for a mirror. It’s sothing shiny. It’s sothing shiny that can reflect other objects?”

It turned out that this tiny ghost dragon didn’t even know what a mirror was. But thanks to my “friendly assistance”, he soon recalled sothing.

“I think I saw sothing like that long ago. But, it was too hard for to bite into, so I tossed it aside sowhere. I don’t rember where I threw it, but it should be in here sowhere.”

Seeing how stupid this ghost dragon was, I couldn’t even be bothered to get angry.

If I tried to draw out his mories, it wouldn’t be very useful if he even couldn’t rember them clearly. I had no intention of slowly searching through several hundred years’ worth of mories from this stupid ghost dragon.

In that case...

“This dragon is still sowhat useful. At the very least, he provided evidence that the magic mirror is highly sturdy. In that case, everyone, start working. You must find that mirror for even if you have to dig up this entire place.”

Various skeleton laborers started rising up as they picked up shovels and various weapons left behind here to start treasure digging with.

I was worried that they wouldn’t be enough, so I even summoned a group of my own undead creatures to help with the digging.

As a veteran graverobber... ahem, adventurer, I had indeed searched through other ruins before. I could guarantee you that treasure would never be like in video gas, waiting for you in a treasure chest, or dropping if you killed so specific monster.

Anything with a powerful magical reaction that obviously appeared to be sothing good would typically actually be a cursed item or a trap. Nobody would be dumb enough to carry everything they owned that was valuable with them. It was common that even a low-intelligence monster would know how to disguise its own treasure hoard and set traps.

Without a certain amount of appraisal ability, it would be common to treat a priceless artifact right in front of you as nothing more than scrap tal. I had seen countless novices who treated gold-painted copper swords as treasure before. While there were indeed lucky individuals who managed to find God Equipnt in a random store like in the stories, the prerequisite for this was that there was an idiot out there who treated the God Equipnt as garbage and sold it off in the first place.

Although 99% of such stories ca from rchants trying to scam newbies, there really were a few real examples. Not every adventurer team would have a veteran appraiser with them, after all. If the adventurer team had obtained valuables through improper ans, especially if they had robbed the grave of so noble, they would be more than satisfied with being able to safely sell their stolen goods. It was quite common that they would thus sell off their valuables for less than what the valuables were really worth.

“Does this an that you’ve gotten lucky before? You managed to buy sothing miraculous at a really cheap price?” Harloys was rather astonished at what I just ntioned.

“No, but I’ve seen others have such luck. For instance, Karwenz two tis, and Adam two tis...”

I kept feeling more and more like this world was so unfair. Why was it that those with low intelligence always managed to get lucky? I clearly inspected and checked every item I ca across, yet I had never been so lucky to find anything good, which was why...

“Back at Sulfur Mountain City, I opened up my own shop. I specialized in selling ‘fenced goods that haven’t been identified’, ‘artifacts picked up in underground tombs’, and so on for 500 silver coins apiece. Business was actually quite good at first.”

“...You could even make long-term profits with such a ridiculous business? You must have arranged for shills who ‘won’ good items.”

“My archaeological counterfeiting abilities are still quite good. I also sold off all of the random rubbish that my System gave ...”

Harloys shook her head as she guessed at what happened next. “So, you must have been exposed, causing your business to collapse?”

“...No. Although I indeed closed down afterwards, it wasn’t because I was exposed.”

“Then what? Did you get bored?”

“...I accidentally missed so God Equipnt and really did sell it off for 500 silver coins. I lost so much potential money and cried so much that I couldn’t bear running that business anymore.”

“With your personality, you actually didn’t try to get it back? Oh, I understand. It must have been Adam who purchased the God Equipnt from you?”

I nodded with a heavy heart. This was a dark mory of mine. With that one transaction, I had lost more potential money than I would have been able to earn in 10 years. That was why I never ran a store again.

Harloys and I continued to chat in order to pass the tim.

The low-level undead were searching for the magic mirror for . However, it was unknown when they would be able to actually find it.

“A shard that can reflect light.” “A very sturdy stone.” I gave the low-level undead very rough orders to search for such an object as they were incapable of understanding more complex commands. Skeleton soldiers were beginning to bring strangely shaped rocks to now. It would seem that this would take a while.

Would this take one year? Or maybe six months? In the end, the God of Fortune must have taken pity on for once. After enough stones of various shapes were piled in front of to create a small mountain, slightly less than one week later, a skeleton laborer that was almost falling apart managed to bring the magic mirror.