Empire Rising: Spain

Chapter 192: Chapter 147: Golden Mountain

At night, several people dressed in dark clothes, equipped with various gear, slowly approached the surroundings of the seemingly solemn Padmanabhaswamy Temple.

To avoid drawing attention, they first wandered casually around the temple. Once they ensured no more devotees would arrive late at night, they gathered outside the temple again.

This ancient temple named Padmanabhaswamy Temple surprisingly has its own defense forces. This also increases the difficulty of exploring the temple’s internal structure. Those involved in the operation not only need to try to understand the temple’s architecture and layout thoroughly, finding the most likely places to hide treasures, but also must pay attention to the patrols of the temple’s internal defense forces.

If discovered, there will be only one last option left, which is to storm the temple, and clean it out before the British Colonial Government reacts.

But if doing so, regardless of whether there’s treasure inside the temple or not, the treasure hunting mission will be over this time.

If it is confirmed that there is treasure inside the temple, then the next treasure-hunting plan must be very cautious. Because the vast India has more than just this one ancient temple, there are many ancient temples scattered across the land.

Even if not all temples contain rich treasures inside, some temples undoubtedly hide treasures dating back a hundred or even several hundred years.

If more treasures can be excavated, then perhaps the Spanish Government’s debts could almost be paid off.

Although the temple has its own defense forces, it is clear that they are all organized by the temple itself. Compared to the elite soldiers carefully selected by the Spanish Government, they are insignificant.

After simply calculating the time it takes for these patrolling monks to complete each patrol, several agile personnel quickly sneaked into the temple under the cover of darkness during the gaps between patrols.

This temple has a very long history and a vast area. Though called a temple, it is not just a simple shrine, but a large architectural complex connected by multiple buildings.

Also, because of the temple’s large area, it facilitated the personnel to hide. However, after searching through most of the temple, the personnel still hadn’t found any places likely to hide treasures.

The majority of the temple’s buildings are open to the public, and are frequented by external devotees for worship and visits. These places are basically impossible to hide treasures; if there were any, the Indian commoners would have known and it would have reached the British ears.

The British haven’t discovered any treasure within the temple until now, proving if there is a treasure, it must be hidden in places seldom visited, which is the innermost part of the temple.

Sure enough, after a detailed search, several personnel eventually discovered a very dilapidated building in the innermost section of the temple.

Compared to the outer buildings, this more rundown building is obviously older. The outer buildings have more or less traces of renovation, but this dilapidated building not only has no renovation traces, but also shows signs of very few visits.

Weeds have already grown in front of the building, and seen in the wild, it looks like an abandoned house.

However, placed within the vast temple, it instead appeared somewhat peculiar. The whole temple is not only large in size but also has buildings that are quite magnificent.

This also shows the influence of religion in India. In situations where most Indian commoners can barely get enough to eat, these temples are built lavishly, which is a contrast that provokes deep thought.

“Damn it, this must be it, right?” Scotty and Val successfully joined the temple exploration team due to their nimbleness.

Seeing this conspicuously run-down building in contrast with the resplendent temple, Scotty immediately stopped and looked at Val beside him.

“We might really discover the Temple Treasure.” Val also nodded, clearly suspicious of this building: “Let’s go in and have a look first.”

Due to being in the innermost part of the temple complex and seldom visited, it was indeed convenient for the team to investigate this dilapidated building.

After circling to the front of the building, they immediately discovered several anomalies.

Although the entire temple complex has its own defense forces, overall, they aren’t many. The number of patrol teams is only about 20 people, and they only patrol the temple’s perimeter, with no patrol forces inside the complex.

But inside this evidently dilapidated building, there were actually several monks standing guard at the entrance. If this truly is just an ordinary rundown building, why would anyone be guarding here?

These few guards have already proven the building’s uniqueness, leading all team members to immediately reinforce their original belief that the Temple Treasure is very likely inside this building.

To avoid alarming anyone, after exploring almost the entire temple complex and confirming the treasure’s location, the few explorers exchanged glances and then chose to retreat in perfect unison.

The treasure is not something they could move on their own; the treasure excavation plan still requires all personnel to join efforts.