Chapter 45

Following what the hidden message had told him, Mike made his way up the stairs to the second floor of the Heavenly Palace.

As he got over the last step, the scene that met his gaze astounded him once again.

The second floor seemed to be the residences of the Heavenly Palace.

There was a fairy-like atmosphere, and the doors of each room were designed differently.

On the curtains of these rooms hung green bamboo plates that named them.

As Mike approached one of the rooms, he saw the words ‘Immortal abode beyond heaven’ inscribed on its bamboo plate.

Pushing open the door, Mike was intoxicated by the elaborate scenery.

In this ‘Immortal abode beyond heaven’, what met his eyes was a delicate and elegant screen.

On it was depicted the life of the eastern gods in Miracle.

Their clothes and makeup were exactly the same as those of the gods in ancient Eastern mythology that Mike had seen when he was a child.

Lying behind the screen was a dark green guqin, an oriental instrument.

The entire room simply exuded the feel of a residence of immortals.

‘No wonder it dares to claim itself as an ‘immortal abode beyond heaven’. It looks accurate enough.”

Mike walked straight toward the inner room, where he found a dressing table to the side of a bed, and a portrait of a fairy on the other side.

A half-opened wooden box lay on the dressing table, its contents only faintly discernible.

Mike walked forward curiously.

Picking up the wooden box, he saw that there were seven or eight eastern mythical beasts carved on it.

These divine beasts took strange shapes, and they were clearly much more domineering than the Exotic Beasts he was used to.

The words ‘Heavenly Immortal Treasure’ was inscribed on the box.

When he opened the wooden box, he found a piece of almost flawless jade lying within. It was a pure emerald green, its shape likening a rooster’s crest.

‘Could this be the Era Jade?’

Doubt rose in Mike’s heart once again.

His knowledge of this Miracle world was lacking. Without the hints of the hidden information, he knew that he wouldn’t have been able to get to where he was today.

[Hidden Information: Era Jade, a King-tier treasure from the primordial era. Its value is immeasurable]

‘It really is the Era Jade… Looks like this trip wasn’t in vain!

‘The first King-tier equipment from the primordial era is about to be revealed. Just thinking about it is really exciting!’

Mike put away the Era Jade and looked around the immortal abode once more. He turned around as he prepared to walk up to the third floor of the Heavenly Palace.

‘This place… isn’t what I imagined it’d be’

He arrived at the third floor, which was deathly silent. Compared to the first and second floors, this place was like a prison.

No, this place really did seem to be a prison.

The doors to every room on the third floor were made of black iron. Even the gods of Miracle would have had to exert a considerable amount of effort to open them.

Mike carefully examined the rooms.

After searching for a while, he was still unable to find the mysterious room mentioned in the hidden message.

“Why are all these rooms the same? The hidden message couldn’t have been lying to me, right?”

He decided to give up searching in vain, and instead wait until he reached the top of the Heavenly Palace before planning his next steps.

He was just about to walk up the stairs to the top of the Heavenly Palace.

However, at this moment, he got a strange feeling in his heart.

‘That’s not right… Why do I remember that the distance between the first and second floors wasn’t so far?’

He decided to return to the bottom, checking again carefully before going up any further.

Soon, he emerged at the top of the stairs connecting the second and first floors.

“One step, two steps, three steps… one hundred and three steps.”

After the one hundred and three steps, Mike went over to the stairs connecting the second and third floors.

He went back up to the third floor again.

He held his breath as he counted, as if he was about to uncover the mystery of the hidden room.

“One step, two steps, three steps… one hundred and nine steps.”

Mike let out a long sigh of relief.

‘The problem lies here. It seems that the location of this mysterious room is not around me, but under my feet.’

Using a spell, he pierced through the tiles under his feet.

As expected, a narrow room came into view.

The material of the door seemed to be different from the dark iron of the other doors. Whether it was the color, material, or touch, this door specifically seemed to imply that it was much thicker and heavier than the others.

Like the others, there was no way that it could be breached by brute force.

Only by finding the key would it be opened.

Thinking he had thought of a shortcut, Mike broke all the tiles on the third floor that were close to the mysterious room. However, the body of the mysterious room seemed to be made of the same special darker variation of dark iron.

Mike shook his head helplessly.

“Looks like I have to go to the top.”

He left the third floor as he went to the top of the Heavenly Palace, the fourth floor.

When he arrived, Mike saw the statues of three ancient Eastern gods.

They were Fu Yi, who was holding a huge spear and had a bearded face, Duan Nian, who held a jade bottle in his left hand and a charm in his right, and Jue Xin, who stood firmly on seven-colored clouds, accompanied by a white phoenix.

Mike realized that the appearance of this one in particular, the god of severing hearts, seemed very similar to that of Zhao Ruoxian.

Rather, similar wasn’t the right word. They looked exactly the same.

He spotted a rusty copper lamp under the feet of the three idols.

[Hidden Information: Light up the copper lamp to illuminate the three idols, and you will be able to discover the key.]

‘So that’s how it is!’

Mike picked up the copper lamp in one hand, while simultaneously igniting a ball of flame in the other. Putting the two together, he swiftly lit the lamp.

With it in hand, he promptly jumped up to the altar where the gods were supposed to be worshiped.

Raising the copper lamp, he approached closer. Passages of text that had not been there prior suddenly appeared.

As he lowered the copper lamp, the words seemed to fade.

“I am the god of evil, the god of heaven-destroying evil. We have imprisoned the Occult Immortal Book of Evil Techniques here. This book…”

“I am the god of evil, the god of the Moon Tower. To seal the book of secrets, we…”

Looking at the statues of the ‘evil’ gods, Mike couldn’t help but sigh.

‘So be it. Why are you spouting so much nonsense?’

Clutching the copper lamp, Mike finally arrived before the last statue.

‘The hint to the key’s location should be here.’

The text read, ‘I am the heart-severing god, Zhao Ruoxian. The key to the room that seals the celestial arcanum is hidden on the top of the statue. Remember that this book had once been forbidden. Those who obtain it must not be blinded by its words. Remember this.”

Following the instructions, Mike flew up to the statue of Zhao Ruoxian to find a key hanging on the hairpin of the statue. He swiftly took it off.

‘It’s time to see what secret technique is hidden in that room.’

“An occult book, huh? Just wait for me!”