Chapter 49: Fire Worship Temple Pillar

Vincent leaned against an iron lamppost at the intersection, waiting. Seeing Richard emerge unscathed, he nodded, not asking how he had managed to get inside.

"Let's go. Number Seven is this way."

Richard matched his pace, sweeping his Perception over their surroundings as they walked.

Inside the walls of Flower Moon Street, the ambient ether concentration was a full tier higher than outside.

No single point stood out; rather, the entire street was steeped in a much denser field of ether.

The architecture was different, too.

The flashy display windows and gaudy signs of the outside world were gone. Behind the wall, every storefront maintained an austere facade.

The only signs were small copper plaques set above the doorframes. The lettering was so tiny it couldn't be read without stepping right up to the door.

Passing a few of the shops, Richard deliberately slowed his pace to look.

One plaque read "R.T. Mineral Appraisal." The shop was closed, its windows pitch-black inside.

The place next door was marked "Griffin Archival Custody." Through its frosted glass panes, silhouettes moved inside.

Two doors down, a shop lacked a plaque entirely, but a hulking man built like a wardrobe stood at the entrance.

The brute had his arms crossed. His gaze swept over Richard, lingered for half a second, then slid away.

Every shop on this street likely dealt in business tied to the veil.

The mineral appraiser probably evaluated occult resources, while the archival custodian likely handled the storage and covert transport of encrypted documents.

As for the shop without a sign and the bodyguard planted at its door... whatever they were selling, it was obvious why they didn't advertise.

Vincent stopped in front of a dark brown wooden door.

The copper plaque above the frame was heavily oxidized, a green patina obscuring most of the lettering.

Richard had to lean in close to make it out: "Donner Antiquities and Sundries, No. 7."

When they pushed the door open, a brass bell chimed.

It struck almost the exact same note as the bell at the Clement Antique Shop, giving Richard an unexpected sense of familiarity.

To the left of the entrance sat a row of brass candlesticks and old picture frames—no different from any ordinary antique shop in the outside world.

But further inside, the inventory became unusual.

Several stone bowls sat on the middle of a shelf, arranged next to a stack of leather ledgers. The lettering on their spines had faded into ghostly traces.

Two canes leaned against the corner; one was carved with entwined snakes.

Displaying the rod of Asclepius signaled that this establishment abided by the rules—it wasn't a black-market front.

A short, stout man sat behind the counter.

A monocle perched on his nose, secured around his neck by a fine chain.

The top of his head was entirely bald, rivaling Mr. Holland's, though his skull shape was a bit different.

Mr. Holland had a uniformly receding hairline.

This man's scalp had simply given up completely in the middle, retaining only a tuft of hair over each ear, looking like a barren hill wrapped in a woolen scarf.

Richard couldn't help but observe just how many bald men there were in this city.

Mr. Holland was bald, and now this Mr. Donner was bald too.

Word was that the water across the Empire was generally quite hard and unforgiving on the scalp.

However, his own Father, an engineer in Briston, still boasted a thick head of hair despite suffering through even harder water and far harsher working environments.

Despite his advanced age, his grandfather's hair hadn't noticeably thinned either.

The baldness gene likely had nothing to do with him, which was certainly good news.

Donner looked up and instantly recognized Vincent. "Little Vincent. It's been quite a while since your last visit."

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

Donner shifted his gaze to Richard, looking him up and down in a swift appraisal.

His eyes lingered on Richard's attire for an extra second: a shirt paired with a vest, cuffs rolled up twice, and slight scuffing on the toes of his shoes.

The appraisal finished, Donner offered a faint smile—neither overly solicitous nor entirely dismissive.

"Mr. Donner, my grandfather referred me here." Richard pulled the wax-sealed letter from his satchel and placed it on the counter.

Donner pinched the envelope between his stubby fingers, his demeanor visibly warming.

"A letter penned personally by Mr. Gerard. That's a rarity."

The stool was a bit too high for him, so he simply hopped down from his perch.

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

Donner led the two of them through the storefront toward the back wall.

A worn tapestry hung there, woven with the image of a phoenix's rebirth. Several loose threads were already unraveling.

He lifted the tapestry to reveal a back room. It was much smaller than the storefront—only about a third of the size.

Shelves were similarly bolted to all four walls, but they held far fewer items. They were spaced much further apart, leaving ample room around each piece.

The moment Richard stepped into the room, the Seat of the Sun began to thrum within him.

The ether density here was staggeringly high—thicker than the entirety of the street outside combined.

However, every item here was sealed.

His gaze swept over the shelves.

First row on the left: a bronze hand mirror mottled with green patina. The glass was so severely scuffed it could no longer cast a reflection, while the back was etched with scrolling vines and animal totems.

The Panel remained completely unresponsive.

Second row: two silver brooches styled as officer accessories from the early Empire.

Still no reaction from the Panel.

Third row: an ancient copper coin, roughly a size smaller than his own drained Silver Coin.

The Panel finally ticked upward, though at an agonizingly slow pace—similar to how it reacted to the Sphinx Oil Lamp while the seal was active.

Resting beside it was a brass censer. It was small, roughly the size of a palm, with intricate patterns hollowed out of its lid.

The Panel ticked up again at a pace matching the copper coin. In both cases, he was only absorbing the minuscule traces of ether leaking through their seals.

Both items held energy, but their seals were too robust. Simply holding them in his hands to leech their power wasn't going to work.

He continued deeper into the room.

In the farthest corner of the back room, a waist-high piece of a broken stone pillar stood propped against the wall.

The surviving shaft was covered in dense relief carvings, featuring a continuous, alternating band of flames and wings.

The moment Richard stepped within three paces of the shattered pillar, his chest began to burn.

The ether field radiating from the stone fragment pressed down on his internal circulation, causing it to heave violently.

Heat surged erratically from his Seat of the Sun, rushing along his veins toward his limbs before snapping violently back.

Richard took a step backward, and the searing sensation instantly subsided to a tolerable level.

With another half step back, the sensation vanished completely.

Donner shot him a sidelong glance. "Brush up against something uncomfortable?"

"That stone pillar..."

"Ah, that." Donner nudged the monocle on his nose with a thumb.

"That is a fragment of a Fire Worship Temple Pillar dating back to Sassanid Persia. It's the crowning treasure of my little shop.

"The ether sediment clinging to it is substantial, and it harbors a high-density ether field within. Anyone with a relatively high Inspiration will suffer an adverse physical reaction when approaching it."

Sassanid Persia was the Second Persian Empire. From the fall of the First Persian Empire to Macedon, through the Parthian Empire, only then came the rise of the Second Persia.

As a medieval dynasty, that meant the pillar dated back at least fifteen hundred years.

Fifteen hundred years. Richard quickly cross-referenced that figure against the data he had already gathered.

The Copper Pendant and the Spirit Board were both millennium-old antiquities from the East Land, and each had provided him with a single attribute point.

The age of this stone pillar exceeded theirs by a full five centuries.

Furthermore, it was a ritual instrument from a temple of fire worship. The years of deep ritual saturation meant its ether sediment far surpassed that of ordinary antiquities from the same era.

Conservatively estimating, the energy sealed inside could be worth at least two stat points.