Chapter 173 - A Wooden Plate?

Hei Bao and Hei Wan were already tense from the assassination attempt and were expecting another attack, and this is what they thought it was. But even after a couple of seconds, nothing happened, and that feeling faded away.

Hei Bao looked at Hei Wan with eyes filled with confusion. It was as if he was asking what had just happened. Hei Wan did not speak and simply shook her head in response, showing that she did not know either.

Hei Wan then looked at Lin Mu and spoke.

"Also, I investigated more about the things that you had given me from the town head office. It is confirmed that the Town head and the Vice-captain of the town's guards were involved in the matter. Whoever the culprits are, they were paying them off, apparently.

Another interesting thing we found was the first mercenary you had found in the abandoned warehouse."

Lin Mu looked up at Hei Wan upon hearing her speak.

"What about that mercenary?" Lin Mu asked.

"You found the beast inciting powder on that mercenary, right? Well, we were able to find one of his companions. One of the mercenaries finally recognized him and gave us some information. Apparently, the beast inciting powder was found by him in the northern forest." Hei Wan replied.

"It was found in the forest? How is that possible?" Lin Mu further questioned.

"The mercenary who recognized him said that they were together when they found it. The vial was lying on the ground, nestled in some grass. Luckily, while the two mercenaries did find it, they were not stupid enough to open and check a vial filled with an unknown substance, or we would have had a much bigger disaster on our hands.

They thus stored it and wanted to get it appraised later on. And guess what, that was not the only thing they found with the vial. They also found a rather special Item." Hei Wan answered and then opened the drawer of the desk.

Out from the drawer, she pulled out a wooden plate that had some metallic parts fixed in it. The plate was flat and was seven-sided. The metal plates protruded from the plate and formed a rather unique pattern on it. The over all size of the plate was slightly less than that of a palm.

The pattern was composed of a bird's wing, a tiger's claw and a serpent's tail. The three parts crossed and formed a triangle, at the center of which was an eye. The eye was in the form of a plus and seemed as if was formed by two eyes intersecting at a perpendicular angle.

Lin Mu looked at the plate closely and found it to be very peculiar. Hei Bao too looked at it with great interest.

"This is rather different? What material is this, I don't think I've ever seen it before?" Hei Bao questioned.

He touched the plate and tried to get a feel of its wooden and metallic parts. The wooden parts were light brown, but the pattern on its grain seemed to be rather dense. The metallic parts were black colored and were made from a metal that Hei Bao had not seen before.

"I don't know what the materials are either. I don't think I've seen this kind of craftsmanship before either. And this patter of a wing, claw, and tail; I do not know what it means either. Overall, this thing is a mystery." Hei Wan explained.

Lin Mu and Hei Bao heard her words and started to think about the plate.

"How would something like this turn up in the forest? First, the beast inciting powder, and now this?" Hei Bao wondered.

"Whatever it may be, but we know that whoever originally had the beast inciting powder also owns this plate. Perhaps, it is related to the culprits as well, we don't know. I have already sent a sketch of this plate along with a report to the lord.

With his knowledge and expertise, maybe he can find it for us." Hei Wan answered.

Lin Mu too wanted to see what kind of thing this plate was, thus he went ahead and touched it. But as soon as his fingers touched the surface of the plate, the mysterious ring on his hand lightly hummed.

Lin Mu's eyes went wide as he hurriedly pulled his hand back. Hei Bao and Hei Wan noticed the strange behaviors of Lin Mu and wondered what that was about.

"Are you okay?" Hei Bao questioned.

"Yes… I'm fine." Lin Mu casually tried to brush off his strange behaviors.

The two didn't mind this and went back to discuss a few other matters. Hei Wan unrolled a few more letters and continued her discussion about other matters with Hei Bao. But while this was happening, Lin Mu was having a different conversation of his own in his mind.

"Senior, that plate… I could feel it. There is space inside that plate." Lin Mu spoke.

"I know, I felt that too. There were spatial fluctuations from the plate, albeit faint ones." Xukong replied.

"Is that a spatial storage treasure, perhaps?" Lin Mu questioned.

"Yes, it is indeed a spatial treasure. But it is not a normal spatial storage treasure, but rather one that's used to store beasts." Xukong spoke.

Lin Mu had heard about beast storage treasures before and knew that they were rather rare and unknown. They could be used to store tamed beasts and were very useful, as they could pretty much double the fighting strength of a cultivator.

"But senior is there even anyone that can make a treasure like this in this world?" Lin Mu questioned, feeling uneasy.

"There should be some that are able to make a low tier beast storage treasure, but not one like this. This is no normal beast storage treasure. Do you see those three markings of the feather, tiger claw, and serpent tail? Those denote the rank of the treasure." Xukong spoke and took a pause.

"A wing is for beast storage treasures that can store common fierce beasts that are in the body tempering realm. Such a kind of beast storage treasure should relatively common in this world. At least as common spatial treasures can be.

The Tiger claw denotes that it can store spirit beasts that are in the qi refining realm and above." Xukong spoke and trailed off.

Lin Mu could not bear the suspense and questioned again,

"What does the serpent tail denote then?"