The power of the Mother, as described above, is a pure, highly concentrated form of holy light.
Holy light has various properties, and generally, deities that lean toward order often possess this power.
Holy light is simply a general term for a strong, positive, and orderly energy.
Its external manifestation is a divinely charged glow, typically white or white energy mixed with other colors.
However, depending on the source of this power, its properties can also vary.
For example, the Holy Light of the Mother doesn't actually possess a strong punitive attribute.
Alka didn't know the specifics; after all, he had only experienced the power and sensations of the Holy Light.
Furthermore, these were all research findings from books, which Simon had read in the great library of the Church of the Holy Machine.
Only believers in a church steeped in scholarly fervor, such as the Church of the Holy Machine, would engage in such disrespectful acts.
At least in Alka's opinion, this was a good thing.
Although Alka had seen it in the Church of the Virgin Mary, most of the research concerned various evil forces.
Also, the books cited other holy lights, but without Alka's personal experience, it was difficult to distinguish between them.
Since it was called the power of the Virgin Mary, it must have some of the Virgin Mary's attributes.
And the three Virgin Mary believers in their team who could wield pure Virgin Mary power were all capable of doing so.
Sofia prepared herself for the Holy Maiden stage ahead of time, but the reason she didn't become one in the end was simply because she didn't want to, not because she lacked the necessary qualifications.
Her faith in the Virgin Mary and her talent were both suitable.
Her father, Andre, was now a bishop. Although he was in the Home Sea, their status might not be much different.
Although Alka had seen Sofia using high concentrations of holy light, she wondered what the standard for achieving this so-called high concentration was.
Jason, needless to say, possessed a naturally Holy Light-oriented magic.
The main question was whether his contract with the Crystal Dragon had altered his energy slightly. At least for now, it didn't seem to have changed much.
But he wasn't sure he could concentrate a significant amount of Holy Light energy.
As for Alka, he was able to do this purely by relying on his status as a Saint and his status as a resident of Home Island.
However, to use it, he had to undergo a series of rituals, similar to formal prayers.
And he had to offer certain sacrifices.
The sacrifices didn't have to be bloody, but they had to be sincere.
Overall, Alka felt that using the Holy Mother's power wouldn't be difficult for them.
But the second power, the power of life and death, was more challenging.
He had initially thought it was some power at the intersection of life and death, but the description above made it clear.
This power likely stems from the family's unique constitution, the treasure vault's best safeguard.
It might be possible to restore this power through other channels, but Alka believes it's certainly not easy.
After all, this is a large family.
It's not that easy.
It's a bit difficult.
Item three is a key made of E-steel.
The three items combined appear simple and impractical, but upon closer inspection, they are very reasonable.
Because the family believes in the Mother, it appears they can harness high concentrations of Her holy light energy.
This is already a threshold.
Because there's a standard.
In a world where gods truly exist, anyone who believes in the Mother and can harness high concentrations of Her holy light energy must be a believer.
Furthermore, they must be a believer who embodies Her ideals.
This means that anyone using this energy will not be from the evil camp. At the very least, they must be neutral and lean towards the Orderly Good.
Allowing such a person to steal, or even rob, the treasure vault is inherently unreasonable.
And the second hurdle is the most crucial.
It requires the family's unique constitution, the so-called power of life and death contained within it, to open it.
The most reasonable and safest option.
The third hurdle is a physical object.
A key made of E steel. This physical object might represent the power of the family patriarch.
Most families like to have such an item.
Examining these conditions, Alka fell into deep thought.
So far, they have only met the first condition, the easiest one.
Thinking of this,
Alka put the map away and turned to Simon.
"Simon," he asked, "have you heard of a material called E-steel?"
Simon was undoubtedly the one in their team who knew the most about minerals.
As a mechanic, he needed to understand nearly every known mineral and its structure in order to construct various mechanical devices.
Hearing Alka's question, Simon turned to look at him, then frowned in thought.
"I've heard of it. Not just heard of it, I have it."
"You have it?" Alka's eyes lit up.
Simon nodded and raised his hand, and a transparent glass container appeared in his hand.
The container was only as wide and long as his index finger. Within the cylindrical container floated an irregular ore, about the size of a little fingernail.
The ore was silver-gray in color, with sharp, tooth-like marks dotting its surface.
It had a matte finish in the sunlight, without a trace of metallic color.
Even though its surface was a reflective silver-gray.
"This is E-steel, a very precious steel material. I acquired it from the Holy Machine Church some time ago, paying a high price for it.
