I loaded the Mysticism panel.

The bus was almost empty.

Richard sat down by the window, put his backpack on his lap, and pressed his eyes against the glass to watch the streetlights recede one by one.

When I got home, my sister had already baked the bread.

She's recently become obsessed with a recipe for "honey oat bread".

She tried making it a few times, and she felt that today's version wasn't too bad.

"Brother, you should try it." Evelyn put a slice of the cut food near Richard's mouth.

Richard took a bite.

"...better than the previous version."

"Right?" Evelyn nodded smugly. "I used room temperature softened butter instead, so it's absorbed more evenly when kneading the dough."

"Um."

Why are you so late coming home today?

"At the library," Richard replied naturally. "I have a translation due tomorrow for an Ancient Greek lesson."

Evelyn simply said "Oh" and didn't ask any further questions.

Tonight, my father didn't work overtime, which is rare for him.

Evelyn stood guard in front of the cupboard, as if guarding a seal that needed her inspection and reinforcement.

She brought a plate of freshly baked, rather well-shaped macarons to the table: "This plate is edible."

"What about that plate?" The father looked towards the top of the cupboard.

That plate is still maturing.

"Do macarons need to be cured?"

"Yes, we need to," Evelyn answered confidently. "Good things take time."

The father glanced at the plate that was crammed at the very top, out of reach of anyone, and asked no further questions.

Richard lowered his head and ate his macarons, knowing in his heart that the plate would probably "mature" until no one would ever think of it again.

Evelyn will finish it by herself one afternoon and then declare it "cooked to death and inedible."

I enjoyed dinner more than I had the previous few days.

His mother glanced at him a couple more times at the dinner table and noticed that the pressure on his brow bone that had been there for the past few days had faded somewhat tonight.

She didn't say anything, but simply picked out the largest piece of potato from the stew and put it in his bowl.

Back in his room, Richard closed the door.

He pulled out the old wooden box he usually used to store things from under the bed.

On top of the box were two supplementary textbooks on classical literature, and at the bottom was the stack he actually needed to pack up.

He opened the wooden box and took out each item he would need that evening.

The first stack is the manuscript.

The topmost document is his revised notes on the "Moon Nail" over the past two weeks.

The core improvements lie in the selection of media and the rhythm of the spell.

The three steps of "receiving the needle, guiding the breath, and inserting the needle" are compressed into being completed within two breaths, while an extension path deduction about "clustering" is added.

The second method is the phased delivery of "Stone Armor".

He changed the delivery method to batches: the first batch was to lay a foundation, the second batch to cover the whole area, and the third batch was specifically allocated to vulnerable areas.

The same total amount of ether can last for more than one and a half minutes, and the original effect will also be enhanced.

Richard took out both manuscripts again tonight and went through them from beginning to end.

[Reflection] Since the project started, he has been looking at his previous writings with a different perspective.

Underneath that stack of manuscripts was an even earlier one.

When he first attended the Divine Salon, he exchanged the table of contents for the "Shadow Armor" reverse theory model.

Richard pulled out that copy and spread it out on the desk.

He knew the handwriting on the paper all too well.

At the time, he thought he had hidden the core formula of the "reverse reasoning" layer perfectly.

Provide a framework, leaving empty spaces, so that the person who sees it can judge that there is something real inside, without making him give it away for nothing.

Now, as he rereads this document, he hasn't even finished half a page before he starts sighing.

What I wrote back then was hardly a "half-finished surgical model".

That was just an outline that looked plausible.

The framework is empty, the load-bearing beams are fictitious, and every crucial step in the deduction is glossed over with vague placeholders.

Prometheus was actually willing to trade a bottle of deep ether condensate for something like this.

Richard pressed his finger on the edge of that page.

Prometheus could probably tell at a glance how much of it was real and how much was just for show.

But he showed necessary tolerance towards a newcomer who had just reached the edge of the round table.

That bottle of etheric liquid was less a payment for the catalog page and more a deposit for the belief that "this child will come up with something even better in the future."

Richard folded the outline again and set it aside.

Dionysus was far more cunning.

He glanced at Richard's copy of "Shadow Armor: Backward Theory Model" and said casually, "I'm only interested in finished products; semi-finished products are priced as semi-finished products."

He won't make you feel that he's arrogant or that he doesn't know what's good for you, but he will never give you that extra portion.

Richard produced a newly written draft.

[Reflection] Since the project started, he no longer needs to leave placeholders for himself when writing this kind of thing.

If the load-bearing beam can be erected, then let it be erected;

Since the load-bearing beam cannot be erected, he simply admits that it cannot be erected yet, treating that part as an open question and leaving it for the reader to deduce the answer themselves.

This is completely different from the previous kind of "blurring things out of privacy".

