I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Richard guided the ether that seeped out along the way, collecting it silently.

Available points: 0.73...0.81...0.94...

It's not fast, but the upward trend is very stable.

He didn't dare to glance at it any longer.

There was more than just that plume of smoke being watched in the warehouse.

The curator is a scholar who is close to a great master, while Pritchard is a reclusive master of lesser mastery.

If they get too much space, the seal will weaken and they will immediately notice.

What he wanted to skim off was the scum of oil that was stirred up by the smoke and was about to seep away anyway.

Even if we ignore this layer, no one can pin it on him.

Richard's inspiration followed the water flow to the next cabinet.

That was a row of canopic jars.

The set consists of four cans, with lids depicting a human head, a baboon head, a jackal head, and an eagle head, respectively.

He had told the Crane family about the four jars during the day, explaining that they contained the internal organs of the dead.

Standing before the genuine artifacts, he could sense that those four jars contained far more than just the organs of people who died a thousand years ago.

The ether preserved over the long years, along with the faith in the guardian deities, was sealed layer by layer into the clay.

Available points: 0.94……1.26……1.54.

The price surge is much stronger than that of the mask from before.

The plume of smoke flickered once more.

With that throbbing motion, the strange objects in the warehouse seeped out even more violently.

Richard could feel the ether, which was being stirred up all around, gushing out in spurts.

His etheric flow wandered through the warehouse, glancing at each cabinet one by one.

Green-glazed figurines, inscribed stone tablets, painted wooden coffins... He fiercely pounded the stirred ether with each and every piece.

Since it's going to be wasted anyway if it just sits in the air, I might as well keep it for myself.

Available points: 1.54……2.31……2.78.

This was a huge success.

As the numbers climbed, Richard kept an eye on something else.

[Perception] lv.2, progress 97%.

The thick, cloying ethereal field below, coupled with the ethereal surges caused by the occasional pulsation of the smoke, was pushing his perception forward relentlessly.

97%……98%……99%.

As it continued to absorb points, Curator Weatherby turned around to face the sealing array.

"Everyone, stand in your positions, it's about to begin."

The curator stroked his beard.

"Tonight, I'm using this item to teach you a lesson."

A lesson that cannot be explained or clearly described in a textbook.

He gestured towards the plume of smoke.

"It can't move right now. The seal hasn't been officially activated. It's just a specimen that's been peeled off and pressed onto a cutting board."

"You can look at it, read it, disassemble it however you like, it won't even have the strength to utter a sound."

Mr. Pritchard stood on the other side of the sealing array, his fingertips lightly touching a silver line, and added upon hearing this:

"The premise is that no one should touch its innermost layer."

"Before we take any action," the curator said, pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back, "I have a question for you first."

"Where did this thing come from?"

No one answered.

These are the kinds of questions that the associate professors in the training program love to ask, and they're also the hardest to answer.

Without waiting for their reply, the curator continued on his own.

"It comes from the Black Soil River."

"To be precise, it was a piece of something that was forcibly torn off from a 'master' on the other side of the Black Soil River."

The moment the word "expert" was uttered, the warehouse fell so quiet you could hear the low hum of the silver wires.

"You may all be having some doubts," the curator said calmly.

"Why would a local expert from Heitu River leave his hometown, cross half the sea, and come to the capital?"

How did it come to the point where a piece of it was torn off and pressed into this sealing array?

He extended a withered finger and drew a circle around the rows of glass cabinets on the four walls of the warehouse.

That's what I'm after.

"The gilded mask, the green-glazed figurine, the stone tablet engraved with birds and beasts, and that sacred scepter... all of these were taken from the temple and graves in his hometown."

Wade Byrne couldn't help but mutter something in the crowd:

"Then... if the expert is so powerful, why were his own belongings taken away by the Empire?"

That was a very pertinent question, and the trainees all perked up their ears.

The curator chuckled, his long white beard swaying.

"Those in charge on the other side of the Black Soil River are no longer locals."

It was impossible to tell whether the old man's tone was sarcastic or something else.

"Decades ago, the Empire's ironclad warships sailed into the estuary."

In name only, the old Sultan's name still hangs there;

It's the truth that our empire is "keeping an eye on" for them.

"We built irrigation canals, laid railways, and even dug up their ancestral graves one by one."

The people at the Antiquities Clearance Office, with their scholarly facades, are really just moving things around... The valuable, the ones that can be displayed, are sealed up, filed, packed into boxes, and shipped back to the capital by sea.

