I loaded the Mysticism panel.

The laughter and chatter at that table continued until the Yorkshire pudding was completely empty.

The roasted beef short ribs were left with glistening bones, and the red wine sauce from the stewed lamb leg had solidified into a crust at the bottom of the plate.

The trainees ate to their hearts' content, and the conversation shifted from academics to the important matter of the night.

"I'll make a bet with you guys," Wade Byrne said, picking his teeth.

"The most valuable item at the bottom must be that scepter; it was featured in the newspapers for a month, and the entire cover was printed with it."

"You believe whatever the newspaper prints." Catherine poured herself half a glass of lemonade.

"Last week's evening paper also said that a girl with a fish tail was fished out of the canal in the east of the city."

Bourne choked for a moment.

At the other end of the long table, several other noblemen huddled together, whispering and guessing what was hidden underneath.

The mummy, the gilded coffin, and those jars—were they really filled with internal organs?

Edith huddled in a corner, not getting involved.

She spent the entire day at the museum talking to people about the green-glazed figurines.

The joy of seeing the real thing with my own eyes is impossible to hide.

Richard finished off the last piece of pudding on his plate and picked up his tea to soothe his throat.

He was indeed a little tired after telling stories all day.

Despite being exhausted, the worry in my heart hasn't faded at all.

Richard knew that the seepage would be slower due to the seal.

Even the most deadly seal will always have a wisp or two seeping out at the turning point.

Tonight, there's an entire warehouse below.

Even if only a tiny bit of something leaks out, it adds up to quite a lot when you put them all together.

"Gentlemen."

A person stood at the entrance of the dining room.

Pendleton turned to hold the door open, and behind him stood the same white-bearded curator from noon.

The trainees stood up in a flash.

"Sit down, sit down," the curator waved his hand.

"Are you all full? If not, I'll have someone bring you more. The work downstairs later will be very tiring."

By the time everyone had wiped their mouths and put their chairs back in their places, it was already completely dark outside the window.

The nights in Beijing in July are very hot, but the walls of the centuries-old stone building, the museum, remain cool year-round.

The bell tolled nine times, and the bronze gate closed.

The entire museum fell silent.

The twenty trainees reunited in the main hall.

The sphinx, which is more than two people tall, sits in the center of the main hall. During the day, it is a rare object that people point to and talk about.

Standing in the dim light, beneath the half-broken stone nose, his shadow stretched out long.

"It's terrifying." Wade Byrne shrank his neck.

"It looked quite impressive during the day, but now it looks like it's about to open its mouth."

A fellow trainee nearby chimed in:

"It's all empty here now. Who knows how many dead people from thousands of years ago are buried underneath?"

"Alright, everyone stand up here." A voice came from the other end of the main hall.

Curator Weatherby strolled out from under the archway of the Greek Hall, his hands behind his back.

There were two people following behind him.

The man walking on the left was a middle-aged man. His ethereal aura possessed a steady, almost thread-like quality, suggesting he was a master of the art of secrecy.

The one on the right is the hunter, tall and thin, whose right hand is always casually resting on his side when he walks.

Richard's inspiration swept over the man, who had an enchanted pistol and a knife tucked into his waistband.

The curator stroked his white beard and introduced everything one by one.

"This Mr. Pritchard, a minor expert-level concealment user, will be watching over the sealing array below for us tonight."

The hermit nodded to the crowd without saying a word.

"This is Mr. Hammond." The curator gestured with his chin toward the hunter again.

"If anyone under there misbehaves, let him deal with them."

Hammond didn't even nod, but simply moved his right hand, which was resting on his waist, up a little.

The trainees looked at each other, and even the usually joking Byrne shut his mouth.

A reclusive observer oversees the operation, while a hunter maintains order... Judging by this setup, it's not as simple as sending people down to inspect antiques.

The curator paced back and forth, walking half a circle around the Sphinx.

"A few days ago, a guest named #039 came downstairs, but we repelled him and left behind some things."

The main hall was so quiet that you could hear the soft crackling of the candlelight.

The curator's face beneath his white beard darkened slightly.

Richard could feel something pulsating between several layers of stone slabs.

This is a section of organ that has been removed from its original body, but it is not quite dead yet.

The curator continued speaking.

"According to regulations, this item should be destroyed on the spot."

"But those two seniors didn't let me destroy it."

"The situation is not very stable right now, and some of you will have to take charge on your own in the future."

"Tonight is nominally the last practical exercise of your training."

"To put it bluntly, it was a lesson prepared for you by those two seniors."

The main hall fell silent for a moment.

Richard's tension eased slightly.

This was a lesson that had been pre-arranged and thoroughly covered.

The torn-off piece was circled by the two experts and fed to the students of this top university for practice.

"I have to say this upfront."

The curator's tone turned serious at this moment.

"That thing is #039 alive #039."

"If you look at it, it will follow your gaze back."

"The more inspired a person is, the more dangerous they are."

In the main hall, someone gasped.

"I'm the one who will actually make the move tonight."

The curator scanned everyone once more.

"We need to thoroughly analyze that section, weigh it accurately, and return it to where it came from... I'll do all that work."

"Your job is to help me understand it."

He raised his hand and gestured.

It was wrapped in several layers.

I peeled it by myself, and it would glance at me after each layer I peeled.

When I get to the innermost layer, I'm afraid I won't have any hands free to deal with anything else.

"Therefore, each layer of skin needs to be peeled off separately."

"Please peel off the outermost layer of the inscription for me;"

Those who study history and folklore, please read it for me about its origins and what it originally was.

As for the innermost, most dangerous level…

The curator's gaze swept across everyone's faces.

"I will read the real name and its traces myself; none of you are allowed to touch them."

