Chapter 553 – Sunken Ship Treasure

Chapter 553 – Sunken Ship Treasure

This was a jellyfish ape habitat.

The seafloor was covered with glass bottles filled with seawater.

The jellyfish apes, with their transparent skin and faintly glowing organs, stretched and retracted their tentacle-like arms as they rummaged through colorful glass bottles.

These glass bottles were all part of the jellyfish apes’ collection. Some had been discarded by humans, but most were stolen.

Mo Lan had once read about this particular quirk of theirs in a witch’s travel journal.

The author was a witch who always came back empty-handed from fishing. She had lived on a sea island for several years without ever properly catching a single fish.

For a while, she had taken a liking to a certain wine that came in glass bottles. She would pile the empty bottles outside her house after drinking, but they always vanished without a trace.

She was the only person on the island, and at the time, she had nearly convinced herself there were Ghosts.

Later, she set a trap and discovered it was all the jellyfish apes’ handiwork.

They seemed able to sniff out the location of glass, and no matter where she hid the empty wine bottles — as long as they weren’t inside the house protected by magic circles — the jellyfish apes would quietly crawl ashore in the dead of night and steal them.

Eventually, that witch became an expert at fishing, falling in love with the hobby.

Except what she fished for were jellyfish apes.

She used empty glass wine bottles as bait, cast her line by the shore, and caught a jellyfish ape every single time without fail.

Unfortunately, jellyfish apes weren’t edible. She could only tease them a bit before releasing them back.

The treasure map indicated that the treasure was located right here, in this jellyfish ape habitat.

Every treasure from the Sunken Ship Treasure Platter treasure maps bore a Merfolk Tavern marking — the mermaid design from the tavern’s sign — which was easy to identify.

Mo Lan surveyed the seafloor but couldn’t spot the tavern’s mark anywhere.

If the treasure map’s location was accurate, then there was only one possibility: the treasure was among these glass wine bottles.

That was a bit of a headache.

With so many bottles, whether the treasure was buried beneath them or inside one of them, it wouldn’t be easy to find.

She’d try the Clairvoyance Spell first!

Mo Lan channeled her Mana, and an image appeared in her mind — a dark green glass bottle etched with the Merfolk Tavern logo.

“Don’t tell me the treasure is just this glass bottle!” Mo Lan immediately had a bad feeling.

But she was already here. She couldn’t give up without at least taking a look.

Still invisible, Mo Lan swam a little closer to the jellyfish apes, then cast a Peak-level mage spell — Mass Grand Psychic Illusion.

She enveloped all the jellyfish apes within the illusion, making them believe that a mountain of glass bottles had appeared in a distant ocean trench.

No jellyfish ape could resist that kind of temptation. They all swam excitedly toward the trench.

In the dark trench, the social anxiety coral polyps that had been secretly doing the robot dance spotted the jellyfish apes rushing excitedly toward them and immediately hardened into ordinary coral. “Can’t see me~ Can’t see me~”

Jellyfish apes were at most Intermediate magical beasts. The ones before her only had the advantage of numbers — they had no chance of escaping her Psychic Illusion.

Mo Lan safely infiltrated the jellyfish apes’ glass bottle “treasury.”

Dark green bottles were relatively rare here and stood out more. Moreover, the bottle she’d seen through the Clairvoyance Spell was long and slender with a distinctive shape.

These obvious features made the search somewhat easier.

Even so, it took her a full hour before she finally found the dark green glass bottle buried at the very bottom of the bottle mountain.

The bottle’s appearance and the Merfolk Tavern logo on it were exactly the same as what she’d seen in her Clairvoyance Spell. Mo Lan was quite certain this was an ordinary glass bottle with no magical properties whatsoever.

She shook the bottle. It was completely full of seawater, making it impossible to tell if anything was inside.

The bottle had a stopper, also made of glass, the same color as the bottle itself. Probably because it was all glass, the jellyfish apes hadn’t discarded it.

A ring of tiny text was carved into the stopper, written in 《Valen Common Language》.

“Your courage has been claimed by me. Please present this bottle to redeem it!”

Mo Lan: “…”

This was feeling worse by the minute. Surely it wasn’t like the treasure chest full of seawater that Rose and the others had found — just a bad joke!

She pressed her eyes to the bottle’s opening to look inside. Thanks to her dark vision and the jellyfish apes’ enthusiasm for polishing glass bottles, the water inside was very clear, and she could see something at the bottom.

It looked like a key!

Thank goodness! It wasn’t just so-called “essence of the ocean.”

She dispelled the Psychic Magic and took the bottle back to the surface.

Mounting her broomstick and flying into the air, she carefully poured out the seawater from the bottle.

A heavily corroded copper key fell into her palm.

“What is this thing?”

There were no traces of Alchemy treatment, and the materials were nothing precious. No matter how she looked at it, it hardly qualified as a treasure!

However, Mo Lan could sense a faint trace of Death Force on the key. She wasn’t sure if it held some special significance.

Fortunately, the Merfolk Tavern offered after-sales service for the Sunken Ship Treasure treasure maps.

She brought the glass bottle and the key back to Moon Harbor.

After sunset, once the Merfolk Tavern rose from the seabed, she landed on the largest starshine giant shell.

“Moira!” Aquina’s eyes lit up when she saw her, and she pulled out her Communication Card. “Quick, quick, quick — let’s add each other! I forgot last time because I was so busy.”

Mo Lan nodded. Having each other as contacts was certainly convenient — at the very least, after digging up treasure, she could ask Aquina online what the items actually were.

After adding each other, Mo Lan took out the glass bottle with the key still inside. “Aquina, is there anything special about the key in here? I think I sensed a trace of Death Force on it, but it doesn’t show any signs of Alchemy treatment. It’s a bit strange.”

Aquina took the glass bottle and examined it closely. “This looks familiar!”

She rotated the bottle and spotted her own tavern’s logo. “Huh? One of our bottles? No, wait — with a color this dark, you can’t even see the beautiful liquor inside. I would never use a bottle like this.”

She even made a show of sniffing the bottle’s opening. “There’s nothing special about this bottle — it’s just an ordinary bottle. But the wine that was once inside it is somewhat unusual. It should be a magical wine… The scent is vaguely familiar! Where have I had this kind of wine before…”

Watching her mutter to herself, Mo Lan said with visible exasperation, “This is the treasure I found from the Sunken Ship Treasure treasure map! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?”

Just how many treasure maps had she made, and how much random junk had she hidden as “treasure,” for her to be this unfamiliar with something she’d handled herself!

“Huh?” Aquina blinked. “Treasure?”

She inspected the bottle more carefully, and this time she noticed the ring of tiny text on the stopper. “I remember now! This is a treasure I hid a hundred years ago!”

“A real treasure, or a fake one?”

Mo Lan had already given up all hope. It was only curiosity that drove her to keep pressing for answers.

Aquina really was far too unreliable!