The following Sunday, Shad wanted to go to the mental hospital with the doctor to look for someone to create a spiritual crystal, but No. 6 St. Teresa's Square was renovated and he needed to inspect it in person.
The acceptance process and having the workers move the furniture from the basement upstairs and arrange it took the entire morning. By the time all the workers had evacuated, it was almost one o'clock in the afternoon, and Shad also left the house with Mia.
He first locked the door, put the key in his pocket, then took out the key with a smile and opened the door.
Although he can open the door without a key, it now feels like a ritual.
He opened the door and walked in with the cat. He turned around, closed the door, and took a deep breath facing the stairs in front of him:
"Look, Mia, this is all ours!"
He laughed himself, put the key into the biscuit box in the shoe cabinet, and then picked up the cat that was peeking out, not knowing what it wanted to do, and went into the basement behind the stairs together.
He reached out and turned on the gas light switch on the wall, and the bright light illuminated the front. The walls of the basement had been painted, and now there were a few building supplies such as metal pipes and stone bricks. There were also a few wooden shelves that Shade asked the carpenter to help build by the wall. When he transformed this place into an underground alchemy workshop or a potion studio in the future, the stone bricks and shelves could be used.
“That’s really good.”
He said, and then went to the first floor again with the cat.
Unlike the upper floors, the first floor is not divided into Room 1 and Room 2, but a single residence. Now the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, living room, and study on the first floor have all been decorated, and the water pipes, gas pipes, and steam pipes are all connected. The gas lamps and curtains are the styles that Tifa chose for Shad, and the fireplace in the living room has been connected to the chimney on the roof, so it can be used normally in the winter a few months later.
Although Shad and Mia had been living on the first floor this week, he still walked through every room on the first floor with joy. Finally, he opened the curtains, stood in front of the window behind the sofa, and looked out at the bustling St. Teresa Square:
“That’s really good.”
There was no change on the second floor, so I led Mia to the third floor.
The structure of the third floor is exactly the same as that of the second floor. After a week of renovation, gas lamps and waterproofing layers were installed on the walls. Now it is completely different from the terrible appearance it was in a week ago when it was covered with mold.
Opening the two newly installed wooden doors on the third floor, there was no furniture inside, but just like Room 2 on the second floor downstairs, it was empty. Since Shad still believed that the house in Saint Teresa Square might have hidden dangers that he had not yet noticed, he planned to use the two rooms on the third floor as functional rooms instead of decorating them as guest rooms, and the three bedrooms on the first floor could be used as guest rooms.
Of course, this also makes it convenient for Mia to run around.
“That’s really good.”
Finally, I reached the attic through the stairs at the end of the corridor on the third floor. The area of the attic is about two-thirds of the area downstairs, but it is a little lower.
Xia De lowered his head and climbed up. Now there was only a small cardboard box in the corner.
The smile on his face disappeared, he put the cat aside, then squatted down to open the cardboard box. Mia did not run around, probably because she noticed the change in Shad's mood. The small cat looked at Shad's actions with big eyes.
This ordinary box in front of you was found by workers behind the decorative wall that originally existed in the attic when they were renovating the third floor. Of course, the useless wall has been demolished now.
There weren't many things in the box, just travel postcards and old photos from all over the old continent. Although all the photos were landscape photos, with no people in sight, Shade was inexplicably certain that they must have been left by Detective Sparrow. In addition to the fact that only Detective Sparrow had used this house in recent decades, it was also because of his intuition. Apart from a spy who was hiding his identity, he couldn't think of anyone else who would take so many landscape photos without people while traveling.
Detective Sparrow knew he would die, and since he had time to train Shade, he would have disposed of sensitive items that might expose his identity, such as the pistol and personal letters. As for his personal belongings before coming to Tobesk, he must have destroyed some of them, but in the end he did not choose to destroy these photos that represented his memories.
Shade flipped through the postcards and the landscape photos that didn't include Detective Sparrow himself. Thinking carefully, the locations on the postcards covered almost all the famous cities in the Old World. It seemed that Detective Sparrow must have had a very colorful experience when he was young.
He planned to carry the box down to the study. Compared with the false diaries complaining about the lack of business and the reduction of deposits, these photos were the real relics of Detective Sparrow. And the fact that Detective Sparrow did not destroy the photos also allowed Shad to see another side of this deceased middle-aged man for the first time, besides the image of "Carsenrick Spy".
After walking around the house, Shad felt so satisfied that he almost wanted to take Mia out for a big meal to celebrate the opening of the house, but he resisted the urge, because overeating was wrong.
