18 Dragon and Phoenix 7 (1/2)

Since the 24-hour limit wasn't over yet, Yin Mei continued to wander the giant treasure room, until she reached the end. She stood in front of what seemed like a giant piece of ice, inside of it was... a person.

She stared up at the person, having no idea what this person was. There wasn't any mention of it at all in the information. Yin Mei felt that the system's information was becoming more and more useless as she kept on coming across things that were never mentioned.

The person was a man who looked like he was sleeping, his skin dyed a pale blue by the color of the ice. ”Is it a corpse? Sleeping? Sealed?” Yin Mei wasn't sure.

She wondered if it was okay to melt this ice? Like, she wouldn't be releasing some sealed away legendary devil king, right? She studied him. No dark skin, so he shouldn't be a devil? But, there was still a chance of being a demonic cultivator. But then she wondered why such a person would be sealed away inside a palace treasury.

But she really didn't know what sort of person could possibly be in here. He had to be from the golden age, that was for sure. After all, this place hadn't been touched since those times. ”Eiii, whatever!” Yin Mei didn't like overthinking things, so she stuffed it all into the back of her mind, throwing her golden phoenix flame at the piece of ice angrily, as if she was venting out all her frustrations.

”Ahahaha, burn, burnnnn!” She laughed weirdly as she watched the ice melt away in satisfaction. She guessed that the formations that formed the ice must have weakened over the thousands of years to allow it to burn away so easily, but it certainly was a pleasure to watch, so she wasn't complaining.

Feeling this pleasure, she thought that perhaps she had the makings of an arsonist. Oh well. It seemed that her morals had already significantly deteriorated from spending too long here.

Although the flames were eating at the ice at a steady pace, seeing the size of the thing, Yin Mei guessed that it might take a couple hours before it was completely melted away, so she decided to sit down and relax a bit, taking out a tea table, chair, and tea and snacks. She then began to leisurely read a book while elegantly sipping her tea.

”... What in the world are you doing?” Yao Lan asked with an odd expression, as she came across this scene that she really didn't know how to describe. It was filled with elegance, but then on the other side was a lifeless man encased in ice that looked like he was being burned at the stake.

”Hm? I'm waiting for that ice to melt. I wonder what sort of person is inside? Hope he's still alive, at least, or my efforts would be wasted.” Yin Mei answered. ”Want to come sit with me?”

”You already looked through everything, to be so relaxed?” Although Yao Lan said that, she also sat down to partake in some tea and snacks. Yao Lan was currently very satisfied with her haul, so didn't mind taking some time off to chat with Yin Mei.

Yin Mei seemed to take the time to think. With the unexpected discovery of these mysterious items outside of the system's knowledge, she wondered what other treasures could be buried here that she didn't know about. But she then inwardly shook her head. ”Yep. Anything else at this point would just be superfluous. Anyways, bringing back a potential cultivator from the golden ages would be good enough of a treasure, right?”

Yao Lan had to agree with that. She looked at the piece of ice. ”Could he really be from the old age?” She asked. The legends of the golden age were told to children since they were young, and although the current age actually really wasn't too much behind, they still had not yet achieved the peak of prosperity and knowledge like in those days.

”Probably. Perhaps he even witnessed that war.” Yin Mei said. That war was the fiercest one in the history of the upper realm, and even now the land had still yet to fully recover, even though the seal that locked away the devils into their own realm was already beginning to unravel itself.

”Hey, if we bring such a person back, don't you think that the Jade Emperor would reward us?” Yao Lan asked.

”If that was the case, we'd probably have to give most of the rest of this away to the Jade Emperor, under the reason of donations to the state.” Yin Mei said. ”But, that might not be too bad either.” For one, it would most definitely raise the level of their clans in the eyes of the emperor. In addition, it would probably mean that the Jade Emperor would personally reward them and favor them after that.

Essentially, it was whether they wanted riches or glory. Or another way of saying it was if they wanted to be selfish or patriotic. But, being on the Jade Emperor's good side did come with many more long-term benefits. ”We can discuss it with the rest of the group, when we're done.” Yin Mei said. After all, this was something that couldn't be decided alone, since this treasure had been found by all of them together.