48 Hours a Day

Chapter 896: Dusk Of The Empire (End)

Although Zhang Heng had a map in his hand, there were no satellites in this era. Besides, the accuracy of the hand-drawn maps was limited as well. Basically, Zhang Heng only saw the rough location of the library on the map. Other than that, the dunes in the desert would constantly move due to the strong desert winds. Hence, he could not find any landmark for him to refer to in this vast desert.

In the end, Zhang Heng spent an entire month in the desert before finding the stele that Lucilla mentioned to him. Once Zhang Heng spotted the stele, he would be able to see the library’s entrance. While he was traveling in the desert, he accidentally ran into a group of robbers. Although he managed to eliminate the group of robbers, he still lost two camels and a local guide.

The local guide died because of his bad luck. When the robbery happened, he was far away from Zhang Heng. One of the robbers shot an arrow at him, and it landed on his forehead. He died on the stop. Zhang Heng had no choice but to come up with a sum of money and entrusted his companion to bring the money back to his family.

On the other hand, two camels had run away in fear. It wasn’t a big problem. As long as he found the right place, he could always go to the nearby towns to replenish his food and water.

When Zhang Heng arrived at his final destination, he bid the remaining two local guides goodbye before setting up a tent beside the stele. In the evening, by the time he finished his open-air barbecue, the moon had already risen above his head. After that, Zhang Heng followed Lucilla’s instructions, and he waited patiently for a while. When Zhang Heng saw that it was midnight, he extinguished the bonfire and walked about fifty steps in the direction indicated by the stele’s shadow.

Zhang Heng knew that the stele’s shadow was not as reliable. Fortunately, Zhang Heng still had his secret item with him, and that item was his watch. Zhang Heng knew that the time now was midnight after converting the time that he saw on his watch. However, the next problem that he had to face was the moon that hung in the sky. The moon’s perigee constantly changed with different seasons, and everyone’s had different steps as well.

Zhang Heng thought that the Balance Blade’s predecessors were rather mean when designing the library’s entrance two hundred years ago. They were clearly showing off how secure their design was. It was not easy for the people from the later generation to enter the library. All that being said, complaining would be pointless. Hence, after finding the right spot, Zhang Heng started to pick up a shovel to dig the ground. After half an hour of digging, the shovel finally hit something hard.

After all, the Balance Blade was just an organization made up of assassins. No matter how powerful they were, it was still impossible for him to create a library out of thin air under the sand. Therefore, Zhang Heng realized a natural cave beneath him, discovered by the Balance Blade two hundred years ago. After that, they did some modifications to the cave and put up a stele to mark the place.

Now that Zhang Heng had found the cave, the next thing that he would find was the cave’s entrance. Zhang Heng tossed the sand into the sky with his shovel, letting them blow away with the wind. Soon, he unveiled the bronze gate. Zhang Heng then threw the shovel away and drew his dagger. After that, he used the dagger to knocked the four directions of the bronze door in a specific order. As for the last step, he took out a movable iron piece in the lower-left corner of the bronze door and inserted his dagger into the slot to trigger the mechanism.

[Ding! Successfully found the Balance Blade’s secret library. +50 game points. Head to the character panel to view the related information…]

After completing the above steps, Zhang Heng heard a system reminder. At the same time, he also heard a rumbling sound coming from the ground. It was the sound of the iron plate opening the bronze gate. Zhang Heng took two steps backward and looked at the bronze gate slowly opening in front of him. He knew that a new world was beckoning at him behind this gate.

…

…

[The return deadline has been reached. Mission complete…]

[You have cleared the Empire’s Sunset dungeon. Your ninth round of the game is over. You will be sent back to the real world…]

…

Zhang Heng received the reminder to return to reality on the 560th day. Before that, he had spent seven months and eleven days in the secret library.

Of course, Zhang Heng did not stay there all the time. He would go out of the library from time to time for some fresh air after spending a long time reading the books stored in the library. Sometimes, he would go to a nearby town to have a different variety of food. Although it was not easy to find the library’s entrance and Zhang Heng did complain about the entrance’s design, he had to admit that the Balance Blade members had put a lot of thought when they built this library two hundred years ago. They had used every bit of knowledge at their disposal to master to perfect the design.

Upon entering the library, Zhang Heng found that he could play around with the library’s mechanism. He moved a piece of rock with holes to the entrance to maintain the air circulation in the library. And at the same time, no passers-by would discover this underground library. That was why Zhang Heng was quite happy to stay there.

By the sixth month, his assassin skill had been upgraded to Lv.3. And this was probably the skill that he spent the least time to reach Lv.3. When Zhang Heng was in the Black Sail dungeon, it took him many years to upgrade his sailing skill from Lv.2 to Lv.3. Thanks to the secret library, he spent less than a year upgrading this assassin skill.

In total, he earned 292 game points from this dungeon, and he even acquired a game item called Heart of Kreis. It was quite a fruitful journey for him.

When Zhang Heng opened his eyes again, he had returned from the desert to the lounge on the second floor of Sex and the City.

Zhang Heng got up from the deck and walked towards the bartender.

“I can finally pay back the 71 game points that I owe you last time. And I have an item for you to identify as well.”

Previously, Zhang Heng almost spent all his game points recasting the Ordinary Blade. Before he started his ninth round of the game, he only had 21 game points with him. He could not even afford to pay for the ritual of inheriting the remaining power from the Shadow Set. Luckily, the bartender was kind enough to allow him to pay the remaining game points that he owed later.

So the first thing Zhang Heng did after the end of the dungeon was to pay back the points he owed. After that, he passed the unidentified Heart of Kreis to the bartender. Although he had figured out the function of this item, he was not sure if he missed something. Anyway, it did not cost Zhang Heng too many game points to identify the items, and Zhang Heng could afford it.

“Congratulations, it seems it was a fruitful trip for you.” The bartender accepted the sapphire, took out the tablet, and clicked on the payment interface. Zhang Heng took the tablet without the bartender’s reminder and entered his player number, deducting 74 game points.

“It appears that our transactions are as pleasant as always,” the bartender said with satisfaction. “I will help you identify this game item as soon as possible. By then, your blade should be readied. Do you want me to send it to your school, or do you want to pick it up yourself?”

“I’ll come and get it,” Zhang Heng replied without hesitation. The previous game items that he asked the bartender to identify were relatively small. Zhang Heng did not want to attract any unnecessary attention. He was not worried that the guard might confiscate his blade, knowing that the logistic service that the bartender used would make sure that he received the item on time, even if he was on the moon. The problem was that Zhang Heng had no place to hide the blade at school. It would cause a lot of unnecessary misunderstandings if Chen Huadong and Wei Jiangyang found out about it.