Back at the camp, Noah listened to Vic's explanation and learned that they had discovered an underground chamber that might contain treasure.
He took two diving suits, four oxygen tanks, and two portable searchlights out of the equipment card, then told them to be careful.
After returning to the mountaintop platform, Vic handed the diving suits and oxygen tanks to Joshua and Anthony. The two put on the suits, picked up the searchlights and their weapons, and entered the underground chamber.
There was a stone staircase at the entrance to the chamber.
After descending a dozen or so steps, they reached the bottom.
In the searchlight's beam, they saw a hall covered in chisel marks.
Anthony suddenly noticed some words carved into one of the walls. He brushed the dust off the surface with his dagger.
"The treasure is half a meter beneath our feet?"
"Anthony, is the treasure right beneath our feet?"
"Be careful. I can't help feeling something's wrong." Anthony was uneasy.
Joshua hesitated. "Then what do we do? Dig, or give up?"
"We've come all this way. There's no reason not to dig, but we shouldn't both do it. I'll dig first, and you keep watch."
Anthony put away his dagger and drew his long saber instead, scraping away the layer of soil bit by bit.
Joshua remained on high alert beside him, using his Observation Haki to keep constant watch on what lay beneath the soil.
Half an hour later, Anthony had scraped away only about thirty centimeters when his saber struck something hard. After a dozen more scrapes, a golden gleam appeared beneath the soil in the searchlight's beam.
"There's actually gold?"
He used his saber to lift out a gold object. It was a gold necklace. He suddenly stopped and examined it more closely, and cold sweat immediately broke out on his body.
Fine needles were wrapped around the necklace. Even after being buried for so long, they still glinted eerily.
"Joshua, don't come closer. There might be poisoned needles on this treasure."
Joshua cursed under his breath. "What bastard hid this treasure? That's downright devious."
The two of them brought several wooden boxes down from above and used wooden chopsticks to pick up the treasure and put it inside. After more than an hour of work, they had filled twelve boxes.
Back on the mountaintop platform, Anthony removed his helmet and looked at the twelve boxes packed to the brim. Smiling, he said, "The guy who hid this treasure was incredibly devious, but once it's been dealt with, this treasure will be worth at least eighty million Beli."
Vic had just started to lift one of the boxes when a crack appeared in it. Startled, he hurriedly threw it away to avoid being pricked by the poisoned needles wrapped around the treasure.
Crack...
The box shattered, spilling gold, silver, and jewels onto the ground.
Anthony jumped. "Be careful! Don't go near it."
They had no choice but to bring over the remaining empty box and use chopsticks to pick up the spilled treasure and put it back inside. They also had Vic chop a large pile of wooden slats, which they used along with vines from the nearby forest to reinforce the treasure boxes so they wouldn't break again during transport.
Suddenly, Anthony stared at the boxes in front of him.
"What's wrong?" Joshua asked curiously, seeing him staring into space.
"Something's wrong. There are thirteen boxes here, but the treasure only filled twelve of them. There should be another box's worth of treasure down there." Anthony suddenly remembered something else.
"Damn it, we were almost fooled again."
"Fooled by what?" Joshua was completely baffled.
"Do you remember what the wall said? The treasure was half a meter beneath our feet, but I found it after digging only thirty centimeters. Clearly, the real treasure is in the last box, hidden half a meter down."
Joshua suddenly understood. "I see. That guy really was devious."
The two put their helmets back on and went down into the chamber again, even more wary than before.
After slowly digging for half an hour, they finally found what was hidden beneath.
There were two small boxes. One was long and narrow, while the other was square.
Anthony and Joshua didn't dare open them there, worried that the devious old bastard who had hidden the treasure had left more traps inside.
Taking the boxes with them, the group returned to the temporary camp.
Only after hearing Anthony and Joshua's account did Noah understand how dangerous the treasure was. It was one trap after another; anyone who wasn't sufficiently wary would surely have been killed by the schemes.
Noah first instructed Jay to pick out the gems, then use a graphite furnace to melt the gold, silver, and poisoned needles together before separating out the gold and silver.
The extremely high temperature could destroy most toxins.
Meanwhile, he used tarot cards for a divination.
"There's no danger in this box." He casually opened it, and inside was a Devil Fruit.
Everyone was astonished.
"I didn't expect it to be a Devil Fruit."
"I wonder what kind of fruit it is?"
"We can just check the encyclopedia later."
Noah then performed a divination on the remaining box. The result shocked him somewhat. "A fifty percent risk?"
Even with his strength, there was still a fifty percent risk. What was inside the box was indeed beyond his expectations.
He had Jay use graphite to make a room, then focused his Observation Haki on the box while Jay controlled a graphite puppet to open it.
"A saber?"
Suddenly, an ominous aura spread from the saber.
"A cursed blade?"
No wonder. If it was a cursed blade, there was indeed a great risk.
Especially the one before him.
A faint voice sounded in the depths of his heart.
Pick me up...
You will gain endless power...
"Endless power? From the likes of you? You're just a saber. How utterly ridiculous." Noah's Conqueror's Haki was like a blazing flame as he forcefully poured it into the cursed blade.
The next moment, he drew the blade. His Conqueror's Haki, forged from an iron will, suppressed the sinister instinct within the cursed blade until it trembled.
"Disappear!"
His Conqueror's Haki ground the cursed blade's instinct to pieces like a millstone. As the instinct was destroyed, the blade slowly absorbed the Conqueror's Haki and Armament Haki Noah had poured into it.
"I don't want to know your old name. From today onward, you'll be called Crimson Heart."
The others also came to their senses at this point.
Anthony in particular was shaken. He was glad he hadn't opened the box in the underground chamber, because all kinds of thoughts had just surfaced in his mind. Clearly, the blade had been tempting him constantly.
Noah put Crimson Heart away, then warned them solemnly, "This blade is a legendary cursed blade. Without a strong enough spirit, it's easy to be bewitched by it and end up becoming its slave. Be more careful when you encounter such things in the future."
"Noah, what should we do if someone is controlled by a cursed blade?" Jay asked worriedly.
"As long as you take the cursed blade away or destroy it, the person under its control can return to normal." Noah gave his solution.
This was also how the Seven Star Sword's curse was later broken. Once the cursed blade was destroyed, any curse would be left without a source.