He went through the manuscript again from beginning to end and changed three more word choices.

Then I checked the model paper for [Moon Nail·Reflection] and kept all four copies.

The second stack contains the actual items.

He took out the small oil paper packet of stardust and put it back inside the wooden box.

He doesn't plan to take this with him.

The versatility of star sand is too high. It can be mixed into the paste for crystal ball bases, star chart pointers, and tarot card covers. It can also be used to nurture certain strange objects related to "hanging", "reflection" and "reflection".

It's more worthwhile to keep it for yourself.

After thinking for a moment, he took the piece of etheric condensate out of the interlayer.

The condensate itself was wrapped in oiled paper.

He opened the oil paper and could feel the burning sensation on his fingertips.

A sweep of spiritual vision revealed that the uniform layer of ether on the surface of the condensate was slowly seeping outwards.

Its radiation is very regular. If you place it on a table for half a minute, the ether density on the entire table will be much higher than that in the corner.

If you have something like this in your house, you must seal it up tightly.

He himself doesn't need it; the ten points of pure ether in the [Spiritual Countenance] are the most stable source for him to nurture the Sphinx Lamp.

My aunt mentioned something similar when she was in Beijing.

Etheric condensates can nurture wondrous things with high efficiency and in large quantities, but they are, after all, external objects.

Feeding the strange creature with condensed matter is called "feeding";

Using the pure ether within one's own [spiritual form] is to "continuously establish connections".

The former grows flesh, the latter grows roots.

When a strange object recognizes its owner, it is the latter.

Tonight, he plans to place this congealed substance on the round table.

It's useless to me, but it's a very practical thing for someone whose artifact is still in the early stages of nurturing or who wants to catalyze alchemy.

As for the items he was going to trade this time, he didn't plan to use any other spells.

I haven't even started learning the art of silence yet; it will take at least one or two months of focused study.

Even now, my [Moon Nail] skills are still a long way from the advanced versions like "Moon Blade Rain" and "Moon Chain" that Nemesis talked about.

The batch delivery method for 【Stone Armor】 has just been revised, and it still needs to be repeatedly verified in practice.

[Shadow Armor] Breaking through the layer of "there must be light" is a long-term project.

Using four techniques simultaneously is already enough; switching to another one would be too much to handle.

This time, he planned to inquire about those two herbs and whether there were any other stable channels for obtaining rare items.

The proper approach involves going through the General Administration's authentication process, and it's unclear how long it will take to receive the confirmation.

At the round table, Prometheus had access to the deep realm.

Although Dionysus was shrewd, he was also very perceptive.

The Nemesis are based on a tradition of hunting the moon and are also familiar with the resources of the surrounding Deep.

Even getting a clue from them is better than Richard stumbling around cluelessly.

The same principle applies to channels for rare and unusual items.

Now that's it, I have everything I need.

He turned off the wall lamp and lay down on the bed.

The silver ring on my chest felt cool against my skin.

………………

Richard opened his eyes and found himself already sitting at the marble round table.

The golden mask of the main seat Hecate was colder than the previous two times.

The three overlapping images of the girl, mother, and old woman remained frozen in place, with neither the torch nor the key appearing.

This is a signal.

There are seven stone chairs, and five of them are occupied today.

Prometheus was surrounded by a golden halo, and the flames above his head burned slowly and steadily.

Nemesis still carried the same long whip and scales, the whip coiled at his feet, motionless.

As usual, only a glimpse of the double caduceus was visible on the chair next to Richard.

Dionysus's purple seat is empty.

Hecate took the initiative to speak.

"Dionysus has business to attend to today."

She didn't explain what it was about, and no one at the table followed up with any questions.

The only one who changed the most was Ares, who had missed the party last time due to injury leave.

The copper mask had several cracks on its left side, running from the brow bone all the way to the cheekbone.

The man's entire left arm was bare from the shoulder down.

Richard deduced from the shape of the cross-section that it had been gnawed by something.

The bone fracture was uneven, and there were teeth marks at the bite point.

Hecate raised her chin in that direction.

Ares.

"……exist."

"Last time you made a deal with Lauren, you ended up in the Ash Belt."

"Yes."

The man's head drooped.

When you came out, you were the only one left.

"Yes."

Hecate's words did not contain any deliberate blame.

But everyone at the table could tell that her subtext was that Ares had done something stupid.

"Your two brothers," Hecate continued, "are they both dead?"

"...They're all dead."

Ares's only remaining right hand was gripping the edge of the table, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.

Hecate stopped there.

She didn't rub salt into the wound, nor did she turn around and say anything nice.

She didn't say anything today.

Saying nothing at all is itself a way of expressing disappointment.

"...Let's begin the transaction."