Pillar of the Fire Temple

Vincent leaned against an iron lamppost at the street corner, waiting for him.

Seeing Richard emerge unscathed, he nodded without asking exactly how the other had gotten in.

"Let's go, Number 7 is this way."

Richard followed his pace, keeping his Perception active as they walked.

The Aether concentration inside the walls of Flower Moon Street was a step higher than it was outside.

There wasn't one specific point that stood out; the entire street was soaked in a denser Aether environment.

The architecture was different, too.

The flashy display windows and vibrant signs from outside were all gone; the storefronts inside the wall all had plain, understated facades.

The signs were small copper plates embedded above the door frames, with such tiny lettering that one had to get close to see what was written.

Passing a few shops, Richard deliberately slowed his pace to glance at them.

One copper plate was engraved with "R.T. Mineral Appraisal"; the shop was closed, and the windows were pitch black.

Next door, one read "Griffin Archive Custody," and through the frosted glass, one could see shadows moving inside.

Two doors down, there wasn't even a copper plate, but a man as bulky as a wardrobe stood at the entrance.

The big man had his arms crossed over his chest; his gaze lingered on Richard for half a second before shifting away.

Every shop here likely dealt in business related to The Veil.

Mineral appraisal might be for valuing occult-related resources, while archive custody could be for the storage and transport of encrypted documents.

As for the one without a sign and the bodyguard standing at the door... one didn't need to guess to know that what they sold wouldn't be written on a plaque.

Vincent stopped in front of a deep brown wooden door.

The copper plate above the door frame was heavily oxidized, with green rust covering most of the lettering.

Only after leaning in close could one make it out: "Donald Antiques and Sundries, No. 7."

Pushing the door open, a copper bell chimed.

It was almost the exact same tone as the bell at Clement Antiques, and Richard felt a sense of familiarity.

A row of brass candlesticks and old picture frames sat on the left side near the entrance, no different from an antique shop in the outside world.

Moving further in, the objects began to look less ordinary.

Several stone bowls rested on the middle shelf, next to a stack of leather-bound booklets with titles on the spines that had faded into ghostly shadows.

Two canes stood in the corner, one of which was carved with a coiled snake.

The snake staff of the God of Medicine indicated that this shop followed the rules and wasn't a black-market front.

A short, stout man sat behind the counter.

He wore a monocle perched on the bridge of his nose, hanging from a thin chain around his neck.

His head was as bald as Mr. Holland's, though the shape of his skull was different.

Holland's baldness was the uniform receding type.

This man had simply given up on growth in the center, leaving only a ring of hair on either side of his temples, like a woolen scarf wrapped around a smooth, bare hill.

Richard silently mused to himself that there were really a lot of bald people around here.

Mr. Holland was bald, and this Mr. Donald was bald too.

It was said that the water quality throughout the empire was generally hard, which wasn't very friendly to the scalp.

However, his father, as an engineer in Briston, still had a thick head of hair despite even harder water and harsher working conditions.

His grandfather was quite old, yet his hair hadn't thinned much either.

The baldness gene shouldn't have anything to do with him, which was good news.

Donald looked up and recognized Vincent first: "Little Vincent, it's been a long time since you've been here."

"Uncle Donald, I brought my cousin today." Vincent patted Richard on the shoulder.

Donald's gaze shifted from Vincent to Richard's face, looking him up and down.

His eyes lingered for an extra second on his attire: shirt and vest, sleeves rolled up twice, slight wear on the shoe tips.

After the assessment, his smile was faint, neither particularly fawning nor particularly cold.

"Mr. Shopkeeper, my grandfather introduced me." Richard took the wax-sealed letter from his bag and placed it on the counter.

Donald reached out with short, thick fingers to pick up the envelope, his attitude noticeably warmer:

"A letter written by Mr. Gerald himself, that's rare."

The legs of his chair were too high, so he simply hopped down from the high stool:

"Come, let's look in the back."

Donald led the two through the front shop toward the wall at the very back.

There was an old tapestry on the wall depicting a phoenix rising from the ashes, with several threads already pulled loose.

He lifted the tapestry; the back room was much smaller than the front shop, visually only a third of its size.

Shelves were nailed to all four walls, but the number of items on them was significantly lower, and the spacing was wider, leaving ample room between each object.

The moment Richard stepped into the back room, the Seat of the Sun began to vibrate slightly.

The Aether density in this room was much higher, thicker than the entire street outside combined.

However, every item was sealed.

His gaze swept across the shelves one by one.

First row on the left: a bronze hand mirror mottled with green rust, its surface so worn that no reflection could be seen, with scroll patterns and animal totems engraved on the back.

The panel remained motionless.

Second row: two silver brooches, styled as early imperial officer accessories.

The panel showed no reaction.

Third row: an ancient bronze coin, a size smaller than the silver coin that had been drained dry.

The panel rose, but extremely slowly, similar to the state of the Sphinx Oil Lamp when it was sealed.

Beside it sat a brass incense burner, small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, with patterns carved into the lid.

The panel was rising as well, at a speed comparable to the bronze coin, both leaking only a trace amount through the seals.

Both items had value, but they were sealed very tightly; trying to leech energy just by holding them in his hand likely wouldn't work.

He continued walking further in.

In the innermost corner of the back room, a half-man-tall stone pillar fragment stood against the wall.

The remaining column shaft was covered in dense reliefs, the theme appearing to be a continuous band of alternating flames and wings.

The moment he walked to within three steps of the stone pillar fragment, his chest began to burn.

His entire internal circulation was violently agitated, suppressed by the Aether field of the stone pillar fragment.

A warm heat darted wildly from the Seat of the Sun, spreading along his blood vessels to his limbs before violently retracting.

Richard took a step back, and the burning sensation immediately subsided to a tolerable level.

He retreated another half step, and it vanished completely.

Donald glanced at him: "Did you run into something uncomfortable?"

"That stone pillar..."

"Oh, that." Donald pushed the monocle on the bridge of his nose with his thumb:

"This is a fragment of a pillar from a Fire Temple during the Sassanid Persia period, the treasure that guards my shop.

The Aether deposition on it is quite significant, and it contains a high-density Aether field; people with higher sensitivity will experience a repulsion reaction when getting close."

Sassanid Persia was the Second Persian Empire; from the time the First Persian Empire was destroyed by Macedonia, to the Parthian Empire, and then came the Second Persian Empire.

This was a dynasty from the Middle Ages, at least fifteen hundred years ago.

Fifteen hundred years—Richard quickly compared this against the data he possessed.

The bronze pendant and the God-Descending Disk were thousand-year-old artifacts from the Eastern Continent, each providing one point.

This stone pillar was five hundred years older than them.

Moreover, as a ritual implement from a Fire Temple, the years of ritual immersion had caused the Aether deposition to far exceed that of ordinary artifacts of the same age.

The energy sealed inside, conservatively estimated, was two points.