"Not now, Miss Crawford."
"You're calling me Miss Crawford already? Wow, you're even colder than I imagined. Don't worry, I'm not planning to dig into your secrets. I just want to ask whether your library has books that I'm not allowed to borrow." Laura Croft smiled. The champagne reception after dinner had been very relaxed, but the female archaeologist did not want to immerse herself entirely in that atmosphere. She knew she did not possess Superman's physique; indulging too much would only make her skills and body sluggish. After dinner, she had barely managed to push past the Sisterhood maids blocking her way and walked alongside Salomon through the corridor. "I don't want the knowledge I learn to be nothing but lies."
"You want to know how many immortals have influenced history?"
"That's right. Jacob obtained the Source of Divinity and lived for over a thousand years. He founded an entirely new sect, built a Lost City, and even influenced, to some extent, the Mongol Army's conquest of the Principality of Rus." Laura Croft quickened her pace to catch up with the tall, powerfully built figure ahead. A marble statue of Aristotle stood beside the corridor, along with many other sages who had their backs to Oxfordshire's pitch-black night sky. All of them watched the archaeologist and the Emperor with pale, vacant eyes. "If someone had lived from the Sesklo Period until now, she would have had enough time to do things that affected the entire world. An archaeologist's job is to understand the truth, to let future generations know the past and present, and to draw lessons from them. I don't want to be deceived. No archaeologist wants to be deceived."
She was excited. Her father, Richard Croft, had always pursued the secret of immortals, and the Source of