Chapter 16: Secret Room and Sea Chart

“I understand… I’m not rushing you.”

Nodding, the Priestess decided to patiently wait.

Le Qiao Qiao was actually an impressive genius, in some sense even more remarkable than those disciples of the Spirit Sect or even Hong Yan, just with a slightly “offbeat” approach.

Her talent lay in her extraordinary observational skills, learning speed, and skillful dexterity in the literal sense.

After all, the most important ability for a thief isn’t just bashing someone up or the narrow-minded view of picking locks and slipping through doors.

In both the Ancient Spirit Realm and the Primordial Lands, true thieves are quite respectable professionals, and their job is to engage in [deciphering treasures and exploring ruins].

Or to be more accurate, they should be called detectives, treasure hunters, or scouts.

That’s why Vilyric decided to bring them along this time; it turned out to be quite meaningful.

“Oh… I get it now!”

After circling that massive pool for a good while, tapping and fiddling around with incomprehensible actions that would confuse onlookers, Miss Thief suddenly let out a strange howl and hurriedly pulled out a sharp short dagger, jabbing it forcefully into a crack in the ground by the edge of the pool!

“Click!”

It looked like just a gap between the floorboards, but that slender short blade actually sank deep into the ground, triggering an almost inaudible mechanism sound.

But Le Qiao Qiao’s actions didn’t stop there; she left the dagger that triggered the mechanism and immediately got up to inspect the collectibles lining a shelf near the desk piled high with antiques.

This step went quickly; in less than half a minute, she pinpointed her target and grabbed a metal vessel no bigger than a palm, twisting it several times…

“Click!”

This time, the mechanism sound was louder, like a key perfectly fitting into a lock, and suddenly all the water in the pool began to rapidly drain away!

“What is this…?!”

The Princess widened her eyes in disbelief at the sight unfolding before her, but Le Qiao Qiao, seeming to have guessed her thoughts, waved her hand with a smile.

“You mean to say you checked this ornament before, and it had no mechanisms, so you could just take it down, right?”

“The core mechanism isn’t within this; it’s behind this shelf. It doesn’t matter what’s displayed here because it merely acts as a gripping handle.”

“This chain mechanism means that if you don’t first activate the hidden point by the pool, everything else is just ordinary, lifeless objects, and you wouldn’t find any issues. Conversely, even if someone accidentally triggers the mechanism under the floor, it wouldn’t help if they don’t know the subsequent operations.”

Miss Thief chuckled with pride, hands on her hips.

“Hmph, but to us, it’s just child’s play!”

“You were just saying how intricately designed this thing was…”

Shaking her head helplessly, though unable to resist the urge to retort, Vilyric still patted Le Qiao Qiao’s shoulder in affirmation.

“Good job, I’ll treat you to a feast when we get back.”

“Boss is generous! I want meat!”

“Alright, alright…”

To be honest, the Priestess had already quietly scanned the entire three-dimensional space with her spiritual sense upon entering this room, vaguely sensing the existence of a secret room.

But this is the palace of the Merman Tribe, one of the residences left behind by King Willipol, and it’s evident that it has been preserved in such cleanliness and integrity for years, suggesting it must be a treasured place for many.

Unless absolutely necessary, the Priestess did not want to forcibly destroy the mechanism through brute force.

And who could guarantee that wouldn’t trigger a chain reaction that would obliterate some of the remaining clues?

“Let’s go, we’ll take a look down there.”

With a call, the black-haired girl leapt lightly, floating down like a feather toward the bottom of the pool.

Following closely behind were Le Qiao Qiao, Hong Yan, and Nitira; although this pool spanned several yards in width and was over three meters deep, even the weakest among them, the Little Princess of the Mermen, wasn’t exactly an ordinary person and could easily overcome this height.

When they reached the bottom of the pool, without needing assistance from the Thief, Vilyric immediately noticed something unusual that appeared when the mechanism was accidentally triggered.

The side wall of the pool, which should have been tightly sealed with no water seeping in, now had a square crack roughly half a person high. She simply pushed gently against it, and that section of the wall flipped open like a door, revealing a dim interior.

Exchanging glances with the other girls, especially with Nitira, whose expression was excited yet complicated, Vilyric nodded and took the lead.

The space connected to the bottom mechanism of the pool was a narrow passage about ten meters long, just wide enough for an ordinary adult merman to move through. After traversing the narrow path, they arrived in a familiar secret room.

Judging by the direction, it seemed that right above this secret room was the bedroom on the other side of the palace.

“Looks like this is where King Willipol’s true private space is; perhaps even your mother, the current Merman Queen, doesn’t know about this place’s existence…”

Casually guessing, Miss Vilyric waved her hand in mild disdain, attempting to disperse the somewhat musty air lingering around.

It was evident that no one had come here for a long time.

In this small space of just over a hundred square meters, cobwebs were scattered everywhere, and a thick layer of dust covered the tables and floors. But precisely because of that, the original traces of the scene remained intact.

King Willipol wasn’t here, neither his body nor anything else, but it was certain he had entered this secret room before his disappearance and encountered certain events; otherwise, this place wouldn’t display such strange scenes.

The only chair was toppled on the ground, the magic lamp that had once been used for lighting smashed on the floor, and dozens of manuscripts lay scattered everywhere. It appeared that the person who had sat at the table had suddenly stood up and made some abrupt gestures, which caused such chaos.

“This is…?”

Nitira looked around carefully and cautiously bent down to pick up a manuscript. Her sapphire-like clear eyes—a mix of curiosity and seriousness—examined it closely.

It depicted some kind of rough outline of a chart, labeled with a dozen names and several unclear long lines, but the Princess immediately grasped what it represented.

“This is a sea chart? A route to a certain location at sea? It looks like a certain area in the Emerald Sea Region, but… it feels oddly off; many island positions are significantly misaligned, and there are some I’ve never seen before…”

“Strange, what exactly is this drawing?”

“The answer isn’t hard to deduce; just look.”

The black-haired girl, who also bent down to pick up a manuscript, walked over to her side and compared two drawings detailing a certain sea area with obvious differences. Soon, Nitira noticed that they seemed to depict the same sea region, but the positions of the islands had been altered.

However, the sea chart in Vilyric’s hands covered a broader scope, its outer edge marked with a few islands that Nitira was very familiar with, clearly belonging to the border area of the Emerald Sea Region.

So, what exactly is the sea area bordering the Emerald Sea Region?

In other words, what these manuscripts were trying to depict…

As the correct answer dawned on her, a jolt shot through the Princess’s heart, a surreal and bizarre sense of dread instantly washing over her, making her hair stand on end, and her sapphire blue eyes shrank sharply with intensity.

“This is… a sea chart of the [Ghost Sea]?!”

   

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