Death… And Me

Chapter 4507: That Was Fast

Dlaval City was surrounded by walls, but they weren’t anything impressive. With the number of Zone Gods in Woster, those walls worked more as ornaments than anything else. The city also didn’t have any protective arrays working around it, so jumping over them wasn’t an issue at all. In fact, seeing cultivators simply fly over the walls was quite common.

That wasn’t to say the walls were completely useless, though. On the extremely rare occasions when Godly Creatures ever made it to the city, those walls did play a part in its defense, as the cultivators could position themselves on top of the walls and attack the Godly Creatures below. Yet, there were never that many of them, at least not enough to be called a real horde like the ones seen in Besgol.

It went without saying that there was no such thing as an entrance fee or guards either. Each cardinal section of the city had many different powers ruling it, so who would be in charge of such a thing? None of them wanted the trouble. Yes, there could be some profit to be made from entrance fees, but they would likely anger the other cultivators more than anything else. It simply wasn’t worth the trouble.

There were, however, several gates where you could ask for guidance and information... for a price, of course. No one would stop you from entering the city, but no one would give you important or hard-to-find information for free either.

At one of the many gates along the western section’s walls, three experts approached leisurely, joining the many more cultivators who were returning to or leaving the city. No one really paid any attention to them. Once they went through the gate, they immediately took the opportunity to check the stalls of the cultivators selling information.

A white-haired young man arrived at one of the counters. ”Hello, friend. I’m quite new here on the western side, and I thought I wouldn’t need to buy any information. But it turns out that I’m having some difficulties getting the lay of the land. Let’s just say I’m having a hard time making friends who are willing to speak more than necessary.”

The man behind the counter smiled in response. ”Oh! New to the western parts, huh? Well, having difficulty gathering information is normal if you haven’t spent most of your life here. There is nothing to be ashamed of. There is no need to worry, either. Just ask me anything, and for the right price, I’ll definitely help you out.”

Flugel stepped to the front. ”That’s what we are looking for. My friends and I have been exploring those ancient vaults spread all over the place. We found a few, but we always heard there are tens of thousands of them. Do you know if there are any we can find here in the western section, especially inside the city?”

The man immediately nodded. ”But of course! Those vaults are indeed everywhere, and we believe not even half of them have been found yet. It isn’t anything rare for someone to find a new vault every few decades. Too bad they never have anything of use in most cases. Anyway, just give me a second.”

The man began working on a terminal. From what Rean and Flugel could see, the terminal itself was actually quite poor, nothing compared to the technology they had in Besgol. Calling it archaic wouldn’t be an overstatement. Well, as long as it worked...

”Oh, yeah... Here it is.” The man nodded, satisfied. ”There are a total of 241 of those vaults inside the city in the western district. However, most of them are located inside private areas, so to get in and check those vaults, you will need permission from their owners.”

He then smiled at Flugel. ”Nothing that some Godly Creature Crystals can’t facilitate, if you know what I mean.”

Flugel obviously understood. ”That’s good. Give us the information for all of them. How much will it cost?”

”It is actually pretty cheap. Those vaults aren’t any secret to start with. Just 27 Godly Beast Crystals, and you are good to go,” the man charged.

Flugel and Rean looked at each other. If this were in Besgol, such a price would be ridiculously high, and that’s considering that this kind of information was almost always free on the Besgol Network. Of course, the number of Godly Creatures being killed inside Woster far surpassed what was found in Besgol. So for a place like this, 27 Godly Beast Crystals might indeed not be anything that impressive.

Flugel took the crystals from his Spatial Ring and passed them to the man. ”Here they are.”

The man accepted the crystals and then took out a Jade Slip. Sure enough, they didn’t seem to have a central network or the Ring Communicators, so the old method of storing information was still very much active here.

The informant quickly recorded all the information inside before passing the Jade Slip to Flugel and Rean. ”Thanks for the business.”

”Just one more thing, friend,” Rean cut in. ”Do you know if there is any hotel with very high floors? We like to have a good look at the city when we are resting. It helps with our work. Also, the closer to the center of the city, the better.”

”Oh, just that?” The man nodded again. ”There isn’t a need to pay anything. If you ask anyone, they will point you toward the Egoslau Hotel near the central district walls. But I must warn you that although the quality is high, it is also expensive as fuck to stay there.”

Rean smiled in response. ”I see... Thank you for the information.”

Rean and Flugel left, soon joining Lukay, who had been waiting not far away.

”Hum...” Flugel put the Jade Slip against his forehead. ”Of those 241 vaults, only 32 of them are located in open areas in the western section.”

”We might as well take a look at the arrays found inside them first,” Rean suggested.

”They will most likely be in terrible condition or outright destroyed,” Flugel commented. ”In any case, they are our best starting points.”

”Let’s just go and see,” Lukay said. ”We can think about the vaults inside owned areas later.”

”No,” Rean shook his head, remembering something. ”First, we need to go to the Egoslau Hotel.”

Lukay looked at him strangely. ”Why the hotel?”

Rean smiled. ”You’ll see.”

—

Somewhere else, Arcis and Thery’s group made their way through the city. Now and then, they saw someone with runes similar to those of the Thousand-Script Race. However, they weren’t as pronounced as Thery, Haniala, and Sison’s. Those differences could have appeared for many reasons, but the main one was probably the dilution of their bloodlines.

Because of that, they were careful about stopping any of them to ask for information. If their bloodline had already become that weak, there was a good chance they knew very little about the original Thousand-Script Race.

At some point, Arcis couldn’t help but ask, ”Aren’t you going to stop any of them from inquiring?”

Thery shook his head. ”With such diluted and weak bloodlines, I doubt they would know anything about our Thousand-Script Race. For now, let’s take a look around for a while longer. Perhaps we will find someone with a stronger bloodli—”

”Excuse me, friend.”

Thery didn’t even have the chance to finish speaking before someone called his attention. When he looked over, he noticed that it was someone with the same runes on his body as those of Thery’s race, but a lot more pronounced than the ones they had seen before.

Thery’s expression changed slightly.

’That was fast...’