Exploring Technology in a Wizard World
Chapter 502 - 501 Feather of Truth

Chapter 502: Chapter 501 Feather of Truth

In the days that followed, Richard settled down in the city of Florence.

The first thing he did after settling was to try and locate the whereabouts of the Cat Slave Girl, Heidi, based on the clues left in her letters.

But Florence had its advantages and disadvantages. The drawback was that without specific information, it was too hard to find a single person. Even though he had employed a great number of people, who braved the biting cold wind and scoured the streets in search, identifying things related to the mark, they still couldn’t find anything.

After initial efforts yielded no results, he had to lower his expectations, asking his hires to keep trying and inform him immediately of any news, while he started to get busy with other matters, such as his research projects and the secrets of the Black Spirit King.

After all, his journey north to Mo’er, to Florence, wasn’t solely to meet the Cat Slave Girl; he had other purposes as well.

And so time passed day by day, with the whole of the cold winter slowly slipping away—having arrived in Florence at the end of the year—it was December’s Snow Moon, followed by January’s Ice Moon, and February’s Frost Moon, until March arrived.

March, the Warm Moon.

According to the traditions of the East Coast, March, April, and May are considered spring, with the other seasons following in order; March is seen as the beginning of spring, a time when all things revive—also known as the Revival Moon.

This month, at the beginning of it.

In a corner of Florence,

stood a somewhat dilapidated Stone Building, its walls riddled with cracks, looking as though it could collapse at any moment, burying both its residents and any passersby. Pedestrians passing by this Stone Building dared not linger for fear of bad luck. Almost no one would have thought that beneath this building there was an entirely different scene.

Below the Stone Building was a secret underground hall, roughly over three hundred square meters in size, a wooden platform taking up a third of the space, with the rest scattered with about fifty chairs, nearly half of which were occupied.

Each person sitting there wore a cloak to conceal their identity, preventing them from being recognized. At times, they cautiously raised numbered wooden signs with a falsetto while bidding, extremely vigilant.

On the wooden platform, there was a skinny man dressed in a shiny costume adorned with glass shards, speaking loudly, introducing items one by one, trying to incite a desire to purchase among those seated below.

Clearly, this was an auction.

To be precise, it was a gray auction, teetering on the edge of illegality.

About half a month earlier, Richard had learned about this auction through contact with some people, and after some effort to secure an invitation, he had come here.

To be honest, he wouldn’t have come were it not for the lack of certain materials he needed. This place was somewhat irregular; besides taking money for the items, the auctioneers hardly guaranteed any benefits to the bidders, which was why they all went to great lengths to protect their identities.

Despite this, there had been bidders in previous auctions who were followed as soon as they left, ambushed, and robbed of everything they had—even their clothes weren’t spared.

Due to these negative incidents, now only those confident in their own strength dared to attend the auction, with few ordinary people present; most were Wizard Apprentices and some Wandering Wizards.

Everyone was highly vigilant, appearing to sit quietly in their seats, eyes fixed on the wooden platform. But in reality, less than a third of their attention was on the platform; the rest was focused on their neighbors, trying to figure out if they harbored any malicious intentions, contemplating whether to strike first.

Richard sat in a corner of the auction room, feeling the tense atmosphere around him, and couldn’t help shaking his head. He wasn’t all that nervous here, partly because he was confident in his own strength and partly because the white feather in his arms gave him a certain kind of special reminder.

Yes, the white feather, it reminded him.

After a winter, although he hadn’t completely figured out what the white feather was, he did understand some of its functions—mainly, there were two.

The first was the illusion-breaking ability he had already witnessed. According to testing, the white feather had a very strong defensive effect against offensive and confusing spirit magic. One could say that as long as one carried the white feather, one would hardly be at a disadvantage due to spiritual magic.

The second had to do with spirit, or perhaps with emotions. The white feather could sense overt malice and goodwill, leading to certain changes.

This change, in fact, he had already noticed on the ship previously, but due to insufficient data, he was unable to draw conclusions. Now, after a winter, he was certain that the white feather would turn warm when sensing clear goodwill and become cold when perceiving clear malice.

In some sense, the white feather served as a kind of identity recognizer. Through its response to cold and warmth, it could quickly determine whether someone was good or bad. Of course, if a bad person hid their emotions and inner thoughts extremely well, the white feather would have difficulty detecting them, but such cases were rare.

Breaking illusions and discerning good from evil, these were the two main functions of the white feather.

To summarize, the white feather could be described in two words—pure, or in one word—true.

In a sense, the white feather seemed to exist specifically to discern between illusion and reality, disguise and friendliness.

Richard wasn’t sure of the intent behind the Clown’s gift of this feather, nor was he certain if the white feather held more important uses, but as far as he understood now, the feather made it easy for him to associate it with an item from Earth’s legends—the Feather of Truth.

The Feather of Truth!

The Feather of Truth originated from Ancient Egyptian mythology.

The legend said that after death, every person in Ancient Egypt would enter the realm of the deceased, "Du Ete," where they would encounter the jackal-headed Death God, Anubis.

Anubis had a scale of judgment to assess a person’s morality. He would place the dead person’s heart on one side of the scale and the Feather of Truth—taken from the goddess of truth and order, "Maat"—on the other side.

If a person was kind, their heart would be light, outweighing the Feather of Truth, and they would receive eternal life. However, if a person was evil and committed many sins, their heart would be heavy, less than the Feather of Truth, and they would face deserved punishment.

In Richard’s view, by using the white feather to assess others, it acted as a kind of diminished "judgment." There may be some loopholes, and it might not be as infallible as the legendary Anubis, but it wasn’t too far off, completely satisfying everyday needs.

Therefore, he decided to call the white feather "Judgement Feather." He wouldn’t rely solely on it to judge a person’s character, but it could greatly determine the complexity of the surrounding environment.

For instance, right now, he could discern from the intermittent coolness on the surface of the "Judgement Feather" that there were at least three people nearby who harbored ill will toward him. However, this malice was only of the lowest degree, not at the level of murderous intent. It looked like he was safe for now and could continue to stay at ease.

Thinking this, he looked toward the stage.

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