The numbers on the Panel were climbing, but at a crawl—much slower than the ornament and the Spirit Board.
0.01... After more than ten seconds, it was still 0.01.
He waited another half minute before it ticked over to 0.02.
Something was in there, but a mechanism was suppressing it, reducing the permeation rate to a crawl.
Richard picked up the oil lamp and turned it over.
It was heavy and solidly cast, with a ring of inscription wrapping around the edge of its base.
The strokes were sharp and angular, the structures tightly packed. Each character had been deliberately forced into uniformly sized squares.
This was the priest script of the Black Soil River Basin. He had seen similar glyphs illustrated in that E.V.M. book.
With his palm against the bronze, the numbers on the Panel rose at a rate of roughly 0.01 per minute.
It was too slow.The ornament had given up a full point in just a few minutes, and the Spirit Board had taken about the same.
This oil lamp had clearly been treated with something. The residual power inside was locked away, with only the faintest trace leaking out.
He tipped the lamp to examine the bottom.
Another set of symbols was carved into the inner side of the base. Their arrangement differed from the outer inscription, looking more like a geometric pattern.
A circle enclosed a triangle, with a short line extending from each of the triangle's three sides.
A sealing mark?
If the inscription was the lock, this geometric pattern might be the keyhole.
He wasn't certain, but it made logical sense.
For an antiquity coming through legitimate channels, a merchant was unlikely to leave whatever was sealed inside completely exposed.
Adding a seal was like waxing a wine bottle, ensuring the contents wouldn't leak during transit or harm an unwary customer.
He placed the oil lamp back on the shelf, picked it up again, and set it down once more.
The numbers rose while he held it and stopped when he let go.
Alright then.
He carried the oil lamp over to a nearby chair and sat down. Resting it on his knees, he cupped it in both hands and slowly began to wait.
0.03... 0.04...
The light outside the window shifted as someone walked past in the alley.
0.05... 0.06...
The shop was quiet. Behind the counter, the old man occasionally flipped through his catalog of old coins, the pages rustling.
0.07... 0.08...
Richard's hands were getting a little sore. He shifted his grip, supporting the base with his left hand and covering the top with his right, as if keeping a small animal warm.
It took another half hour for the number to finally crawl to 0.1.
He put the oil lamp back on the shelf, stood up, and walked over to the counter.
"How much is this lamp?"
The old man looked up from his magnifying glass and squinted at where Richard was pointing.
"Oh, that." He set the magnifying glass down. "A piece from the Black Soil River. It's got some years on it. Three pounds."
Three pounds.
When Richard had left the house today, he only had seven pence in his pocket.
"Three pounds is steep."
"Bronze from the East Land. Look at the age and condition. The Sphinx design on this lamp uses an old casting method; it's not a later imitation. The tail and wings were cast separately and then welded. That's craftsmanship from at least five hundred years before the New Calendar."
The old man tapped the counter. "Three pounds is very fair."
"But it's missing the upper half of the floral scrollwork on the spout, and there are signs of repair at the wing joints. Those aren't the original welds. The black rust on the wings indicates it was left in a hot, humid environment for a long time. Burial items like this usually come at a discount."
The old man took off his glasses and reassessed him.
"You actually know bronzes?"
"A little. We covered artifact identification for the Black Soil River Basin in history class."
That was half true. Mr. Hutton really had mentioned the basic characteristics of Black Soil River antiquities in class.
But the main reason Richard could rattle off technical terms like 'separate casting and welding' and 'inscription preservation' was the assorted books he had memorized after his [Learning] had been enhanced.
"Do you recognize the inscription on the base, then?" the old man asked suddenly.
"It's priest script. I don't know the exact meaning, but judging from the density and repeating patterns of the characters, it should be a prayer or ceremonial phrase. Several batches of this type of inscribed lamp have been unearthed from temple ruins in the Middle Reaches of the Black Soil River, and museums have records of similar artifacts."
The old man put his glasses back on. The way he looked at Richard changed.
He was no longer looking at a window-shopping student, but a customer who knew his stuff.
