Exploring Technology in a Wizard World-Chapter 668 - 666: Theft - Guevara - Richard

In the treasure palace underground, Richard hurried back.

His thoughts were crystal clear now, which was to pack up and escape.

He had achieved his goal, found the item he sought, and there was absolutely no need to wade into the troubled waters of the East Coast. He didn’t care about the outcome of the decisive battle outside or what the Mysterious Organization intended to do; he just wanted to take the scrolls from the palace, which contained knowledge, and depart to a safe and undisturbed place on the Main Continent to conduct his research and slowly uncover the true nature of the world.

Thinking this, Richard walked up to the stone table nearest the palace entrance, picked up the scroll that lay there, and started packing it into the Space Iron Ring.

The reason he hadn’t done this earlier was solely because there were too many scrolls in the palace to pack in a short amount of time. To organize them categorically into the Space Iron Ring for future reading convenience would take even more time. Therefore, he went above ground first, arranged everything with Teddy and the others to ensure there would be no disturbances, and then returned here to focus entirely on this task.

He hoped to take all the scrolls away without taking too long.

With this thought in mind, as Richard was lifting the first scroll into the air, an anomaly occurred.

With a "whoosh," visible to the naked eye, the scroll in his hand rapidly changed color. The scroll, which had been well-preserved until now, seemed to age hundreds or even thousands of years in an instant, its color turning grey-white. Then, it crumbled into dust-like powder, falling through the gaps in his fingers with a "rustle" and scattering on the ground.

This!

Richard was stunned, looking at the hand that had touched the scroll which was completely unscathed, without any damage; only the scroll was destroyed.

What on earth was going on?

Raising his eyebrows, Richard moved to another table and tried to pick up another scroll.

The same thing happened again; as soon as the scroll was half lifted into the air, it immediately discolored, then crumbled into dust.

But it was perfectly fine when he had read it earlier!

After pondering for a moment, Richard walked up to a third table, carefully spread the scroll out on the surface, and perused its content. As he read, he paid attention to any changes in the scroll, but after finishing, the scroll remained unaltered.

So...

With a slight movement, Richard began to lift the scroll bit by bit off the table’s surface.

With a "whoosh," the scroll instantly changed color and crumbled to dust, spreading over the entire table.

The truth became clear: the scrolls had some special connection to the tables, or, more precisely, there was a special anti-theft spell mechanism in place, similar to the one at the Jungle Hut’s Dark Forest Gathering Place and the internal library there.

The difference was that in the library at the Dark Forest Gathering Place, books needed to be taken a certain distance away before they would react, giving a warning. However, the scrolls in the current palace would self-destruct immediately upon being lifted off the table.

Richard suddenly realized the answer to a small puzzle he had earlier: why the scrolls in the palace weren’t stacked up in boxes like the previous treasures, which would save a lot of space.

Now, it seemed entirely designed for theft prevention, to stop people from stealing this knowledge and uncontrolled dissemination into the outside world.

Based on what the voice had said when the Stone Gate was still unopened, the treasure here should have been prepared by the Black Spirit King for his descendants, like for the people of the Black Holy Mountain Kingdom, such as Princess Rose.

The initial expectation must have been that the people of the Black Holy Mountain Kingdom would be competent enough to unravel the secrets of the treasure and make their way here step by step. Then they could obtain the most precious Knowledge Scrolls from the former Black Spirit Empire, develop Extraordinary Power, and rebuild the Black Spirit Empire.

In that case, opening the treasure would have involved many people, and as long as the leader of the ones who opened it wasn’t foolish, they would occupy this place, allowing their trusted followers to continue entering and studying, perhaps even making it a sort of secret realm.

In such a case, putting an anti-theft spell mechanism on all the Knowledge Scrolls would prevent their theft by those with ulterior motives, a foolproof preparation.

But what the Black Spirit King had definitely not anticipated was that the last person to open the treasure would not be his descendant, and the number of people would not be many, just one person.

One person!

This just became tricky. Under the effect of the anti-theft spell’s mechanism, it would be very difficult for a person to easily take away all the scrolls.

But... that being said, very difficult does not mean completely impossible.

Richard’s eyes narrowed.

Since the scrolls couldn’t leave the table, he just had to take away the stone table and the scrolls together.

This might prove difficult for others. After all, the stone table was large and heavy, and taking one would be enough to affect their movements, taking two was completely out of the question.

But he had the Space Iron Ring, countless Space Iron Rings.

Even if the Space Iron Ring with only one cubic meter of volume wasn’t enough, there was also the Space Handbag with nearly infinite capacity.

With this thought, Richard didn’t hesitate. He walked over to the fourth stone table, lifted it with force, and started to move it into the Space Iron Ring.

After successfully storing it away, he sighed with relief and then took it out to check.

The next moment, Richard’s face turned incredibly grim.

He saw that the scrolls, which had been sitting nicely on top of the stone table before being stored away, had turned back into a pile of dust upon being taken out.

Damn it!

Richard pursed his lips but did not give up; he tried again, attempting to store the stone table and the scrolls into another new Space Iron Ring.

The result was no different.

Swapping the Space Iron Ring for a Space Handbag, which was an item with the same origin and was originally produced from the Black Spirit King’s Treasure, yielded... the same result.

The pristine scrolls immediately turned to dust as soon as they were stored.

"Damn it!"

Richard pursed his mouth, feeling an unusual urge to curse.

Looking at the dense array of stone tables in the palace, and at the numerous scrolls on top of them, he couldn’t help but clench his fists.

For him, these were all invaluable treasures. Yet, despite being so close at hand, they were impossible to take with him. The growing frustration was uncontrollable—the more he looked, the angrier he became.

After a long while, Richard continued observing and suddenly burst into bitter laughter.

"Ha, haha." Richard laughed, nodding lightly at the many scrolls and speaking to himself, "Good, very good! Quite an impressive theft-prevention spell indeed, even space items can’t cheat it, really good!

But then again, the scrolls are still viewable, right? As long as they’re spread out on the table and not moved around, I can look at them, right?

All right, that’s how I’ll look! However, by myself, I can’t possibly go through so many scrolls in a short time. It wouldn’t be too much to use a tool for assistance, would it? I refuse to believe, even this method can be anticipated and prohibited!"

With those words, Richard flipped his hand and took out a heavy black metal box from his Space Iron Ring.

The entire box was nearly cubic, but with many buttons on its surface, and in the front, there was a circular protrusion fitted with a large lens, resembling the eye of an abnormal creature, or what one might call... a camera lens.

Yes, a lens, a camera!

This was Richard’s method!

Since the scrolls here couldn’t be taken away, very well, he wasn’t planning to take them. Using a camera to photograph the text, to keep as a memento, surely that was permissible, not much of an issue!

This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