Dragon's Origin

Chapter 353: Deciphering the Map (Part 1)

The Shi and Gan families ultimately purchased half of the Peerless Treasure Map from Wang Sheng, though they paid a hefty price to Mei'er.

Mei'er wasn't like Wang Sheng, who only asked for gold coins, cultivation methods, and pills. Now that Mei'er was doing business in cooperation with the Empress, she could get as many cultivation methods and pills as Wang Sheng needed, as long as they weren't top-secret. Gold coins were even less of a problem. So, Mei'er wanted other things.

She demanded unique specialties from the Shi and Gan kingdoms, some mineral deposits, sufficient spices, grains, cloth, and livestock. These essential items for the common people accounted for half of the payment.

The other half consisted of luxury goods, supposedly to decorate the Changsheng Marquis estate, including various treasured collections with a long history and cultural significance. Calligraphy, paintings, sculptures, and various precious objects were countless.

Despite the heartache, the Shi and Gan families didn't haggle and agreed on the spot. Wang Sheng was also straightforward, asking about the dimensions of the Gan family's half of the map. Then, he secluded himself in a room and spent half an afternoon drawing the other half of the map on a piece of beast skin of the same size.

Wang Sheng was quite particular about doing business. He wasn't trying to swindle these two families with the treasure map, so he gave them a genuine half of the map. When the two maps were put together, they matched perfectly, with even the lines aligning.

When the expert in charge of safeguarding the Gan family's half of the map brought it out to compare, he was almost dumbfounded. If he hadn't personally cut the beast skin and given it to Wang Sheng, he would have suspected that this was the original map.

Judging from the direction of the lines and the distribution of the circles, there seemed to be a pattern. At least, there was an 80% chance that the map Wang Sheng produced was genuine. This was the professional judgment of both the Gan and Shi families.

"If there are any problems, feel free to come and find me!" Wang Sheng generously promised.

Although the Shi and Gan families weren't 100% sure, Wang Sheng had always been reputable in this regard, never cheating or swindling in business, making him highly credible.

Thus, the Shi and Gan families accepted this half of the Peerless Treasure Map, and the personnel they had prepared began to study it. They compared the map with various mountains and rivers, selecting the most likely locations for the treasure. In the end, they were astonished to find that none of the available data matched.

The experts they hired were all familiar with various regions, with a large number of hand-drawn maps for reference. However, after hundreds of people studied the map, the final conclusion was that it wasn't located in any place they were familiar with.

Where could it be if it wasn't recognized by ordinary geographical experts? The heads of the two families simultaneously thought of one place: the Perpetual Killing Ground.

A group of experts couldn't figure out what the circles meant. The lines could be interpreted as mountain ranges, rivers, valley bottoms, and so on, but the circles remained a mystery. However, when everyone thought of the Perpetual Killing Ground, someone had a flash of inspiration: could these be the range of formations? Could these circles actually be a map of the formation distribution?

There were definitely formations within the Perpetual Killing Ground, but no one except one person was familiar with the conditions inside, let alone the distribution of formations.

The Shi and Gan families sadly discovered that after painstakingly obtaining the complete treasure map from Wang Sheng, who wouldn't agree to get involved, they had to bite the bullet and ask Wang Sheng to participate. The world was truly a strange place.

Ask Wang Sheng? It wasn't impossible, but the problem was that they would have to face Wang Sheng's or Mei'er's exorbitant demands. This was them taking the initiative to seek Wang Sheng's help, so they would definitely be bitten hard.

Wang Sheng had been recuperating during this time, and he had received representatives from several families. The Xia family had come, and for the sake of A'Qi, he had given them a little more detailed information. The Tang family had come, the Song family had come, and basically all the vassal states that could be named had expressed their intention to cooperate.

Wang Sheng postponed all these intentions to a month later, claiming that he needed to recover from his previous adventure in the core of the Perpetual Killing Ground. Everyone knew that going to the core of the Perpetual Killing Ground was a life-threatening journey, requiring full concentration and focus, which consumed more mental and physical energy than usual.

Before a month had passed, Wang Sheng once again saw the two representatives from the Shi and Gan families.

"Just looking at the map is no problem!" Wang Sheng agreed readily. "As long as it doesn't leave Worry-Free City." He agreed readily, but as soon as he turned his head, Wang Sheng shouted to A'Qi, "A'Qi, feel free to ask for whatever you want!"

The two representatives looked at Wang Sheng's behavior with amusement, but they weren't surprised at all. He was a money-grubber. It was impossible to get Wang Sheng's help without paying anything. They didn't have that kind of relationship.

"I want a good dagger." A'Qi didn't stand on ceremony and made a request directly. "Not too much, right?"

Wang Sheng's gaze immediately turned to the two representatives. What else could the two people say at this time? They could only nod. "Not too much, not too much at all!"

Compared to the Peerless Treasure Map, just a dagger was really not too much. As soon as the two people nodded, Wang Sheng readily said, "Bring the thing over another day. Where's the map? Let me take a look!"

The map was of course carried with them, but not by the two representatives, but by two experts from the two families. Wang Sheng understood that the half of the map he had drawn was still in the hands of the Shi family. He didn't know how they had balanced these interests.

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Before Wang Sheng even looked at the two maps pieced together, he first raised a question: "I've also seen that half of the map, but I don't understand what those circles mean."

"It's a formation!" Since they were letting Wang Sheng look at the map, they wouldn't hide anything from him. The Shi family representative answered seriously, "After careful identification by our people, those circles are formations, marking the range of the formations."

"Formation? Ah! That's right!" Wang Sheng suddenly looked enlightened, and then, as if suddenly remembering something, he pounced on the two maps and carefully observed them.

"Here? No! This isn't right either! Still wrong!" Wang Sheng muttered to himself while looking at the map, sometimes turning it around to look at it from a different angle. Finally, a smile appeared on his face. "So that's how it is!"

Without waiting for the two families to anxiously ask, Wang Sheng reached out and drew a circle on a corner where the two maps connected: "These four formations should be the locations of the four experts I found in the core of the Perpetual Killing Ground!"