A Demon’s Paradise - Volume 1 Chapter 2 The Three Treasures

There were about ten cases, each filled with their own valuable things. One had expensive jewelry, another had gems the size of melons. Another even had expensive silks and cloths. She breezed past most of them. They were filled with glittery junk that has no use whatsoever other than looking pretty.

Xia Moyin stopped, however, near the one that had weapons. As she dug through the case, she discovered a lot of good swords and it seemed like the things there actually had some quality to them. Nothing that particularly interested her, but good products nonetheless.

She was about to give up and move on when she stopped, her previously calm face breaking into a wide smile and her eyes shining.

She carried out a long black whip, the tip a bright red and the hilt inlaid with gold. It was quite heavy and bit slippery, the metal trying to slide out of her hands as if it was a living snake.

She grinned from ear to ear. Surprisingly, she had stumbled upon a treasure!

The mother of the previous Xia Moyin loved talking about precious and rare materials that existed in legends, and the previous Xia Moyin liked listening to her. So of course when Xia Moyin inherited her memories she knew what it was made of. Despite its ordinary appearance, the whip was made from three of the rarest materials on the planet, whether it was Earth or not.

Heavy Sunken Silver, Blood Essence, and Holy Gold.

Heavy Sunken Silver is a silver that, as its name implies, has been left underwater and is extremely heavy. It underwent titanic pressures at the bottom of the ocean for thousands of years, only seen above water levels at the eye of category 6 hurricanes. Undergoing all that pressure, it eventually becomes so dense that nothing short of a nuclear explosion can damage it.

The only way to forge Heavy Sunken Silver was if one gave his or her life to sculpt it into the perfect tool. It absorbs all energy that is used on it, whether it was spirit power, electricity, heat, anything, including the blood of the blacksmith. It is practically impossible to break and could only be used by someone who has a blood contract with it.

Blood Essence is similar to Heavy Sunken Silver, but has its differences as well. Instead of it being created at the bottom of an ocean under extreme pressure, Blood Essence is created in a place with no air and under extreme heat, similar to the temperature at the Earth’s core. It is extremely rare, only showing up every three to four thousand years, and is very difficult to get to.

It is known to be in the center-most parts of the mantle and is only occasionally found above ground at the center of an erupting volcano. It will burn anything that is found within a five foot radius to ashes and will cause third degree burns within twenty feet, no matter how tough the material.

It’s the perfect offensive weapon and is just as deadly to forge. It requires the blacksmith to not only have superb craftsmanship, but to also bleed out half their blood supply before it can be tamed. Any weapon made with Blood Essence has supreme offensive power and will, like Heavy Sunken Silver, only be used by someone who has a blood contract with it.

Holy Gold is just as rare and difficult to forge as Heavy Sunken Silver and Blood Essence, however, it does not need a loss of life. Holy Gold is only found at the peaks of the tallest mountains in the middle of raging blizzards.

If the blizzard has not been going on for at least twenty years without stopping, there is absolutely no chance that it will be there, and even if it has been going on for double that amount of time, there is still no guarantee. Holy Gold requires that it be put under subzero temperatures, near negative one hundred fifty celsius, and it needs to be in a spot where the sun is shining and covered in ice.

Once it has been found and excavated from where ever it was, it will be so cold that no matter how hot its surroundings get, it will stay below negative 50 celsius, if not colder. When it’s being forged, it needs to be in the hottest place possible, otherwise the blacksmith will freeze to death before he or she gets within twenty feet of it.

Before a dent can be put into it, it has to sit inside a tank of liquid hydrogen and under the sun for twenty days, or more, depending on its size. After it has been forged, it will only serve the one that it has a blood contract with, just like Heavy Sunken Silver and Blood Essence.

All three metals are only found once in hundreds of thousands of years, and surprisingly, all three not only have been found, they’ve been forged as well, and into a quality weapon. Whomever made it was a character, undoubtedly the best blacksmith in history.

After taking the whip, Xia Moyin dug out a pair of short swords that were made of some low level rare metals and moved on, finally coming to the bin with clothing.

She dug around for a while, a bunch of colorful fabrics with sparkling gems sewn into them in the way of what she was looking for. Everything in that bin was shiny and bright, completely useless when one wanted to conceal their presence. She sighed and moved on to the next bin.

Three bins later, and she was finally through all the useless things, and to what she really needed. In the last box, there were only two things, large black robe and a fox mask on top of it.

Xia Moyin inspected them both, a smile playing across her lips before turning strange with a slight twist of disbelief in her eyes.

These two things were exactly what she needed, down to a T. Her luck had always been good, even to be seen as abnormal, but not to this extent. It was as if they were just waiting for her to pick them up and put them on.

The robe was so dark that it seemed to absorb all light around it, the only color being a small silver fox embroidered into the waist. It was built like how she would imagine a Grim Reaper’s robe would look like, with a large deep hood, and billowy sleeves. It was floor length and the fabric around the chest and upper arms was skin tight before loosening up around the legs and hands. It was made for an a.d.u.l.t and when Xia Moyin put it on, she was expecting for it to fall loose, but instead, it shrunk down until it was snug and perfectly proportioned to her body.

