Chapter 41 Inside the Antique Shop

Chapter 41: Inside the Antique Shop
The interior of the antique store was just as Duncan had suspected – cluttered, disheveled, and poorly run, and even just looking at the dust that had piled up near the windows, the visitor could imagine what a mess the owner had made of his life.

The first thing he saw were the shelves near the walls on either side of the shop, a low, heavy counter with large vases, sculptures, and unidentified totems, while the wall behind the shelves was lined with compartments for smaller “goods”, and the counter was located directly in front of the door, a long bar, and behind the counter, shelves with the same kind of furniture, and the same kind of furniture. The counter, located directly opposite the door, is a long bar, and the shelves behind it are also somewhat dusty, filled with picture frames and small ornaments of a darker hue.

Behind the counter, you can see a staircase leading to the second floor, which is so dark that you can’t see the structure for the time being.

There is also a small door under the staircase, which in the “memory” should lead to the warehouse at the back of the store – half of the space inside is filled with miscellaneous items.

It was hard to imagine that the cultist he possessed was living on such a store that no one would seem to visit, and even had money left over to offer to the priests of the Sun God.

Duncan walked towards the deep counter, the old wooden floor creaking a little, and as he passed the stairs he noticed the lamp fixed to the wall.

It was an electric lamp.

Duncan’s brow immediately furrowed slightly.

The style of the lamp was unfamiliar, with an exotic feel to the iron outer frame and grayish shade, but in any case the structure of the tungsten bulb inside was instantly recognizable – the light source for this lamp came from electricity.

In this world, had electricity turned out to be such a popular thing? The ordinary civilians in the lower city used electric lights in their homes as well?
Then why were gas lamps and oil lamps and torches the light source used in the sewers before? Why were the streetlights outside also gas lamps?
Huge doubts bubbled up, which seemed clearly out of character to Duncan, especially in a sewer type of environment – the presence of open flames and the use of flammable gases in gas lamps had obvious drawbacks compared to clean and safe electric lamps!
Originally he thought it was the limitations of technology that allowed city administrators to only use gas lamps as a source of light in the sewers, but now it seems that …… at least in the city-state of Plainland, technology has long since advanced to the level where electricity has been brought into the homes of ordinary people!

Duncan’s heart was filled with a huge sense of incompatibility, he tried to search for corresponding knowledge from the memory fragments in his mind, but only got the answers of “this is the common sense that should be” and “the city is planned this way”.

It seemed that either the knowledge in this area was not open to the public, so the cultist possessed by him knew nothing about it, or the knowledge in this area was so basic that it did not leave a strong enough impression in the cultist’s mind, causing the corresponding memories to quickly fade after his death, leaving only the impression of “it’s only natural…”. Only the impression of “rightfully so” was left behind.

With a temporarily unanswered question in his mind, Duncan reached out and flicked on the light – with a click of the switch, a bright glow immediately illuminated the area around the stairs and counter.

There was another switch on the opposite wall to control the lights in the rest of the first floor storefront, but Duncan wasn’t going to touch it for now.

In the dead of night, a small light in a closed antique store could be explained by the fact that the owner was up and about in the night, but a sudden burst of light could attract unwanted attention.

With the limited light near the stairs, Duncan’s eyes first swept over the nearest items, and the first thing that caught his eye was a carved wooden totem less than half a meter high, with an oddly painted face in red and blue, and what must have been a ceramic antique vase next to it. had price tags in front of them, with outrageous prices marked on them.

Original price forty-two thousand dollars, three hundred and six after discount.

It was permeated with such an air of self-abandonment.

Duncan’s gaze quickly shifted and swept across the entire store.

There was but one genuine item here, and he had the Lost Country disliking the walls of Prand head on.

