Chapter 1433 Treasure's Strength
"I was unaware that treasures grew in strength the longer they were on their own," Tony said as he thought through history to find examples of it.
"It's not something that's easy to figure out," Ning said. "After all, what would you compare it to? Unless you have the same two treasures, you can't compare them two. And since a treasure is always unique until destroyed, you have no method of learning how they differ, so you don't know."
"How do you know about all of this?" Tony asked. "Are you a historian? You knew about the corals too."
"I am... going to answer that question of yours sometime in the future," Ning said. "For now, just listen to my words and know that they are true."
"Sir Ning," Tim spoke up. "What does it mean for a treasure to be stronger? A treasure can only do one thing, so does it become better at doing that?"
"Hmm," Ning thought for a moment and said. "Do you remember using the Umbrella back in Golden Scales? You saw how the second in command to Captain Dorius couldn't use his umbrella more than a few times before he fainted, didn't you?"
Tim nodded. "What about it?" he asked.
"If that umbrella had somehow been created much earlier and didn't have anyone bonding it for a longer period of time, the man using it would not have been so easily strained by using the umbrella."
"Or, maybe that wouldn't happen. Maybe instead of using up his stamina, he could defend against more force using lesser stamina."
"In the same way, if Tony hadn't bonded with his watch for a longer period of time, then maybe instead of notifying him of just 2 minutes in the future, it could've shown him 3 minutes. Or 5 minutes."
"All those sorts of changes depend on how long it has remained untouched," Ning explained.
Ning smiled. "I have a feeling people have learned about this before," he said. "But such discoveries are actively discouraged so that a certain someone can always take credit for everything as his doing."
Tim and Jasmine pretty much understood what Ning was talking about, and it did not take Tony more than a second to understand exactly what he meant.
"Zurinus, huh?" he said. "He truly put his name into everything that didn't need it."
"And to things that didn't belong to him," Ning said, wondering where the hell he could be. Was he an Inventor now, or was he the owner of the largest trading company in the world?
Or... was he someone else entirely?
"So, a treasure can get powerful if not bonded for a long time," Jasmine said. "And the one we are going to must have been there forever now. How strong is what we are going to find out there?"
"I do not know," Ning said. "We will know after we find it, but that was only part of the reason why I told you guys about how treasures get strong. There is another reason entirely that I haven't talked about yet."
All 3 of them got curious. "What more is there to know?" Tony asked.
"Did you know that if you put a lot of energy into a single place, that thing starts to become smart?" Ning asked. "It gains intelligence."
Tony gave a frown. "What?" he asked.
"That's right," Ning said. "Give a lot of energy and an object gains intelligence. Now that intelligence isn't enough to get it to start talking or thinking or something, but it does give objects basic instincts."
"For example, an object with enough energy will gain enough intelligence to learn that it needs to protect itself from getting found by others."
"And that is when it starts taking defensive measures," Ning said. "And that is where these guardian monsters come from, the ones you call Zurin Monsters."