The old temple.
In a certain sense, Wang had imprisoned himself here. This place served as penance, as training, and as a quiet corner where he could lay out his plans without interruption.
Before he knew it, several decades had passed inside these crumbling walls.
Decades of playing chess against himself, day after day — enough time that Wang had developed a faint, reluctant fondness for this dilapidated old shrine. After all, the family home held memories he no longer had the heart to revisit.
And then, just as he was on the verge of genuinely growing attached to the place — some absolute dog of a person walked up and said:
"Hey, old man. Mind if I borrow your house for a bit? I want to park a ghost fire here."
What would an old man feel in that moment? Wang had no idea. What he could say was that right now, his mind had gone completely blank.
He stared at Anthony standing before him. After a long silence, he finally opened his mouth.
"...You had better give me a thorough explanation. What exactly are you trying to pull?"
"Uh, put simply — that old temple is just sitting there doing nothing. I figured we might as well put it to use."
Anthony paused in thought, then continued:
"I do need to find some form of Authority and actually exercise it at some point. So I thought — why not commandeer that shrine first and use it as a base of operations?"
Yes. Anthony had his eye on Wang's old temple.
There was no more suitable location.
Underdeveloped, yes — but nestled within a district of a hundred cookfires, where foot traffic was hardly sparse. If properly developed, offerings and worshippers would be anything but scarce.
If he planted a Shrine of Offerings there, Anthony didn't even dare imagine how many Points it would generate.
And yes — the moment he'd laid eyes on his first Crafting Blueprint and gone back to review the Soul Circuit, Anthony had immediately understood how the two were meant to work together.
Shrine of Offerings + Soul Circuit = boost the concentration of soul energy in the surrounding environment, then absorb that soul energy and convert it directly into Points.
This was an economic building. A money-printer.
Who said ritual and culture had to get in the way of profit? Paradox's war criminals didn't know the first thing about soul economics.
And on top of that, the Shrine of Offerings carried genuine benefits for the worshippers themselves. In practical terms: a stretch of good fortune following each offering. Even if fortune was an ephemeral, intangible thing, the boost to one's spiritual energy was solid and real.
Once that value became apparent, rolling out Shrines of Offerings among the common people would be met with a warm reception — and the True Dragon, by all logic, would have no real objections either.
From there, it was just a snowball. The more shrines, the more Points, the greater the efficiency. One rolling into the next.
And so Anthony fixed Wang with a bright, gleaming gaze — staring at him as though he were not Wang at all, but the old temple itself. The starting point of an enormous, magnificent money-making machine.
Wang, for his part, held his tongue for a very long time.
And then, at last, he squeezed out a single sentence:
"That is my home!"
"What if I told you this arrangement would let Jie wake up for a stretch of time every now and then?"
Anthony's quiet, unhurried words landed — and Wang swallowed everything else he'd been about to say.
He couldn't quite keep his composure. He sputtered and hedged for a long moment, his face dark, before turning his head away. A lengthy pause. Then, voice low:
"...It's not entirely out of the question."
See? Wang was very reasonable when it counted.
Anthony reflected on this quietly.
"All right then — tell me the specifics. What exactly are you planning to do?"
Finally, Wang took two deep breaths and asked directly. Anthony cleared his throat and laid out his plan from start to finish.
From the very beginning, he had never intended for this to be a one-sided win.
First: the concessions on Dayan's side could be dismissed outright. Those were benefits Anthony couldn't have absorbed on his own anyway — handing them over was effectively getting something for nothing.
But relying solely on his own persuasion to convince Dayan to let him build Shrines of Offerings on a large scale and rake in Points? That was a harder sell.
Which was why it was time to bring Wang into the fold.
Or rather — to try bringing the entire Sui family into the fold.
Since the Shrine of Offerings could harvest soul energy, all Anthony had to do was divert a small portion of that energy directly toward Jie — and she could be called back to consciousness on a regular basis. Regularly. At zero additional cost.
On one hand, Anthony felt this was a fair return to give to his chat group companion in exchange for the benefits he'd received from their cooperation. On the other hand, with this arrangement in place, the entire Sui family — Wang especially — would throw their full weight behind spreading the shrines.
And the Shrine of Offerings solved another problem entirely.
Namely: how to weave Jie's image back into the memories of the living.
