The Map in the Crevices of the Book

After Liu Xuan helped Hawk back to his feet, Hawk coughed lightly and said with a straight face, “I’m getting old. My health isn’t what it used to be, and my legs are a little weak.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

“As for this material...” Liu Xuan had barely mentioned the words “this material” when Hawk’s legs gave out again. Fortunately, Liu Xuan caught him.

Hawk sat back down in his chair, his aged face turning an unusual shade of red. “My apologies. Let me calm down first.”

He then slapped his cheeks a few times and took a deep breath. “All right, young man. You can take that thing out again.”

But just as Liu Xuan was about to retrieve it, Hawk raised a hand to stop him. “Wait.”

He gripped both armrests of the chair with all his strength.

“Now you can.”

Liu Xuan: “...”

He finally understood. If they threw this old man into the nearby forge and burned him for seven days and seven nights, there would probably still be nothing left but his mouth.

Liu Xuan took out the [Stone of Sharpness] again. Hawk nearly slid beneath the table, but this time he managed to grab the armrests and forcibly held himself in place.

Only after a while did Hawk finally exclaim with trembling excitement, “I never imagined that, in this old man’s lifetime, I would actually get to see a divine-grade material.”

“This thing...”

Hawk immediately raised a hand to cut him off. “I know what you’re about to ask. But materials of this level are beyond the ability of not only me, but every smith in the entire empire back when it still existed. I’m afraid only a grandmaster-level blacksmith would have the right to attempt working with it—and even then, having the right to try is all they would have.”

Grandmaster level... That was even higher than master level.

Hawk had even said that merely reaching the grandmaster level might not be enough!

No one knew when that bottle of [Elixir of Immortality] could ever be produced. This thing would probably take even longer—if it could be made at all.

Compared to that, Liu Xuan was more worried about something else. What if the blacksmiths they were training failed to reach the grandmaster level?

He voiced his concerns to Hawk, who nodded. “To become a grandmaster, one needs not only a vast accumulation of experience, but also opportunity and insight. As for the people currently studying under me, it’s difficult to say whether any of them will one day reach that height.”

At that point, Liu Xuan had no solution either.

Sigh. Having things that were too good was a problem in itself. It seemed this material could only be left to fate.

He thought of his own [Heavenly Man] shield. He had already felt that it was one of the very finest divine-grade pieces of equipment. Since the [Stone of Sharpness] had been stored together with [Heavenly Man], there was a good chance they had been placed inside at the same time and nurtured together. If so, its quality among divine-grade materials was probably just as extraordinary.

It was only natural that such a thing would be difficult to use in crafting.

Liu Xuan put the stone away and said goodbye to Hawk. He still had one final minor matter to handle in Orenburg.

Zhang Meng had previously told him that there were quite a few locked rooms and chests in the city that needed to be opened.

Most of them were located in the noble district. They were generally hidden doors that had been exposed when the buildings were damaged beyond recognition.

After Liu Xuan opened them with the [Key to Orenburg], some turned out to be escape passages similar to the one belonging to the White family. There was basically nothing valuable inside those.

Others, however, were the private treasure vaults of nobles.

Liu Xuan found quite a few good things in several of the vaults, mostly gold coins—several thousand in total—as well as large quantities of gold and silver jewelry, vessels, gems, and other collectibles.

After studying these miscellaneous items, Liu Xuan discovered that they currently had only one use: they could be spent at NPC shops in place of gold, silver, and copper coins.

The problem was that each item occupied an entire slot in his inventory, making them extremely inconvenient to use.

Liu Xuan simply moved everything into the largest treasure vault and locked the door again. From now on, these items could serve as public funds.

Aside from the valuables, Liu Xuan was delighted to discover a library. It contained more than a dozen bookshelves.

Near the entrance was a letter left behind by someone from the past, explaining where the books had come from.

It turned out that these books had once belonged to the Orenburg Library. When the Destroyers invaded the north, before they had reached Orenburg, the library’s director had tried to move and protect the collection in advance.

The original plan had been to transport all the books to a secret warehouse farther south. Unexpectedly, the north fell far faster than anticipated.

By the time the Destroyers were almost at Orenburg, part of the collection still had not been moved. The director could only hide the more valuable books in this concealed library, hoping they might survive the disaster.

Liu Xuan’s delight had nothing to do with any particular love of reading.

The moment he entered the library, the two “Slayer’s Proofs” in his bag began to glow.

The descriptions of the two proofs only said that offering them to a certain altar would yield a reward.

When Liu Xuan had asked the village chief about them before, the chief had said that the proofs were required to join a military order dedicated to hunting powerful creatures of all kinds.

With the proofs, one could go to the altar and communicate with a certain deity.

However, the village chief did not know where the altar was. He had only said that the relevant information might be found in the library of a major city.

Liu Xuan had not expected them to react in a small library like this one.

He took out the proofs, and the light pointed toward one of the bookshelves.

Following the direction, Liu Xuan stepped forward and discovered that the light was specifically indicating a book titled Erix’s Travels: Part One.

He took it down and flipped through a few pages. It was a traditional travel novel, complete with illustrations.

As he rapidly turned the pages, he soon stopped at one containing an illustration.

The picture showed a gigantic blue-feathered bird with a long, graceful body. It looked like a feathered serpent, yet possessed three pairs of white wings.

Beneath the picture was a short description of the scene. While traveling through an eastern country, the protagonist had encountered a giant bird like this one.

After climbing onto its back, he had been carried by the bird to an altitude of tens of thousands of meters before being safely returned to the ground.

Erix had named it the Yikong Swift Heron.

But Liu Xuan’s attention was not on the story. It was on the object tucked between the pages—a yellowed half of a map.

The map showed a conspicuous route winding through mountains and rivers. But it only covered one section. The rest of the route should have been on the other half of the map.

The question was, where could he find the other half?

Liu Xuan searched through the entire book. He even turned it upside down and shook it, but still found nothing.

Then he suddenly remembered that the book was called Erix’s Travels: Part One.

Could the other half of the map be in Part Two?

Liu Xuan glanced at the books on either side of the spot where he had found it. They were completely unrelated.

He expanded his search to the entire bookshelf, but still found nothing.

Liu Xuan took out the two proofs again to see whether they would provide another indication. They showed no reaction whatsoever.

“Does this book only have the first half? Was the second half never finished?”

Liu Xuan could not help frowning. But then another thought occurred to him.

Could the second volume have been hidden by the director in that secret warehouse?

The “secret warehouse farther south” mentioned in the letter was not far from Orenburg. It would be worth checking out.

It would also give him the perfect opportunity to figure out exactly what the two proofs in his possession were for before heading north.