"The Gift of 'Candle'"

Fan Ning stood by the bedroom window for a long time.

"I finally understand why, when I first crossed over, this world always gave me an inexplicable sense of narrowness."

"Because this is merely the world's surface. It's just the dregs that settled at the very bottom after the Migrant Surge drifted endlessly downward."

He felt that, at this moment, his Inspiration was richer than ever, his thoughts clearer than ever, and his perception of the things around him sharper than ever.

Intuitively speaking, the cumulative effects of reproducing the music of his past life several times had finally been released with this breakthrough.

The strength of his spirit had directly reached the level of a Third-Rank Knower, even nearing the late stage of the third rank. He was only one step away from the middle ranks!

The mechanism of the Museum Key was simply heaven-defying when it came to improving his spirit.

One of the chestnut tree's branches in the courtyard stretched before the window. Overburdened by snow, it had bent nearly past its limit. A deeper crack in the corner of the courtyard wall sheltered a hibernating snake or insect. Some plants in the greenhouse garden had withered in early winter, while those cultivated in the northeast corner were likely crops suited to the season. On the second floor of a villa across the way, someone was still rapidly working their brain at a desk late into the night...

Also, the young girl next door was sleeping on her side facing him. Her breathing was generally even, but it occasionally fluctuated in a few places. Her sleep did not seem particularly peaceful.

"Crack!"

A branch of the chestnut tree by the window finally snapped under the heavy snow and fell.

"It isn't a change in my senses..." Fan Ning looked at his open palm, stroked the windowsill, then swept his gaze over the various objects in the room.

"My eyesight hasn't improved, my hearing isn't sharper, the touch of my fingers hasn't become more sensitive, and the scents my nose picks up from the air are the same as before..."

According to the Hidden Knowledge Lord Viadlin had taught him, the senses should belong to the Phase of the Pool.

But this change of his...

"It's an awareness of the changes in the Aether Body, Emotional Body, and Astral Spirit Body of living beings, as well as the Inspiration of the surrounding environment. It's also a sharper intuition toward fluctuations in certain transcendental, hidden, and occult domains..."

He once again sensed that the Aether Body layer nearest his flesh was wrapped in a rippling, luminous substance that was warm yet resilient.

"This seems to be temporary. It may disappear within twenty-four hours..."

Fan Ning carefully sensed this luminous substance. It seemed like a certain "Resonance" or "echo" of "Candle" brought back from the Migrant Surge Layer.

It felt like temporarily being "hyped up" after experiencing something transcendental.

This "echo" settled like dust, moving from his outermost Astral Spirit Body to his Emotional Body, and finally to the Aether Body nearest his flesh. It also seemed as if it were about to be brushed away by the wind.

"Then what about the gift?"

The gift brought by the "Candle" Phase refracted from the Radiance was...

Fan Ning took a box of safety red-phosphorus matches from the drawer beneath the windowsill.

"Crack!" A wisp of pungent, sulfurous smoke drifted out.

The lit match continued to glow brightly.

Invisible threads of Inspiration extended from Fan Ning's consciousness. One of them sensed the high temperature in the area where the match was burning.

Another thread of Inspiration reached toward the ornate gilded candlestick standing more than half a meter away.

It delineated and confirmed an area of less than a cubic centimeter near the wick at the top of the unlit half of a tallow candle.

Fan Ning then controlled his spirit and simulated a sense of "connecting" the two areas.

After maintaining this thought for roughly half a second, he imagined gently pulling them toward each other—

The match in his hand went out, and blue smoke drifted away.

The candle on the other side suddenly burst into flame.

"Control and transmission... of fire?" Fan Ning savored this marvelous sense of manipulation.

"No,

It's not that simple..." Fan Ning's eyes fixed on the thick layer of snow atop the chestnut tree's branch beyond the glass window, while his Inspiration sensed the coldness of the ice and snow.

Then his pupils focused on the nearby glass window itself. After the fireplace had been lit, the building's insulation kept its temperature somewhat higher than that outside.

Sensing temperature, delineating areas, connecting them...

Gently pulling them toward each other—

The snow rapidly melted into cold droplets, and the branch sprang back.

"Crackle, crackle, crackle..."

A dense, solid layer of thin ice rapidly formed across the glass window before him!

"More precisely, it's an... exchange of temperatures."

Fan Ning repeatedly conducted experiments and practiced, trying to determine the characteristics of this gift.

One thing was certain: he could not ignite or freeze objects out of thin air.

Instead, he exchanged the temperatures of two places within an extremely short period.

This change was much more violent than directly lighting something with fire.

Because the time was so short and the temperature rose so rapidly, it was nearly explosive combustion.