Have any of you seen that obelisk that was newly erected on the riverbank in Beijing a couple of years ago?

Several students nodded.

That's a famous sight in the capital, and many young people have taken photos there.

"It was taken entirely from the entrance of a temple on the Black Soil River and transported across the boat."

The curator shook his head: "It didn't fall to the wind for thousands of years, but it fell on our winch."

He added another sentence:

"In the early years, the pharmacies in the empire sold a recipe called 'Mummy Powder,' which claimed to be made from dried corpses that had been ground for thousands of years and could cure all diseases."

No one knows for sure which gentleman's tea those mummies ended up in.

Some students in the warehouse felt their stomachs churning.

The curator returned to the main topic.

"As soon as that expert arrived across the sea, two local elders were waiting for him."

"He lost his home turf and was trespassing into someone else's territory all by himself."

The two had set a trap, luring him out from the unreachable depths, and then attacking him from both sides.

The curator scanned the group of students.

"Remember this: tonight's lesson was taught by those two senior scholars, and the academy is willing to show it to you. You can judge its value for yourselves."

Inside the warehouse, all twenty trainees fell silent.

Richard stood under the stone pillar, feeling somewhat uneasy.

They dug up all the burial goods and loaded them onto a ship to take home;

The expert risked his life to cross the sea to seize it, but was crushed to death halfway by two local experts guarding the entrance.

They desecrate people's ancestral graves, guard their country's borders, and when they try to reclaim what's theirs, they're blindfolded and beaten to death...

Although Richard himself was just a nobody, he actually felt a little sorry for the expert from the Black Earth River.

"Alright, enough chit-chat." The curator clapped his hands, bringing the lesson back on track.

"It comes from the Black Soil River, so its 'grammar' is naturally the grammar of the Black Soil River."

The curator's words are the key to tonight's discussion.

"Do you understand?"

"Understood." Twenty voices responded in unison.

"Then let's start assigning tasks." The curator, with his hands behind his back, began to assign tasks.

"Those who are skilled in inscription, step forward."

Suddenly, five or six people stepped forward.

Montagu was among them, next to a tall, thin man wearing round glasses and with his cuffs buttoned up meticulously.

That was Fisher, the most meticulous one in the training course when it came to dating rubbings.

"Someone temporarily put a shell on it," the curator said.

"You guys peel off this shell for me and draw it clearly, stroke by stroke."

"Those who are good at history and folklore, step forward."

Another group of people.

Edith, clutching her ever-present book, also moved to the front.

Richard also stepped forward and mingled with the group.

Wade Byrne hesitated for a moment, then joined in... He was terrible at history, but there were a lot of people in this group, so he could take advantage of the situation.

"You guys, read out its origin for me."

After the assignments were completed, the curator began to give instructions.

"Let's begin, start by peeling the shells."

Montagu stepped forward and stopped an arm's length away from the plume of smoke.

He took the charcoal pencil and rubbing paper from Fisher, laid them on the makeshift low table, and paused to concentrate before putting pen to paper.

"It's the traditional method of weaving nets," he said, his voice slow but steady.

"The winding brushstrokes are one after another, and the person pressing down on them wants to lock down its 'form'."

He wrote with lightning speed, meticulously depicting each and every layer of the entwined seal on the rubbing paper.

Richard watched from the side and nodded.

Montagu's move was truly solid.

With over a decade of formal training, one can read even the most structured and complex layer of text without finding a single mistake.

Fisher, standing nearby with his eyes wide open behind his round glasses, suddenly reached out to stop him.

"Wait... Montagu, you've drawn your third knot halfway too early."

Montagu's pen paused.

"At the end of this stroke, there's a slight inward hook," Fisher said, pointing to the rubbing.

"Missing just this half-stroke difference could result in a two-hundred-year gap in the dating."

Montagu paused for a moment, then corrected the missing stroke.

"...I was too hasty." He admitted it, which was rare for him.

The curator smiled.

"Fischer, that kid, he's really serious about things." The old man stroked his beard.

"But this industry requires a certain level of seriousness."

A slight miscalculation is a joke in ordinary times; but behind the scenes, it's a matter of life and death.

"We've almost finished reading the outer shell." The curator nodded. "Catherine, you should try too."

The red-haired girl stepped forward.

She didn't look at the "shape" of the smoke, but instead directed her inspiration toward the "break" that Montagu hadn't dared to touch.

Her brows furrowed instantly.

"The break... was quite severe; when it was torn off, most of it was lost."

She continued, "What remains of it now is the shallowest part of that thing's 'nature'."