The doctor had gone to the mental hospital alone, so Shade went to see Luvia in the afternoon to ask about Mr. Riddle, the fortune teller from the Fifth Epoch.
Tonight, he could enter the winter of the Fifth Era 1784 for the second time. Shade didn't want to waste time. When he found Luvia, she was doing divination for someone else, so Shade could only wait a little longer.
Luvia gave some good news:
"I have obtained a portion of Sledge Riddle's biographical documents and have copied down the parts that may be helpful to you."
She handed the heavy document bag to Xia De with some annoyance on her face:
"This gentleman's life experience is very trivial, and the association is only willing to open part of it to me. You want to find eight major events he experienced, but I summarized the information and there are probably only four things."
"It doesn't matter. The first time is two experiences, and the second time is four experiences. This can at least help me complete this adventure."
Xia De squeezed the file bag in his hand and judged from its thickness that he might have to spend the rest of the day reading these materials.
"But what about the third time? Are you going to wait until my application is approved? Or do you have other documents? Did Miss Felina mention this person in her notes?"
"Of course not."
Shade shook his head:
"We already know from the Sixth Epoch that the gentleman must have successfully left the Dreadfort, so even if my mission fails, it will not cause Mr. Riddle to die there... This is really tricky. Apart from the Prophet's Association, there is no other way. No matter how rich his life experience is, he is just an ordinary man in the Fifth Epoch. Other organizations will not record this kind of information. In this way, I think I can wait for half a month."
"After half a month of not having any other options, you gave up?"
Luvia raised an eyebrow. She didn't think Shade was the kind of person who would give up easily.
"Of course not. Darkness will be here in half a month. Since we have decided to deal with him, we will definitely get some valuable information about him by then. You report this information to the association and use Sledge Riddle's information as a reward. The association will not refuse."
"That's a good idea."
Luvia nodded, then frowned again:
"Also, I was curious about the Level 0 relic you mentioned that can call upon the gods, so I did some research."
"Did you find the information?"
"I found it."
"Um?"
Xia De smiled in surprise. Neither the Prophet Association nor Saint Byrons would easily open the information of level 0 relics, so he didn't even think about checking the information of the table.
"When you mentioned that relic, I felt as if I had heard of it before. Is this it, Shade?"
Luvia took out another photo and handed it to Shade. It was a black and white photo, and it had already turned yellow. The photographer's skills were poor, and the lighting at the scene was very bad. From the angle, it seemed that the photographer was tilting the camera when shooting, but the appearance of the table against the wall in the dark was captured very completely, and Shade could clearly see the twenty grooves on it.
At that moment, he seemed to be back in the Dreadfort, challenging the gods on the table with Mr. Riddle. But he soon realized that he had only seen the relic in the photo, and the person next to him was not a sloppy middle-aged man who had not taken a bath for who knows how long, but a beautiful girl he was familiar with.
But after traveling through eternity, nearly fifty centuries later, this table was seen again by Shade.
"That's it, but what camera can take pictures of Level 0 relics?"
He was even more surprised, and Luvia shook her head:
"This is not a Level 0 relic, and it cannot call upon the projection of a god. This is a Secret Keeper-level relic, the Gambling Table of Life. In the year 721 of the Sixth Epoch Universal Calendar, the Association housed it in the flea market in the capital of the then Slavic Principality in the southern part of the Old World."
The Slavic principalities were already extinct countries, and in 721 the United Kingdom of Kasenric had not yet emerged to unify the south.
"When two ring sorcerers with a level difference of no more than two levels sit on opposite sides of the gambling table, the relic's properties can be triggered. Through the gambling method you mentioned, the winner can obtain a spirit rune of the loser, and the loser will die directly. But the winner also has to pay a price. The abnormal method of obtaining spirit runes will pollute one's own spirit and elements, making it more difficult to upgrade in the future."
Luvia said, tapping the table with her fingers. This was a habit she had to avoid bad things from happening to her when she thought of them.
"But the most important function of this relic is to allow the ring sorcerer to show the specific appearance of the enemies he has encountered before, and to confirm what those unknown enemies are. As long as one party to the gambling announces that he will give up the bet at the end of the gambling, then both parties only need to pay the spirit that started the gambling."
"That's a good use, but how come the effect of calling on the gods disappeared? Where is the table now?"
Xia De immediately asked, if he really couldn't win the bet, maybe he could rely on his understanding of the gambling table and win in other ways.
That is cheating.
A voice came to her ear, but Shade ignored her.