It's said that this material isn't native to the Infinite Sea, but rather a special material brought by aliens from the interstellar space. The special steel floating in the interstellar space is extremely rare."
After hearing Simon's story, Alka understood its preciousness.
Clearly, this is a very good material.
But given Simon's obsession with machinery and various minerals, he only bought a small piece for display.
That's enough to illustrate how valuable and rare this thing truly is.
Simon's wealth was being consumed at a rate almost identical to Jason's.
If it weren't for Alka's shared dream that reduced his experimental supplies, Simon might have been the first among them to declare bankruptcy and begin borrowing money.
If you've visited Simon's room on the ship and his dedicated area in the manufacturing hall, you'll know where he spends his money.
Some of these items aren't necessarily practical, but mostly for collection.
Simon has a serious collecting habit.
Most of them are related to ancient machinery and minerals.
He's willing to spend a fortune, even to be ripped off.
Alka reached out to take it.
"Be careful."
At Simon's instruction, Alka nodded, gently lifted it, and examined it carefully.
He touched the outer transparent glass container.
The turtle, along with the container, is a magical item made of spell material.
It's a container that even Matresha wouldn't buy more of, usually only for very precious liquids.
A small container costs about 40 gold sails.
It was constructed with a variety of protective spells, including magic sealing, balance, and confidentiality.
It even had a time-slowing effect.
This was definitely a luxury item.
What a waste!
Despite his complaints, Alka continued to examine the minerals carefully.
Now that was good.
Perhaps the chances of finding the key were even lower.
But he couldn't help but ask, "How much is this little bit worth?"
Simon's interest piqued at Alka's question. Gently taking the transparent glass tube from Alka's hand, he boasted.
"This little bit, 120 gold sails, and it's in short supply."
Hearing the price, Alka silently shut his mouth.
His mind began to recall the size of the key's hole.
A rough estimate suggested that a mineral the size of a fingernail would have to be multiplied 70 to 100 times its value.
Hiss~
I can't think any more.
Alka silently pushed the thought out of his mind.
"Ah!"
He sighed heavily and leaned back against the side of the Flying Swallow.
"What's wrong? Is the condition for opening the gate related to this mineral?" Sofia asked beside him.
Alka nodded.
"You've just seen the keyhole in the middle of the gate, right? It requires a key made of E-steel."
"Hiss~"
Hearing this, everyone who had seen the keyhole gasped.
They had just heard the price of this thing.
To make such a large set of keys from this ore.
It was simply too expensive to imagine, and it frightened them all.
It was worth half the price of the treasure.
Even though they have a lot of treasures, you can't just ask them to sell them.
"How about... let's just give up?" Jason suggested from the side.
Although he was the most cash-strapped member of the team, he hadn't lost his mind.
The treasures in the vault were expected to be substantial, but the initial costs wouldn't cover them.
Furthermore, there wasn't a guarantee that there would actually be that much, and they had no way of guaranteeing that someone wouldn't have gotten there first.
For example, someone who had been excommunicated from the family would have a much greater advantage than them and would be more likely to have already opened the vault and swept away all the wealth.
Not to mention that decades had passed.
These people weren't immortal beings, and they didn't have much of a sense of time.
"Do you need a key made of E steel?" Simon asked, frowning in confusion.
Alka nodded.
"So what specific structure of the E-steel is required? The material of the E-steel? Or the metal surface of the E-steel? Or perhaps its unique properties?"
Hearing Simon's question, Alka shook his head.
He didn't know any of that.
"Unsure?... Well, we can't be so pessimistic," Simon said, as if a thought had occurred to him.
He then raised his right hand, and the treasure's index finger flickered slightly. A key made of metal appeared in his palm.
With his left hand, he gently opened the container containing the E-steel ore, took out the ore, and held it between his left index finger and thumb.
With a light tap of the treasure's index finger, a faint glimmer of light lingered on it.
Then, this tiny glimmer illuminated the key made of iron ore.
In an instant, the ordinary, jet-black iron key transformed into a material that resembled E-steel.
"You can... you can change the material of minerals?"
Alka exclaimed in surprise.
If it could be turned directly into gold, he'd be rich.
Simon shook his head. "It's not permanent. It's a simulated change that requires a constant supply of magic power.
The so-called enhancement of the power and various properties of mechanical structures is due to the ability to replace their materials with better ones.
You can even directly upgrade them to materials unknown to you, allowing them to exert even greater power and exhibit stronger effects."
Simon directly explained the nature of his treasure.
