Ji Xun had heard hunters say that the nobles of Upper City were filthy rich. The monthly salary of a random guard could reach tens of thousands.
The Governor's Mansion had hundreds, even thousands, of elite guards like that.
One could only imagine how obscenely wealthy the Cao Family governor was. So corpses ought to be worth a lot, right?
Ji Xun walked onward. The skeletons in the passage had already piled up into mountains, and bone dust covered the ground.
Skeleton monsters were a very peculiar type of Necrotic Monster. As long as their heads had not been completely smashed, they remained "alive" even if they were cut in half at the waist.
At that moment, many severed hands and feet still crawled about amid the piles of bones in the corridor.
Ji Xun did not find it creepy in the slightest and simply stepped over the bones as he walked through.
As he walked, his gaze carefully searched through the piles of corpses for something.
After passing through several corridors, Ji Xun suddenly stopped.
His eyes had caught a flash of silvery metal amid a pile of bones.
It was a suit of Frost Knight Armor!
"Jackpot."
Ji Xun's eyes immediately lit up.
Just as he had expected, the people from the Governor's Mansion had been too busy fleeing for their lives to collect the bodies of their fallen comrades.
Ji Xun walked over, overturned the pile of skeletons, and saw a shriveled corpse.
The corpse was in a very strange state.
It had clearly died only recently, yet all its flesh and blood had been drained away by some force, leaving it mummified.
Not even a trace of an Extraordinary Trait remained.
If not for the fact that Ji Xun knew the Frost Knights had entered only today, anyone who saw the corpse would probably think it had been dead for years.
Ji Xun inspected the battle traces around him, frowning deeply. "No external wounds. Did the Keeper of Secrets ignore physical and magical defenses and directly devour the soul and flesh?"
"Damn... there doesn't seem to be any way to defend against that." He sucked in a sharp breath.
The Cao Family's Frost Knights wore famously high-grade full plate armor, with extremely high resistance to both physical and magical damage. Bullets barely left a mark on it.
Ordinary small workshops simply could not produce armor of such exceptional quality.
Even the basic gear of such soldiers had a Black Market bounty price of over a million.
Yet the armor on this dried corpse remained intact, while the body inside had been completely drained.
That proved the Keeper of Secrets' attacks were not conventional physical or magical attacks, but a Mystic Type method that was currently impossible to understand.
After confirming the cause of death, Ji Xun did not keep looking.
After all, he had no intention of confronting an unkillable monster head-on. It did not matter how the monster killed people.
Anyone who encountered it would die anyway.
Rather than brood over an unchangeable predicament, he might as well think about something happier.
Ji Xun optimistically removed the Storage Ring from the corpse's hand and muttered expectantly, "Let's see whether the Governor's Mansion guards are really as rich as the rumors say."
There was nearly half a cubic meter of space inside. The spatial ring alone was already extremely valuable.
When he saw what was inside the ring, a hint of pleasant surprise appeared on Ji Xun's face.
Frost Knights were melee Profession Card users of the Order Path, Spade 6—Punishment Iron Guard. There was basically nothing miscellaneous in their Storage Rings, only various supplies and potions.
Advanced Hemostatic Potions, Advanced Healing Potions, Advanced Recovery Potions, Muscle Recovery Potions, and Stamina Potions were arranged in neat rows.
These were not the cheap, off-brand goods hunters usually carried.
Every glass vial bore a pure silver tag that read, "Produced by Odelan Alchemical Pharmaceutical Factory."
Potions were hard currency in the market at any time. High-end products from major alchemical factories in particular were usually more effective and stable in quality than those sold in Sinless City's Black Market.
Naturally, they were also more expensive.
These potions alone were roughly worth several hundred thousand.
"Tsk, tsk. The Governor's Mansion guards really are rich." Ji Xun sighed inwardly.
Such high-end potions were rarely seen even on the Black Market, and they happened to be useful to him.
When exploring ruins in the wild, potions were a hunter's second life.
Looking again, Ji Xun found a two-handed greatsword beside the corpse. He picked it up with interest and gave it a try. It was heavy, more than thirty kilograms.
An ordinary person would not be able to wield this sword at all.
Frost Greatsword Quality: Silver Details: A finely crafted knight's greatsword custom-made by Rox Blacksmith Workshop, containing dense frost curse power. Ice Damage +56%, Sharpness +3. Comes with the skill [Frost Slash], which infuses curse power to inflict slowing and stagger effects on targets.
"Damn, it's sharp." Ji Xun looked at the cold gleam along the blade and remarked in admiration.
For a two-handed sword to possess this degree of sharpness was already exceedingly rare.
It also dealt Ice Damage. This had already surpassed the scope of ordinary iron weapons—it was an enchanted weapon.
It would probably sell for an excellent price.
The sword was good, but without a Strength stat above 10, wielding it would be nothing but a burden.
Ji Xun lost interest after trying it a few times.
He then took two cards inscribed with dark silver curse patterns from the corpse's card slots and infused curse power into the hexagrams on them.
The blue light blooming from the cards covered the greatsword.
In the blink of an eye, the greatsword was contained within one of the cards, becoming a card printed with a two-dimensional image of a white greatsword.
Equipment Containment Cards were not only miraculous, but extremely practical.
They were like special scabbards, easily storing away the greatsword that radiated cold air. They required no maintenance and kept it sharp at all times.
They were convenient to carry and just as convenient to retrieve.
Ji Xun also used a card to store the armor from the corpse.
He could not use these items himself, but plenty of people on the Black Market would dare to buy them.
If he sold everything, he could practically become rich overnight.
The money would also be enough to cover Ji Xun's needs for a long time.
