Chapter 123 Suspected Treasure Map (Happy New Year's Day
Small wood carving?
Sha Duo immediately thought of the slightly mysterious little wood carving. Ava said that the material of the wood carving was a tree that was very precious in the elven kingdom, and the characters in the wood carving had an unexplainable meaning.
Xia Duo can roughly guess that the masked man wants this thing, but Xia Duo has sold it long ago. The masked man can find out that he took some things with him. Doesn't he know that he has already disposed of those things?
Yet?
As for the account book, Xia Duo kept it, but it was obviously written down by Old Neil himself. Otherwise, the masked man would have gone to Old Neil to ask for it, so how could there be a chance that it would fall into Xia Duo's hands?
"I have no use holding the account book, it has been burned!"
"how come?!"
The masked man was a little surprised, but when he brought up the account book, he casually mentioned that if you can get the best, forget it if you can't get it. There is no need to offend the people in the Mage Tower for an illusory treasure, especially those who have just received a reward.
He was more concerned about the existence of the small wooden carving than the account book. If this was burned, he would be really angry.
"What about the small wooden sculpture?" the masked man asked repeatedly.
The eager tone, even though it was carefully concealed, was still noticed by Xia Duo, which made Xia Duo regret selling the small wooden sculpture.
"The wood carving has been sold. You have investigated me and you must know who it was sold to!"
"Impossible! Turner said you didn't sell it in the end!" the masked man retorted subconsciously, but he quickly realized that there was no need for Shado to lie to him. After all, if Shado knew the purpose of the wood carving, how could he do it?
Take it out!
And once he took it out, with his understanding of Turner, how could he not keep it!
"Damn it Turner!"
The masked man cursed bitterly. When he thought that Turner had stolen the wood carving, the masked man wanted to rush to Turner immediately and ask him to hand it over.
"Sorry to bother you, Master Xia Duo!"
After saying that, he hurried away.
Xia Duo looked at the figure of the other party gradually moving away. He felt that the other party was probably going to miss the target, which made him even more curious about the function of the small wooden sculpture.
But he didn't, and he didn't care to think about it. After walking the last section of the stone road, Xia Duo returned to the Mage Tower.
…
The first thing Xia Duo did when he returned was to go back to the dormitory and check the two ledgers. Before, he had only thought that they were secret accounts or deliberately kept evidence, so he didn't pay much attention to them and just left them in the dormitory casually.
But the masked man put the two ledgers and the mysterious wood carvings together and asked for them. Chateau immediately valued them at 500 gold coins. Referring to the price quoted by the black market middleman Turner for the wood carvings, the actual value of the two ledgers may be far more than 500 gold coins.
gold.
Opening the two account books again, Xia Duo looked at them carefully with the intention of hunting for treasures. He was afraid of taking everything seriously. This inspection really made Xia Duo discover some clues.
The secret is not in the ledger itself, but in the two sheets of paper that record the symbols and secrets sandwiched inside the ledger.
Overlapping these two palm-sized parchments and facing the candlelight, I saw that the symbols and secret texts on the two parchments on the front and back were actually connected——
It vaguely forms a map!
Xia Duo quickly took out a piece of scattered parchment, and then carefully identified the map against the secret drawing, while carefully copying it on another piece of paper.
Just this long strip of map, which was two fingers wide and one finger long, took Xia Duo more than half an hour to copy, and the main time was spent on identifying the traces.
The ink marks on the secret drawings themselves are not very clear. If they are stacked together, it would be difficult for the eyes to see through the marks on the other one. It might be easier if there is a strong light source.
But the interior of the room itself was filled with soft natural light, which could hardly penetrate the parchment. Faced with the candlelight that flickered and occasionally dimmed suddenly, Xia Duo's eyes felt sour when he saw this small map.
I copied it completely.
There is a special marked point in the picture. I think if there is any treasure, it should be here.
Now that the map is available, there are also suspected treasure spots, but here comes the problem——
Where exactly does this map represent?
Naturally, the maps of people from other worlds cannot have precise scales and relatively uniform landmark symbols like the maps Sha Duo has seen on Earth.
This may be a random drawing by someone. The scale is completely based on feeling, and the landmark symbols are arbitrary. Unless you are really lucky and happen to encounter a familiar map, no one will recognize it!
At this time, Xia Duo's first reaction was to go to the library to look for books on maps to see how the locals drew the maps and whether there were any conventional symbols or the like.
But he quickly gave up this idea. It was just a suspected treasure map. It might be found out in the end that it was just a trap carefully designed by Old Neil.
Even if it is really a treasure, how to discover it, how to transport it, and how to deal with it are all problems. At least it is difficult for Xia Duo to swallow a large treasure by himself now.
Instead of doing this, it is better to study slowly in the days to come, which can be regarded as a pastime and entertainment after studying magic.
The top priority is to become an official mage as soon as possible. Only when you become an official mage can you truly change the world. The status of an official mage is far beyond that of an apprentice.
Apprentices have to call "sir" when they see a formal mage, and only formal mage have relatively complete immunity. Under normal circumstances, it is difficult for people to use the rules to kill them.
Even if a superior person wants to kill a low-level mage, as long as he doesn't die on the spot, there are many channels to get protection before or after the incident.
Regardless of whether he seeks refuge with other lords or the Alliance of Arcane Laws, he can still save his life at the worst possible outcome.
For practical reasons, Netheril is not invincible externally and rich internally. On the contrary, the empire is in a period of active development and struggle against the wilderness, and any formal mage is a valuable talent.
Even having an apprentice isn't actually that bad.
Just look at Xia Duo's situation and you will know that the Mage Tower is quite peaceful and stable. If you really want to retire here, there is nothing you can do. At least a skilled apprentice is much more useful than a novice.
Xia Duo has long understood the basic principles of 0-level spells and the shallow nature of the magic network, but he has never been able to access the deep magic network.
It would be fine if there was no solution at all, but Xia Duo clearly had a solution, but could not implement it due to various reasons, which was really worrying.
It takes time to research on your own. If you want to redeem a level 1 spell learning scroll, the permissions are not enough. You need to complete at least one year of territory tasks to obtain the redemption permissions.
Of course, you can also use a back door or something. There may or may not be such a back door, but the price that needs to be paid is definitely not something Xia Duo can accept.
What Xia Duo believes in most is of course the right path, and his current self-research speed has actually reached the fastest speed, because self-research requires the use of a magic laboratory, and the time he can conduct magic experiments every day is quite limited.
Outside of experiments, apart from recharging his batteries in the library, he could only communicate with people in his study group, hoping to come up with something useful and speed up his progress.