Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

Liang En didn't think there was anything wrong with the group of lone dealers and antique smugglers, but it was really strange to find so much cash and precious metals in their warehouse at once.

Although neither criminals nor Roma people trust banks very much and often choose to carry cash with them, it is unusual to find so many in store warehouses.

However, after a simple analysis, Liang En and the others felt that it might be because this organization may have only one public location that belongs to them, so only by placing these things here can everyone feel at ease.

After all, for a criminal organization, it is basically impossible to expect them to be united and friendly internally and trust others, so it is normal for them to be defensive internally.

This is why the other party knew that it was not very safe to put it in the underground market, but still chose to do so, because only when everyone can supervise it, they can rest assured that no one will take it for themselves.

However, absolutely no one among them could have imagined that someone could actually break through what they considered to be impenetrable defenses and then wipe out their wealth in one fell swoop.

After a simple inventory, they determined that the total amount of money was only more than half a million US dollars. It was a large sum of money for an illegal organization, but it was not a big sum for Liang En and the others. number.

Of course, Liang En decided to use this money as spare cash in the space. Accordingly, he would transfer US$500,000 from his account to Cambodia and add it to the principal of the long-term interest loan.

Apart from the boxes containing money, the contents of the remaining five boxes were the most interesting. As they had guessed before, the contents of these boxes were cultural relics related to alchemy.

Three of the boxes contained some glassware, obviously used for alchemical experiments, and the other two boxes contained various books and notebooks.

"What I guessed before was indeed correct. There is indeed an alchemist behind that badge." Looking at the equipment in front of him, Liang En had a smile on his face. "But it's different from what I imagined before. This shouldn't be a tomb." It was dug out from inside.”

For professionals like Liang En, the origin of these things is generally clear enough. For example, these things should obviously be handed down from ancient times, and they look obviously different from those unearthed items.

When they emptied all five boxes, Liang En found a record book at the bottom of the box, which recorded the origin of these things.

This story is a bit long, and at the same time has a certain amount of drama, if it could be summarized simply. That is when a drug addict takes out his family heirloom and exchanges it for something in order to satisfy his addiction.

"Sure enough, there are some things that you should never touch. If you touch them, your family will be ruined." After briefly reading the contents of the book, Liang En sighed, and then checked the somewhat ancient books and notes.

Compared with the experimental equipment, these notes contained the most important information, and when he opened the first page of the notebook, Liang En immediately realized that he had made the right choice. ,

Because there is a Latin word written in blackened ink on the first page of the notebook: Paracelsus, and this word translates to Paracelsus.

Paracelsus was a Swiss physician, alchemist, and astrologer during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He was the son of a Zurich doctor named Wilhelm von Hohenheim.

His original full name was Philipps Aurelius d'Ovrast Bombasz von Hohenheim. However, because he thought he was greater than the Roman physician Celsus, he called himself Paracelsus.

Around 1514 AD, he worked in the mines and metallurgical workshops of the southern Germanic financier and alchemist Sigismund Fugger. He then studied medicine at the University of Basel in Switzerland, where he later taught for two years.

He broke with the tradition of scholars teaching in Latin and instead taught in a Germanic dialect, being the first to do so in a university.

This was important because the Renaissance use of Latin classics in native languages ​​could be seen as a sign of progress, such as when the famous religious reformer Martin Luther re-translated the Bible into German.

At the university, Paracelsus invited pharmacists and barber-surgeons from Basel to listen to his lectures, uniting craftsmen and scholars in the medical profession.

At the same time, in class, he advocated the use of local medicines, rather than medicinal animals or plants from the Mediterranean that originated from the ancient Roman tradition.

He also used the burning of the books of Galen and Avicenna, which were generally recognized as medical authorities, as a ceremony to start his lectures to express his contempt for those outdated traditions.

Although it is said in the legend that Paracelsus transformed into an alchemist in order to create a perfect life. The artificial human Homunculus was created and possessed the Philosopher's Stone, but in fact it was just a legend.

Paracelsus was indeed an alchemist, but regarded alchemy only as one of the pillars of medicine, since it was a technique for making medicines and explaining the functions of the body.

But he had no interest in the alchemists' traditional project of making gold, and even expressed disdain for the practice of making gold on some occasions.

However, this does not mean that he was unimportant in alchemy. He put forward many innovative ideas, the most important of which was the addition of a third source: salt between the two basic sources of alchemy, mercury and sulfur.

This ternary combination solves the problem that binary combinations in traditional Arab alchemy are only applicable to metals and some minerals, and successfully expands the three elements into the basic components of a thing.

For example, the world is a trinity of earthly, celestial and immaterial beings, while human beings are a trinity of body, soul and spirit.

However, judging from the records in Liang En's hands, Paracelsus is far from a coherent author, because many of the notes seem to lack logic and occasionally have some inconsistencies.

This is also consistent with another rumor, that is, a former colleague of his stated that all of his writings were actually dictated while drunk.

Paracelsus actually published few books during his lifetime. It was not until after his death that his followers collected his manuscripts and organized the compilation and reworking of his confusing and contradictory statements. today’s work.

It is precisely because of the help of these followers that the real historical Paracelsus is hidden in the fog, leaving only a legendary anti-authority icon.

This attitude was very consistent with the attitudes of the Protestant Reformation and Scientific Revolution at the time, which explains why the image of Paracelsus was more popular than his specific ideas.

After briefly looking through it, Liang En discovered that these books should actually be the manuscripts of Paracelsus, and from these manuscripts he also realized the importance of his followers, because these manuscripts had too many loopholes. too much.

However, it was precisely because of these loopholes that Liang En was able to confirm that these things indeed came from Paracelsus and belonged to the part that his followers wanted to hide.