He could use it to buy the high-end firearms, ammunition, and Mechanical Equipment he had previously wanted but could not afford. He could buy martial arts manuals as well, and perhaps even visit an auction house to see whether he could purchase some expensive skill cultivation cards.
Loot of this value was something one could only stumble upon by chance.
Under normal circumstances, even if a Frost Knight died, the armor would definitely be recovered by other guards. Why would they give outsiders a chance to loot the body?
Only in this maze could such a thing happen.
It just so happened that someone wanted to ambush the governor's group.
"The wealth of the noble class really is beyond the imagination of ordinary people."
Ji Xun had only looted one corpse, yet he was already in an excellent mood.
A Frost Knight's full set of equipment was top-tier luxury goods that many hunters could never hope to obtain in their entire lives.
And this was merely a guard.
The wealth possessed by true nobles was simply unimaginable.
It was said that the Cao Family of Sinless City was only a branch of the Cao Family in the Federation. There were many such mid-tier noble families in the Federation.
Ji Xun put away those faint thoughts and carefully continued searching through the corridors.
He figured that a fully organized Frost Knight Legion from the Governor's Mansion should have left behind more than one corpse.
So he walked and searched at the same time.
Ji Xun felt that he had been extremely careful, avoiding nearly every corridor he believed to be dangerous.
But fate often toyed with people like a clown, giving them surprises—or scares.
Before he could find a second corpse, he once again heard the sounds of battle coming from the end of a corridor.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Ji Xun could not help thinking, Again?
But then he considered that this path was one the Governor's Mansion group had taken before. In theory, it should not be those people returning.
Moreover, the sounds of battle were not as intense as before.
It was probably some other lucky survivors.
There were no better hiding places for a long stretch of corridor behind him. Ji Xun did not wander around blindly and instead found an intersection nearby, once again choosing to lie down and play dead.
Before long, he heard tidal waves of clattering bones coming from the corridor, drawing closer and closer.
The sound of leather boots striking the corridor was easy to distinguish from the skeleton monsters.
There did not seem to be many people—only two.
The two people being chased by monsters were also clever. They seemed to share Ji Xun's idea: running along the paths that the Governor's Mansion group had cleared would mean encountering fewer monsters.
Ji Xun was relieved.
If there were only two of them, they probably had not provoked a Keeper of Secrets.
Otherwise, they would have died long ago.
His gaze shifted over.
The two people rushing toward him wore hunter attire, with Gas Masks covering their faces and brown burlap cloaks draped over their bodies.
But as they ran ahead, more and more skeletons gathered in pursuit behind them.
Moreover, one of them appeared to be seriously injured.
A trail of blood was left behind with every step.
Seeing this, Ji Xun had no intention of meddling.
He glanced at the skeleton horde from the corner of his eye. Seeing no sign of a Keeper of Secrets, he continued playing dead with peace of mind.
At that moment, the two happened to reach a T-junction, and the commotion attracted monsters from another corridor.
Like converging rivers, the skeleton monsters immediately began forming an encirclement.
Just as they were about to be swallowed by the tide of skeletons, one of the raiders fired several cards into the air with a whoosh.
The cards exploded in midair and actually summoned several grotesque zombies.
Steel Zombie, Venomous Zombie, Fire-breathing Zombie.
The moment the zombies appeared, they launched a barrage at the skeletons. They could serve as shields, breathe fire, and spew corrosive acid. They looked quite formidable.
Then there was no then.
The skeleton monsters had an absolute advantage in numbers. Though the little zombies were individually powerful, they were drowned beneath the skeletons in an instant.
Ji Xun watched with curiosity. Mystic Sequence, 4 of Diamonds—Summoner?
It was his first time seeing a Spell Card Master from this sequence.
Summoner was also an extremely popular profession among Spell Card Masters.
As long as hunters could find the corresponding demon contract and Profession Card, many would choose this path.
This profession was indeed highly suited to wilderness exploration.
It was a summoner profession.
It could summon not only zombies, but also all sorts of Mutated Monsters, magical beasts, evil spirits, and even calamities.
As long as they could be contained and bound by a summoning contract, theoretically any monster could become a combat companion.
Having Summoned Entities explore dangerous places greatly reduced the danger to the summoner.
Its weakness, however, was a frail physical body.
Summoners did not possess the robust Curse Power Bodyguard of pure spellcasters, nor did they have the physical strength of melee professionals.
But if their Summoned Entities were powerful enough, their combat strength could still be formidable.
Their path relied on overwhelming opponents through numbers.
Its upper limit was very high.
Ji Xun had considered this profession path before. His physical body was not a problem, and having several summons would be quite useful.
He had not expected to encounter one now, so he watched a little longer.
Neither of the two was weak. They both appeared to be official Spell Card Masters.
They would not die for the moment, but that might not remain true later.
If they kept running like this, the skeletons would only grow more numerous.
Their stamina alone could eventually wear them to death.
And if they encountered even one Keeper of Secrets while running like this, they would probably drop dead on the spot.
"Strange. They aren't Field Agents of Golden Oak, nor are they people from the Governor's Mansion. Could they be those raiders from earlier?"
Ji Xun looked at their attire and grew even more curious about their identities.
However, in the next moment, the cloak of the person running in front was lifted slightly by a gust of wind, revealing a glimpse of flowing silver hair.
Ji Xun's sharp eyes caught that detail, and his expression immediately became rather subtle.
He had never seen a second person with silver hair.
If he had only felt that person seemed strangely familiar before, then he was now certain that it was an old acquaintance.
Ji Xun wondered in surprise, Chujiu? Why is she in this maze?
Thanks to 'GT Wanlihong' for the 500 reward, and thanks to '20210228121941264' and '20210206183748505' for their support.
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