I loaded the Mysticism panel.

At 10:30 p.m., Richard sat down at the table.

The notebook lay open on blank pages, and the fountain pen lay horizontally beside it, its nib dipped in ink but not yet falling.

He closed his eyes and focused his breathing into the third cycle.

The starry sea receded layer by layer, and the coolness of marble condensed underfoot first.

When he opened his eyes again, he was already standing in the temple.

Seven stone chairs surround a round table.

Hecate sat at the head of the table, her golden mask depicting a young girl on the top half and an old woman on the bottom half.

The torch and key hovered above her head, a full and solid presence tonight.

Richard's gaze first swept along a circle of chairs.

The seventh rack, which was empty last time, was occupied tonight.

In other words, all seven chairs were occupied for the first time.

Richard recalled the rules Hecate had established earlier.

Once all seven chairs were filled, the meeting entered its second phase, which involved the names of the gods of everyone present.

He glanced at the main seat, but Hecate didn't mention it. The torch and key remained firmly in place, showing no intention of moving forward.

Richard then suppressed his doubts and focused on the immediate situation.

He looked at Ares first.

Last time, Ares's copper mask cracked on the left side, and his entire left arm was bitten off from below the shoulder, leaving teeth marks on the broken end.

Two months later, Richard thought that with the [Moon Nail - Reflection] to keep the remnant alive, the man would be able to recover a little.

He was wrong.

Ares sat in the chair, curling himself up inside.

The crack in the copper mask was wider than before, running from the left eye all the way to the jaw, and through the crack was the ash from an empty furnace.

His severed arm was originally just broken at the shoulder.

The area around the broken edge now has a deathly gray hue that shouldn't appear on a living person.

His right hand was gripping the chair armrest tightly, as if he would slide off the chair if he let go.

Richard's gaze lingered on the broken shoulder for half a second.

The "heat" mentioned in that consultation letter seems to have been contained.

On the other side, Richard's intuition preceded his eyes, capturing the change in that patch of ether.

It's very light and very short.

When Hecate looked at Ares's severed shoulder, the ether around her contracted slightly.

It was a hint of...disdain that peeked out from under the golden mask, only to be quickly concealed by her.

He looked away.

Richard's breathing quickened as his gaze fell on the seventh chair.

The woman sat very steadily, as if the chair had been made for her.

It's a woman.

She wore a mask, neither gold nor bronze, but thoroughly fired terracotta.

The mask had only a few very shallow grooves pressed into the brow bone and cheekbone, so simple that it was almost clumsy.

What Richard couldn't take his eyes off was the top of her head.

There stood a full, drooping ear of wheat, attached to a sickle.

The wheat ears hung heavy, each grain plump, as if about to fall off at any moment.

The sickle is placed horizontally under the wheat ear, with the blade facing inward.

The nourishing wheat and the reaping blade, one above the other, hovered above her head, neither giving way to the other.

Richard had a plan in mind.

Demeter, goddess of harvest, mother of grain and earth.

It holds the power over the prosperity and decline of the five grains, and also over the life and death of the earth.

In mythology, her daughter was abducted by Hades, who, in a fit of rage, caused the entire earth to stop growing. Plants failed to sprout, grains failed to ripen, and even the gods' offerings ceased.

In the end, the God-King had no choice but to intervene and return half of his daughter's annual income to her.

Hecate spoke first from the main seat.

"Before introducing the newcomer," her girlish voice began, "I have some good news to share with you all."

All eyes at the table turned to him.

"Dionysus," Hecate's mother's voice followed, gentle and kind.

"Congratulations on your advancement to Junior Proficiency."

Richard's gaze immediately shifted to Dionysus.

The man in the deep purple ivy mask picked up the double-eared Cantalos cup in front of him and gestured slightly toward the head of the table.

"Thank you, Chief." He answered slowly, his voice trailing off beneath the ivy mask.

"The ceremony was completed in March, and we've just recovered."

He didn't mention a single word about tradition or direction.

Richard silently made a mental note of it.

Dionysus has officially crossed the threshold of his previous judgment that he was "at the upper limit of a senior practitioner or just touching the threshold of minor proficiency".

The nonchalant air about this person is still there, but the layer of ether beneath is much thicker than it was a few months ago.

"Congratulations," Prometheus said first.

"Congratulations," Nemesis added.

Ares also moved his lips.

A word squeezed out of the crack, very vague.

"……Congratulations."

Richard also raised the temporary cup he had conjured.

"Congratulations."

The person in the seventh chair remained silent throughout.

She simply tilted her head slightly toward Dionysus, as if she had heard him.

Dionysus put the cup back and said nothing more.

Hecate shifted her gaze from Dionysus to the seventh chair.

"Next, let me introduce tonight's newcomers."

The person in the seventh chair finally moved.

She raised her hands, which were resting on her knees.

The woman's hands were rough, with calluses on her palms; they didn't look like the hands of a noblewoman, but rather like the hands of a farmer.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am Demeter. I am honored to have the honor of sitting at your table tonight, thanks to Hecate's invitation."

She gave her name in one sentence, then put her hands back on her knees and sat quietly.

The whole table fell silent.

This person didn't reveal their wealth or offer any warm greetings; they didn't even have the cautious politeness that Richard and Nemesis showed when they first sat down at the table.

She arrived, sat down, registered, and waited for someone else to speak.

There was something more profound in that quietude than in its flamboyance.

Hecate's girlish voice begins.

"I personally invited Demeter; she is a minor expert, and not far from becoming a major expert."

The atmosphere at the table changed.

Hecate personally invited a junior expert, and even said that he was not far from becoming a senior expert. No wonder he exuded a powerful aura as soon as he sat down.

