28: Chapter 28 The Old Coppersmith

Residual water on the cobblestone road reflected the fragmented light of the rising Sun, the streetlights had just extinguished, and a thin layer of water mist still condensed on the lamp shades.

Lu Li walked to the end of the old Textile Factory East Road and stopped in front of the copperware shop.

This was a two-story old-fashioned brick-and-wood building. The window display facing the street showcased several exquisitely crafted copper candlesticks; the bases of the candlesticks were carved with delicate vine patterns, glowing with a warm luster in the morning light.

The shop door was tightly shut, and a faded copper sign hung on the lintel. The handwriting was blurry and hard to distinguish, but the words "Hawk's Copperware" could still be recognized.

Copper wind chimes hung on the archway beam at the side alley entrance. There was a string of seven, of varying sizes; the surface of the copper chime plates was covered in green rust, layer upon layer, as if the time of several generations had piled up on them.

Lu Li reached out and lightly flicked the smallest wind chime at the bottom; the copper plates collided with each other, emitting a low hum.

After waiting for about two minutes, the wooden door on the side of the copperware shop opened with a creak.

Standing behind the door was a short man in his fifties with messy, grayish hair sticking up on top of his head. He wore a pair of copper-framed glasses as thick as bottle bottoms, and the pair of deep brown eyes behind the lenses were vigilantly sizing up Lu Li.

He wore a leather apron covered in metal shavings, and the edges of his apron pockets had several scorched gaps burned into them.

"Nighthawks?" Old Coppersmith's gaze rested for half a second on the holy emblem pinned to Lu Li's collar. "I don't do business with people from the Church. The last time that poet from your group came here to appraise a comb, he skipped out on me for two pounds in appraisal fees."

"I am not here to appraise anything. I need to borrow the Alchemical Fire; ten minutes is enough. In exchange—" Lu Li took the lead-sealed canister from his waist bag and unscrewed the lid, "three grams of Chronos Grass root powder, purity guaranteed."

Old Coppersmith took off his copper-framed glasses, wiped them twice with the corner of his apron, put them back on, and then bent down toward the sealed canister, leaning his nose close to the canister opening to take a deep breath. When he raised his head again, the wariness in his tone had faded a little.

"It is indeed Chronos Grass. The grinding technique is good, the particles are even, and there is no flour mixed in. You are of the Marauder Pathway, what do you need Alchemical Fire for?"

"Sequence 8 promotion."

"Prometheus." Old Coppersmith muttered this word, then looked at the silver-gray glistening powder in the sealed canister, and a moment later pulled the door fully open.

"Come in. When the wind chimes ring, don't touch the copper wire on the door frame—that is an early warning net I set up myself; it costs one shilling per touch."

Lu Li turned sideways and passed through the aisle, which was so narrow that only one person could fit through, carefully avoiding the extremely thin copper wire stretched horizontally under the lower edge of the door frame.

At the end of the aisle was an extremely small workshop. The four walls were covered with various copper tools—hammers, pliers, files, crucibles of all sizes, and several metal components of strange shapes that Lu Li could not name.

In the center of the workshop stood a waist-high forging furnace. The furnace mouth was tightly closed, but the orange-red firelight leaking from the gaps still cast a layer of slightly flickering halos on the walls.

The air was filled with the smell of copper rust, soot, and some sharper metal oxide odor.

"The Alchemical Fire is not lent for free. Three grams of Chronos Grass powder, plus one condition." Old Coppersmith walked to the forging furnace, picked up a pair of long-handled copper tongs, and tapped the furnace door twice.

"Within ten minutes, regardless of whether your ritual succeeds or fails, it ends when the furnace is turned off. If you fail to steal the fire within the time limit—that is your own problem, it has nothing to do with me."

"Deal."

Old Coppersmith nodded, inserted the copper tongs into the gap of the furnace door, and pried it open with force; a wave of heat rushed toward him.

Suspended in the center of the furnace was a cluster of fire the size of a fist. There was no fuel, no wick; it just floated in mid-air.

The color of the flame was not the normal orange-red, but a pale blue close to transparent. Deep in the heart of the flame, there was a small cluster of constantly jumping silver-white light spots, as if a sky full of starlight had been crushed and mixed into the fire.

"What are you going to do?" Old Coppersmith stepped back two paces and placed the copper tongs on the workbench.

"Turn off the lights. All light sources in the workshop must be extinguished, including the visible light of the furnace fire itself—the spiritual heat of the Alchemical Fire can be retained, but the flame must be temporarily obscured."

Lu Li placed the holy water copper bottle on the workbench and then took out the copper whistle and placed it next to the bottle. "This is my auxiliary equipment. The ritual allows carrying auxiliary tools; it does not affect the efficacy."

Old Coppersmith stared at the copper whistle for a moment but said nothing; he walked to the other side of the workshop and pulled the power switch.

The old-fashioned gas lamp overhead extinguished in response, the furnace door closed again, the blackout curtains on the windows were pulled tight one by one, and even the morning light coming through the door gaps was blocked tightly by a thick piece of felt.

Total Darkness descended.

Lu Li closed his eyes.

