My Divine Pet Enables Me To Become The Biggest Winner
Chapter 274 - 272: The Mountain God Temple Outside the West Gate

Chapter 274: Chapter 272: The Mountain God Temple Outside the West Gate

Owen Bertram nodded in silent approval: despite having spent over a decade in the harsh, cold world, he still hadn’t learnt the ways of worldly intrigue. His spirit was as passionate as a young man’s. Such people... were rare!

He waved his hand: "Alright, you’re still injured. Go and rest." The military officers entered and carried him away. Owen Bertram again summoned Ethereal Devin: "Tomorrow, take my letter and arrange a meeting with the County Magistrate."

But after a thought, he said: "Hold on, let’s wait for Nathan Lane to return, and you keep this matter in mind."

"Understood." Ethereal Devin accepted the task, but he was somewhat scratching his head. Was Lord Algernon treating him as a scribe or a master? He wasn’t cut out for this...

After he had exited, in a rush, he found paper and pen, compiled a small notebook himself, and recorded all the tasks Lord Algernon had assigned one by one, lest he forgets later...

About half a shichen after Ethereal Devin had left, Owen Bertram received a reply from Nathan Lane: "Master, I was following that County Magistrate and didn’t dare to reply in fear of revealing my tracks."

"This County Magistrate’s movements are suspicious, something is definitely off!"

Owen Bertram furrowed his brows: "Hmm?"

According to the information he had received from Eric Reed, the County Magistrate was supposed to be an obstinate yet upright person. What exactly had Nathan Lane discovered?

Nathan Lane explained: "Looking at it from the surface, this County Magistrate appears to be a clean and good officer. During the day, nothing seems off. He performs his regular administrative duties, even visits the villages to encourage the farmers, and his judgment seems quite fair.

But come night, he would sneakily leave the city alone and head toward the Mountain God Temple outside the West Gate..."

A thought crossed Owen Bertram’s mind: The Mountain God Temple ten miles outside the West Gate!

"What does he do there?"

"I’m still investigating." replied Nathan Lane: "However, when he enters, he disappears! I’m still not sure what he’s up to, but the dilapidated Mountain God Temple has been neglected for many years, and it reeks of a gloomy aura. I’m sure it’s not a good place!"

Owen Bertram pondered a moment: "Take care of yourself."

Then Owen Bertram muttered to himself: "Foreboding aura?" Instigated by his thought, his pet magpie fluttered its feathers and flew straight toward the Mountain God Temple.

Upon arrival, it circled in the sky. Looking down, it could be seen that the Mountain God Temple had indeed aged, the scale wasn’t small, but it was left to cave in due to years of neglect. Now, less than half of the encircling wall remained, along with a dilapidated hall, and a side hall.

Burnt incense was nowhere to be found, and the deities inside the temple were all crooked.

The magpie let Gregory Ryan out. He circled around the Mountain God Temple once and reported back: "Master, there are no ghost spirits present."

With this, Owen Bertram figured it out: no ghost spirits meant that Nathan Lane’s "foreboding aura" was merely a subjective impression.

"What does the County Magistrate do here every night?"

There was no temple priest in the Mountain God Temple, and it was pitch dark in the middle of the night that would scare the wits out of any ordinary person.

"Check it out."

Owen Bertram gave the order, and Gregory Ryan immediately entered, thoroughly inspecting each area, eventually reporting truthfully: "Master, no hidden compartments or cultivation prohibitions have been detected in the area."

As Little Ghost, Gregory Ryan could easily pass through walls, so, if such arrangements existed, he would have caught them.

Owen Bertram was now curious: once the County Magistrate entered, how did he vanish into thin air?

"Alright, return." Owen Bertram decided to personally examine it tomorrow.

Then, Lord Owen delightedly took out a Storage Brocade Pouch—there hadn’t been a chance to examine Adair Barton’s "fortune" until now.

As he opened the Storage Brocade Pouch, Owen Bertram was initially delighted, but his face darkened instantly afterward.

"What on earth is all this?!"

The pouch had enormous space inside and was filled with chunks and chunks of Spirit Jade, which was already an immense fortune. Yet, these were different from common Spirit Jade; all had been cut into strips: two fingers wide, half a finger thick, and about a foot long, bound together with a golden thread.

Jade Slips.

A sense of unease immediately befell Owen Bertram as he tentatively reached out to examine one. As expected, each bundle of Jade Slips was filled with written content.

"Dammit!" Owen Bertram’s face darkened even further. The value of Spirit Jade lies in its dense and pure elemental energy from the world that could be directly absorbed by cultivators and converted into spiritual energy.

But the reason content could be recorded in the Jade Slips was that divine sense was used to solidify these elemental energies into words.

Once turned into words, although the energy of the world still existed and could be read by the soul or divine sense, it could no longer be directly absorbed.

In other words, these Jade Slips may have an "inestimable value," but as Spirit Jade, they were already ruined.

Owen Bertram absolutely did not need such a vast sea of knowledge; he needed Spirit Jade!

The Jade Slips from Adair Barton covered a wide range of topics and must have been collected over his entire cultivation process—it was evident that most were plundered after killing opponents and were manuals, secret books, cultivation notes, etc., which he then transcribed into the Jade Slips for preservation and consultation.

"You’re not only a traitor but also an organizing freak, aren’t you?" Owen Bertram cursed under his breath.

There were altogether more than forty-six thousand volumes of Jade Slips in the Storage Brocade Pouch, each tied bundle of Jade Slips containing thirty-six pieces, and each piece was equivalent to a Spirit Jade... After a simple multiplication calculation, Owen Bertram clutched at his chest in agony.

"Let me recover."

"Such a waste..." Owen Bertram heaved a sigh, extraordinarily heartbroken.

After calming himself for a while, Owen Bertram suddenly thought of something: the world’s elemental energy still existed in the Jade Slips, it was just solidified into a piece of text.

Cultivators couldn’t directly absorb it, but Little Ghost could consume it!

As long as there was the energy of the world, Little Ghost could utilize it.

"Hehehe..." Owen Bertram chuckled smugly to himself. Look, I, as a Master, excel at resource optimization. Weren’t Gregory Ryan, Ethereal Devin, Nathan Lane, and others all wastrels? But under Lord Algernon’s guidance, they all made considerable progress in their respective domains!

Owen Bertram took an empty Storage Brocade Pouch and swiftly swept all the neatly stacked Jade Slips into it.

Then Adair Barton’s Storage Brocade Pouch seemed emptier, and the remaining items inside were exposed.

There were still about seven to eight thousand pieces of Spirit Jade left—already cut by Adair Barton into the shape of Jade Slips, with several large bundles of golden threads by its side.

"Wastrel." Owen Bertram criticized once again, and he swept those things aside, revealing the sixteen jade boxes behind. Each was just half palm-size; Owen Bertram drew one, and a cloud-like, misty treasure light emerged, diffusing up, accompanied by a refreshing medicinal fragrance that energized Owen Bertram’s spirit.

"Tier-5 Spirit Pills—Life Bridge Return Sky Pill!"

These were high-level Spirit Pills used for healing and restoring spiritual energy. Each was of inestimable value; the spiritual medicines required for refinement were extremely rare, with an infuriatingly low success rate, its value comparable to a Tier-5 magic weapon.