Chapter 464: Downgraded Relic

The following Sunday, Xia De originally wanted to go to the psychiatric hospital with the doctor to find a subject who could make mind crystals, but No. 6 Saint Deran Square had been renovated and needed him to personally inspect it.

The inspection process and letting the workers move the furniture from the basement to the upstairs took the whole morning. By the time all the workers had withdrawn, it was already nearly one o'clock in the afternoon, and Xia De also left the house with Mia.

He first locked the door, put the key in his pocket, and then took the key out with a smile to open the door.

Although he could open the door without a key, it was a sense of ritual now.

He pulled the door open and walked in with the cat. He turned to close the door, faced the stairs in front of him, and took a deep breath:

"Look, Mia, this is all ours!"

He laughed himself, put the key into the cookie box on the shoe cabinet, and then carried the cat, which was poking its head out not knowing what it wanted to do, and turned into the basement behind the stairs together.

He reached out and turned the gas lamp switch on the wall, and the bright light illuminated the front. The basement walls had been painted and were now piled with a small amount of construction supplies such as metal pipes and bricks. There were also several wooden shelves by the wall that Xia De had asked the carpenter to help build. When he transformed this place into an underground alchemy workshop or potion studio in the future, the bricks and shelves would come in handy.

"Really not bad."

He said, and then took the cat back to the first floor.

Unlike the floors upstairs, the first floor wasn't divided into Room 1 and Room 2; the whole thing was a residence. Now the kitchen, washroom, bedroom, living room, and study on the first floor were all decorated, and the water pipes, gas pipes, and steam pipes were all connected. The gas lamps and curtains were styles Difa chose for Xia De, and the fireplace in the living room had been connected to the chimney on the roof, which could be used normally in the winter a few months later.

Although Xia De and Mia had been living on the first floor this week, he still walked through every room on the first floor with joy, finally pulled open the curtains, stood in front of the window behind the sofa, and looked at the bustling Saint Deran Square outside:

"Really not bad."

The second floor hadn't changed much, so he led Mia through the second floor to the third floor.

The structure of the third floor was exactly the same as the second floor. After a week of renovation and the installation of gas lamps and wall waterproofing, it was completely different from the terrible look of mold spots everywhere a week ago.

He opened the two newly installed wooden doors on the third floor. There was no furniture inside; it was empty, just like Room 2 on the second floor downstairs. Given that Xia De still thought the house on Saint Deran Square might have hidden dangers he hadn't noticed yet, he planned to use the two rooms on the third floor as functional rooms rather than decorating them as guest rooms. The three bedrooms on the first floor would be fine as guest rooms.

Of course, this was also convenient for Mia to run around.

"Really not bad."

Finally, he climbed to the attic via the stairs at the end of the third-floor corridor. The area of the attic was about two-thirds of the area below, just a bit low.

Xia De climbed up with his head lowered. 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 box. Mia didn't run around; perhaps sensing the change in Xia De's mood, the small cat stared with big eyes, watching Xia De's movements.

The ordinary box in front of him was found by the workers behind the original decorative wall in the attic when they were renovating the third floor. Of course, that useless wall had now been torn down.

There weren't many things in the cardboard box—travel postcards and old photos from all over the Old Continent. Although the photos were all landscape photos and no people could be seen, Xia De was inexplicably certain that this must have been left by Detective Schluch Lake. Besides the fact that only Detective Schluch Lake had used this house in recent decades, it was also because of intuition. Apart from spies hiding their identities, he couldn't think of anyone else who would take so many landscape photos without people while traveling.

Detective Schluch Lake knew he would die. Since he had time to train Xia De, he certainly would have already disposed of sensitive items that could expose his identity, such as pistols and private letters. As for his personal items before coming to Tobesk, he must have destroyed some, but ultimately didn't choose to destroy these photos representing memories.

Xia De flipped through those postcards and landscape photos that didn't include Detective Schluch Lake himself. Thinking about it carefully, the locations of the postcards covered almost all well-known cities in the Old Continent. Thinking about it, Detective Schluch Lake must have had very rich and colorful experiences when he was young.

He planned to carry the box down and put it in the study. Compared to those fake diaries complaining about no business and reduced savings, these photos were Detective Schluch Lake's true relics. And the fact that Detective Schluch Lake didn't destroy the photos also allowed Xia De to see another side of this deceased middle-aged man for the first time, outside of the image of a "Kasenrike spy."

After walking around the house, a wonderful sense of satisfaction made Xia De almost want to take Mia for a big meal to celebrate the full opening of the whole house. But he resisted this impulse; after all, overeating was wrong.