Richard did the math in his head.

There were seven people at the table, and Hecate, who sat at the head of the table, was practically a master of the art.

Of the remaining six, Dionysus just crossed the threshold of Minor Mastery tonight, while Demeter is a Senior Minor Master, vouched for by Hecate herself.

The quality of practitioners has almost fallen to the lowest level.

"The path Demeter took," Hecate's mother added. "How much she chooses to say is her business."

"Hmm," Demeter responded, then fell silent.

Most minor experts are either trapped in the family's tight resource chain or have to work alone to gain experience.

Richard had never seen Demeter so adept at dressing herself like a peasant before.

On the main seat, Hecate's golden mask faced Demeter, and the girl's voice was still as clear and bright as ever.

"This is Demeter's first visit."

"The rules are still in place. Let's observe tonight and then formally issue the tokens of identification next time."

"Alright," Demeter replied with a single word.

Hecate's gaze swept across the entire table.

"The transaction process," she said. "Let's begin."

As soon as the transaction started, the table went cold.

This is the norm.

With two major transactions in a row, one item after another was put on the table, and everyone's inventory had to be shaken.

Two months later, everyone's stockpile hadn't recovered, and they couldn't accumulate any new stock.

When you need to digest something, forcing it out will only yield some unpalatable bits and pieces.

Nemesis first spread out a piece of cloth.

The cloth is made of scraps and old things from the traditional moon-hunting tradition.

She exchanged it for something ordinary: a report on the current situation of a wandering evil entity in the northern highlands.

If someone has it, we'll exchange it; if not, then forget it.

No one answered.

Prometheus laid out several bottles of alchemical stabilizers, which were of the same origin as the previous batch.

What we need in exchange is firsthand information from the interior of the New World.

No one at the table had been to the New World, and no one answered the call.

Ares's good arm emerged from under the fabric and placed three evil artifacts on the table.

These are the scraps that were brought back from the Ashes last time but weren't exchanged.

"...Whoever wants it, I'll sell it cheaply."

No one answered, and the table remained silent for a while.

Dionysus, on the other hand, displayed the most items tonight.

Having just been promoted to Junior Proficiency, my career path has suddenly broadened.

He took things out of the tin box one by one, and pulled out several items.

Richard used his extensive knowledge to discern the past one by one.

An advanced method for intercepting environmental ether, accessible only to those with minor expertise;

A partial catalog of a closed library at Imperial Capital University;

There are also two advanced mediums that circulate only within a small circle of experts.

The items are good, but none of them are useful compared to the ones on the table.

That method of interception requires a certain level of expertise to be effective;

There were only a few books on the table that I could access from that scroll of the library catalog;

Those two mediums are separated by a great rank.

Dionysus knew it when he finished taking it.

He pushed the things onto the center of the table, and the voice beneath the ivy mask trailed off.

"Look around, name your price if you like something, I'm not expecting to sell it this time."

The people at the table glanced at it but didn't touch it.

Richard knew what was going on.

Dionysus was revealing his true wealth, not only to the others at the table, but especially to the person in charge.

I'm somewhat proficient now; I have all these things in my hands.

Whether or not he exchanges it is secondary; what matters is letting people know he has it.

Demeter did not move from beginning to end.

She watched the things coming and going on the table, but didn't touch any of them or set a price.

The sheaf of wheat hanging silently overhead.

But the face beneath the mask had long since given way.

Before entering the temple, she felt that Hecate must have had a reason for inviting her, so she first wanted to see what kind of people they came from.

When I sat down and looked around, I saw that most of the people at the table were young people.

They all looked like they were pretending to be calm but were actually very nervous, and there was one who had a broken arm and was sitting there dejectedly, which made people feel sorry for him.

She thought to herself: This isn't some secret round table, it's a bunch of chicks surrounding a mother hen.

The old hen is Hecate.

The man named Dionysus had just been promoted to Lesser Master, and he was beaming with pride, as if he wanted the whole table to know. Demeter couldn't help but chuckle to herself.

Indeed, didn't she herself run around a crooked tree more than a dozen times in the wasteland on the night she was promoted?

She is the only one who knows about this to this day, and she plans to take it to her grave.

It was Richard's turn.

"I have two here."

He took two items out of his leather pouch and placed them on the table.

An ebony box and a palm-sized bronze mirror.

The people at the table looked over, and Ares's good arm twitched.

He recognized both of them.

These are the two questionable artifacts that he brought back from the Ashes last time and that Richard swapped with.

"These two." Richard tapped the box and the mirror with his fingertip.

"When Ares brought it back from the Ashes, I swapped it with him."

As you all know, it is suspected to be a strange object, and the origin of its contents is unknown.

"After I switched it back, it was examined."

"The bronze mirror contains a low-level curse from the traditional weaving of nets: the 'Contrast Curse'."

The box contains something that is also captured through resonance, but it's much more complicated.

Richard pushed the box and mirror further into the center of the table:

"Both items have been tested, and everything inside has been completely disassembled, leaving only the empty shell."

On the main seat, Hecate could no longer remain seated.

"Hermes, when that box passed through my hands, I added a seal to it."

"How did you break that seal of mine?"

The people at the table all looked over.

Richard knew in his heart that something serious was about to happen.

The seal that Hecate personally added was meant to prevent people from breaking it.

As for Professor Mortimer's question, "Old Mortimer is asking you if you copied Chapter 3 of his 1887 paper."

He wanted to throw it on the table exactly as it was, which would be tantamount to slapping Hecate in the face in front of everyone at the table.

The thing this kind of person hates most is having their shortcomings exposed in front of everyone.

Richard's emotional intelligence isn't that low; he had already prepared his response in his mind.