Chapter 98 - 79: April of the Treasure Hunt
Chapter 98: Chapter 79: April of the Treasure Hunt
[This month is the Month of the God of Wealth’s Blessing]
[Lords, you have now spent three months on this continent. After last month’s bloody battles with the Catastrophe Corps, you now possess a certain degree of combat capability.]
[A great deity—the God of Wealth—was passing over the continent when he witnessed a unique battle. Impressed by the potential of the new generation of lords, he has decided to bestow gifts upon all of you.]
[The God of Wealth has scattered countless treasure chests across the continent. When the month ends, any undiscovered chests will automatically disappear.]
[The chests are divided into three types: Guarded, Unguarded, and Special.]
[Lords, send out the soldiers of your territories to collect the chests!]
[There will be no leaderboards this month. All lords need only to focus on acquiring as many Treasure Chests of the God of Wealth as they can.]
[Note: Each Guarded chest is protected by a powerful hero. The hero’s grade is equivalent to the chest’s grade.]
[Note: To obtain a Guarded chest, you can either challenge the guard or attempt to steal it. If you take the chest without defeating the guard, its grade will be lowered by one. If you fail the challenge, both the Guarded chest and its guard will be relocated to a random position.]
[Note: Unguarded chests are extremely well hidden. Please keep your eyes wide open and observe carefully.]
[Note: Special chests carry a certain degree of danger!!! For specific details, please explore on your own.]
The moment April’s rules were announced, all the lords erupted in a frenzy. Countless soldiers poured out of their territories, searching everywhere for treasure chests.
The more powerful lords dispatched their subordinates to cordon off huge swathes of land around their territories, planning to search for chests bit by bit.
The weaker lords sent their people deep into the wilderness, venturing forth into danger and excitement.
Lin Yu was one of those powerful lords.
As soon as the system announcement for April was released, he had all the Druids in his territory take the harvested defensive plant seeds to the edge of the Goblin Forest. They sowed the seeds, used Magic to accelerate their growth, and erected a defensive line made of various protective plants along the forest’s border.
He had claimed the entire Goblin Forest as his personal treasure-hunting ground.
He did the same with the western mountains, but since the mountain range was much larger than the Goblin Forest, Lin Yu only sectioned off a third of it.
In the south, Lin Yu cordoned off the entire Skeleton Wilderness, extending the boundary right up to the edge of the marshlands. Since there was another lord’s territory within the marsh, he didn’t include it.
Finally, adding in his own vast territory and the northern wastelands, he had more than enough area to search for chests at his leisure.
[World Chat Channel (788211)]
Jiang Deli: "I’ve found three Treasure Chests of the God of Wealth!!"
Lan Zhao: "So what? I’ve already found ten."
Wang Anyuan: "You’re showing off about that? How childish! The real powerhouses who’ve claimed huge territories are quietly searching for chests. Only people like you would brag on the public channel."
...
Outside the Goblin Forest, Li Hua listened to a subordinate’s report. Overnight, the nearby Goblin Forest had become overgrown with strange plants. Any person or animal that entered would suffer indiscriminate attacks. While the attacks weren’t very strong, the sheer number of plants was overwhelming. Even the territory’s elite soldiers couldn’t withstand it.
Li Hua recalled the exploration team that had visited before. The various members of that team clearly belonged to the Natural Camp.
Especially that Tree-man. Even though it was made of decaying wood, it was definitely from the Natural Camp.
"Forget the Goblin Forest. Someone must have already claimed it. We’ll just cordon off the area between our territory and the forest."
"Someone claimed that whole forest? That’s incredible!"
"My lord, shouldn’t we claim a bit more land?"
"Our territory isn’t that large, and we don’t need that many resources. Let’s just leave some for the surrounding lords. Let them have a bigger share."
...
Within Lin Yu’s territory, all the citizens mobilized upon hearing the news, searching everywhere for Treasure Chests of the God of Wealth.
The announcement had stated that chests would appear all over the continent, which meant they could also spawn inside a lord’s own territory. This made all the citizens of the territory incredibly excited.
Normally, their limited strength prevented them from fighting outside the territory, restricting them to logistical work.
Now, there was finally something they could participate in. Everyone began searching for chests with great enthusiasm.
After two days of searching, Lin Yu figured something out. The Guarded chests were all located in the wild at random locations. They could appear at the foot of a mountain, on its peak, in a cave within the mountain, in the treetops, or in underground lairs—anywhere a person could access.
These Guarded chests all had the same shape and size, and their glittering appearance made them very easy to spot. The only problem was the hero-grade guards standing watch in front of them, who were a bit tricky to deal with.
The birds and beasts of Lin Yu’s territory scouted the Goblin Forest over and over, locating all the Guarded chests.
Then, all the territory’s heroes were dispatched to eliminate every Treasure Box Guard and retrieve all the Treasure Chests of the God of Wealth.
However, Lin Yu didn’t relax his search of the Goblin Forest. He wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, but every day, his scouts would find new Guarded chests in areas that had already been explored. Meiying would then dispatch a Hero Squad of the appropriate grade to eliminate the guard and retrieve the chest.
’There’s a high chance the Guarded chests respawn, or maybe someone... or some god... is constantly deploying them.’
The Unguarded chests, on the other hand, mainly appeared within the territory, and not in the form of a treasure chest.
