"Gold! It's gold—this helmet is made of high-purity red gold, my heavens! These Sargon people are really generous. This thing can't block swords; it's purely decorative!"
"Stop yelling! This stuff is everywhere. Grab as much as you can—I thought our Sargon's reputation as the Land of Gold was just talk! Turns out there really is gold!"
"Damn it, I should've brought a sack! Who knew there'd be so much gold in here? There was none before!"
"Look at you, you didn't hear a thing earlier! We're in the main hall! The biggest one, there's bound to be good stuff—damn it, don't you dare steal my gold!"
"Who'd bother stealing from you? I touched it first! Wanna fight?!"
The once quiet temple was now filled with boisterous human voices and thick, stirred-up dust.
Aside from Blacksteel International and a few mercenaries, most of the mercenaries had hung their weapons on their bodies and were holding shovels, turning the entire temple upside down.
When they discovered pure gold treasures on some charred corpses, they immediately began frantically searching for treasure, even arguing and resorting to fisticuffs over it.
It's worth noting that although many temples had been explored before, there were no dead bodies or treasures in those places.
They even forgot about the frequently clicking Geiger counters, opened their flimsy protective suits, and stuffed gold into their clothes.
With this money, getting oripathy didn't seem so frightening anymore.
Is oripathy what makes people inferior?
Of course not!
Wealthy people who contract oripathy still have money to treat the illness, stabilize their condition, and have an endless supply of painkillers, enough to live comfortably until old age.
The poor, however, can only use those foul-smelling Originium slug fermentation liquids.
Poverty is the most serious illness.
Moreover, this is high-purity red gold! Compared to Columbia gold vouchers and blue Lungmen coins, its credibility and stability are much more reliable!
However, while these ordinary mercenaries were caught in a gold frenzy, many people remained calm.
Rhine Lab researchers, protected by Blacksteel mercenaries, had gathered around the object on the altar, continuously scanning it with various instruments that no one understood. Elwin, feigning understanding, followed Parvis to watch the spectacle.
In fact, the Originium Arts glowed in the hands of several researchers proficient in Originium Arts.
The other "local guides," however, were currently near the entrance of the room, cautiously observing their surroundings, seemingly uninterested in gold and silver treasures.
As expected of the ignorant Rainforest primitives—both Columbia mercenaries and Sargon desert mercenaries thought this way and didn't find it particularly strange.
"Don't get close, stay away from these bodies—it's not normal here. If you experience hallucinations, inject what I gave you."
Goki remained calm. For an Old Hunter, gold was indeed no different from dirt. When he was a Doctor, he'd crafted red gold until he was sick of it, making millions in minutes! Give him a few gold bars; he'd rather have a bowl of Mao Xue Wang to eat—it even restores health!
"Hmm, I did... hear some sounds. It's not normal here, and those murals... Don't worry, I'll protect them!"
Skadi's red eyes grew more vivid, and her hand never left the hilt of the greatsword on her back. Her muscles tensed, fully entering a combat-ready state.
Even during the battle on the Sargon border, Skadi had never been so nervous.
She felt a low murmur appear in her ears after entering this huge temple.
Though barely perceptible, it was definitely there, reminding Skadi of the singing that had echoed in her ears when she first came ashore on the Iberian coast.
After leaving the coast, that singing had disappeared, but here, Skadi heard a similar sound.
It wasn't singing, but a more irritating murmur, noisy and fast-paced.
It was as if two groups of whales were bickering.
When she lived in the sea, Skadi quite enjoyed listening to them argue.
However, the sounds in Skadi's ears were incredibly annoying, making her heart race, and she even felt like... fighting.
But, having experienced combat in Saltwind City, she could now regulate her mindset well and resist these influences.
"Alright, alright, hurry up and go. Isn't this what you came for? Do what you're supposed to. Don't forget to pick up some gold. It's useless in the Rainforest, but you can sell it for a good price outside. Consider it travel expenses—after all, this is 'our home' Rainforest's stuff; don't let outsiders get all the good deals."
Gavial took Tomimi's small hand and stuck out her tongue at Goki.
She couldn't hear the "low murmurs" Goki and Skadi described, but she still felt her temper visibly growing more irritable.
Gavial recalled that although she always fought with Zumama, every time they played in the temple, their fights were particularly fierce, and they would always go home with bruised eyes.