The mask was stark white, features similar to that of a fox engraved in red on the outside. On the inside, however, there was a pattern close to that of lizard’s scales. Despite its appearance, it was smooth, not a hint of a bump or rough patch anywhere. The outline of the individual scales was toned down and faint, almost imperceptible. When she put it on her face, it shrunk, much like the robe, molding to her face and concealing her features.

Xia Moyin walked over to a tall mirror in the back, admiring her new outfit. Ignoring her lack of proper footwear and the large bruises on her neck and arms, she didn’t look half bad.

A small smile graced her features as she looked in the mirror. The mask and the robe were both precious items, and she couldn’t help but chuckle to herself. They were probably going to be the main event of the auction, and to be sold for sky-high prices.

Those rich people in the general area were going to vomit blood once they knew that the goods they were looking forward to so much were stolen by her, right out from under their noses. She laughed again.

The robe was made of Moon Silk, harvested from Rock Spiders. Rock Spiders were a common arachnid that could be found pretty much anywhere, but the thing that made them valuable was that, once the females reached thirteen years of age, they started producing a product known as Moon Silk. Every Rock Spider only produced enough Moon Silk in its lifetime to cover one finger, so the amount of Rock Spiders needed to create enough for it to be woven into a robe was astronomical.

A regular Rock Spider living in the wild only lived for six years, and they wouldn’t produce the silk if they were kept in captivity. Rock Spiders were equipped with a highly acidic poison that would make anyone be careful, and were highly territorial. If they realized that someone had gotten close to them, they will attack unprovoked. They are also cannibals, oftentimes eating their own young or others that come trying to take their territory. To find one that survived long enough to be old enough to produce Moon Silk, highly unlikely, and then one had to most likely kill the spider to harvest it.

But the rewards were considered worth it to most, producing a beautiful cloth that not only boosted physical prowess, but also gave off spirit energy and could aid tremendously in cultivation speed. If someone who had no cultivation level at all wore a robe made of Moon Silk, in less than a month they would be considered a heaven defying genius and would be hunted down and recruited by every major power on the continent. If someone who was gravely injured or crippled wore this robe, they would automatically feel better, and in less than a week be fully healed.

The mask was just as valuable as the robe, in terms of difficulty to acquire and benefits.

It was made of the skin from a twenty year old Killer Lizard, a rare species of spirit beast found in large deserts. Killer Lizards were masters of disguise, their specialty being camouflage and imitation.

They were called Killer Lizards, not only because they were carnivores and had a body type similar to a giant lizard, but because they were notorious for hunting down and eating humans, especially small villages and towns, even when they aren’t hungry. They were the apex predators of the desert, armed with damn near perfect camouflage, cunning, and power. Combined with an intelligence and cruelty that rivaled that of humans, they were extremely hard to kill.

The only thing that kept their numbers in check was their short lifespan, most living only about three years before dying from a hunt gone wrong, a dispute over territory, or other outside causes. To find a Killer Lizard that lived at the top of it’s food chain and survived twenty years, is like trying to find a needle in the ocean, impossible without luck. If one is able to find a twenty year old Killer Lizard, take it’s skin without becoming it’s food, and successfully craft it into to something, the rewards would be much worth the work to many.

To find a Killer Lizard’s skin and create a mask is every con artist’s dream, because not only would it be able to change and conceal your aura, it would also physically alter your appearance depending on what your needs. Your voice, height, skin tone, facial structure, and body structure would be able to change with a thought. Entire identities could be formed and changed, depending on what was needed. It was the perfect disguise, and only showed up every five to six hundred years.

Every emperor, cultivator, and rich guy from around the world would be scrambling to get their hands on any one of these items, each were a treasure that would rock the planet.

Xia Moyin laughed a third time, smug satisfaction warming her heart. After a long moment of gloating she was finally able to wipe that smile off of her face and get serious.

She turned around and walked out of the room to the curtain, tugging on it a bit. It didn’t budge in the slightest, the tiny amount of strength a seventy pound seventh grader not enough to even make it sway.

She gritted her teeth and bent down, leaping up as far as she could. Her high jump with no running start in her previous life was at around five meters depending on how hard she tried. She barely got past two meters.

It was a start at least.

She started to climb up the side of the curtain, her undeveloped muscles burning and her lungs wheezing out short gasps of air.

‘I really need to train this body….’

Xia Moyin’s eyes narrowed and she swore under her breath, but she didn’t stop. The curtain was about 60 meters tall and she’d only gotten to the thirteen meter mark.

It took awhile and her muscles were constantly shaking and screaming at her to let go and take a break, but she was able to haul herself up onto the rafters without being seen or falling.

She took a short break to catch her breath, then walked towards the end of the beam she was on, making sure not to kick up dust.

Xia Moyin peered down at the auction, feeling like a total stalker and shamelessly eavesdropping.

The auction hall was packed full of the rich and famous, all chatting and discussing the auction. From what she could hear, it seemed that they were in the middle of an intermission, the first half of the auction already done.

Her shoulders quaked and she bit her lip to keep from laughing again. Most people were talking about the very whip, robe, and mask Xia Moyin had just stolen and was now wearing!

There were no windows in the hall, but the small patch of light visible when the door to the outside opened and closed showed a sunset, around six or seven o’clock.

Most of doors were closed, the only ones open being the one to the bathrooms and the one out. Both had guards. She moved to a different beam and sat down, making herself comfortable. Instead of getting herself killed taking a risk, she chose to wait them out and leave after nightfall.