One use of the Amber Conduit and 20 Vision Slivers later, Wu Xiaoming understood somewhat a way to use conduits. One of his morningstars became "manifestable" in the physical realm - which basically meant that in theory he could find a hammer, or better yet an actual morningstar and "bless" it with a projection of his morningstar from the ethereal realm. Though what change would that bring to the physical hammer or morningstar, he had no idea yet.
The "manifestable" item only had one use, once it was "blessed" or "enchanted" onto a physical object, it could not be put on another. He could take the "blessing/enchantment" away, but it would be a waste of the conduit use. Reasonably something already with a corresponding form in the ethereal realm might not be eligible. And if the object was destroyed, he would need to use the conduit again to make it manifestable.
From the description of the conduit, there must be a use on items in the physical world. Something like that was already possible - the string of blessed beads given to him by his father Wu Wentao was still with him, both in this physical world and in the ethereal realm. Still, he would need to find a good item to test it.
With these thoughts in mind, he got out of his bed and went into the bathroom to wash up. Today was a free day for him. He had no plans but to wait for Leslie McKinsey or Tammy to call, or wait for Douglass Kirkland to tell him he had found him a new gig. Which meant one thing right now - he could go to the physical address of the house and check it out. If need be, he would need to destroy whatever physical remnant of the creature in that house.
As for the Sproutlinger Hotel - he was pretty sure he was not ready yet. The one skill point he gained could not add onto anything - all the skills he wanted would require more than one skill point
"Good morning." The hired chef greeted Wu Xiaoming as he walked into the kitchen, where a fresh smell of crabs and shrimp filled the air: "You want some coffee and Cantonese style seafood congee, Mr. Wu?"
"Well, yeah." Wu Xiaoming sat down and smiled: "I didn't know you could do that - what's the occasion?"
"It's just my last day of serving you - for now." The chef put a bowl before Wu Xiaoming and poured him some congee, with half a crab inside.
"Oh?" Wu Xiaoming nodded: "Thank you for all the work you've done these days, your cooking's very - uh - the best."
"Thank you." The chef smiled as his assistant poured Wu Xiaoming a cup of coffee: "I've enjoyed cooking for you and your family. And I appreciate Mr. Wu Xiangyu giving me the opportunity."
"Oh, my brother hired you?"
"Yes. He's a good friend."
"Hmm." Wu Xiaoming took a sip of the seafood congee, then gave the chef a thumbs up: "Wow, this is so good."
"Fresh off the live seafood market. I'm glad you like it." The chef turned around and continued working on the frying pan - he was making a seafood pancake, seemingly Korean style.
When Wu Xiaoming finished up everything and was about to leave, Wu Wentao came into the kitchen yawning and rubbing his eyes: "Xiaoming, where are you going?"
"I want to go to downtown LA for a bit, don't wait up!" Wu Xiaoming waved his father goodbye.
"Okay - be careful!" Wu Wentao's voice followed him out of the house.
While he was still having breakfast, Wu Xiaoming took the time to locate the office building he "visited" in the ethereal realm, and in turn, the very house that might have suffered a fire.
From the latest image of the house, it seemed to be surrounded by temporary fences and yellow tapes, and the walls were indeed blackened. He had yet to find any news about a fire in this place. But he still had some time on the way over.
The rideshare took 10 minutes to find Wu Xiaoming, and then 30 minutes to actually take him there. Overall it was not as bad as he had been expecting, because the distance was by no means short.
And while he was almost halfway there, Wu Xiaoming finally found a new piece of news about the fire - a very short reporting piece from a local news website.
"Leaky Furnace Burns Down Family House" this was the title, short and straight to the point.
"... The Emersons never expected that, on this unfortunate and fortunate day, while everyone, including their 10-year-old daughter was out, the heater unit they forgot to turn off exploded due to a gas leak on the furnace. The explosion and house fire led to tens of thousands dollars worth of damages. But because no one was home at the time, no member of the family was harmed." This paragraph from the article summed up all the information Wu Xiaoming needed - it was almost exactly as he thought. He checked the timestamp - it was a little bit over 3 months ago.
The neighborhood was quiet - peaceful, even. The houses were old, but looked generally well maintained. Almost all the houses had trees in their front yards, which contributed to the fallen leaves on the street. Different yard signs stood in a number of the yards - some were warnings about dogs present, some were about their properties being protected by security systems, and some were political: some guy for mayor, some other guy for senate, some gal for city hall, things like that.
It was a very small neighborhood sitting behind a lot with two three-storey office buildings - buildings with which Wu Xiaoming was quite familiar in the ethereal realm.
The house he came to find was just like what he saw on the map app - surrounded by temporary fences and tapes. The walls were blackened, the door was open, the windows were broken. From outside the fences, the interior of the house showed greater signs of burn - no furniture within sight was intact, all the interior walls he could see were either cracked or burned down. When he looked up at the roof, he could easily identify a number of heavily damaged spots, a few of which had already collapsed; one could see the inside of the house through them.
Wu Xiaoming took a look around - none of the houses nearby showed any signs of having people inside right now. And from the looks of things, there was no camera pointing this way. And there were no cameras set up in this house either.
He took a few pictures of the house from different angles, to not only keep records for himself but also to scout around for a good entrypoint. He found it - it was a corner behind the house, where a very tall tree was standing between the noise barrier wall and the backyard.
He used the tree as a foothold to hop over the temporary fence blocking the backyard. The grass was much taller than the other houses', probably due to 3 entire months without maintenance. The back door of the house was left ajar, thus he did not have to find an "impolite" way in.
The furnace room was nothing but a black hole on the wall. Pieces of burned scrap metal were littered on the floor - presumably from the destroyed furnace. The kitchen and the living room were both ruined, possibly beyond repair - the floorboards were burnt through, revealing the crawlspace underneath; the counters and tile floors were all cracked and uneven.
Aside from ashes and dust, the most noticeable smell that hit him when he came inside was urine - very pungent urine. It was as if a group of people came in here and peed all over the place. Then as he came to the stairs, which were still usable even after the fire, another smell hit him - weed. Apparently three months were enough for many things to happen, including strangers coming in here and doing weird things.
On the second floor, the child's room. The floor was indeed blasted through by the explosion and fire. Even after all this time there were still ashes and remnants of burned objects everywhere.
The rag doll, or what was left of it, was still there. Just like it was in the ethereal realm, only half its head remained. Wu Xiaoming's heart pounded his chest a few times - aside from the blessed beads, this was the first ever definitive proof of the connection between the physical world and the ethereal realm, a connection he knew basically end to end. It might not be big for anyone else in his position, but for him, it was a critical piece of a very big puzzle. With its being filled, he had become much more confident and self assured in his observation and understanding of both realms.
Golden light shot from both his palms and blasted at the half a doll head from almost every angle. He did not see or sense anything dark within it but he just needed to make sure.
He stopped when his head became slightly dizzy and his Spirit was almost depleted. Just to be safe, he found a piece of paper lying around, wrapped the half a doll head and put it in his pocket - he needed to find a place to burn it.