I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Chapter 166 My Ancestors Had a Master (Bonus Chapter 14 for Monthly Tickets)

The room was quiet for a while.

The originally gentle atmosphere in the tea room became somewhat somber after Mr. Hutton's series of remarks.

Maggie felt she had to do something, so she cleared her throat.

"Speaking of which, do you know how the people of the Gale Heights identify outsiders?"

The old man was somewhat puzzled, but out of politeness, he replied, "How can I tell?"

"Watch whether he frowns when he drinks whiskey."

"...The one frowning is from out of town?" Richard guessed.

"Only outsiders don't frown," Maggie said seriously.

"We Highlanders frown at every sip of our homemade whisky."

The deeper the wrinkles, the purer the wine in the barrel;

Those who don't frown are either used to the watered-down stuff from the central region, or they're so drunk their facial muscles are numb.

This interruption softened their expressions somewhat.

"There's one more." Seeing that the atmosphere had eased, Maggie pressed on.

"When my grandmother was alive, she would say the same thing to us children every winter."

"My child, remember, there are three things that can freeze you to death in the highlands: wind, snow, and relatives."

"...Relatives?" Richard really didn't understand what the other person was talking about this time.

When relatives come to visit, they bring a bottle of wine. If you don't drink it, they won't leave.

The more alcohol I drank, the hotter my body felt; after a while, I just wanted to lie down in the yard and cool off for a bit.

Maggie added the last sentence: "When they find him in the morning, he'll probably still have a smile on his face."

The old man shook his head; the joke was both lame and had a touch of dark humor.

He picked up his teacup again and glanced at Maggie: "The Gaels are better at telling jokes than incantations."

"That's right," Maggie replied seriously. "If you can't remember the incantation, you'll forget it; if you can't remember the joke, your tribe will dislike you."

Mr. Hutton chuckled softly and finished his cold tea.

But then again, advancing my [Knowledge] to level 3 requires deciphering the duplicated text...

Richard thought about it and decided to try a different approach.

"Can we learn encryption technology now?"

Mr. Hutton leaned back in his chair.

"Of course you can learn it. It's a basic skill for scholars to publish papers. I can teach you when I have time after the semester starts."

"Or you could ask your aunt, Associate Professor Isabella. Asking her directly is the quickest way."

Richard nodded. If he could learn encryption, he could naturally decipher it as well. This process was the same as when he broke the Sphinx's seal.

Furthermore, the process of learning encryption and attempting to decrypt it can also increase the "Knowledge" progress bar, and these are all complementary.

Mr. Hutton glanced at him again.

"Speaking of which, that book about encryption methods you saw in the capital's library..."

"Um?"

"What is the full title of that book?"

Richard searched his memory.

"On the Construction and Evolution of Ciphertexts," the title page indicates it is published by the Royal Anthropological Society, and the author uses the abbreviation LDV.

Mr. Hutton's eyebrows twitched slightly when he heard the abbreviation.

"Do you know this person, sir?"

The old man did not give a direct answer.

"Richard, don't flip through books randomly next time you go to the library."

………………

When we came out of Mr. Hutton's, it was already completely dark outside.

The proprietress was wiping glasses behind the bar when she saw two young men coming downstairs and nodded to them.

"Dinner is still more than half an hour away."

"Okay," Richard replied.

The freckled girl on one side gestured with her chin toward the hostel entrance.

"Shall we chat?"

"it is good."

The wind outside is a bit colder than it was in the afternoon.

There was no moon in the sky, and the stars were scattered far apart, with a few large stars hanging in the western corner of the sky.

Only a few houses in Whitcomb had their lights on.

The two walked slowly along the stone path in front of the hostel.

Maggie stopped in front of the low stone wall at the entrance of the village.

She took a small tin box out of her pocket.

These were roasted chestnuts that I'd taken from the kitchen at noon; I shared some with Richard.

"Is it still hot?"

"I just put it in the ashes for a while to heat it up."

Richard took it; the chestnut shell was even a little hot to the touch.

He pinched open the shell with his thumb and put the fruit inside into his mouth.

Sweet, with a hint of caramel flavor.

The two of them leaned against the stone wall and ate chestnuts for a while.

The wind blew from the other side of the wilderness, and Richard's breath condensed into a small cloud of white mist in front of him, which was dispersed by the wind and then condensed again.

After finishing the chestnut in his hand, he casually said, "By the way, I have a question for you."

"Um?"

"That turquoise ring you had in the peat bog last time..."

Maggie paused for a moment while peeling chestnuts.

Richard continued, "Making you look like a tree on the etheric level, so that swamp corpses won't even glance at you, this technique is really quite useful..."