The ritual condition for a Prometheus is a complete logical chain: in an environment of total Darkness, steal a cluster of spiritual fire from a Beyonder whose Sequence is higher than one's own.

Darkness is not just an environmental requirement; it is the core variable of the ritual's efficacy—it forces the thief to rely on spiritual perception rather than vision to complete the operation.

Only a theft completed at the level of pure spirituality can allow the extremely unstable Beyonder characteristic of "fire" to be transferred without triggering a spiritual alarm.

Old Coppersmith is a Sequence 8 Artisan Pathway, one Sequence higher than him, and the Alchemical Fire is spiritual fire—all conditions are fully met.

He pushed the spiritual perception of the Marauder Pathway to the limit. In total Darkness, the forging furnace became a scorching energy source, and the heat appeared in his spiritual vision as ripples of pale blue spreading outward.

Old Coppersmith stood next to the workbench. His spiritual characteristics were relatively stable, appearing as a dark, dull, grayish-brown halo with a metallic texture. He was not on guard—his spiritual rhythm was steady, his breathing was even, and he was clearly just standing in place patiently waiting for the timer to end.

Lu Li slowly stretched his right hand toward the furnace, his fingertips bypassing the side of the forging furnace, avoiding the front of the furnace door where the heat was most concentrated.

The Marauder's ability was concentrated to the extreme at this moment—not a physical grab, but a "transfer of ownership" at the spiritual level.

In his spiritual vision, he found the cluster of Alchemical Fire and probed his spiritual tentacles toward it one by one, as gentle as touching a floating leaf on the water's surface with his fingertips, and then wound them around it one by one.

The ownership relationship of the Alchemical Fire presented itself at the spiritual level as an extremely thin thread of light, extending from the core of the flame to Old Coppersmith's spiritual halo.

This was not a physical connection, but a mapping of the fact that "the fire belongs to him" in the spiritual world.

What Lu Li needed to do was not to snap this thread—snapping it would be detected—but to form a thread of the same frequency between himself and the flame, overlapping completely with the original thread of ownership, and then, at the moment the two threads of ownership resonated synchronously, gently pull the flame along his own thread.

This process lasted for about five minutes.

When the final step was completed, the pale blue flame silently slid out from the center of the furnace in his spiritual vision, following Lu Li's spiritual tentacles and gently falling onto the palm of his outstretched right hand.

The flame remained obscured in the Darkness, but the scorching spiritual heat was already firmly pressed against his skin.

"Time's up." Old Coppersmith's voice came from the direction of the workbench.

The gas lamp lit up again. Lu Li opened his right palm—a tiny cluster of pale blue flame was quietly lying in his palm, and the cluster of silver-white light spots in the heart of the flame was still jumping constantly, but the entire flame was only the size of a thumb's nail, more than half smaller than it had been in the furnace.

This is a natural phenomenon after a Marauder steals spiritual fire: after the ownership relationship is transferred, the spiritual intensity of the flame will decrease accordingly with the Sequence level of the new host, but the essence of the fire is still Alchemical Fire, which is more than enough as the main material for a Sequence 8 potion.

Old Coppersmith walked over, looked down at the tiny flame in Lu Li's palm, his eyebrows pressed very low, but he soon relaxed his brow and hummed.

"I didn't notice. Not bad." He took a tiny portable crucible from his waist bag, placed it on the workbench, and pushed it over. "Consider it a gift; I don't need it anyway. There is only one key to acting as a Prometheus—after the fire is stolen, you must make it become something else in your hands."

"For example?"

"For example, potions. The Alchemical Fire itself is useless, but if you put it into a crucible with coccyx powder and heat it to eighty degrees, the powder will melt and then recrystallize. The purity of the crystal will be higher than any tool you use to grind it. This is the value of Alchemical Fire—it is not for burning, but for refining."

Lu Li carefully placed the flame into the crucible and covered it.

Then he took out a small cloth bag from his waist bag, which contained the Shadow Grass juice he had brought from the Potion Room, and a small bag of adult fire lizard coccyx fragments he had exchanged for with the remaining Chronos Grass powder. He placed the cloth bag next to the crucible and picked up the holy water copper bottle and copper whistle to put them back into his waist bag.

"One more thing." Old Coppersmith took a small copper box from the workbench drawer and opened the lid. Inside was a pair of extremely thin deer-skin gloves, with several lines of golden metal wire sewn at the fingertips.

"I modified these gloves myself; the heat resistance is three hundred degrees higher than the standard version. You won't usually need them, but stealing fire shouldn't be the last time. I'll give them to you for free—consider it you owing me a favor."

Lu Li took the gloves. "How should I repay the favor?"

"When the old man from the Potion Room of you Nighthawks purchases materials externally next time, help me mention that Old Coppersmith's Alchemical Fire can be borrowed, at a fair price. A pharmacist of his level purchases more in a single order than all the sporadic jobs I take in a year combined."

"I will pass it on."

Lu Li put the crucible into his backpack, put on the new gloves, and left the workshop. As he walked out of the alley entrance, the copper wind chimes behind him emitted a dull and long-lasting hum.