Oritis in the world of Detective Conan

Chapter 128 Azoth's Theorem Proof (Part 6)

After gathering some information, Amuro Toru left the library. He also observed the riverbank around the suspension bridge. Although the riverbank was flat, it was covered with a considerable amount of silt, making it difficult for ordinary people to wade across. Even if someone tried to force their way across, they would inevitably leave traces in the mud.

Conan woke up among the piles of books in the lobby. His first reaction was to run to Director Mars' office. Sure enough, the door was locked. He could only go back to the hotel and wait for the investigation the next day.

When he returned to the hotel, he happened to see the blind girl standing in front of a window in the corridor, wondering what she was thinking about. The noise he made while walking caught her attention.

"Conan, is that you?"

"Eh? How did Sister Helena know it was me?"

"Your footsteps are the lightest among us. It's easy to tell it's you." The blind girl clenched her cane. "Did you come out to use the restroom? Go back to sleep."

"Oh, okay, okay." Conan, worried that his flaw would be discovered, hurried back to his room.

Early the next morning, the group gathered at the door of the hotel and prepared to go to the Azoth Library for further investigation. Kogoro Mouri was particularly slow in arriving, and Xiaolan even complained about him.

The old guard was waiting in front of the drawbridge for everyone to arrive. After crossing the drawbridge, he took out a bunch of keys and opened the closed door of the library.

This action caught the attention of Conan and Amuro Toru, after all, the door of the library was not locked when they entered it last night. Conan thought it might be Fool Gold's negligence, while Amuro Toru thought it was Helios who came secretly.

As he walked through the hall, Conan thought of the housekeeper's diary he had read: "Um, Grandpa Caretaker, are you the only one guarding the library? Is there a position like a butler?"

The old guard walked ahead leaning on a cane and answered without turning his head, "Yes, a housekeeper. She joined during the time of Director Mercury and left in a hurry after Director Cangyue's accident."

Conan understood that the housekeeper was most likely forced to leave by Helios, and he didn't kill her to silence her probably because Helios thought that the police would not believe the housekeeper's words.

"This is Director Mars' office." The old guard opened the door that Conan entered yesterday.

Because Conan's attention was all on the truth of the library incident yesterday, he did not carefully observe the layout of the room.

The room was littered with a wide variety of alchemical equipment, including iron rods, crucibles, and blowers, much of which bore signs of use. An exquisitely framed painting hung on the wall, and on the desk lay a manuscript with a bloody water element symbol painted on its cover.

Maori Kogoro was the first to walk over and look through the manuscript. "It seems to record the properties of various ores, as well as the multiple experiments to purify stibnite into gold."

The old guard praised Curator Mars's deeds. "Curator Mars was originally just an ordinary, unknown man. He survived a mining accident, and his alchemy skills improved by leaps and bounds, becoming the director of the Azoth Library."

"He excelled at purifying ores, and after becoming director, he even claimed he could extract pure gold. During Director Mars' tenure, he had also been conducting experiments on refining gold, but unfortunately, he disappeared before he could achieve the final result."

Xiaolan was a little surprised: "Can gold be extracted from these ordinary ores?"

"Of course, Director Mars has been pursuing a method to turn stone into gold, and has been making various down-to-earth efforts to achieve 'pure water'. Unfortunately..."

"Are these all gold?" Xiaolan picked up two containers on the shelf beside her, which were filled with golden ore.

Maori Kogoro took it and took a look. "Isn't this pyrite? Although it looks like gold, it is much cheaper than gold, so it is also called 'fool's gold'."

Hearing this, Conan understood where the code name "Fool's Gold" came from. If the code name of the survivor is related to his profession, then the code name of the supervisor should be related to his own characteristics and experience. But it is a bit ironic that the code name of the person who pursues gold is "Fool's Gold".

Amuro Toru leaned forward. "But the contents of this notebook are too difficult to understand. Besides all the technical alchemical terms, there are also words like 'king' and 'queen' that seem to have nothing to do with alchemy. Is this a metaphor?"

The old guard nodded. "This is actually a more professional way of describing things for alchemists. For some common metals, their metaphorical directions and even the symbolic characteristics after being pictorially represented are usually quite uniform."

"Picture?" Conan immediately noticed the painting and stood on tiptoe to take a look.

Maori Kogoro took the initiative to walk over and take the painting down from the wall: "There seems to be words on the back of the frame."

Xiaolan read out the text: "A king of pure gold shall be crowned with honor; a chaste bride shall be destined to accompany him. The gray wolf is greedy, and because of his name, he belongs to Mars, but his bloodline comes from old Saturn. Throw the wolf into the flames and burn it, and the king will be redeemed..."

The blind girl thought, "It sounds like a poem..."

"I have no idea what you mean." Kogoro Mouri scratched his head.

Conan, recalling the properties of stibnite, understood something: "'King' probably refers to gold, and 'Gray Wolf' probably refers to a substance that can purify gold, which is probably stibnite."

Xiaolan was a little confused: "Oh, really?"

Conan made up for himself: "This is what Dr. Agasa told me."

"It just so happens that we have all the materials here, and the equipment is quite complete. We can give it a try." Amuro Toru said as he picked up a container of stibnite.

Maori Kogoro was a little worried: "But is it really okay for us to use the things here like this?"

The old guard expressed no objection, but Kogoro Mori was still a little uneasy.

Amuro Toru raised the flame beneath the crucible, turned on the blower, and after heating the stibnite until it was molten, he dropped a piece of impure gold in. Almost instantly, the stibnite dissolved the gold, with impurities and sulfides floating to the surface while the alloy of antimony and gold slowly sank to the bottom.

Amuro Toru removed the alloy with pliers, cleaned the surface of the impurities, and placed it back in a new crucible to bake. The antimony, which had a lower melting point, slowly evaporated, leaving the pure gold in the crucible.

Seeing this miraculous scene, Xiaolan couldn't help but exclaimed: "It's true, the gold has really been purified!"

Maori Kogoro also nodded: "It seems that the content behind this painting is describing the formula for purifying gold."

The old guard was somewhat sullen. "If you ask me, Director Mars's experimental results must have been targeted by those with ulterior motives. They couldn't understand the alchemist's secret language, so they killed the director during the experiment in an attempt to obtain a stable formula. How could the police think this was a simple theft? Perhaps the police were also jealous of the gold purification technology, which is why they closed the case so hastily."

Conan understood that fool's gold required more than simple purification technology; he was more interested in refining the "pure water" that could directly transform poor metals into precious metals. After an accident occurred during the experiment, he concealed the truth and lived in seclusion behind the scenes.