The doctor had already gone to the psychiatric hospital alone, so Xia De went to find Luweiya in the afternoon to ask about Mr. Riddle, the fortune teller of the Fifth Era.

He could enter the time point of winter 1784 of the Fifth Era for the second time tonight; Xia De didn't want to waste time. When he found Luweiya, she was performing divination for someone else, so Xia De could only wait a little while.

Luweiya gave some not-bad news:

"I have already obtained part of Schluch Riddle's life documents and hand-copied the parts that might be helpful to you."

She handed the thick document bag to Xia De, with some troubled emotions on her face:

"This gentleman's life experiences are very trivial, and the Society is only willing to open part of the content to me. You want to find eight major events he experienced, but I summarized those materials, and there are probably only four."

"It doesn't matter. The first time was two experiences, the second time was four experiences; this can at least help me complete this adventure."

Xia De squeezed the document bag in his hand, judging from the thickness that he was afraid he would have to spend the rest of today reading these materials.

"But what about the third time? Do you have to wait until my application can be passed? Or do you have other literature materials? Does Miss Feilian's notebook mention this person?"

"Of course not."

Xia De shook his head:

"Standing in the Sixth Era, we already know that the gentleman must have successfully left the Terror Castle, so even if my mission fails, it won't cause Mr. Riddle to die there... This is really tricky. Apart from the Fortune Teller Society, there is no other way. No matter how rich his life experience is, he is just an ordinary man of the Fifth Era; other organizations won't record such data. In this way, I think I can wait for half a month."

"Half a month without other ways, and you give up?"

Luweiya raised her eyebrows; she didn't think Xia De was the kind of person who would give up easily.

"Of course not. Half a month later, Dac Nisi is coming. Since we have decided to deal with him, we will definitely get some valuable news about him then. You report this news to the Society, and then use Schluch Riddle's data as a reward; the Society won't refuse."

"That's a good idea."

Luweiya nodded, then frowned again:

"In addition, I am very curious about the 0-level relic you mentioned that can summon gods, so I investigated it a little."

"Did you find the data?"

"Found it."

"Hmm?"

Xia De was a little surprised and smiled. Whether it was the Fortune Teller Society or Saint Byrons, they shouldn't easily open the data of 0-level relics, so he didn't think about checking the data of that table at all.

"When you mentioned that relic at that time, I felt like I had heard of it. Xia De, is it this?"

Luweiya took out another photo and handed it to Xia De. It was a black-and-white photo, already a bit yellowed. The photographer's technique was very poor, and the light at the shooting scene was very poor. From the angle, it looked like the photographer was shooting with a tilted camera, but the appearance of the table against the wall in the dark was captured very completely, and Xia De could clearly see the twenty grooves on it.

At this moment, it was as if he had returned to the Terror Castle, challenging the gods on the tabletop with Mr. Riddle. But soon he realized that he only saw the relic in the photo, and the person beside him now wasn't a sloppy middle-aged man who didn't know how long he hadn't bathed, but the beautiful girl he was familiar with.

But crossing the ancient time, nearly fifty centuries later, Xia De actually saw this table again.

"It's this, but what kind of camera can take photos of 0-level relics?"

He was even more surprised, and Luweiya shook her head:

"This is not a 0-level relic, nor can it summon the projection of gods. This is a Keeper-level relic 【Life Gambling Table】. In 721 of the Sixth Era General Calendar, the Society accommodated it in the second-hand market in the capital of the Slavic Principality in the south of the Old Continent."

The Slavic Principality was a country that had already perished. In 721, the Kasenrike United Kingdom hadn't yet unified the south.

"When two Ringed Shushis whose levels don't differ by more than two levels sit on both sides of the gambling table, they can trigger the relic's characteristics. Through the gambling method you mentioned, the winner can obtain a Spirit Rune from the loser, and the loser will die directly. But the winner also has to pay a price. The abnormal way of obtaining Spirit Runes will pollute one's own spirit and elements, making subsequent advancement more difficult."

Luweiya said, tapping the table with her finger. This was a habit to avoid bad things happening to herself when thinking of them:

"However, the most important function of this relic is to let Ringed Shushis display the specific appearance of the enemies they have encountered, confirming what those unknown enemies are. As long as one party in the gambling announces that they give up obtaining the bet when the gambling ends, then both parties only need to pay the spirit to open the gambling."

"That's a good use, but how did the function of summoning gods disappear? Where is that table now?"

Xia De asked immediately. If he really couldn't win the gambling, maybe he could rely on his understanding of the gambling table to win in other ways.

【That is, cheating.】

A voice came from his ear, and Xia De ignored her.