Chapter 276: Record
"Glory? Ah, yes. Glory, indeed."
Everyone dropped their jaws to the ground as they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
Tens of artifacts were pouring out of the space storage.
A lot of them fell to the ground because the table couldn’t accommodate all of them at once.
"Bahahahaha!" Arnie laughed out loud. "It was right for us to get popcorn."
Jennifer couldn’t contain her smile anymore. It was truly satisfying to see what was happening.
General Marcel froze. He knew his niece’s ability, and as soon as she returned, he could see that Vera had actually advanced to rank 3.
More importantly, there was no way Vera could find all of these artifacts.
"This should be enough." Ellia nodded and closed her space storage.
"This..." The soldier panicked. This was the first time he had seen so many artifacts.
The artifacts they possessed alone were higher than all the groups combined. Did they rob an artifact bank or something?
Jackson’s face turned pale, while Callahan scratched the back of his head. "Easy...? No wonder the vice president said that."
The surrounding people started to snap out of their shock.
"What the fuck?!"
"How many artifacts did they get?"
"How could they even find so many of them?"
"Wait. Look!"
"How many rank 4 artifacts did they actually get?"
"I can see three of them already."
They simply couldn’t believe what they were seeing. This was the first time they had seen so many artifacts at once.
"Help me!" The soldier who was in charge of confirming the artifacts waved his hand to the two soldiers who had been in charge of this station a few hours earlier.
They rushed to help with the verification.
"How many points?"
The soldiers were rushing to check. However, one of them was startled because he had seen something that had never appeared in this base. "What? A dark element artifact?"
"Look at this. There is actually an earth element artifact as well!" Another soldier lifted it up.
"What?" The people were dumbfounded.
"Earth element artifact?"
"Dark element artifact?"
"There are no ruins with those two elements here."
"Are they... cheating?!"
This was the easiest explanation they could think of.
Jackson, who had been pale earlier, laughed abruptly. "Hahahaha. To think that you would be cheating. You know you can’t win against me, so you resorted to cheating with artifacts? If you want to cheat, you should have bought artifacts from other people. How foolish you can be to actually take out artifacts you bought from other places?!"
"This... Vice president?" Callahan panicked.
"If we want to win, we wouldn’t need to take those artifacts out. However, it looks like someone pissed Auric off. He definitely wants to slap him so hard that he can never recover from this." Katarina waved her hand. "Just watch. The interesting part is about to begin."
Ellia didn’t have to answer. The soldiers were the ones answering everyone’s doubts.
"What? The dark element artifact has been confirmed by the system!"
"This earth element artifact has been confirmed as well!"
The two soldiers gasped.
"What did they say?"
"The two artifacts have been confirmed?"
"Then, they actually got those artifacts from this place?"
"But how? There are no ruins with those two elements."
Jackson gritted his teeth. There was no way he could stop. He would be too ashamed if he stopped after this.
Jackson stepped forward and waved his hand. "You need to know shame! To think that you even hack the military’s system just because you want to win. Ellia Stroph Astler, you need to be ashamed of yourself for using your family power to win!"
"That’s... something I can’t ignore." General Marcel’s voice suddenly stopped all of them from talking.
"!!!" Everyone tensed up as they looked at General Marcel.
"It’s perfect now that you are here. General Marcel, you need to investigate them. They’re cheating!" Jackson pointed at Auric’s group.
"It looks like you’ve brought a big surprise this time, kid." Arnie sneakily appeared next to Auric.
Auric shrugged while looking away.
General Marcel’s eyes turned cold. "Cheating? That’s something that I can’t overlook, if there is any."
Jackson smiled, thinking that General Marcel would side with him.
Sadly for him, General Marcel continued, "Unfortunately, there’s none. There is no breach in the system. In other words, the system recognizes the artifact as something that has been discovered in the area.
"The system recognizes all the artifacts that have been discovered in the Alps ruins or all other places located within five kilometers. This system allows the AI to include all the artifacts from the nearby ruins."
"There are no ruins with those two elements. That’s why I’m sure they’re cheating!" Jackson gritted his teeth. "I demand checking the footage for these artifacts!"
"The military will allow that, but I take it you’re doubting the military’s impartiality? If no error can be found, you need to be prepared for sanctions." General Marcel glared at Jackson.
Jackson froze. He looked left and right as no one dared to say anything, but his eyes caught one participant from Auric’s group.
"Impartial? You are partial. You must be trying to defend your family member because that woman is in their group!" Jackson pointed at Vera.
"Pfft! Hahahaha!" Arnie laughed out loud. Calling General Marcel partial was definitely the last thing one should do.
He didn’t even bend the rules when he was being threatened by him, so Arnie could only laugh when someone really dared to call him partial.
General Marcel was emitting an oppressive aura that caused everyone to feel chills down their spines.
"How dare a mere youngster call me biased?" General Marcel walked toward Jackson. "We will review the footage. If nothing is found, you’d better prepare yourself."
General Marcel turned to the soldiers. "Ask the control room to replay the footage of these artifacts."
"Yes, sir!" The soldier followed his instructions.
"Whoa! Another artifact? We are definitely winning this. No one has ever discovered this place." Vera’s voice echoed in the recording, but it was a video of a man’s hand taking an artifact out of the wall.
They widened their eyes. Some of them had already suspected this, but when the voice confirmed it, they had no choice but to believe it.