Fake couldn’t be more fake, and it didn’t even take a real collector to authenticate it, a random person of normal intelligence wouldn’t believe that this antique store that had opened in the lower city would be selling real antiquities – would someone who could really afford to pour out antiques start a market in such a slum area? The oldest thing in the whole store wasn’t the sign out front ……

But Duncan wasn’t surprised that the store itself existed – the owner knew he was selling fakes, the people who came here didn’t expect to have a thousand-year-old statue in their homes, and everyone knew what was going on, and the commoners of the lower towns needed a way to satisfy their spiritual needs! –The “Antique Shop” sign at the door is not hung by the owner for others to see, but by the people who come here to buy things for themselves to see. After all, the earth’s under the bridge and sell jadeite it, ninety-eight a bracelet called the old pit ice, wear home accidentally knocked the door frame can fall a glass ballast – buy goods sell goods of their own do not know what is going on?
Duncan is not interested in the store owner’s once bad life, he is concerned about only one point: here, should be able to serve as his captain of the Lost Country ship in the land of the first “landing place”.

An “outpost” for learning about the land world and modern civilization.

He had already made a secret decision to maintain his current body as much as possible as long as the conditions of the “spirit world walking” allowed, and use this “antique store” as a cover to move around in the city-state of Prand. If the training of Ai goes well, and if Ai can really transfer “physical objects” between the Lost Country and Prand in a stable and controlled manner, this antique store will also become a secret transit warehouse for supplies.

Duncan went behind the counter and sat down in a chair, combing through the fragments of memory in his mind, scrutinizing them for any potential pitfalls.

The original owner of this body is a Sun God believer, but in the entire church system, it is only the lowest level member, due to the city-state authorities’ continuous crackdown on cult activities, the living space of Sun God believers in Plainland City has been compressed to the limit, and its members are extremely cautious in their contact, in addition to wearing full-coverage hoods and face masks when attending any gatherings, the contact between many of the lower level members and the upper level of the church is even limited to one or two specific members. There are only one or two specific “contacts”, which is a good thing for Duncan these days–

This means that even within the cultists, there is only one person who knows who he is and how to get in touch with him, and once that person is gone, no one will know about his secret heresy.

He can walk in front of the administrators of the city-state in a dignified manner, with the status of a good citizen with a clean slate.

And even better news, after carefully combing through his memories, Duncan confirmed that the greatest danger of all had in fact disappeared.

Because “his” contact is one of the three black-robed religious people that he saw when he first woke up ……

Those three unlucky people have been pigeon-holed.

He relaxed a little bit in his heart, and turned to sit in a more comfortable position on the chair.

After the biggest hidden danger disappeared, if he had to say that there was still something to worry about, it would be the other Sun God believers who had held the sacrifice ceremony in the underground assembly ground earlier, as well as the even larger and more secretive and dangerous Sun God Church behind those believers.

If the memory in his mind was correct, the city state of Prand had carried out a severe crackdown on the Church of the Sun God in the city four years ago, and since then this heretical faith had fallen into disrepair in the city state, not to mention holding ceremonies, but on weekdays, they were already thankful to be able to hide themselves well, and not to be captured by the church guards.

Now, however, these extremely low-profile cultists had done something rather high-profile.

The purpose of the sacrifice ceremony was to please the gods, and the other purpose was to gather power or enhance the gods’ influence on the real world – the cultists in the assembly hall at that time, even including the magus “messenger” who presided over the ceremony, could only be regarded as grassroots members of the Church of the Sun God. At that time, the cultists in the assembly hall, even including the “messenger” of the priest who presided over the ceremony, could only be considered as the grassroots members of the Church of the Sun God.

Duncan did not have too many memory fragments in his mind, and it was even more unlikely that a grassroots cultist would have access to the core secrets of the church, but just by reasoning from the information he already had, he could guess that those cultists who suddenly organized the whole thing should have been instructed by a higher level.

The heretical sect that worships the “real sun god”…… they want to do a big thing in Prand, and the sacrifice ceremony that was accidentally stirred up by himself, I’m afraid it’s just the most insignificant cluster of water before the start of this big thing.

Duncan can’t say that he has any feelings for the “city-state of Prand”, but if he wants to use this place as a starting point for development, then he has to consider how a group of lunatics like the “sun god followers” will affect him if they mess around in the city-state.

(End of chapter)