Chapter 496 The Collection Tower

Twelve minutes after parting ways with the Blade of Vengeance Squad, Xia Nan once again met the appraiser with one-eighth high elf blood, Auriel Silverheart.

He was sitting right next to Ellison.

The world truly was a small place.

Xia Nan didn't feel surprised by this.

His keen Perception and divergent thinking had led him to anticipate this exact situation the moment he laid eyes on the man earlier.

After all, Ellison had only just mentioned introducing him to a wealthy collector with extensive channels and a deep fondness for exotic items.

Auriel, who had appeared in the Blade of Vengeance Fleet's meeting room today, fit that profile almost perfectly.

As long as someone wasn't completely dense, it was impossible not to make the connection.

Facts proved that things were exactly as Xia Nan had guessed.

This Auriel was none other than the incredibly resourceful collector Ellison had intended to introduce.

Compared to Xia Nan's relatively placid expression, Auriel looked far more surprised when he saw the young, highly capable adventurer walk into the small association meeting room. He clearly hadn't expected their paths to cross again so soon.

"Heh, it seems my earlier farewell was a bit premature. I'm very glad to see you again, Mr. Xia Nan," Auriel said. He rose from his seat to greet him with a polite, aristocratic smile that seemed practically instinctual.

"It is indeed a coincidence. I was wondering earlier if the knowledgeable collector Mr. Ellison mentioned might be you, and it turns out I guessed right," Xia Nan replied, stepping forward to shake his hand. Since the other party was politely offering goodwill, he naturally wasn't going to put on a cold front.

"It seems... you two don't need me to introduce you?" Sitting across the table, Ellison couldn't fail to notice their familiarity. His tone held a mix of teasing and confusion.

"Do you remember the workbench I was just telling you about? It's a spoil of war the Blade of Vengeance Squad brought back from their mission. Mr. Xia Nan happened to be present when I appraised it ten minutes ago," Auriel patiently explained to Ellison.

"Oh, no wonder." Hearing the collector beside him say this, Ellison understood what had happened. "That works out. It saves me from wasting my breath; you two can just talk to each other."

It was a coincidence, but not a mystical one.

Ellison and Lorraine were siblings. Although they had grown distant and rarely communicated in recent years due to their differing views on their father's disappearance, their channels and networks stemming from the Morton Family still overlapped to some extent.

Before their father went missing, Auriel had already established a good relationship with their family.

Lorraine would go to him to appraise strange spoils of war whose actual value she couldn't determine, and Ellison frequently bought information from him regarding the sources of exotic items.

It was simply because of Xia Nan that they all happened to cross paths today, creating a situation that seemed coincidental but was actually entirely logical.

"I heard from Ms. Lorraine earlier that it was your reminder that brought the unique marble table to their attention. It seems you've also studied equipment appraisal?" As if recalling something, Auriel turned his head, his words carrying a clear but harmless probe.

Xia Nan's expression remained unchanged while his mind raced, thinking about how to answer this highly experienced collector to avoid exposing his Attribute Panel as much as possible.

After a brief pause to organize his thoughts, he slowly spoke. "I don't have any insights or relevant experience when it comes to appraising collectibles. If you were to just hand me some random piece of equipment and ask me to clearly explain its effects, I wouldn't be able to do it."

"But because of my class, my Perception is fairly sharp. The moment I glanced at that marble workbench during the mission, I felt something was off. It was only after asking the Spellcaster in our squad to inspect it carefully that I confirmed my suspicions."

"To some extent, you could just say I have decent luck."

Auriel smiled and shook his head. "You are too modest. Even the most experienced appraiser can't guarantee they will clearly identify every item that passes through their hands. Under such circumstances, keen Perception is particularly crucial.

"Clearly, you possess the talent to become an outstanding and great appraiser."

Xia Nan didn't reply to this, merely returning a noncommittal, polite smile.

Knowing the topic had strayed a bit, Auriel glanced at Ellison and asked, "Mr. Ellison mentioned that you also seem interested in exotic items?"

