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You're on a treasure hunt for a mysterious object, and the clue you need is hidden somewhere in a giant library. You have the following clue:

uxq

pt

as well as the following piece of paper: enter image description here

Someone else has tried and failed to find the object of interest, but died in the process. He did, however, manage to solve this riddle. You have his answer, but unfortunately, it's too faded to read, though you can still see some characters.

________of the_______________.

Where should you look?

EDIT: As you are trying to solve this riddle, you have one of your best gophers workers (a.k.a. me) attempting to decipher the journal of the deceased man, Sir Tim le Death, in hopes of getting more clues. He however seems to be preoccupied with some confounded site called Puzzling.SE, so you don't expect any hints for a few more hours.

Edit 2: Your worker finally pulled through. Here is an excerpt from the diary of Sir Tim le Death.

This puzzle was by far the hardest of the ones I have faced so far. I was tipped off to the solution by the shape of the grid of words, and the words 'spatial geometry', which for some reason appeared in my head. That, coupled with the ubiquitous presence of the number five: five letters, five rows, five columns, another twenty five letters, led me to reason that. .

That's how far he got.

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  • $\begingroup$ That uxq and pt, do these fit into final words? $\endgroup$
    – ABcDexter
    Commented Mar 20, 2016 at 13:06
  • $\begingroup$ Not as letters. My advice is to look at the first tag. I'll post a hint in a few hours if needed. $\endgroup$
    – Aurey
    Commented Mar 20, 2016 at 17:46
  • $\begingroup$ A possible anagram for Sir Tim le Death is A Timid Shelter. Could be a hint. $\endgroup$
    – Z. Dailey
    Commented Mar 22, 2016 at 3:46
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    $\begingroup$ It was a pun. 'Timely death'... haha. I'll walk away now. $\endgroup$
    – Aurey
    Commented Mar 22, 2016 at 3:55

2 Answers 2

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The clue for the mysterious object is hidden in

Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a famous Chinese novel.

The 1st clue is

a series of pentomino shapes, labeled with the Conway method (the other has no Q). The references to fives in the extra hint are a clue for this.

Combined with the square,

You get a board filled with the corresponding pentomino (U,X,Q,P,T) from left to right. Colored Example. Rearranging the letters from each piece in order, you get: ROMAN|CEOFT|HETHR|EEKIN|GDOMS

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  • $\begingroup$ +1 I really wonder at the connections that lead to an answer like this! $\endgroup$
    – Lawrence
    Commented Mar 22, 2016 at 11:16
  • $\begingroup$ Nicely done. I may have to step my game up. $\endgroup$
    – Aurey
    Commented Mar 22, 2016 at 18:02
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Just a guess, I don't know how the clue fits in:

North of the shore

Why I think this:

Well first I was looking for directions (north,south,east,west) in the parchment and for North there are the letters there, and for the other directions not, although not connected. And I also tried to find other words in the parchment that might be connected and so I noticed the letters for Shore are also in the parchment in the bottom right in a connected way.

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  • $\begingroup$ You can also make East... $\endgroup$
    – Alconja
    Commented Mar 20, 2016 at 13:58
  • $\begingroup$ @Alconja ah yes, I missed that $\endgroup$
    – Ivo
    Commented Mar 20, 2016 at 14:00
  • $\begingroup$ Nope, sorry! Nice try, though. $\endgroup$
    – Aurey
    Commented Mar 20, 2016 at 17:31
  • $\begingroup$ You can also make enigma. $\endgroup$
    – Z. Dailey
    Commented Mar 22, 2016 at 3:49
  • $\begingroup$ Fairly certain all letters will be used though. $\endgroup$
    – Z. Dailey
    Commented Mar 22, 2016 at 3:54

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