"I... I'm here to protect you," Zachary said seriously. He believed that the treasure indicated by the system was either the woman herself or something that she carried with her.
"Protect me? You?" the woman asked Zachary mockingly, as if Zachary had just told her a joke that was not at all funny.
"You do not believe me?" Zachary felt crestfallen. When he first entered the cave, he did notice that the aura of the woman was unusually strong, maybe even stronger than that of Lewis. This confused him. 'If she is really that strong, why is it that she seemed to be trapped in here?' he wondered.
"I was ambushed," the woman said suddenly, as if she could read Zachary's mind.
Zachary felt shivers run down his spine. After a moment of shock, he then probed her, "People's desires are insatiable. Everyone wants your treasure."
"How do you know I have a treasure with me?" the woman asked startled.
"I was just guessing," Zachary said smiling.
"Then you have to die. I originally planned to let you go," the woman said seriously.
"Are you sure you can pull it off?" Zachary said confidently as he smiled and then crossed his arms in front of him. He reasoned that the woman was likely injured. If she was not injured, then she would not be inside the cave. She would have fled instead if she was not injured.
The woman was held back by Zachary's confidence. 'He seems perceptive. And he was not intimidated by me at all. Though he is only at the Mortal Level, he might not be as weak as he appears to be, ' she pondered. She immediately noticed the robe that Zachary was wearing. "Are you a disciple of the Welkin Sect?"
"Is it so obvious?" Zachary looked down at his own robe. He had almost forgotten that he was wearing the uniform of a formal disciple.
"Although the Welkin Sect isn't a huge sect, it is still well known. I believe its disciples should be decent at least. Perhaps..." she said.
All of a sudden, her muscles tensed as she sprang into extreme alertness. She stared out of the cave in a worried look. "They're fast," she said under her breath. She flew up from where she stood and landed near Zachary.
Zachary felt her strong aura as she approached, which shocked him. In the blink of an eye, the barely-clothed beautiful figure stood mere inches away in front of him. And because she wasn't properly clothed, he could still see the outline of her private parts, which aroused something in him.
"Boy, I will go and run first. They will chase after me. Take that chance to escape. Help me hide the treasure. If I don't come to find you in three months, the treasure is yours." She flipped her hand, and a scroll made of beast hide and sealed with wax appeared. She pushed the scroll into his robe and shocked him. He still barely grasped the meaning of her words.
He was surprised. 'Am I really so lucky? This beautiful woman simply gave me the treasure! Or is it a trap?' Zachary thought to himself.
Bothered by the idea, Zachary hesitated. He argued whether he'd return the treasure or not. Before he arrived at a decision, the woman flew out of the cave without warning and disappeared.
"So fast! Hey, wait..." When Zachary got out of the cave, the woman was gone in a shining orange-golden flash.
"Could she be a warrior at the Sage Level? Fuck! I didn't recognize that earlier! No wonder the system got excited. I should have asked her to give me more treasures!" Zachary murmured to himself. He felt extremely lucky. If the woman
really intended to kill him, he would have been dead already. Perhaps she was truly seriously injured, but she didn't need too much effort to kill someone at the Mortal Level. The woman had a golden-orange light radiating from her body. It was something that warriors at the Sage Level had. The warriors at the Imperial Level had an orange-colored light. Lewis, the leader of the Welkin Sect, hadn't reached the Sage Level yet. He was only at the Imperial Level. It was extremely hard for a warrior at a higher cultivation level to make a breakthrough. Some could be stuck at a level for decades. And yet the woman reached the Sage Level at such a young age!
'I should leave this place before anyone sees me here, ' Zachary thought as he fled using the Shadow Pace.
He kept running until he reached a place where he felt safe. He looked around one more time to make sure that no one was around and took out the scroll made of beast hide.
"What kind of treasure is this? Should I open it? It is a treasure that a warrior at the Sage Level was guarding with her life," Zachary said to himself. However, the woman said that she might come back for the scroll. If she found out that he opened it, she could get mad and kill him. Because of this, Zachary was not sure what to do.
'Wait a minute. Have I completed the quest?' Zachary wondered and then entered the system.
"Congratulations for completing the quest. Since you've completed a random treasure-hunting quest, you get a special award, a Strength Pill, on top of the usual award!" Mimi declared the moment he entered the system.
"What is a Strength Pill?" Zachary asked.
"The Strength Pill improves the user's strength in a short period of time. The degree of improvement is one level up. For example, a warrior at the Mortal Level will have the strength comparable to a warrior at the Earth Level after he takes the pill. However, it has serious side-effects. So it should be used with extra caution!" Mimi explained to him as a round pill that looked like a pearl floated towards Zachary.
"It sounds like it is a great pill to have, but if it has serious side effects, I may not want to use it." Zachary shrugged as he placed the pill into his pocket. It was a free pill, anyway, so that was better than nothing.
Zachary was also awarded a second-grade white cultivation-aiding pill for completing the quest.
"So what does this scroll do?" Zachary asked as he raised the scroll.
"It's a marriage contract," Mimi answered. "The person with this scroll is allowed to marry a woman from a powerful family background."
"A marriage contract? Is this even supposed to be considered a treasure? Who is the bride, anyway? I can't believe there's still forced marriage in this world! But what if the bride is someone I don't want to marry?" Zachary asked. He was disappointed that this wasn't the kind of treasure that he expected.
"The identity of the bride is unknown. The ink used on the scroll is a special invisible ink; thus, the information about the marriage is concealed," answered Mimi.
"An invisible ink? Can you analyze the ingredients of the ink? Then find a way to make the ink appear? Like heating or immersing in water." In his original world, Zachary was a professional treasure hunter. Invisible ink was a common method employed by people to conceal important information. There were methods to make the words written with an invisible ink to appear again; fire and water were the most common ones.