"What nature?" the curator pressed.

"Replace," Catherine uttered a single word.

"What it does its whole life is replace others in their place."

This fragment of shadow carries with it the addiction to 'replacement'.

How addictive is it?

Catherine's inspiration followed that broken line a little deeper.

It's a kind of hunger, like looking in a mirror, wanting to swallow the person on the other side and become that person's hunger.

"It's hungry," Catherine said. "But it's weak now."

"It won't attack head-on when it pounces."

It waits, waiting for whose shadow is closest to it, whose shadow is the most 'ethereal,' and then it silently slips into that path.

Several trainees in the warehouse glanced down at their feet simultaneously.

"Look at what's going on under your feet." The curator was amused.

"Replace..." He turned to the history and folklore group.

The curator then turned his gaze to Edith in the corner.

"Edith, you come and take the innermost layer of the root."

Edith crouched down in front of the formation.

She crouched low, just as she did when explaining things to the children during the day, her inspiration probing deep into that wisp of smoke.

"It incorporates some of the funeral traditions of the Black Soil River Basin."

Edith reported, her voice slow and soft, yet becoming smoother with each reading: "It's about...about 'shadows'."

"Which one specifically?" the curator pressed.

"They believe that a person has multiple souls."

Edith traced names on the pages with her fingertips: "Ka, Ba, Ah... and Shute."

"Shutt," Richard murmured to himself.

The shadow is an independent aspect of the soul.

After a person dies, their shadow remains in the underworld and continues to exist, serving as the vessel through which the deceased moves in the underworld.

The ability he gained after signing his name was precisely the ability to ferry shadows.

"It cannot solidify into a fixed form in terms of matter."

Edith then proceeded to analyze:

"Because it wasn't a 'thing' to begin with; it was a 'shadow'."

"It was originally walking in place of that one."

As she said this, a hint of fear crept into her voice.

"Later, it was torn off. Even separated from its original form, it still remembered its job..."

"So when it sees a sufficiently ethereal shadow, it tries to slip inside."

There was a moment of silence in the warehouse.

The curator stroked his white beard but remained silent.

Richard was filled with many thoughts.

The torn shadow possessed a certain consciousness, relying on the lingering embers of the master's mysteries, and moved according to its own nature.

And that expert's nature... is to replace.

Several things flashed through Richard's mind.

Everyone took turns trying, and each received some guidance from the curator.

The shell has been peeled away, its nature has been thoroughly understood, and its origins have been traced back to their roots.

The curator spread the rubbings on the low table and pressed them down with his left hand.

"You all read very well." He glanced at the group of students.

"I will take notes on each of you during tonight's lesson."

"I'll do the last floor myself."

"The people of Heitu River value their reputation more than their lives."

The curator spoke slowly, wrapping up the lesson and encouraging himself.

"They felt that knowing the true name of something meant they had its lifeline in their hands."

"There's an old story," he said, stroking his beard.

"The mother goddess Isis wanted to seize the power of the sun goddess Ra, so she created a poisonous serpent that bit Ra."

"The pain was excruciating. Isis came over and said, 'I can cure your poison, but you must tell me your real name.'"

"I kept putting it off, but finally I couldn't hold back any longer and revealed my real name, which I had kept hidden in my heart and never uttered to her."

"From that moment on, even the Sun God fell into her grasp."

The curator raised his right hand and pressed his left hand firmly on the rubbing.

"Tonight, this is the name I wish to read."

In the warehouse, everyone's eyes were fixed on the white-bearded old man.

Richard looked at the curator, whose ethereal aura was gathering in his palm strand by strand.

"Richard." The curator didn't turn his head, but his voice came towards Richard.

"Watch carefully and learn well."

Curator Weatherby raised his right hand and placed his left hand on the rubbing.

He took a deep breath and staked his entire etheric reserves on this one reading tonight.

He was reciting the ancient language of the Black Soil River basin.

"iw-i rekh ren-ek."

As soon as those words were uttered, the etheric field in the entire warehouse suddenly sank.

The plume of smoke in the center of the sealing array throbbed violently.

Nine silver lines lit up simultaneously, and Mr. Pritchard grunted, the amount of ether added to his fingertips suddenly increasing by three.

"It knows someone is going to read its name."

Pritchard said in a deep voice, sweat beading on his forehead, "Director, hurry up."

The curator did not respond.

He focused all his attention on that layer of traces of his true name.

He uttered one prayer after another from the mouth of the ancient Black Soil River.

The deeper you read, the stronger its reaction.

That plume of smoke began to gain momentum.

