It seems quite suspicious for a monocle to appear in a place like this, doesn't it?
Suspicious +1
Suspicious +1
...
Luo En lifted Lachi while slowly leaning closer to examine the monocle.
This!
This, this monocle, it looks like...
It looks very valuable.
Although he had no knowledge of appraisal, his original body, as a young master from a wealthy family, often handled antiques, so he naturally possessed an intuition or sixth sense that was out of the ordinary.
Luo En naturally inherited this; as a Monster, his intuition was already very high, so he could tell at a glance that the item before him was extraordinary.
This is at least an antique!
This stone chamber is at least several hundred years old; could this monocle be a burial item? No, that's not right, there's no coffin here...
Luo En's gaze fell upon the stone box he had just opened.
Could it have been in the box just now, and I didn't notice it because I opened the box so violently, so it flew out with the lid?
"Lachi, how are you?" Luo En held the cat up to his eyes.
"Meow~" Lachi let out a soft cry, seemingly unchanged.
Uh...
Lachi had been pawing at it for a while, so there shouldn't be any problem. If it's an antique, then this trip wasn't a loss...
Luo En bent down to pick up the monocle.
Wait!
Luo En's knee, half-bent, froze—this thing was too clean, so clean that it was completely out of place with the surrounding environment, which was steeped in centuries of dust.
"Could it be a trap, just like before?" Luo En recalled the nested boxes from earlier.
"But Lachi touched it and was fine... Maybe animals are fine, but humans might not be..."
He decided that when in doubt, he would divine. He took out his pendulum once more and began to divine. After receiving a confirmed safe result, he was still a little uneasy, so he put down the cat in his hands.
"Lachi, I've raised you for so long, it's time for you to be useful."
"Go, fetch me that monocle. Remember to be gentle."
Luo En commanded the cat, which he had actually only raised for a few days.
Lachi, back on the ground, shook herself, cast a speechless glance at Luo En, then strutted over to the monocle, lowered her head, picked it up like she was carrying a mouse, and then unhurriedly walked back to Luo En's side.
Although fate hadn't warned him, Luo En always felt a strange shiver when he saw the monocle.
Luo En took the monocle from Lachi's mouth, gently wiped it with his finger, and carefully examined the small item in the faint glow of the torch.
"It's not glass; it seems to be polished crystal."
"It truly appears to be an antique."
In this world, the widespread use of glass happened after Rosell's industrial revolution. Before that, humans hadn't mastered the technology of making lenses from glass, so almost all lenses were polished from crystal.
But once glass technology matured, glass completely surpassed natural crystal in both effectiveness and cost, and crystal lenses gradually fell out of favor.
Luo En was actually quite curious about this type of eyewear. This kind, with only a frame and lens but no temples, required the wearer to clamp it with the muscles around their eye to wear it.
This required the wearer's eye socket to be as deep as possible; otherwise, it would directly touch the eye and simply couldn't be worn.
Before his transmigration, he definitely couldn't have worn it, but now he probably could.
"What is this?"
Just as Luo En had searched around and found no more gains, planning to leave directly, he was surprised to discover something at the stone Door.
It was a rectangular piece of paper.
"A playing card?"
Luo En only realized it was a 3 of Diamonds when he got closer.
It's quite exquisite! Not like factory-printed goods...
He picked it up and looked at both sides.
It was hand-drawn, so it could be considered a work of art.
Could it be from this room?
The monocle is understandable, but this playing card surely doesn't have hundreds or thousands of years of history, does it?
Luo En suddenly had an idea.
Wait! Could it be that I arrived too late, and all the truly valuable things inside were already taken by others?
This monocle was also something someone else left behind.
No way, why am I so unlucky!
...
...
It took several more hours to return to the city from the outskirts of Tingen. The harvest this time was not much, which made Luo En a little depressed.
"Forget it, it wasn't a complete waste of time," Luo En comforted himself, playing with the monocle in his hand.
...
"Maintain vigilance. The Aurora Order's members might make some unpredictable, crazy moves."
"Captain, the spirits around us are abnormal," Leonard said to Dunn Smith, gripping his pistol.
"Hmm, one of them is injured, they should still be nearby," Dunn nodded and continued:
"Ke Enli, stay put and maintain vigilance."
"Luo Yao and I will enter the adjacent alley from the front and back respectively."
"Leonard, you take the other path to prevent them from escaping by a long detour."
Dunn analyzed the situation and made his deployment.
"If you encounter them, just stall for a while," Dunn remembered something before leaving and instructed Leonard.
"We'll be there as soon as we hear any commotion."
Leonard pursed his lips and chuckled, "Don't worry, Captain, I'm very strong."
Seeing his teammate's confident demeanor, Dunn nodded and said nothing more.
...
...
"Unknowingly, I've walked so far. By the way, what street is this?" Luo En looked at his surroundings, a bit disoriented.
The streetlights of this era were mostly gas lamps, and their illumination was incomparable to the streetlights of his original world. Moreover, there weren't many streetlights, providing only a faint glow at night, barely allowing one to see the road.
When Luo En started walking back from the outskirts of Tingen, it was already dark. By the time he returned to the city, it was well past the time one could hail a horse-drawn taxi.
Helpless, Luo En had no choice but to walk back to the Azure Hotel.
"A world without electric lights is such a hassle! By the way, can I invent an electric light and apply for a patent? After all, this world also has electricity."
"Thinking about it, a generator could work too, and my original body was a follower of the God of Steam and Machinery, so it would be quite reasonable for me to invent some things."
Luo En pondered how to use knowledge from his original world to create income for himself.
The gains from this treasure hunt were much less than he had anticipated, consisting only of a monocle that looked like an antique, a playing card, and a somewhat old small wooden box. It was completely different from Luo En's original vision of a scene full of gold, silver, and jewels.
Rent, food expenses, and the potion formulas and materials needed for subsequent advancements—every single one required money, especially advancements. Just the sequence 8 potion formula alone cost around 500 pounds.
500 pounds, calculated by purchasing power, was nearly 400,000 in his original world. This was just the formula; the materials would probably cost several times more.
And he also had a cat.
"I'm short on money."
"Meow!"
Lachi, lying in Luo En's satchel, suddenly let out an alert cry.
"Lachi, what's wrong...?"
"This..."
Luo En's words were cut short as he felt his spiritual intuition being triggered.
There's something unusual around!
'This feeling isn't as strong this time, so it shouldn't be a warning from fate.'
"Is it just the Monster's ability being triggered?" Luo En stopped in place, carefully observing his surroundings.
"Walking on the street so late, sir, you're very suspicious!" Leonard emerged from the shadows of the street corner.
However, he saw the person in front of him take something out of his pocket and put it on his face.