30: Chapter 30 Embers

For the first three days after advancing to Sequence 8, the first thing Lu Li did every morning upon waking was to open his right palm and try to reignite the embers of that alchemical fire.

On the third morning, the flame finally deigned to linger in his palm for a few more seconds. Silvery-white light seeped out from the lines of his palm, spread along his lifeline to his wrist, and then silently extinguished. The duration was nearly double what it had been when he first advanced.

"That will do." Old Neil sat at the workbench in the Potion Room, writing a line of data into his notebook without looking up. "The proficiency of a Prometheus in controlling flames is tied to the adaptation speed of their spiritual circuits. Based on your current progress, you should be able to output flames stably after another week of practice, and you can attempt short-distance flame transfer within a month."

Lu Li put his gloves back on. Outside the window, the bell tower of Saint Selena Cathedral struck the hour.

The distiller in the Potion Room emitted a constant, low hum. Old Neil closed his notebook, took out the just-completed Chanis Gate seal stability report from the drawer, and pushed it across the table.

"After the three Fate Anchors were purified, the sealing pressure dropped by nearly thirty percent within seventy-two hours. Currently, all secondary sealing nodes have returned to normal. Once this report is filed, the key can be officially handed over to the Church headquarters for safekeeping."

Lu Li took the report and flipped through a few pages. Old Neil's handwriting was as precise and parsimonious as always, with every data point marked with measurement times and environmental conditions.

At the end of the report, a note was attached— "It is recommended to include the Fate Anchor purification process in the standard operating procedures for the daily maintenance of Chanis Gate. Signed: Potion Room, Lu Li, Klein."

In the lounge, Klein was sitting on the old sofa by the window, organizing the pollution decay data from the Textile Factory ruins. Several hand-drawn charts were spread out on the coffee table, each marked with the pollution concentration and spread range for different dates.

Seeing Lu Li push the door open and enter, he flipped over the chart in his hand, the back of which depicted a continuously declining curve.

"The pollution decay is nearly half as fast as expected. Old Neil says this might be related to the Fate Anchor purification—after the Fate Anchors were scoured, the pollution source lost its peripheral resonance nodes, and the spread speed decreased. Also, Old Coppersmith sent a note through someone early this morning, saying he wanted the procurement channels for Chrono-Grass. I gave him the Potion Room's external procurement contact information—this is to repay that favor from last time." Klein placed the chart back on the coffee table.

"Did he say anything else?"

"He said your fire-stealing technique is very clean. If you need spiritual fire next time, you can go find him again, and he'll give you a twenty percent discount."

Lu Li sat down in the chair opposite and poured a cup of black tea from the teapot. "Old Neil said the seal stability report is finished. The key is ready to be officially handed over to the Church headquarters for safekeeping. The Backup Team training starts next week, and both of us are attending."

Klein nodded and pulled the Backup Team training notice out of his briefcase, placing it on the coffee table. The sound of rain outside grew heavier. He put the charts into a file folder and leaned back against the sofa.

"Next week we start learning to identify sealing runes. Old Neil said the first lesson is learning how to walk around the peripheral corridor of Chanis Gate without triggering any warning runes."

In the afternoon, Lu Li went to the East Borough secondhand market. The market on a rainy day was quieter than usual, with only a few scattered stalls open under the oilcloth shelters.

The owner of the secondhand book stall was wiping a book spine splashed by rain with a dry cloth; seeing Lu Li walk over, he took the initiative to greet him.

"That copy of 'Outline of Loen's Modern History' you flipped through last time is still here. I kept it because of the printing Error on page thirty-seven—not like anyone else is buying it anyway."

Lu Li squatted down and casually opened the book. The "1345" on page thirty-seven was still printed as "134," with a very fine smudge of ink around the edges of the lead type. The stall owner leaned over to take a look. "After you finished flipping through this book last time, I kept dreaming at night that I was picking up lead type in the typesetting workshop. The floor was covered in lead type, but every single one was reversed. Isn't that strange?"

"Perhaps the smell of the ink stimulated your memory." Lu Li closed the book and put it back in its place.

