Chapter 24 – Zither of Divinity (II)
—————————————————————-
Although it merely brushed past him without a single touch, that momentary iciness caused Ye Yin Zhu’s whole body to tremble faintly. The iciness of the dagger brimmed with a frigid feeling of death. Could it be that the large Amethyst Sword was repelling it? When he turned back to inspect the large Amethyst Sword, he sensed from the sword’s blade the feeling of a monarch overlooking his realm. Yes, it was as if a monarch was overlooking his realm.
“Yin Zhu, what’s wrong?” Ma Liang and Nesta rushed up at nearly the same time. Ye Yin Zhu didn’t bother covering up the truth and explained what had happened just now. The two couldn’t help but be astonished.
Ma Liang said, “This dagger is pretty good. I like it. It’s a pity that I’m not a warrior. As for this gigantic sword, I’m underwhelmed. Even if it is better, what can you even do with it? Yin Zhu, you want such good things!”
Ye Yin Zhu smiled slightly and said, “My choices won’t change. No matter what you say, I like them very much. Well, the two of you can go find your selections. This dagger and gigantic sword are mine. Anyway, according to Nesta’s temperament, you also won’t use this dagger. Have I spoken incorrectly?”
Nesta laughed out loud. “You understand me. I have already chosen my reward. It’s over there; let me show it to you.” Finished speaking, he immediately ran off, full of joy and expectations.
Ma Liang also returned to digging through the treasures while Ye Yin Zhu began to look everywhere in the treasury.
Minutes passed by. Soon, the hour deadline would arrive, yet Ye Yin Zhu still hadn’t chosen his third reward. He had explored the entire treasury and had yet to find traces of a zither.Furthermore, for some unknown reason, he couldn’t find any magic items, weapons, or armor that could satisfy him after he had discovered the black dagger and large Amethyst Sword. Or rather, nothing else interested him.
“There are so many good things here. It’s a pity I can only choose two items. Yin Zhu, have you not finished choosing?” Ma Liang asked Ye Yin Zhu.
“Not yet, I still need to choose one more item, but I don’t know what to choose. I want a zither, but there doesn’t seem to be one.”
Ma Liang said, “Maybe you just haven’t found it yet. I think there are too many things here. Just now, I was also searching for some musical instruments, but how come I couldn’t find any zithers?” After he said this, he lowered his voice. “Could it be that your Zither Sect doesn’t have a special method to locate zithers?”
Hearing this inquiry, Ye Yin Zhu’s clear eyes suddenly brightened. ‘That’s right! How could I forget about that method?’
With this thought, he immediately moved, summoning the Moon and Tides’ Clear Brilliance Zither from his space ring. Hugging it to his chest with his left hand, Ye Yin Zhu’s right hand lightly caressed the zither. Light yellow magic quietly emerged, encompassing the four fingers of his right hand. His fingers streaked across the strings. A low hum echoed out.
The treasury was a sealed room, and the echoing zither note immediately reverberated throughout the entire area. After the zither note resonated everywhere, Ye Yin Zhu pressed his right hand down on the strings, cutting off the lingering sound while listening carefully and concentrating his spiritual force.
The zither note resonated throughout the treasury. All of a sudden, Yin Zhu opened his eyes in delight and quickly walked towards a direction.
While learning the zither, Qin Shang had told him that a good zither could hear the notes of other zithers and resonate with them. This resonance could only be heard by Divine Music mages as well along with the quivering tunes.
At this moment, within the notes of the Moon and Tides’ Clear Brilliance Zither, he caught a kind of sound from inside the treasury, as expected. That zither resonance was very crisp. The majority of zithers’ muffled humming were different. Ye Yin Zhu was confident in himself, however, and confident in the impossibility of him mishearing. Although the guzheng and the pipa were also stringed instruments, such a resounding and sinuous guqin note echoed from far away. What kind of guqin could this be?
Following the zither sound, Ye Yin Zhu quickly reached a corner of the treasury. Ma Liang curiously followed behind him. There were several display shelves with all kinds of magic items arranged atop them, emitting faint halos of light. None of those shelves, however, held a zither.
Ye Yin Zhu withdrew the Moon and Tides’ Clear Brilliance once more, liberally relying on his own magic to reinforce his hearing. Paying extremely close attention to the crisp zither notes being emitted, he approached its source.
At last, he caught sight of the zither notes’ origin. It was unexpectedly a ring. Definitely a ring. The topaz ring’s style was very simple. The gem’s luster was glossy, but it didn’t emit light. That hum of zither notes actually originated from this source.
Ye Yin Zhu immediately determined the ring’s attribute; it was a space ring. At the same time, he held great alarm in his heart. Even though he was not in contact with the space ring, he could still hear the zither’s musical resonance.
What kind of guqin could this be?! It was too inconceivable. Regardless of whether it were his five ranked guqins from the Zither Sect he’d lost or his current Moon and Tides’ Clear Brilliance, it would be impossible for him to sense them if they were within a space ring. This guqin differed, which could only prove that the zither within the space ring was incomparable to any other guqin Ye Yin Zhu had ever seen.
Picking up the ring, Ye Yin Zhu sent out his spiritual force to link with it. Generally speaking, if the space ring didn’t recognize a master, it wouldn’t have a spiritual imprint. Any mage could then link up their spiritual force with the ring, acquiring all of its contents.Of course, if a mage’s space ring held no spiritual imprint, it was unlikely that the mage had deposited precious things in it. Before his eyes, this space ring was clearly unique.
Ye Yin Zhu easily obtained his objective as a spiritual connection surged into existence. With a spark of light, a guqin appeared out of nowhere above his hands.
The guqin’s entire body was orange with a simple style. Seven sparkling and translucent strings passed through its body, their composition unknown. A layer of faint orange light circulated around it. A mere glance at the light encompassing the zither formed the notion that it was emitting a sorrowful air. The zither’s resonance was still continuing, seemingly sobbing and moaning. Although none of its strings were plucked, the zither music’s clarity and rawness caused the mind to become completely intoxicated, making one lose all sense of self.
With one hand propping up the zither and the other lightly caressing it, Ye Yin Zhu’s body looked listless. At this very moment, his eyes brimmed with tender sentiments. Naturally, he had lost himself to the zither—completely.
Ma Liang stood behind him, not disturbing him at all. Although Ma Liang didn’t have a high understanding of zithers, he realized that the current Yin Zhu had already entered an extraordinary state. This bizarre guqin had drawn him into this state. The guqin didn’t have any elemental wave energy, but it held an aura.
Regardless of whether they were weapons, armor, and any other kinds of magic items, from weakest to strongest, they were classified as mundane devices, essence devices, spiritdevices, soul devices, and divine devices—these five grades. Among these, a soul device and divine device’s most defining attribute was an aura. The presence of aura indicated the existence of a soul within the soul and divine devices.
The Six Components of the Silver Dragon was the highest quality soul device and possessed the grandeur, power, and tyrannical aura of a Silver Dragon. As of this moment, however, this orange guqin possessed the richest aura Ma Liang had ever seen. Even his Six Components of the Silver Dragon could only be distantly compared with it. When all was said and done, even if he didn’t know anything, he understood that Ye Yin Zhu had indeed found a treasure this time.
As Ma Liang thought this, Ye Yin Zhu had already immersed himself completely into another realm. His mind entered an orange space. He was no longer able to sense his surroundings, instead only able to hear the soft song of the orange guqin.