Each Unguarded chest would change its form to match its surroundings. Aside from a slight difference in color—a faint glow corresponding to its grade—it was morphologically identical to the objects around it.
The first Unguarded chest in the territory was discovered by an ordinary citizen.
That day, a citizen named Squirrel Li Bao had been searching the territory for Treasure Chests of the God of Wealth to no avail, so he went home to eat some nuts.
When he returned to his little tree-hollow home and opened his small cupboard, he discovered something strange. Where there had once been a single wooden bowl, there were now two.
The two wooden bowls looked exactly the same, right down to the grain patterns on their surfaces.
The only difference was that one of the bowls was faintly glowing with a blue light.
Li Bao picked up the strange wooden bowl, and the moment he did, it transformed into a small treasure chest that sat in his tiny palm.
He then turned in the chest, and from this, Lin Yu learned the characteristics of the Unguarded chests.
After that, the citizens stopped wandering around the territory like headless flies. Instead, they began to walk slowly along the roads, touching everything they could.
This spirit of leaving no touchable object unchecked allowed Lin Yu to harvest a great many Treasure Chests of the God of Wealth of various qualities.
In his spare time from work and study, Lin Yu himself also looked for Unguarded chests. However, the main roads were searched countless times by the citizens every day, leaving no chests for him to find.
One day, however, while Lin Yu was resting in the crown of the World Tree, he accidentally discovered that among the lush canopy, there were some slightly different leaves. These leaves, which looked identical to the others, were faintly glowing with different colors.
Lin Yu understood at once. These glowing leaves were all Unguarded treasure chests.
The citizens couldn’t come up to the World Tree to search, which was why so many had been missed.
Overjoyed, Lin Yu began to "pick" them, feeling the same sense of happiness as one would when harvesting fruit in autumn.
There were many chests disguised as leaves on the World Tree. Lin Yu picked them by himself for a long time, until the sky grew dim and night fell.
Then, he discovered that there were still many leaves glowing green on the World Tree.
At that moment, the World Tree was no longer the World Tree. It had become a Treasure God Tree, laden with Treasure Chest of the God of Wealth "fruit."
Lin Yu was ecstatic. Every night after that, he would come to the top of the World Tree and pick the glowing leaves one by one. Watching the leaves in his hand turn into treasure chests filled him with a deep sense of satisfaction.
Besides the chests disguised as objects and leaves, one night Lin Yu also spotted a bird glowing with golden light in the sky.
He immediately dispatched all the flying creatures in his territory to pursue and intercept it. They spent nearly a week studying the golden bird’s flight path, setting traps, and trying various methods, but nothing worked. In the end, the golden bird landed on the World Tree, which extended a soft branch to bind it, finally capturing it.
The Legendary-grade Treasure Chest of the God of Wealth that the golden bird transformed into yielded a very interesting item: the Cloud Concealed Immortal Feather Pavilion (Building Blueprint).
[Name]: Cloud Concealed Immortal Feather Pavilion
[Grade]: Legendary (Gold)
[Description]: A structure built upon the clouds in the sky. Its exquisite decorations and dense Spiritual Qi will attract Extraordinary birds to visit.
[Effect]: Has a chance to attract avian heroes. You can pay Recruitment Gold Coins to recruit heroes. Completing a hero’s quest can reduce the recruitment cost.
This was a building exclusively for recruiting avian heroes. If he could recruit a few, the territory’s air power would be greatly enhanced.
Finally, there were the Special chests. The territory had been searching for over half a month without finding a single one.
That is, until one day, when Lin Kong, with the mentality of ’I can’t die anyway,’ ventured into a cave in the western mountains.
After navigating winding cave passages and driving off several subterranean beasts, he arrived at a karst cavern deep within the mountain.
And in the center of the cavern, he found an enormous, glittering treasure chest.
Lin Kong was thrilled, especially when he saw there were no guards around. Feeling lucky, he immediately ran to the chest to try and pick it up.
Then, the chest suddenly sprang open. Countless tentacles shot out from inside, along with a massive tongue. The top and bottom of the chest were lined with sharp teeth.
Caught off guard for a split second, he was entangled by the tentacles and swallowed in one gulp.
He experienced his first death since birth.
At that moment, Lin Yu, who was attending a class in the Jade Sanctuary, received the sub-soul of the deceased Lin Kong. A flood of memories poured into his mind, accompanied by the painful memory of Lin Kong’s death, causing him to let out an involuntary groan.
The startled teacher immediately called for a doctor and had him sent to the school’s infirmary.
Meiying, Lin Chenxi, Xia Luo, and other high-ranking members of the territory immediately dropped what they were doing and rushed to the Jade Sanctuary, surrounding Lin Yu.
The territory was instantly on high alert. Patrols were sent out everywhere to search for any potential assassins.
Fortunately, Lin Yu had only been stunned by the shock of the death memory and had fainted. He woke up a short while later.
Otherwise, the territory would have been turned upside down in the search.
After waking up, Lin Yu dismissed everyone and had Meiying dispatch people to the location of Lin Kong’s death to kill the treasure chest monster.
After the treasure chest monster was killed, it dropped a large number of Treasure Chests of the God of Wealth of various qualities. From this, Lin Yu finally understood what the Special type of treasure chest was.
In the following days, the entire territory killed four more treasure chest monsters, acquiring a massive amount of Treasure Chests of the God of Wealth.