Alka had never really understood it.
"So how similar is the imitation..."
"Close to 100%, but it will never be 100%. There will always be some differences. After all, it's just an imitation."
Alka nodded at Simon's explanation. He understood.
"Try?"
"Try."
With that, the two men immediately crawled back through the opening they had made earlier.
Pororo followed closely behind.
The rest of them simply stood guard and waited.
Soon, the three of them arrived at the main door of the treasury.
They had just tried; using an ordinary iron key wouldn't even fit the keyhole.
Two possibilities.
One required unlocking each lock one by one before finally inserting the keyhole.
The second required the correct key to be inserted through the hole.
"I'll try the first lock first and see if I can do it."
Alka said, gently placing his hand on the outermost groove.
A large amount of holy light began to gather from his hand and flow into the groove.
The holy light flowed along the groove to both sides, quickly connecting them.
The light was imprinted on it, and then dense golden streaks began to spread outward along the grooves.
Even after Alka released it, the light persisted.
However, the scattered streaks of light stopped outside the second ring.
"Hmm, it seems the concentrated holy light isn't too demanding."
This indicated they already had the conditions for the first lock.
"Now it's my turn."
Simon said, holding his ball of condensed liquid and walking over. He then placed his index finger on the keyhole, gently sensing the position of the entire lock.
He had already scanned it before, but now he was just being safe.
The liquid metal in his hand began to solidify.
It transformed into a strange key, with various odd bumps and grooves on the front, looking more like a mechanical device than a key.
Looking at the key in his hand, Simon nodded with satisfaction.
He repeated the previous process, changing the key to a material that simulated E-steel.
He gently pushed it into the keyhole.
This time, the push was incredibly easy, with no obstruction, and the entire key was completely inserted.
Then, a pale silver-gray energy emanated from the keyhole, spreading outward in stripes identical to the golden stripes.
"It works, it can be done," Simon said with a smile.
The three of them watched as the stripes spread upward, and unfortunately, this time, they also stopped at the second ring.
They already had the keys to the first and third locks; now they only needed the key to the second lock, the most difficult to obtain.
According to the treasure information, one must possess the power of life and death, derived from a special family constitution.
Alka either had to find a way to understand and simulate it.
Or, they had to find a living member of the Nafas family.
It's not impossible. As long as Alka is willing to put in a little time and effort, he can definitely find it.
If he's lucky.
According to his previous search for information about the Nafas family, he learned from the archives.
When the church members at the time were looking for the reasons for the Nafas family's extermination, they deliberately sought out many key members of the Naqi family who had been exterminated from their family lineage.
Many family members even possessed the blood of the main lineage and were considered members of it.
They simply withdrew due to differing ideologies and styles.
The Nafas family was exterminated only a few decades ago.
By then, members might not even have survived, let alone had children.
Arka would surely be able to find them in the church archives by then.
Thinking of this, Arka nodded and led the two back up.
Quickly returning to the ship, he informed everyone of what had happened below.
"This means that we now only have one final lock left to unlock the treasure vault, and you already have a clue about that final lock."
Listening to Sofia's words, Arka nodded.
"That's right, but we definitely can't get it now. We need to go back to the Twin Islands to get some information."
Hearing this, Lucilia frowned and said, "That's a shame. You know, we spent over 100 days and nights trying to find the Zehai."
If we leave now, the time wasted going back and forth could be a full year.
Alka nodded and said, "So, I've decided not to go back just for this reason.
Let's go straight back to the seaside, back to the Voice of the Dawn, and then head to this location."
Alka opened the map and pointed to an area on the other side of the Land of All Spirits, near the edge.
"There must be something more valuable here, otherwise you wouldn't have gone there."
Alka smiled and nodded. "The smell of treasures here is almost making me faint."
Everyone nodded in agreement at Alka's joke.
If there was one thing they learned on the ship, it was not to challenge any destination Alka had chosen.
Even if he didn't tell you what was there.
As long as you knew the past and then searched, you would surely reap rewards that would be countless times more than the journey itself.
This time was no exception.
Furthermore, from Alka's description of the treasure's taste, one could tell its true value.
Based on Alka's playful description just now, it was almost certain that it was at least a treasure.
That was beyond doubt.
Although they had all obtained treasures, there was a world of difference between one and two.
Even if a treasure wasn't suitable for each of them, they could still sell it, trade it, or even agree on various terms for an exchange.
No one, no faction, would ever think they had too many treasures.
Treasures are the hardest currency in this world, the most precious things that can be used anywhere.