Additionally, his current controllable range was a radius of roughly ten meters centered on himself, and he could sense around obstacles.

What he wasn't entirely sure about was—

He seemed unable to act directly on the surface or interior of living creatures.

It also seemed that the greater the temperature difference between the two places, the smaller the area whose temperature could be exchanged, though this had nothing to do with the material.

"If I exchanged the temperatures of a cup of water and a piece of hot iron of equal mass, water has a greater specific heat capacity, so wouldn't the total thermal energy increase? That wouldn't be conserved." Fan Ning tried to analyze it with the mindset of an engineering and science man.

"The occult world really is different. Here, Inspiration can actually be used to generate electricity."

He felt that this ability might have all sorts of strange applications in many situations.

However, there was one thing Fan Ning still hadn't figured out: Was the subject of the temperature exchange the spatial area or the object itself?

For example, he had tried to lock onto only half the spatial area of the match's flame and exchange it with the wick of the extinguished candle.

But he seemed incapable of such precision. In the end, the match still went out and the candle still ignited.

He didn't know whether all these limitations would gradually improve as his Inspiration grew stronger.

"I wonder whether my future advancements will bring more changes. If I can exchange temperatures without restrictions and give my imagination free rein, the effects would be terrifyingly limitless."

Right, the increase in Inspiration...

Lord Viadlin had previously said that the strength of his Inspiration was roughly ten times that of an ordinary person. Now that his spirit had been illuminated by the side-shadow of the Radiance, he wondered how many times stronger it had become.

He felt that it had at least doubled.

He was reminded once again of the marble door of that church.

At the time, he had reached out and touched the relief representing Lord of Witnesses's "Endless Fugue." Then, the grooves in the pattern had been charged by flowing light, but the process had stopped after only a little. In the future, he would still need to continuously reproduce the music from his memory.

"But that place... the landmark is gone. Can I still return?"

Fan Ning furrowed his brows.

Lord Viadlin had previously said that Knowers could recall the aura of the Migrant Surge locations they had visited and thus find the entrance again from a Clear Dream.

Although confusion and forgetfulness existed, it was still possible to remember several places at once.

But right now, he didn't seem to remember any information or aura related to the coordinates of the Migrant Surge...

He closed his eyes and tried to recall the directional symbol of Lord of Witnesses's "Endless Fugue."

The various details of those four broken lines had been firmly etched into his spirit.

"According to the details Lord Viadlin mentioned before, after entering the Migrant Surge once, a Knower will sleep dreamlessly for roughly forty-eight hours. I can try returning to a Clear Dream in two days and see whether I can find the church's entrance."

"And that Museum Key. I used to think it was an ordinary object my father had casually had made somewhere. After crossing over, I sensed something strange about its Resonance with Inspiration while playing music. What was today's situation about?"

As he thought this, he picked up the Museum Key again and was just about to examine it carefully—

Suddenly, Fan Ning stopped moving. The pale golden light in his eyes flashed once more before vanishing.

After becoming a Knower, he had developed an extremely keen intuitive perception of transcendental things in the occult domain.

After standing before the bed for two or three seconds, he quickly left the guest room and went straight to Hiran's bedroom door.

He knocked several times first, but without waiting for Hiran to wake and respond, he turned the doorknob.

Hiran had not locked the door. Fan Ning gently pushed it open.

A faint, delicate fragrance lingered at the tip of Fan Ning's nose.

"Ah..." In the pitch-black room, the girl's voice sounded somewhat alarmed.

"Hiran, it's me," Fan Ning said softly.

A few seconds later, Hiran turned up the gas lamp.

This was a room Fan Ning had never seen before. A rug patterned with golden fern motifs covered the floor. Numerous dolls and woodcuts hung on the walls, while various pieces of small furniture were wrapped in brightly colored fabric decorations. Neat stacks of books and a brown violin case sat on the desk, with a music stand beside them. Hairpins, a comb, a silver-framed mirror, a candleholder, a vase of daffodils, and a pile of small dolls rested on the dressing table. On the other side stood a four-panel wooden embroidered screen for changing clothes and a full-length mirror.

Hiran sat up against the pillows. She wore a loose, thin white silk nightdress, while a pink velvet blanket covered the snowy skin of her chest.

"Caloen?" Seeing Fan Ning standing at the door in a gray robe, the alarm in the girl's eyes vanished.

But she instinctively pulled the lace trim of her nightdress higher.

Fan Ning asked softly, "May I come in for a moment?"

"Is, is something wrong?" Several blushes quickly spread across Hiran's fair cheeks. "Yes, come in."

As Fan Ning approached, he lowered his voice and said:

"I feel that something isn't right in the house."