"You've got a good eye," he mused. "Two pounds, seven shillings."
"The incomplete motif on the spout and the heavy repairs on the wings affect its value and integrity. One pound."
"Who haggles like that? Two pounds, five shillings. That's my lowest."
"One pound, five shillings. I'm a student!"
The old man was amused by the 'I am a student' line.
"Alright, alright... Since you're a student, let's make it an even two pounds. Any lower and I might as well give it to you for free."
Haggling any further at this point would be pushing his luck.
Richard still couldn't fork over two pounds right now, but he hadn't planned to buy it immediately anyway.
"I'd like to reserve it. Can you hold onto it for me?"
"Sure." The old man fished a notebook from beneath the counter. "Student, bronze lamp, two pounds. What's your name?"
"Richard Williams."
"I'm Clement. Albert Clement." The old man snapped the notebook shut. "I'll hold it for two months at most. After that, it's gone."
"Alright."
As Richard walked out of the shop, he did the math in his head.
Two pounds was definitely out of reach with his current savings, but if he could place in the Cicero Cup, the prize would cover it.
Of course, that relied on him actually placing.
He looked up at the sky. The sun was already hidden behind the clouds, but it was still brighter out than usual.
Evelyn's voice rang out from the direction of the alley.
"Brother! What on earth were you doing in there? I've already walked down three streets!"
She hurried over from the candy shop, clutching a paper bag that probably held a few cheap sweets.
"I was looking at antiquities."
"For how long? I've been waiting long enough to buy two rounds of candy."
"Has it been that long?"
Richard rubbed the back of his neck.
Truth be told, he really had spent a long time sitting with that oil lamp.
Just to get the Panel to go up a bit more, he had cupped that lamp in his hands and turned it over and over for the better part of an hour.
Over half an hour, yet he had only absorbed 0.1 points.
The efficiency was agonizingly low, but it verified two things: Clement Antiquities didn't just stock ordinary junk—they actually had items carrying power—and objects with seals applied severely suppressed the absorption rate.
"Why are your hands green?" Evelyn stared at his palms.
Crap. He had held it for too long, and his hands were stained with a few patches of bronze patina.
"...I was handling an old lamp."
"Why were you handling an old lamp for over half an hour?"
"I was studying its inscription."
Evelyn's gaze shifted from his palms to his face, back to his palms, and back to his face again.
"Brother, have you really been keeping a diary lately?"
"Yes."
"Then you definitely need to write down, 'Today I handled an old lamp for half an hour.'"
"Alright, alright, I'll write it."
"I think you should find a new hobby. Collecting antiquities isn't something our kind of family can afford."
"I think you should mind your brother's business a little less."
Evelyn sighed, fished a piece of toffee out of her paper bag, and pushed it to his lips.
"Here, eat this. It'll comfort you for not buying that old lamp."
Richard opened his mouth and accepted the candy.
The toffee was sweet—so sweet it was almost cloying.
The brother and sister walked side by side toward home.
After taking a few steps, Evelyn suddenly spoke up again.
"Brother, you aren't actually hiding something from us, are you?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know what, but lately you've been like a completely different person. You used to just lie around when you got home, but now you lock yourself in your room until midnight. You used to not even know how to toast your own bread, but now you're faster at it than I am. You used to wish you could bury your head in your desk when you were called on in class, but now I hear that when the teacher asks you to speak, you can go on for ages..."
She rattled off a string of changes, then tilted her head to look at him.
"If there's something you can't tell Mom and Dad, you can tell me. Even though I'm a year younger than you, you know..."
She didn't finish the sentence, but the implication was clear: you know who the more reliable one in this house is.
Richard smiled to himself.
"I had a major illness, and I figured a lot of things out," he said.
"Figured what out?"
"Figured out that I can't let you and Mom keep worrying about me."
The girl's footsteps paused for a fraction of a second.
She didn't reply, simply lowering her head and walking a few more steps.
Suddenly, she dug another piece of candy out of the paper bag and shoved it into his mouth. "Who's worrying about you!"