Chapter 1 Just As Duncan Thought

The interior of the antique shop was just as Duncan had guessed—chaotic, rundown, and clearly suffering from a lack of business. Just by looking at the dust piled up near the display window, a visitor could imagine how badly the owner had messed up his life.

The first things he saw were the display stands along both walls. Large vases, sculptures, and objects resembling obscure totems sat on the low, sturdy stands, while the walls behind them were divided into compartments for smaller "goods." The counter was directly opposite the entrance, a long bar with dusty shelves behind it, filled with dimly colored picture frames and small ornaments.

Behind the counter, he could see a staircase leading to the second floor, which was dimly lit and its structure unclear.

Under the staircase was a small door. In his "memory," that door led to the warehouse behind the shop—half of which was filled with junk.

It was hard to imagine that the cultist he was possessing lived off this shop, which looked like no one would ever visit, and even had money to offer to the sun god's priests.

Duncan walked towards the counter deeper inside. The old wooden floor creaked slightly. As he passed the staircase, he noticed the lamp fixed to the wall.

It was an electric lamp.

Duncan's brow furrowed slightly.

The style of the lamp was unfamiliar. The iron frame and dusty lampshade had a foreign feel, but the structure of the tungsten filament bulb inside was clear—the lamp was powered by electricity.

Was electricity already so widespread in this world? Did ordinary commoners in the lower city use electric lights?

Then why were gas lamps, oil lamps, and torches used in the sewers? Why were gas lamps used for the streetlights outside?

A huge question arose. This seemed illogical to Duncan, especially in an environment like the sewers—gas lamps that used flammable gas and had open flames had obvious disadvantages compared to clean and safe electric lights!

He had originally thought that technological limitations forced the city's managers to use gas lamps as the light source in the sewers, but now it seemed...at least in the Pland City-State, technology had advanced to the point where electricity was available to ordinary people!

A great sense of incongruity filled Duncan's heart. He tried to search for corresponding knowledge in the fragments of memory in his mind, but only got the answers "This is common sense" and "The city is planned that way."

It seemed that either this knowledge was not public to the people, so the cultist he possessed knew nothing about it, or this knowledge was too basic, so it did not leave a strong enough impression in the cultist's mind. After his death, the corresponding memory quickly blurred and faded, leaving only the impression of "of course."

With a temporarily unsolvable confusion in his heart, Duncan reached out and turned on the electric light—with a soft click of the switch, bright light immediately illuminated the area around the staircase and counter.

There was another switch on the opposite wall to control the lights in other areas of the shop on the first floor, but Duncan didn't plan to touch it for now.

Now that it was late at night and quiet, a small light in the antique shop that was already closed could be explained as "the owner getting up at night to move around," but suddenly turning on all the lights might attract unnecessary attention.

Using the limited light near the staircase, Duncan first scanned the nearest goods. The first thing that caught his eye was a wooden totem-like object less than half a meter high. The wooden totem was painted with strange face patterns in red and blue paint. Next to it were antique vases that appeared to be made of ceramic—price tags were placed in front of them, with outrageous prices marked on them.

Original price four hundred and twenty thousand, three hundred and sixty after discount.

It had a hint of self-abandonment.

Duncan quickly looked away and scanned the entire shop.

If there was even one genuine item here, he would let the Ghost Ship ram headfirst into the walls of Pland.

They were fake beyond fake. You wouldn't even need a real collector to appraise them. Anyone with a normal intellect wouldn't believe that this antique shop in the lower city would sell real antiques—would anyone who could really deal in antiques develop a market in this slum? The oldest thing in the whole store was probably the sign at the door...

But Duncan wasn't surprised by the existence of this shop—the owner knew he was selling fakes, and the people who came here to buy things didn't expect to display a thousand-year-old statue in their homes. Everyone knew what was going on. The commoners in the lower city also needed a way to satisfy their spiritual needs—the "antique shop" sign at the door wasn't for others to see, but for the people who came here to buy things to see themselves.

After all, there are people selling jade under the overpasses on Earth, ninety-eight for a bracelet claiming to be lao keng bing zhong (old mine ice jade), and if you accidentally bump it against a doorframe when you take it home, pieces of glass will fall everywhere—do the buyers and sellers not know what's going on?

Duncan wasn't interested in the past miserable life of this shop's owner. He only cared about one thing: this place should be his first "foothold" on land as captain of the Ghost Ship.

A "forward base" for understanding the land world and modern civilized society.

He had already secretly decided that if the conditions for "spiritual world walking" allowed, he would maintain his current body as much as possible, and use this "antique shop" as cover to operate in the Pland City-State. And if the training of A Yi went smoothly later, if A Yi could reliably and controllably transfer "objects" between the Ghost Ship and Pland, this antique shop would also become a secret transfer warehouse for supplies.

Duncan came behind the counter, sat in the chair, and carefully sorted through the fragments of memory in his mind, deducing all the places that might cause hidden dangers.

The original owner of this body was a follower of the sun god, but he was only a member of the lowest level in the entire church system. Due to the city-state authorities' constant crackdowns on cult activities, the living space of sun god followers in Pland City had been compressed to the limit. The contact between its members was extremely cautious. In addition to wearing full-coverage hoods and masks when attending any gatherings, many lower-level members even had only one or two specific "contacts" with the upper levels of the church. This was undoubtedly a good thing for Duncan now—

This meant that even within the cult, only that person knew "his" real identity and method of contact. Once that person was gone, no one would know "his" clandestine heretical identity.

He could walk upright in front of the city-state's administrators, with a clean and clear identity as a good citizen.

And the better news was that after carefully sorting through his memories, Duncan confirmed that this biggest hidden danger had actually disappeared.

Because "his" contact was one of the three black-robed cultists he had seen when he first woke up...

Those three unlucky guys had already been done in by the pigeons.

He relaxed a little in his heart and sat in the chair in a more comfortable position.

After the biggest hidden danger disappeared, if there was anything else to worry about, it would be the other sun god followers who held the sacrificial ceremony in the underground gathering place before, and the larger, more mysterious, and dangerous sun god church behind those followers.

If the memory in his mind was correct, the Pland City-State had carried out a severe crackdown on the sun god church entrenched in the city four years ago. Since then, this heretical belief had been in decline in the city-state. Not to mention holding any rituals, they were already thanking the heavens if they could hide themselves and not be caught by the church guards.

But now, these extremely low-profile cultists had done something quite high-profile.

The purpose of the sacrificial ceremony was to please the gods, and another purpose was to gather power or enhance the gods' influence on the real world—the cultists in the gathering place at that time, including the divine official "messenger" who presided over the ceremony, could only be regarded as grassroots members of the sun god church. Would these grassroots members spontaneously organize such a big event?

Duncan didn't have too many fragments of memory in his mind, and a grassroots cultist couldn't possibly come into contact with the core secrets of the church, but just by reasoning from the existing intelligence, he could guess that those cultists who suddenly started acting should have received instructions from a higher level.

That heretical sect that worshiped the "True Sun God"...they wanted to do something big in Pland, and the sacrificial ceremony that he accidentally messed up was probably just the most insignificant ripple before the start of this big event.

Duncan didn't have any feelings for this "Pland City-State," but if he wanted to develop from here, he had to consider what impact a group of madmen like the "Sun God Cultists" would have on him if they ran wild in the city-state.