Certain quiet, subtle threads woven into the ritual itself — hints and impressions seeping soundlessly into the minds of each worshipper, leaving them with a faint recollection of Jie — would undoubtedly address that requirement. Over time, as the shrines spread, the first condition of Jie's resurrection would resolve itself naturally.
And pushing the network further outward — Anthony only had to use this avatar, Po, to package his true self into an appropriately grand and sacred identity within the rituals. A small presence here, a few lines there — and even his own resurrection conditions would see their first increment of progress.
It might be a small step. But right now, even a mosquito was meat. Anthony had no intention of leaving any gain on the table.
The idea of losing even a single Point, or a single scrap of material — it physically pained him.
And as a starting point — going from zero to one was always the most critical move. No matter what angle you looked at it from, this was a venture Anthony simply could not afford not to make.
There was no reason for it to fail.
"That's the rough outline of the plan."
"...Roughly — how often do you estimate Jie would be able to wake up?"
Wang sat in thought for a moment, then finally asked the question that mattered most. Anthony shook his head, declining to answer directly.
"I can't say for certain. I can't reliably estimate the efficiency of this method just yet..."
"But once the number of shrine locations reaches a sufficient scale, there's a strong possibility she'll enter a state where she has a stretch of free, conscious time every single day. And that would also bring her one step closer to the full, formal resurrection I mentioned."
"...Understood. This matter — I'll speak to the True Dragon personally. You don't need to worry about that part."
Wang was silent for only an instant before he rose to his feet, firm and decided.
In that moment, his devotion to family far outweighed any sentimental attachment to a crumbling old shrine.
The old temple? (Irrelevant.)
That sort of thing — he no longer had any need for it.
Not only did he intend to do this — he intended to do it with full force, and as fast as humanly possible. Wang found himself cursing the fact that he couldn't renovate the entire old temple on the spot and immediately roll out the shrines across all of Dayan, impatient for Jie to come back sooner rather than later.
Watching the resolve settle across Wang's face, Anthony could only let out a silent sigh of his own.
All he could say was: ah. Family men.
"One more thing — in the near term, can Jie still move around and manifest the way she did before?"
Wang asked again, suddenly, a note of barely-concealed nervousness in his voice. "If she can — I may bring my younger brothers and sisters by to see her sometime soon..."
Anthony understood immediately. He looked at Wang and gave a single nod.
"Of course."
"...Good. Thank you. Once I've spoken with the True Dragon about this, I'll reach out to the others."
"What about the Sui-Year Bureau? Should we worry about them?"
Anthony tilted his head and asked. Wang replied with calm simplicity: "It's fine. The Sui-Year Bureau will adapt."
"Besides — so long as only one comes at a time, it will be perfectly manageable."
The corner of Anthony's eye twitched.
The Sui-Year Bureau's blood pressure was going to detonate. You can't just casually drop a statement that extreme!
But a moment later, Anthony exhaled and stood up.
Honestly — he had half a mind to stop worrying about the Sui-Year Bureau himself.
After all, he was genuinely curious what would happen the moment those Agents laid eyes on Jie.
The Sui-Year Bureau? (Irrelevant.)
Just like the old temple — that sort of thing wasn't needed either.
"Then I'll head back to the old shrine and begin the preparations. Wrap up your conversation with the True Dragon as quickly as you can, then let your brothers and sisters know to make time to come by."
Anthony gave Wang a parting wave. Wang nodded. And so the two of them went their separate ways.
At the palace entrance, Anthony fell in step behind his assigned Candlebearer and walked out through the gates. At the threshold, the Candlebearer suddenly spoke:
"Mr. Po — if I may ask — have you already decided on the nature of your Authority? What form will it take..."
"Second Brother will handle that conversation... Let's focus on getting things moving."
Anthony smiled and said: "As for the Authority itself — let me think... It should be 'Ceremony,' I think. The Rite of Offerings."
And so he walked. Several li of quiet road.
Slowly, once again, he stepped back through the entrance of that crumbling old shrine.
The Soul Flame ignited within Anthony's heart — burning in wordless silence. And gradually, as if in answer, something like a soul flame seemed to kindle behind his eyes as well.
The Artificer. Using heaven and earth as the medium. Using one's own soul as the forge.
Crafting begins.
____
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