"Are you asking me if I can teach you?" the freckled girl interrupted him directly.

"If possible." Richard nodded, no longer trying to hide anything.

"Scholars have too few means of self-protection; every extra means is a good one."

Maggie held the half-peeled chestnut shell between her fingers.

"I can't learn it."

"...Can't we teach outsiders?" Richard was somewhat disappointed.

Maggie glanced at him: "You wouldn't learn it even if I taught you."

Why?

"That's a technique passed down through bloodlines."

She put the chestnut in her mouth and chewed it slowly.

"One of my ancestors was a master."

Richard stopped peeling the shell.

The experts, according to all the information and documents I have obtained so far, are described in extremely brief terms, as if they were beings from another world.

"Probably nine generations or more." Maggie held up one hand and slowly pried open her fingers one by one.

"My great-great ...

"I can't even remember the exact name of the person in question."

Our family worships her name, but that ancestor passed away more than four hundred years before I was born.

Richard understood.

Once you reach that level, the outcome is usually not death.

She may still exist in some form, but she is no longer in a place where she can take care of the family.

"So this turquoise ring... was it passed down from her?"

"It's one of the earliest spells she established. It's said that the Green Ring from back then and the one I'm using now are not the same thing at all."

"How are they different?"

"To quote my grandmother..."

The freckled girl gazed at the dark, looming mountain ridge in the distance.

"When her mother, my great-grandmother, used the Green Ring, she could draw the aura of half a mountain of trees and leaves to her side, concealing the movement of hundreds of people."

"Not only can the swamp corpses not see the whole team, but even the mid-level evil creatures would just think it's a nice forest."

"Covering up hundreds of people?" Richard imagined that scene.

If it's been this powerful for several generations, how terrifying would it be if the first generation master used it, making an entire city invisible?

"In my generation... we can only fool the mind-control lamps, and we have to time our attacks perfectly against the swamp corpses."

"You can only fool a lower-level evil creature for a few seconds at most; don't even think about trying to get a mid-level one."

There was no regret in her tone.

Richard's thoughts raced.

He hadn't thought about the path of bloodline inheritance before.

Hunter families pass on their skills through bones, muscles, and nerve reflexes—that's the material level.

But the technique itself can actually be engraved into one's bloodline and passed down for hundreds of years.

However... with each generation, this mark fades a little.

"Then why is it getting weaker and weaker?"

"To have more branches and leaves."

Maggie spread her hands out.

"My great-grandmother's lineage has been passed down to my generation, including all my cousins ​​and other relatives, both big and small."

Each person receives a small amount, and each small amount is less than that of the previous generation.

"Like a pot of wine," she gestured.

"There's only so much liquor. The first generation drank the original liquor, the second generation had it diluted, and the third generation had it diluted again."

"By my generation, how much 'flavor' will be left in the pot depends entirely on your luck."

"I'm lucky," she shrugged. "At least the spell wasn't ruined; it's still usable and can be used as an auxiliary spell."

"My cousin only has the ability to smell things; she can react to evil spirits a step earlier than normal people."

"But she can't use the spell itself; she can't even condense the green ring shadow."

"And he has no sense of smell left, but he has been exceptionally afraid of the dark since he was a child."

Richard now understood completely.

The Bloodline Technique is an ancestral formula that is continuously diluted based on the number of people.

The ninth generation received the original solution that had been diluted nine times.

"Could we study the diluted version systematically...?"

"You're not in this bloodline, you can't even drink diluted water," Maggie said, dissuading him from the idea.

"I'll teach you this set of incantations and gestures. You recite them and mimic them, but the ether just won't follow that path."

"The Green Ring itself only recognizes people from my great-grandmother's lineage."

Maggie continued, "My mom said that for those at the 'Master' level, the way their techniques work is completely different from that of those who are highly proficient."

"The techniques of a master are engraved in their bones, in their own bones, and in the bones of their descendants."

Maggie was also able to open up.

"Our family is considered an 'old family with a history' in the hunting circles of the Gaelic Heights."

"The story is true, but it's just a story now."

"Now my husband is just an ordinary hunter, able to earn money to support the family, survive his field missions and come back to raise the children, that's all."

Richard then came up with a new direction.

"Can the bloodline inheritance technique be 're-condensed'?"

"For example, if a mid-to-high-level cultivator emerges in a new generation, will it cause subsequent techniques to become stronger again?"

"You're quick-witted, I was just about to say that," Maggie glanced at him.

"It is indeed written in the family booklet that every time a mid-level expert or above is produced, the foundation in the blood can be replenished."

