29. Treasure

Ast waited patiently for a day, next morning he was thinking of having breakfast with Anya before coming back. But suddenly he noticed that the minister was moving towards the treasury. There were many guards before coming to the hall where the treasury was, but with shadow jump it was easy for Ast.

Ast's shadow jump also gave him ability to hide in someones shadow for a short time so he hid in minister's shadow and entered the treasury.

In the middle of the treasury there were many tomes placed in rows. And there were atleast 10 rows containing a hundred tomes. On careful observation it can be seen that these tomes covered various topic let it be elements or soul strengthening or presence of various beast etc etc. Ast had a wide grin on his face noticing all these books. ' Now I will have my own private library, hehe'.

Firstly Ast knocked the minister down so as to have some time for inspection. He stored all the tomes in his storage ring. He tried to look for other treasures as well but everything elese had extra security in the form of various runes.

Ast took out a vial of truth serum and began questioning the minister about various things. He asked him questions for 20 mins straight. He shocked to learn some of the answers. Ast woke up from his trance and then took the minister's storage ring after again knocking him down.

He had already asked the minister to grant him access to his ring. He took out a key and a inscription scroll from the ring and placed it in one of the side room inside the treasury. The reason for minister's visit was the 'nine petal blue lotus' which the family head asked him to place it in a more secured central room.

The minister didn't knew anything about the lotus except that it was very precious and the upper echelons of the Blair family were a bit afraid that someone was aiming for their treasure. Upon further inquiry Ast came to know that their worry had something to do with the 15 bandits that vanished from sight overnight(same bandits whom he killed and then found the cave) . Ast knew that he has stepped into some high level conspiracy of some sorts.

Ast moved inside the room and took out the said lotus, which was covered in a transparent casing which he couldn't open. Due to the lack of time he put the lotus with the casing inside his storage ring and planned to run cause other rooms had different runes and the minister only had access to this one. Still Ast was beaming cause he hit a jacpot. For now he knew the importance of this lotus but not its use but the tomes in itself made this detour worthwhile.

Ast tried to exit the treasury but with no success, so he woke up the minister and moved back in his shadow.

Minister woke up and found himself on the ground with a severe headache. He remembered that someone knocked him out. Minister's mood grew pensive, he checked his hand and the ring was missing, he looked up and found all the tomes were missing as well. He panicked and quickly moved out of the treasury to call for help.