In Richard's perception, the entire warehouse came to life.

In the rows of glass cabinets on both sides of the warehouse, the gilded painted masks turned around, facing the direction of the sealing array.

The small green-glazed figurine, which was originally standing upright, now has its head turned towards the center.

Beneath the half-open lids of those painted wooden coffins, something seemed to be moving inside the dark coffin cavities.

The four canopic jars at the deepest part of the room began to hum.

"The curtain... is about to be reversed!" Mr. Pritchard shouted.

Before the words were even finished, a layer of color was stripped away from the entire warehouse.

The stone walls, pillars, glass cabinets, and the outlines of all human bodies have faded into an over-washed old photograph.

Richard raised his head.

The warehouse's dome is gone.

Above us was a reflection of an endless expanse of black water.

A large hall was reflected in the black water.

The courtroom of the underworld.

Richard had told the guests about it during the day.

The god with the head of a jackal places the heart of the dead on one side of the scales;

On the other side was the feather from the head of the goddess of truth;

The saint Thoth, with his head held high, was keeping accounts nearby, pen in hand.

If the heart is lighter than a feather, one will be reborn; if the heart is heavier than a feather... Beneath the scales, crouches a monster that is half crocodile and half lion, its mouth agape.

The plume of smoke, fueled by the rare artifacts steeped in faith for millennia, transformed the entire warehouse into a courtroom of the underworld.

I read for about a whole night, but I got tired of the twenty-odd strands of inspiration that filled the room.

It will unravel its mysteries within this hall.

"It's going to cause trouble!" The needle of Mr. Holloway's brass compass started spinning wildly.

"Bring your inspiration back!"

Half a step too late.

The sphinx, with half its face mutilated, had two eerie lights shining from its empty eye sockets.

The hollow tube in his throat emitted a very low whimper.

That sob was a command, which spread throughout the room.

The sacred scepter on the high platform suddenly emitted a loud buzzing sound.

The lids of the four earthenware jars containing internal organs all popped open with a "whoosh."

The contents that had been soaking at the bottom of the jar for a thousand years all came to the surface.

The most problematic part is the ring of mirrored glass in the display case.

The students' reflections all stood up at once.

They detached from the glass they were supposed to be attached to and fell to the ground, standing upright in human shapes.

Each reflection bears the face of the original.

But on those faces, there was only the empty look of the dead.

"That's my spot..." a reflection spoke.

"Give it back to me... I am Wade Bourne..."

The reflection walked step by step toward the real Wade Byrne.

Bourne slumped to the ground, his face deathly pale, muttering incoherently, "I...I...I..."

The room was in complete chaos.

The students were thrown into chaos by the sight of their own standing reflections.

Some tried to push, but couldn't move it; some shouted, but the words they shouted were reflected back to them exactly as they were.

That fragment will "read" the entire room, along with the person reading it, back and replace them all.

The oilcloth covering the hunter's sharp blade had long since been discarded.

He slashed at the reflection closest to him.

Where the blade passed, the reflection turned into a pool of black water.

But the black water landed, and in the blink of an eye, it stood up again from the glass next to it.

"It's unkillable!" the hunter roared, slashing again. "This thing is unkillable!"

The Hermit then used the still-operating sealing array to firmly hold the cloud of smoke in place.

The power that could be released, with the room full of genuine artifacts, could not be contained at all.

"Quiet down, everyone!"

With a sharp shout, Curator Weatherby's white beard moved without any wind.

Something suddenly pressed down on the hall, and the standing reflections were forced down, slowing their movements.

"It can't be killed, it can't be held down." Curator Weatherby stood beside the central stone platform.

Beneath that long white beard, the voice was steady. "This thing can only be solved by reading it to the end."

"Gentlemen, listen to me."

The old man's inspiration swept across the room, and the sealed silver threads all lit up.

The silver light faded, turning into an endless expanse of yellow sand.

The dome was gone, and above us stretched the low-hanging, star-studded night sky of the Black Earth River basin.

The stone platform beneath my feet has transformed into a scale.

The original artifacts that were disturbed have all become objects in this scene.

The Sphinx crouches on a sand dune, guarding the gate of a temple in the distance.

The scepter stood beside the scales, and the scepter at the top of the scepter transformed into a god with a bird's head, carrying a reed pen and a notepad.

That's Thoth.

Four earthenware jars stand at the four corners of the balance scale, with four guardian deities, one of whom is watching over one jar.

The piece that had been torn off was retrieved by Curator Weatherby and placed on one side of the scale.