Now it seemed that the tribes always liked to hold the "Mavesotia" near the temple, not just because there happened to be an open space there.
This temple definitely had some problems.
"Go, go. I, Goki, view money as dirt. I've never liked money; enough is enough. Even if these people get gold, it'll be hard for them to become superior. Nothing in this world can attract me, not yet anyway..."
Goki rolled his eyes back at Gavial. The Old Hunter was without desires, except for beautiful girls. What else in Terra could attract him—
"Hmm—wait! I see something good!"
Suddenly, Goki's gaze caught a shimmering light within a pool of black, hardened bloodstains in the corner of the room.
Not just light, but also a faint, upward-rising wisp of smoke.
The next second, Goki ran over without hesitation.
"Hmmph, views money as dirt?"
Gavial shrugged and exchanged a glance with Skadi.
"That's just how he is."
Skadi merely chuckled lightly and continued to examine the murals on the wall.
Undead have phototaxis, and hunters do too.
Although what he picked up in the end was mostly a quicksilver bullet or an ordinary blood vial, as a Yharnam hoarder, Goki would habitually touch that familiar pillar of light whenever he saw it, and he had been ambushed and killed by traps more than once.
His body had instinctively started running, and Goki's mind was half a beat slow in catching up.
This wasn't Yharnam; it was Terra!
The last time he saw this pillar of light was next to Quintus and the First Speaker, when those Madman's Knowledges burst out—and now, thousands of miles away, another light spot suddenly appeared?
So, Goki unhesitatingly picked up the item on the thousand-year-old dried blood, which all the mercenaries had ignored.
"Oh wow! Doll, look!"
Then, he unhesitatingly woke up the Doll in his mind. Well, she didn't need to sleep anyway.
"Indeed, kind Hunter, it is exactly the same, no mistake."
Looking at the radiating, flickering flame-like, yet snowflake-like crystal in Goki's hand, the Doll's voice also held a hint of surprise.
"[Tempering Blood Gemstone (1)
A blood gem that can be used to strengthen weapons and add various attributes.
They are rare bloodstones grown in cold blood.
Using workshop tools, blood gems can be mixed into weapons, but only blood gems of the appropriate shape can be used this way.
Most blood gems have effects related to physical attack.
Physical attack damage of weapons increased by 1.7%]
"
Bloodstones are objects found only in Yharnam. When a creature dies, the power belonging to the Great One seeps out and crystallizes, becoming these blood gems that can strengthen weapons.
Although the damage increase seems tiny now, this is just an Elementary blood gem. More powerful blood gems will appear in the Late Stage.
When Goki left Yharnam, his storage box still contained many such blood gems, but they were all lost after he came to Terra.
"There are blood gems here, which means these deceased must have been affected by divine power... Then there must be—"
Following the cracks in the floor, Goki saw that the blood from many of the deceased had flowed beneath the stone slabs.
Click—thump.
Without hesitation, Goki pulled out his retractable cane and directly pried open a floor tile.
Sure enough, a long, somewhat hollowing out, faint blood-colored, rectangular hard piece.
"[Blood Stone Shard
A hard fragment formed from congealed cold blood.
After death, substances in the blood harden, and those that do not crystallize are called bloodstones.
In the workshop, after embedding bloodstones into weapons, they can be strengthened.]
"
"Hey, I can finally strengthen my equipment."
Goki's eyes lit up when he saw this. Heaven knows how many times he had chased down Porsche—cough cough—gem crystal bugs to get blood stone shards, only to find himself surrounded by monsters and beaten to death.
"It looks like I might have to trouble Boa immediately. I'm too lazy to strengthen my own equipment again."
A smile he couldn't suppress curved Goki's lips. He began prying open floor tiles one by one, relying on a hunter's perception of blood scent to search for remaining blood stone shards, all while the mercenaries looked on with expressions like he was an idiot.
But at the same time, his worries grew heavier.
This meant that this place was indeed a radiation zone of divine power, and it was even beginning to affect human bodies.
And the consequences... at worst, it wouldn't be worse than Yharnam, but it would definitely be bad enough.
"If necessary, I need to get Tomimi and the others away from this place—hey!"
Tucking the last blood stone shard into his embrace, Goki stood up and sharply turned his head.
"Wow!"
In front of her, the blurry purple figure jumped in surprise, and its clarity increased.
Manticore, this little one, had been watching Goki since just now, her big eyes full of curiosity.
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