"Unexplored ruins?!"
"Holy shit!"
"There are actually undiscovered ruins in this place? I thought all the ruins had been found!"
"Hahaha. That Jackson thinks he is something!"
"No way. Did they find the ruins?"
"Where are the ruins?!"
"Say. Since this country couldn’t find the ruins for so long, couldn’t they just turn in the ruins’ location? How many points would they get?"
They couldn’t help but laugh. All of them were eager to go to the ruins, but they couldn’t because the event had ended.
"Pfft. This is hilarious. I’m glad I stayed until the end." Arnie covered his mouth, having a hard time stopping his laughter.
Jackson panicked. If they found undiscovered ruins, the points would definitely count, but it would mean that his reputation would be tarnished.
Jackson was trying to recover and pointed at Auric’s group. "How can they even find all these artifacts? Some of them must have been bought from others!"
"You definitely can’t stop yourself." Auric sighed. "This is embarrassing."
"What did you say?!" Jackson gritted his teeth.
"I found them... all of them."
"Where is the proof? You are clearly cheating! How can a mere rank 2 human achieve something like this?"
"You want proof?" Auric turned around. "Here. I turn around. Why don’t the soldiers help me a bit? Pick the artifacts. I will tell you how many artifacts you grab and their elements."
"Pfft. That’s interesting." Arnie grabbed three artifacts. "How about this, kid?"
"Two water artifacts and one earth artifact." Auric answered without hesitation.
"Oohhh!" The people’s reaction was more than enough to show that he was correct.
Arnie became even more interested and started grabbing artifacts, juggling them.
"Why are you juggling those five artifacts?"
Arnie smiled and started dropping a few so that he could kick them up, juggling them with his foot.
"What the... Why are you even using your right foot? Hey, don’t increase it to ten. You’re going to drop them!"
The bystanders didn’t know whether they should be impressed by the fact that Auric managed to accurately tell everything or the fact that Arnie could juggle so many artifacts with both hands and his right foot.
"Hey, don’t be too shocked. Calm down. You almost dropped that light artifact."
"!!!" They were stupefied, not knowing what Auric was talking about. When they shifted their gaze slightly, they saw a soldier who had just recovered as though he had almost dropped the artifact to the ground.
The soldier was dumbfounded and felt embarrassed. He scratched the back of his head and politely nodded, apologizing for his mistake.
However, this was more than enough to show that Auric was more than capable of finding artifacts. He could even find ones without looking.
The video footage earlier showed Auric digging through the wall and pulling the artifact out.
So, all these artifacts might have been found underneath the soil.
In other words, they were real, and Auric indeed found them all.
They recognized Auric’s achievement, and with this, everyone knew Jackson was just a pathetic loser who couldn’t admit his defeat.
"This..." Jackson turned pale.
General Marcel looked at Jackson, who had fallen to his knees with a face full of despair. "You will not receive any assistance from the military for five years. In addition, I will form a formal complaint to anyone who will receive you within these five years."
"!!!" All of them were quite surprised with the punishment. With General Marcel’s complaint, organizations would think twice before recruiting him. After all, their images would turn bad, and they might not even receive any connection with the military.
This was definitely a huge blow to someone like Jackson. Jackson was a talented student who had received many invitations. A lot of families wanted to marry their daughters off to him because they believed he would become a rank 6 human who would protect their families.
From General Marcel’s perspective, five years were long, but it wasn’t enough to stop a genius. A true genius would hone himself and use this opportunity to refine his character so that he wouldn’t become a loser like this in the future.
They could contain Jackson this time because he was only rank 4, but what if he was a rank 6 human? The story would be different.
Hence, this punishment wasn’t too harsh.
But for someone like Jackson, this might end his entire career.
Now that General Marcel had settled the matter regarding Jackson, he turned to the soldiers.
"We’ve confirmed everything, sir. There are a total of 104 artifacts." The first soldier reported.
The second soldier read the list. "Fifty-five rank 1 artifacts, twenty-four rank 2 artifacts, sixteen rank 3 artifacts, and nine rank 4 artifacts."
The third soldier calculated the total. "The bonus point is 35,900 points."
Night and Day 53,870 points
"What?"
"He got 35,900 from artifacts alone?"
"The highest score ever recorded was from 22 years ago. That team managed to get 33,865 points even though that team only consisted of two people. Later, one of them became known as the guardian of this country, Joker."
"Did they actually beat the record just from the artifacts alone?"
"Look at that! The ranking has been updated."
All of them were dumbfounded. They never thought that the record of Joker, the only rank 7 human in their country, would be beaten. It was true that Joker had participated as a pair, not a group of six. Even so, Auric beat Joker just by using artifacts alone.
"No, wait. There is another matter."
"Ah, the ruins! How many points are they going to receive from discovering that place?"
"Surely, they’re going to receive bonus points for turning in the ruins’ location, right?"
General Marcel thought for a moment before raising five fingers. "I will give you an additional 50,000 points for the ruins. I believe you deserve it."
Ellia turned to Auric, because he was the captain. Soon, everyone’s gaze shifted to Auric. They wondered where Auric had found it.
Auric, on the other hand, said with an innocent expression. "What makes you think I’m going to turn in the ruins’ location?"
"..."
"Pfft. Hahahahahahahahahaha! I told you that you’re going to suffer, you inflexible bastard."