"Maybe. But after being in this line of work for a long time, things from old books sometimes follow you home. Not the content—it's that feeling printed on the paper." The stall owner wrung out the rag in his hand and hung it on the shelter's support. "I heard that a box of old manuscripts from the fourth epoch was dug up under Iron Cross Street, with living eyes carved on the covers."

"Do you believe it?"

"I've been selling secondhand books for fifteen years, and I've handled more strange things than the Nighthawks' archives. Some books cannot be kept; if you keep them, you'll have dreams." The stall owner smiled, revealing a row of uneven teeth. "So, if you like that 'Outline of Loen's Modern History,' just take it. No charge. Consider it helping me do some cleaning."

Lu Li was silent for a moment, then took a shilling from his pocket and placed it on the stall.

He tucked the book under his arm and walked back along the wet flagstone path he had come on. When passing the intersection of Iron Cross Street and the old Textile Factory East Road, he paused directly above the first Fate Anchor that had already been purified.

A newly replaced sealing rune plate hung on the iron grate of the sewer entrance; the copper surface had not yet been oxidized by the rain, reflecting a brand new, cold, and hard luster under the gray daylight.

It was already dark when he returned to the Blackthorn Security Company. Lu Li placed the 'Outline of Loen's Modern History' on the lounge coffee table. Klein was practicing spiritual perception with a paper figurine. The paper figurine rotated slowly in his palm, and with each rotation, a layer of extremely faint gray fog patterns emerged on its surface.

"What is this?"

"Basic training for the Seer Pathway." Klein tucked the paper figurine into his sleeve. "After the Backup Team training starts next week, Old Neil said that identifying sealing runes requires precision in spiritual perception. I'm practicing in advance."

Lu Li sat down on the sofa and opened the 'Outline of Loen's Modern History' to page thirty-seven.

He extended his finger and lightly tapped the location of the printing Error, "134." The moment his fingertip touched the lead type, the Fate Anchor emitted an extremely fine and soft hum—not a warning, not a location fix, but a gentler resonance, like the lingering echo of a plucked string. The sound lay quietly deep in his consciousness, like a withered leaf that had fallen onto the surface of water but had not sunk.

"For the Backup Team training starting next week, Old Neil said the first lesson is identifying sealing runes—he drew a dozen of the most common warning rune structures on the blackboard, marking the triggering conditions and safe passing distances next to each structure." Lu Li closed the book and placed it on the coffee table.

"I recall the safe passing distance is at least fifty centimeters?"

"The standard distance is fifty centimeters. But Old Neil said there are three runes in the peripheral corridor of Chanis Gate whose trigger ranges have nearly doubled due to their age. If you don't know the exact locations in advance, walking past them will trigger a buzzing alarm."

Lu Li flipped the training notice over to the back, where a minimalist schematic of the corridor was drawn in pencil, with the three expanded trigger ranges circled in red ink.

Klein looked at the diagram. "These three locations correspond exactly to the three purified Fate Anchors."

"Correct. When Ince carved the Fate Anchors back then, he deliberately chose the locations where warning runes were densest—that way, even if someone discovered the seal anomalies, they wouldn't be able to distinguish whether it was a problem with the Fate Anchors or the aging of the runes. Now that the Fate Anchors have been cleared, the trigger ranges of the aged runes have yet to recover."

Lu Li took the copper whistle out of his pocket and placed it on the coffee table. "Old Neil said that night inspections start in the third week of the Backup Team training. At that time, the two of us will be in a group, walking from the main entrance to Chanis Gate, and then returning the same way."

Klein was silent for a moment. "Do you think we can memorize the exact locations of all the runes before the third week?"

"If we can't remember them, we'll just walk it a few more times. Anyway, there are no windows in the corridor, so it's the same during the day or at night." Lu Li picked up his teacup.

The night grew deeper outside the window. In the corridor, the sound of Rozanne locking the archives door could be heard, the key turning twice in the keyhole, followed by the sound of her footsteps fading away in her high heels.

The bell tower of Saint Selena Cathedral struck the bell for evening prayer—one, two, three. The final toll dissipated in the curtain of rain, like a stone thrown into deep water, slowly sinking to the bottom.