"But who told us, the younger generation, to be so disappointing..." she shrugged.

"Our family has only produced three minor experts in the last hundred years or so. The number of those who continue to produce them is not even enough to keep up with the amount that is diluted by each generation."

The wind blew between the two people.

"Richard," Maggie began to ask the question she wanted to ask.

"Um."

"What do you think of what Mr. Hutton just said?"

After Richard finished chewing the last chestnut, he casually tossed the shell fragments into a clump of withered grass at the base of the wall.

"His last analogy was: 'You think you're walking, but the road is walking on you.'"

Richard gazed at the dark outline of the wilderness in the distance.

I once heard a similar saying: "If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you."

"...Where does it come from?"

"Nietzsche isn't described much in textbooks," Richard said vaguely. "These two sentences are roughly the same."

Maggie took a bite out of a chestnut.

"So, are you planning to listen to him?"

"Of course I'll listen. You can only eat if you listen to advice."

Richard's answer was concise and to the point.

"I won't actively pursue that path until I have enough influence."

"What if we gain sufficient influence in the future?"

Richard didn't lie: "We'll talk about it later."

Maggie glanced at him, seemingly unsurprised.

"I knew you'd answer like that."

Why?

"Because of your eyes." Maggie peeled the shell off the second chestnut.

"When Mr. Hutton was talking about multiple repetition just now... you were so focused, just like when you heard a teacher talking about the key points of the exam, you were almost taking out a pen to write it down."

"I'm sitting right across from you, I can see everything clearly."

Richard sighed softly.

"And what about you?" he asked back.

"I?"

"Mr. Hutton was referring to you as well."

Maggie put the peeled chestnuts into her mouth and chewed them slowly.

"Our family is a hunter family. My dad, my brother, my cousin, my aunt, and my uncle are all hunters."

My mom walks in secluded areas by herself, but she almost never talks about those things at home.

"The night before I left for my winter internship... she called me to the fireplace and gave me some advice."

"What did she say?" Richard felt a sense of déjà vu.

She said that the hunter family has been a place where hunters have been out on the front lines for generations, while occasionally hermits or scholars would stay at home.

They cherish those stories, rules, and the folk songs and pamphlets passed down from their ancestors.

"The hunter sees the flesh of the evil creature, while the scholar sees the root behind it, which is actually more dangerous."

Upon hearing this, Richard recalled the way his mother held his hand tightly before he boarded the train.

I recall her saying, "In front of the curtain, strength is the shield; behind the curtain, strength is the bait"...

These words are actually the same kind of words that Maggie's mother said.

Only someone who has seen the view behind the curtain and then willingly returned can say such a thing.

"So..." Richard began softly, "you won't go down that road?"

"No." Maggie answered even more decisively than Richard this time.

"The twenty or thirty pounds my brother brings home every year is enough for my family to live very well."

I will study hard and find a proper teaching position after graduation, so that I can become a mentor for scholars, just like Mr. Hutton.

When I'm old, I'll sit by the fireplace and tell stories to my grandchildren until they fall asleep, and then I'll doze off too.

"This is what I want."

She turned to look at Richard: "And you, what do you want?"

Richard was somewhat stumped by the question.

No one had ever asked him this question so bluntly before.

Mr. Hutton would guide him to think for himself;

His mother would worry that he was overthinking things;

Evelyn only thinks about snacks and the bakery.

He looked at the desolate wilderness in the distance.

The stars in the wilderness sky were denser, and one in particular was very bright, hanging directly in front of his line of sight.

"I want...to make life better for my family."

Maggie's lips parted slightly: "That's it?"

"That's it." Richard nodded.

"You're so smart, so insightful, a runner-up in the Cicero Cup, and Mrs. McNeil and the others really admire you. Is this all you want?"

"Hmm." Richard didn't explain, turning his gaze away from the stars.

"My sister is going to high school, and my mother is in poor health."

My dad's salary is barely enough to support the family, and I want them to stop having to live paycheck to paycheck.

"and then?"

"And then..." Richard hesitated, "I want to read more books."

The wind blew between the two people.

The freckled girl turned to look at him:

"Reading more books doesn't sound like spending your whole life in a library."

Richard did not respond.

After finishing the chestnuts, Maggie closed the tin box and put it back in her pocket.

"Mr. Hutton's words just now were mostly directed at you; I was just reminding you as a side note."

"You have that 'wanting to delve deeper' energy."

Before Richard could react, she walked towards the inn after she finished speaking.

Richard stood there and continued to gaze at the starry sky for a while longer.

The brightest star still hangs in the sky.