"Of course," Xia Nan nodded without hiding anything. "That's exactly why I came."

"To be completely honest, I do have quite a collection in that regard."

"If you wouldn't mind... perhaps I could take you for a tour of my collection room?"

Glancing toward Ellison and seeing the fisherman give a slight nod, Xia Nan immediately agreed. He turned sideways to clear the path to the door. "Then I'll have to trouble you."

...

...

The half-elf collector's residence was somewhat beyond Xia Nan's expectations.

He had bid Ellison farewell at the Adventurers' Association and followed Auriel all the way to the core streets of the White Cliff District. After passing by squads of patrolling guards, they arrived at the very center of a wealthy neighborhood.

What greeted his eyes was a towering and extremely bizarre building.

Its main structure was a stone tower that appeared to be at least six stories high.

Just from its height alone, the building stood out conspicuously like a crane standing among chickens compared to the surrounding houses.

And its unique architectural style instantly commanded the attention of every pedestrian passing by.

Unlike the luxurious or understated homes of the surrounding dignitaries and nobles, Auriel's stone house could only be described as bizarre.

The entire structure was built from pale-gray granite blocks of vastly uneven sizes. The large ones required two people to wrap their arms around, while the small ones were barely enough to stuff into a door crack. They seemed to be haphazardly stacked, but in reality, every piece of granite looked as if it had been meticulously measured and cut to fit together seamlessly, giving off an indescribable aesthetic of order amidst chaos.

The base of the tower was nearly a third wider than the top, making the entire building look like a stone stalagmite shooting up from the ground.

There were many windows on its walls, but the size and style of each one were completely different. There were thick glass windows covering nearly half a wall with complex geometric patterns; oak exterior windows steeped in strong elven style with intricate latticework and tangled vines; and dwarven combination windows of steel and crystal that blended practicality with luxury. Despite being entirely different in style, structure, and material, the cleverly arranged windows didn't look chaotic at all. Instead, they unconsciously drew people in to observe the building's various window types.

"I designed this house myself back in the day," Auriel explained with a smile as he led Xia Nan through the small flower garden in front of the building.

"I liked a lot of things at the time, so I thought I'd add a little bit of everything."

"Looking back, combining so many elements should have resulted in a failed, ugly product, but the final result actually turned out quite well."

"Well, the main credit definitely goes to the artisans. If you ever plan to settle in Barracuda Bay and design a building yourself, I can introduce them to you."

For Xia Nan, at least for now, this trip to Barracuda Bay was just a short transitional period in his long career. He had no intention of living here long-term, and with his tight funds, he didn't plan to purchase property anytime soon either.

But it was always good to make more connections, especially when those connections were highly skilled artisans. He made a mental note of it, thinking there might be an opportunity to contact them in the future.

The tower's main entrance consisted of heavy, dark-brown double oak doors. They were about three meters tall, and when fully opened, the entryway was wide enough for two people to ride horses through side by side.

Xia Nan followed Auriel and pushed the door open.

The first thing that entered his line of sight was a truly spectacular hall.

It was as if the upper and lower floors had been merged together; the height from the floor to the ceiling was roughly two and a half times that of a normal building.

Almost every wall was embedded with cabinets—rows and columns layered upon each other, made of copper, iron, wood... The sheer number and variety of these different styles of massive wall cabinets were so complex that it was hard to describe in words.

In a sense, if a guest like Xia Nan were to visit, their focus probably wouldn't be on the types or origins of these cabinets, but rather on the countless rare and precious collectibles displayed on the shelves in various ways.

There was a massive collection of books rivaling a library, and glass potion bottles of all colors looking more spectacular than the shelves in an alchemist's shop. There were beautiful hanging paintings layered over one another like fish scales, and cashmere rugs embroidered with complex, gorgeous patterns.

