Chapter 40: The Hidden Treasure

After complaining about how this plot is simply outrageous, Zhen reluctantly brought out the odd-looking wand from his spatial ring.

Seeing how it is still full of rust, Zhen doesn't know how it will work but still, it's better than not doing anything as he will be stuck here forever.

Teleportation doesn't work and Zhen finally realized how lucky and how much of a cheat he had been before. 

'Indeed, I've been too arrogant lately that it caused my mind to be muddled but I know my limits now.'

Slowly, Zhen inserted the odd wand into the open hole and it slid through perfectly despite the rust.

*Creak*

As expected, the wand is the key, and the door starts opening, shining brightly that Zhen has to close his eyes to avoid being blinded.

*Shinggggg*

After a while, Zhen slowly opened his eyelid and he was completely stupefied by the scene in front of him. 

Compared to the gloomy and dark environment of the dungeon, this area is the polar opposite as everything is full of light.

There are statues on the right and left side of the wall but there is only one area in the middle that has a staircase going up to a platform.

Zhen walked inside as he felt no danger or any malicious intent coming from this room. As Zhen slowly approaches the platform, he notices that there is a glass bottle with some red-looking drop.

Zhen inspected it closely and found out it's a tiny blood. 

'Don't tell me this is the hidden treasure that the black mage and everyone else is chasing for.'

"...."

Zhen tried to check his surroundings to see if he's being spied on again but discovered nothing in the end. 

'This is too suspicious, the wolf that launches at me and drags me to this place is gone now.'

Plus the fact that he coincidentally has the key to open a gigantic door which probably no one else can open if they don't have the wand.

Although Zhen has been saying my luck is awesome, he knows it is not true as it was based on his wit and wisdom to survive for this long.

When Zhen turned around to try and escape, the door closed tightly.

*Bam*

His frown increases as Zhen is now 90% certain that he is indeed being spied at and that mysterious being wants him to open the glass container.

"Listen, whoever you are, show yourself or you can forget about trying to fool me into opening this unknown blood. I could care less anymore and worst-case scenario, I just died as I never belong in this world, to begin with."

Zhen said aloud despite being alone in this room. 

'Let's see who has more patience then.' 

Zhen said inwardly as he lay down with both of his hands behind his head and closed his eyes to sleep.

==============

In the secret room~

"Tch, this boy sure is troublesome even though I went through all the trouble to bring you here so you can succeed."

The old man exclaimed as he found this boy had so much wisdom that may not be good as he is overly suspicious.

He thought this despite actually spying on him from afar as Zhen was correct to the point that he couldn't believe it.

'Just how sensitive is this boy to be this cautious.'

Seeing how the boy is really about to fall asleep as he doesn't care about anything nor about the safety of his companion right now.

'Does he have that much faith in his companion or just an ignorant person? I'm leaning toward the first possibility because of his conduct so far ever since he entered the dungeon.'

With a sigh, he sent out an orb to where Zhen is located. 

"I know you are confused and have your guard up but hear me out." The orb echoed the old man's voice to Zhen.

When Zhen finally heard a voice, he didn't stand up and stay in his sleeping position and asked, "Who are you and why did you bring me here?"

"Just call me an old man who is simply fulfilling my duty that I have waited for a century."

'What the heck? His word is basically like saying nothing at all.' Zhen was speechless by the nonsense crap that the old man said.

"Then can you at least explain what that red thing inside that glass container is?" Zhen decided to change to another question since this person clearly doesn't want to reveal himself.

While Zhen was waiting for a response, he felt his conscience start to lose focus again. 

'Damn, this must be the doing of that person since he probably noticed my thought about stalling.'

Zhen tried to bite his lip to remain conscious but alas, he lost focus and fainted.

An unknown amount of time passed, Zhen slowly woke up as he felt someone slapping him lightly to make him wake up. 

Zhen could hear a female voice so he believed it should probably be Sara.

"Ugh," Zhen said slowly as he felt his head hurting for 3 seconds after waking up but he calmed down as soon as he saw Sara.

"Finally, you're awake, you scared me," Sara shouted and hugged Zhen tightly when she saw him waking up.

Although Zhen loved the hug, he was full of confusion as he could only remember losing conscience in an unknown room.

"Where is this place and what do you mean by scaring you?" Zhen asked in confusion while feeling suffocated by the intense hug from Sara.

Sara didn't reply to him at all and seemed to be disconnected as she simply kept holding Zhen more tightly.

"Master, you probably don't know but about 10 hours have passed and the new dungeon has completely vanished. Almost everyone was teleported outside and Master was unconscious the entire time."

Kuro answered his question since Sara is unresponsive. Meanwhile, Zhen was shocked about what the hell happened in those 10 hours?

"Where is Aaron Flare then? Wasn't he with you before I was separated because of that abnormal wolf?" 

Zhen just noticed Aaron isn't around here so Zhen thought if Aaron had returned to his place or met with some unfortunate.

"Master, after the new dungeon vanished, there were 15 black mages spotted and it caused a huge amount of fight as the adventurers and mercenaries worked together to attack them. There was a huge panic in town as the news of 15 black mages appeared so Aaron Flare said he had to go back and help his father out to calm the public." Kuro replied diligently, not missing out on any details.

'Oh, what a huge unexpected event to have the black mage appearance revealed to the public like this. Sigh, not my problem anymore as I'm powerless to help much now that the situation has turned chaotic.'

"Sara, if you keep hugging me like that, I would really die of suffocation." Zhen used his hand to slowly comfort her back to show that he's alright now.

"Un, just let me hug a bit longer and we're still in the inner core because we didn't dare to move your body since you were shaking so Kuro has been defending us from the magical beasts."

Hearing Sara's remark, Zhen activated his Sense which could finally be used and was surprised. 

There was a huge amount of magical beast's corpses piling up and they all have claw marks, indicating it is Kuro's killing them all.

'Guess I have to reward Kuro for his effort in doing all this work to protect me and Sara.'

A slight smile appeared on his face as he now had companions that would protect and not harm him.

"We should head back to the town as well and store those magical beasts," Zhen said as he got up while feeling a bit dizzy from fainting all the time.