The curfew city wasn't a good place to explore, and Duncan stayed in the antique shop all night—the excitement of stepping on land drove him to explore the entire building tirelessly.

It is true that the original owner of this body was a cultist, but at the same time as a cultist, he was also an ordinary person who needed a normal social life, he needed the convenience provided by modern civilization to maintain his own survival, he needed to communicate with people, and he needed all kinds of daily necessities.

You need to deal with the whole city.

And all of this will leave a lot of clues, which can allow Duncan to roughly deduce the way of survival in the city-state of Plain despite the blurred memory fragments, as well as the general technological level and people's livelihood in this era.

He found a small amount of cash in the dark compartment behind the counter on the first floor, including a handful of odd coins and several blue and green coins of various denominations, which were legal tender in most city-states, jointly certified and issued by the consuls of the city-states and the Chamber of Commerce of the Infinite Sea, with the main currency unit called "Sora" and the "peso" worth one-tenth of the main currency issued as a secondary currency. Duncan's total cash found was just over two hundred solas, and according to the information he remembered, it was probably enough money for a family of three to survive in Downtown for about a month.

It seems that even though the business in the store was dismal and most of the family property was donated to the church, the original owner of the body still maintained a basic standard of living - which shows that this "antique shop" still has its own stable customer base.

There are only two parts on the first floor of the store, two-thirds of the area is the shop at the front of the staircase, and the remaining third is the "warehouse" behind the small door of the staircase, and there is a door behind the warehouse, which is the back door of the whole building, and it is also supposed to be the entrance and exit for purchases.

The structure of the second floor of the shop is a little more complicated, in addition to a bathroom, there are two rooms, one large and one small, and a pipe room shared with the adjacent building, the large and small rooms are located on both sides of the staircase on the second floor, and the cleaning is relatively clean.

In addition, there is a small kitchen on the second floor, but it seems that the last time it was used was probably at least half a month ago, and everything has a layer of dust.

After checking everything, Duncan returned to the master bedroom on the second floor, and he looked at the room, which was smaller than his bachelor's apartment, and his eyes fell on the small cabinet next to the bed.

There's a picture frame there, and there's ...... in it It's a black and white photograph.

The photo shows a family of three, a pair of plainly dressed young men and women, with a little girl who looks only four or five years old, standing in front of a courtyard set with obvious artificial traces, with a faint smile on their faces, looking at the camera.

Duncan walked over to the frame, picked it up and examined it carefully, and kept correlating with the vague and messy clues in his memory.

The original owner of this body...... Not in the photo.

The person in this picture appears to be a relative of this body...... Very close to people.

As he gazed at the young couple, Duncan seemed to feel a faint sense of longing emerging from the depths of his memory.

However, more information about the photograph is vague and seems to ...... More memories of them have been lost to the world with the last breath of the body's original owner.

He put down the photograph and pondered what level of consumption such a black-and-white photograph would be among the civilians of the lower city, what stage the world's photographic technology had developed, and what principles the equipment used was based on.

At the same time, his eyes fell on the neatly made bed, and his heart was filled with faint doubts.

A cultist who has completely fallen into the Sun Faith will have a lot of time to tidy up his room so cleanly on weekdays?

The storefronts on the first floor are obviously neglected, how do you manage the beds in this bedroom to be meticulous?

He walked out the door again, to the smaller room across the stairs, and looked at the equally neat and clean bed and desk.

He sorted through the memories in his mind, confirming that the original owner of his body had left the store a few days earlier to attend a meeting of the Sun God cultists - that was the last time he left, and the details were blurred, but there didn't seem to be the impression of cleaning the house before leaving.

Other words...... And someone else?

And others live with this "cultist"? Is it a loved one?

Duncan frowned slightly, and as he searched his mind for the corresponding clues, he made his way to the desk in the small room, his gaze swept over the neatly organized paper, pen, and stationery, and finally landed on a book.

The book was placed in the most prominent position on the desk, with a dark blue cover, a pattern of gears and connecting rods on the cover, and the title of the book written in beautiful floral letters:

The Technique of Steam and Gears - General Textbook III

Duncan frowned, he was already vaguely aware that this room should belong to "another person", but still subconsciously picked up the book.

There were no books to read on the Lost Place, and there was not a single article to read in the master bedroom or elsewhere in the store, which might have helped him understand the things of the world.

When he opened the cover of the book, he was greeted by an illustrated inner page - it was indeed a "textbook" on engineering and the principles of steam mechanics, and many of the notes left by the owner could be seen between the paragraphs.

The slender and beautiful font seems to have been written by a young woman.

Duncan rubbed his forehead, the original owner of this body did not seem to have any relatives or friends, most of the pictures or "impressions" in his memory were cold and lonely, but after combing through his memories several times, he finally vaguely "recalled" a person...... is a girl with dark brown hair.

It seemed to be the only figure in the mind of the cultist named Ron as he exhaled his last breath.

Duncan's gaze fell on the pages of the book, and he did not bother to look at the words and drawings that involved specific techniques, but specifically picked out the parts that resembled the editor's introduction and conceptual discussion.

A line of text suddenly came into his eyes:

“…… Flames, or more strictly speaking, the specific flames released by burning the oils and oils of the deep sea and the crystallization of minerals near the sea, are the building blocks that support the functioning of modern societies and protect our civilization......

"The prosperity and order of modern civilization are based on fire and steam...... Clean, convenient electricity cannot replace the exorcism of fire, nor can it keep large machines running reliably for a long time...... Experiments have shown that steam is the most stable dynamic form when affected by deep space......

"In this chapter, we will discuss three typical architectures of the steam core, and explain the mechanical principles and design ideas in them......

Duncan's eyes froze slightly.

He remembered the gas lamps, torches, and oil lamps that he had seen everywhere in the sewers, and the gas street lamps on the city streets, and the doubts he had in his mind when he saw the electric light in the shop.

Originally...... What is the reason behind these seemingly "weird" situations?

The reason why it is necessary to use open flame lamps in sewers even at a certain risk, and to use gas lamps in outdoor streets when electricity has developed to a certain extent, is because "fire" can resist the spread of some "dangerous and grotesque" to a certain extent?

Duncan's heart was filled with inexplicable emotion, and his gaze continued to look down, and he saw intricate drawings, dense annotations, and carefully left notes by the book's owner.

It was a machine he couldn't even understand.

And definitely not the "steam engine" he knew in his previous life.

The delicate gears, the extremely complex cylinders, and the pipes and valves between the parts are far beyond the concept of a steam engine, but more like some kind of equipment that pops out of a fantasy book, revealing a contradictory and grotesque beauty everywhere.

This is the "heart" that supports the progress of civilization in this world today.

In deep thought, Duncan slowly put the book back in its original place.

Because he couldn't understand it at all.

As an earthling, even if he had been a teacher, he couldn't understand what the hell were the steam-powered mechanisms in this book that had developed to the extreme.

But even so, a faint enlightenment emerged in his heart:

The development of civilization in this world seems to be on a completely different path from what he knew.

In order to survive in a world surrounded by crises, the mortal kingdom has also taken on a bizarre posture, but no matter how strange the world is, as long as it can be called "civilization", it must have its own reason and logic for its development.

The gas lamps that burn in the sewers, the electric lamps that are lit in the shops, and the steam traps that are depicted in books and condensed by the wisdom of many people, all reveal a kind of ...... Toughness.