Heavenly Dao Engine
Chapter 804 - 804 0498 Unusual Otaku House_1

Chapter 804: Chapter 0498: Unusual Otaku House_1 Chapter 804: Chapter 0498: Unusual Otaku House_1 Chapter 0498: The Unusual Haunted House

After a fierce competition, Qi Tian outbid the other contenders with his superior offer and finally secured the last haunted house he had set his sights on. By now, his task was nearly complete, and there was no longer any point in staying at the auction. Thus, Qi Tian didn’t waste any more time at the auction house and left the auction venue.

Although the auction of the haunted houses was a major event for Wanjie Commerce, the process was meant to continue over several days. It was normal for people to come and go during this time, so Qi Tian’s departure didn’t attract any attention.

Qi Tian headed straight for the first haunted house he had won at auction, which was relatively close to Wanjie Commerce. In order to pick several valuable haunted houses in Wanjie City, he had scoured many areas and eventually selected three unremarkable-looking houses, including this one.

With the deed to this haunted house in hand, Qi Tian completed the formalities with the cultivating guard. Wanjie City didn’t place much importance on these haunted houses. For example, the one Master Jianzhang had was guarded by a whole team, whereas the house Qi Tian bought was guarded by one person looking after several houses, which made finding someone to hand over quite a time-consuming task.

Upon finding the guard, the man stretched out his hand towards Qi Tian, who handed over the paperwork. The guard’s hand didn’t retract but instead made a gesture of weighing something. Qi Tian immediately understood and took out ten low-grade spirit stones, placing them in the guard’s hand, satisfying him enough to withdraw it.

After checking the paperwork, the guard dismantled the defensive array surrounding the haunted house and then left.

Qi Tian quickly set up his own array disk and array flags to protect the house; he was about to enter the room to retrieve treasures and certainly couldn’t allow anyone outside to catch a glimpse of the scene.

Once the array was in place, Qi Tian entered, stepping over the somewhat dilapidated courtyard gate into the equally crumbling courtyard. The haunted house wasn’t large, measuring only about one hundred and twenty to thirty square meters, with five northern rooms, three side rooms, and two open-style kitchens.

Like many haunted houses, nearly all the buildings had collapsed beyond recognition. However, this house was relatively well-protected; even in its collapsed state, no one had managed to break in and rifle through the contents. This was a consistent policy in Wanjie City; they would pre-emptively enclose any estates suspected of becoming haunted houses, setting up defensive arrays and warning signs, and even assigning people to protect them. This wasn’t because Wanjie City greatly valued private property, but because such measures ensured that these houses could fetch high prices at auction. A haunted house that had been turned over countless times would never be sold for much, which would mean no profit for Wanjie City.

Qi Tian had already scanned this haunted house with the Heavenly Dao Engine for its Spirit Qi sensing capability. Now that the house belonged to him, he used the Heavenly Dao Engine to carry out a more detailed scan and quickly located items of interest.

Qi Tian walked over to one of the side rooms, where he gathered up the surface soil, bricks, and other materials into a Storage Bag, eventually uncovering the earthen floor.

The floor was paved with bluestone slabs. Qi Tian took out a flying sword and sliced a gap in the slabs, storing the cut piece in his Storage Bag. He then began to dig into the exposed earth beneath.

Qi Tian dug deep, going down about ten meters before he unearthed a skeleton in two pieces. The upper body was crushed by the lower half, suggesting that its owner had met an unnatural end.

The owner of the skeleton must have been quite powerful before death, as there was still a hint of Spirit Force fluctuation, albeit weak. With a wave of his hand, Qi Tian collected the skeleton and sent it to the Heavenly Dao Engine as fuel. After clearing the bones, Qi Tian carefully dug further at the bottom of the pit. He didn’t have to go far, just half a meter or so, before he unearthed a fist-sized box.

Qi Tian didn’t dare to look at what was inside the box and directly sent it to the Heavenly Dao Engine’s storage chamber. He had a premonition that opening the box then and there would have brought disaster upon him.

After completing these tasks, Qi Tian floated up to the surface, backfilled the earth, replaced the bluestone slabs, and filled back all the cleared debris. He then left the place. The most valuable thing in the haunted house had been taken by him. As for the rest, there was nothing left that Qi Tian considered worthwhile. He wasn’t even interested in searching for any valuables that the previous owner might have left behind.

Qi Tian hurriedly moved on to the second haunted house he had earmarked and won at auction. Just as before, after bribing the guard with ten low-grade spirit stones, he smoothly completed the handover procedures.

Like before, after setting up a defensive barrier here, Qi Tian went inside the haunted house and began his cleaning.

This haunted house didn’t have any skeletons hidden deep in the ground. Qi Tian found the remains of the previous owner beneath a pile of rubble and retrieved a Storage Ring from the skeleton. After opening the Storage Ring, he found quite a few valuable items inside.