"Remember that," he said definitively.

"Report to me whichever level I've reached in my reading."

After reporting, they retreated to the outer circle to wait.

The skinning work was divided among us; the tasks that were more enjoyable, I did all by myself.

The curator continued:

"Mr. Pritchard maintains the sealing array, while Mr. Hammond suppresses it from the outside."

If anything goes wrong, I will immediately lead everyone out and then ask those two expert seniors to take action.

"Whenever I call for retreat, drop what you're doing and run upstairs without looking back."

"Did you understand everything?"

"Understood," the twenty trainees replied in unison, each with a tense expression.

Curator Weatherby nodded, and the grim look on his face suddenly disappeared.

"Alright, that's all the ugly stuff."

"I instructed the kitchen to prepare a late-night snack for everyone in the side hall downstairs where we were resting."

Cold ham, cheese, and freshly baked scones.

"If you get tired or hungry while reading, go and eat by yourself."

His gaze lingered on Richard for a moment, a slight smile appearing beneath his white beard.

"Especially for one young gentleman, I specially asked someone to prepare an extra bucket of milk."

In the main hall, the tension that had been building for so long was eased by this one sentence.

The trainees chuckled softly.

"At the dinner party, I made a promise to you about something."

The curator waved to Richard.

Richard stepped forward.

"Tonight, I'll give you a seat closest to the front lines."

The curator stroked his white beard and slowly added a sentence.

"You told stories of most of the Old World, and the candy sellers and railroad workers listened with rapt attention."

"Tonight, I'll see just how much of your vast knowledge actually comes out of your mouth."

Richard bowed slightly.

"The students did their best."

Curator Weatherby turned around.

"Let's go."

"We need to go and check on what that guest left behind."

The entrance to the enclosed warehouse below was a narrow door hidden behind the Greek Hall.

The door was inlaid with silver plates, on which inscriptions were engraved.

Mr. Pritchard stepped forward, pressed his finger on a spot on the door frame, and the door opened silently inward.

A stone staircase descends into darkness.

"Keep up close." The curator stepped inside first.

"Downstairs is different from upstairs; if you fall behind, no one will come looking for you."

Twenty trainees filed in.

Hammond, the hunter, walked last and closed the door behind him.

The stone steps are very long, spiraling down around the central pillar.

Every ten or so steps, a lamp lit by the museum staff is embedded in the wall.

The further down you go, the cooler the air gets, and the walls feel damp.

The aroma, accumulated over hundreds of years and mixed with dust and aged spices, grew thicker and thicker with each passing layer.

Richard walked in the middle of the group, spreading his inspiration in all directions with the wind.

He hadn't gone down more than a few steps when he felt it.

The ether that permeated the air was so thick it was almost cloying.

The ether concentration on the campus of Imperial Capital University is already extremely high, with nodes scattered throughout.

But right now, the underground storage room of this museum is even more densely packed than that of the Imperial University.

Normally, the seals on high-level artifacts are so tight that only a tiny amount of ether seeps out.

But the piece that had been torn off was throbbing and pulsating, disturbing the peace of the entire warehouse.

The strange substance it stirred was constantly leaking out of the ether.

Richard's lips curled up slightly.

This is good news for me; an opportunity has arrived.

Once you reach the bottom of the stone steps, a bright and open space suddenly appears before you.

On both sides of the warehouse are rows of chest-high glass cabinets and wooden frames covered with dust cloths.

The cabinets and shelves were now filled with genuine artifacts transported back from the Black Soil River basin.

Gilded painted masks, green-glazed figurines, stone tablets carved with birds, beasts, insects and fish, and several painted wooden coffins with their lids half open.

I saw all of these during the day.

Unlike replicas, the genuine items piled together were so oppressive that the sheer ethereal energy was almost suffocating.

At the deepest part of the warehouse, there is a separate area surrounded by stone pillars.

Richard's gaze fell on the center of that area.

Nine silver lines laid out a circle on the ground, with something hanging in the center.

It was about the size of two fists.

Its shape is hard to describe; it's hazy and resembles a wisp of smoke that hasn't solidified.

But this little cloud of smoke stirred up the entire warehouse, making it impossible for anyone to have any peace.

Mr. Pritchard stood outside the formation, his hands making some kind of scribbling motions.

Ether followed his fingertips, thread by thread, into the nine silver lines, tightly encircling the wisp of smoke at the center.

"Stand still," the curator said in a low voice. "Stay away from the sealing array."

The trainees stood along both sides of the warehouse.

Hammond, the hunter, took a few steps to the space between the sealing array and the stone steps, blocking the way up, his right hand on his waist.

Richard was led to a stone pillar closest to the battle formation.

He stopped at the foot of the stone pillar and steadied his breathing.

The silver ring on her chest was noticeably cold now.

That plume of smoke was "looking" at every inspired person in the warehouse.

It has no eyes, yet it does see.

But the silver ring dimmed his lighthouse, and the hook made the thing "mistake" his origin.

The two things stacked together dimmed him into an almost invisible flame.

The plume of smoke "looked" in his direction for a while, but couldn't figure it out, so it turned to look at someone else.

Richard secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Next, it's time to do things on my own.

The ether in the warehouse was being stirred up and was seeping in fiercely.

Of all the people in the room, only he could turn the ether that was seeping out into something real.

He stood motionless at the foot of the stone pillar.

He sent that fading wisp of inspiration along the flowing ether toward the nearest glass case.

Inside the cabinet was a gilded painted mask, which was being stirred up by the lump of something underneath, causing it to leak ether.

Richard's etheric flow landed very lightly, like skimming a spoonful of oil from soup.

[Available Points], it's starting to move.