There was a giant grandfather clock operating silently save for the occasional crisp tick; a bronze statue with blurred facial features, its race and gender indistinguishable; a twisted, dead tree made from wind chimes, iron wire, flags, and dried wreaths; and a magnificent chandelier pieced together from shells, glass beads, porcelain saucers, and metal parts.

There were display pedestals, carpet cushions, broken carved stone pillars, pristine ivory wrapped in silk...

Xia Nan even saw a complete taxidermy specimen of a Displacer Beast on the north wall.

He didn't know what preservation method had been used, but the dead Displacer Beast still maintained the savage, violent posture it had in life. Light refracted off its uneven, bone-white fangs, and the tight muscles beneath its pitch-black fur were frozen mid-flex. The split tentacles of its long tail stood on end and splayed out in an incredibly dynamic pose.

With the countless collectibles and overly dense arrangement, Xia Nan wouldn't have even known where to step if the path from the door to the staircase hadn't been fairly wide and well-lit.

Compared to Auriel's elegant and decent attire, the layout of his house was absolute maximalism. Every presentable item was laid out in plain sight, overwhelming the eyes to the point that a single glance caused a wave of dizziness, as if every corner hid some unique and bizarre artifact.

"I'm sorry, the room might be a little messy," Auriel said with an apologetic look as he led Xia Nan up the stairs, knowing full well that his interior design style was completely different from the noble mansions in the White Cliff District and that ordinary people might have trouble adjusting.

"No, I actually find it quite interesting."

These weren't just polite words.

Although Xia Nan preferred a clean, capable style focused on practicality in both his overall equipment layout and his daily life, if a room could truly be so complex and comprehensive that it dazzled even him, and if it was filled entirely with valuable collectibles, he would actually find it curious and intriguing rather than harbor any negative thoughts or emotions.

If he had the chance later, Xia Nan even wanted to properly observe the various collections the half-elf kept in the first-floor hall to broaden his horizons.

Following Auriel up the stairs to the second-floor corridor and stepping across a cashmere rug embroidered with gold patterns, the two arrived at a small room.

It also contained many of the half-elf's collectibles, but unlike the cluttered items downstairs overlapping and colliding on the shelves, the pieces in this small room all enjoyed their own exclusive display pedestals.

A Mottled Crown resting quietly on a soft velvet cushion caught his eye. It was dark silver throughout and composed of three intertwined metal bands, in a style that did not belong to any known kingdom on the continent today.

Its surface was covered in cracks, looking as if it would completely shatter with just a little force. Engraved on the inner ring was a short phrase in Ancient Elvish that appeared somewhat blurred: [He who bears the crown is shadowed by betrayal].

"This crown has a history of at least three thousand years, predating the origins of many gods," Auriel introduced from the side.

"It should belong to the king of some ancient kingdom, but I haven't gathered enough intelligence or information to determine exactly where it came from."

'Three thousand years!?'

Under normal circumstances, Xia Nan wouldn't believe this type of creation could survive to the present day in such perfect condition.

But he was in a fantasy world with supernatural powers, after all. There might very well be some waterproof and rustproof magic on it, so he stopped dwelling on the thought and simply examined it closely as an otherworldly artifact.

In the glass cabinet beside it rested something even smaller.

—A Tarot Card.

Its material was unknown and slightly transparent, far thinner than human skin, yet it gave off a feeling of being tougher than steel.

The pattern on the card was already blurred. He could only faintly make out a tall tower being struck by lightning, and a rising sun slowly emerging behind dark clouds in the background.

"This is a token said to have been left behind by the legendary God of Gambling while walking the mortal realm. It's rumored that if someone holds this Tarot Card when they die, they will be personally escorted by this god into His divine kingdom."

If it really was as Auriel described, Xia Nan couldn't begin to imagine the astronomical price this Tarot Card would fetch on the market.

Tearing his gaze away from the Tarot Card, he continued forward to the next cabinet pedestal.

His gaze fell, and before he could even observe carefully, his intense focus caused the translucent characters symbolizing the Attribute Panel to float before his eyes the very next second.