I loaded the Mysticism panel.

The scepter is the core of the sealing array.

As soon as it cried out, nine silver lines stood up straight from the ground, forming a cage.

The dark red glow of the furnace seeped from the silvery lines on the ground, while the golden rays of the sun pressed down from the dome.

Two pre-set attacks were launched simultaneously.

Donald's body was enveloped by both golden light and the firelight. He was hunched over in the cage, but his shadow held him up, and the shell had not yet broken.

Richard quickly did some mental calculations.

It seems we won't be able to get past the scepter this time.

There wasn't enough time or the right conditions; he had already been exposed.

The cage was lowered, the sealing array activated, and the two experts were already on their way back.

Since it's going to be a defeat either way, there's no point in hiding it.

Richard acted decisively, unleashing all the energy he had been holding back.

He went back to deal with the fuse that he kept going around.

The ninth old item bears a double brand; it will explode if touched.

He used to be too afraid to touch it, but now he doesn't care anymore.

He raised his arm and drew the enchanted pistol from his waist.

The silver lead bullet was chambered, and the gun was fired with the fuse pressed against the muzzle.

The silver lead bullet struck the outer layer of the fuse, shattering the branding into pieces.

An old object was revealed beneath the fuse: a small bronze scarab beetle.

Richard stuck the "mirror" on, and his real name was revealed.

Deep within the curtain, the side of the master's true form was thickened by another layer.

A stone tablet, a wooden coffin, a gilded mask, a canopy jar, and this scarab beetle.

The true names of the five old items were all sent to the original owner.

Outer sea of ​​the harbor, the mummy that had been beaten between golden flames and fire breathed its last.

Inside the cage, the Holy Scepter never stopped moving.

It poured the golden light and fire of the sealing array onto Donald while constantly calling out from the side of the curtain.

Richard was alarmed by the shouts, but he was powerless to do anything about the scepter standing at the core of the seal.

There was no other way, so before the expert could return to defend, he adjusted his spiritual vision to its maximum range.

I stopped touching those few core old items that I couldn't touch or take away, and spent the rest of my time looking at them.

The warehouse's ethereal field was turned upside down by the collision of the three forces, and things that were usually hidden deep inside were all stirred up and brought to the surface.

The two defensive experts' sealing structure, deployment logic, and joint defense channels...

The node distribution of the cooperative link between the furnace fire and the sun...

There's also the network path used when the Holy Scepter alarms...

Richard's "extensive knowledge" was pushed to its limit.

The eyes are seeing, and the brain is remembering.

He also controlled the mummy container in the direction of the port, abandoned the sea mirror, and rushed towards the city at full speed.

The mummy leaped from the sea, landing on the masts of dozens of merchant ships, and jumped all the way into the depths of the harbor.

With each jump, the mast beneath their feet snapped, and tattered flags of various nations fluttered in the sea breeze.

It bought some time for attention before finally breaking.

Jin Guangxian has returned.

Light streamed down from the dome, illuminating the entire warehouse brighter than at midday.

The shadow inside Donald's shell began to distort under the direct golden light.

The furnace fire arrived shortly after, and waves of heat surged up from the silvery lines on the ground.

The two experts are back.

The two lines, one light and one dark, failed, and a disappointed sigh came from behind the curtain.

The inverted pyramid flipped over completely, and the master himself stepped onto the stage.

The curtains of the entire capital city were trembling.

The moon's reflection on the canal below shattered into hundreds of pieces, but was then pieced back together.

At the same moment, all the cats in the city jumped up from where they were crouching, their fur standing on end.

The three-way battle unfolds once again behind the scenes.

In the museum's storeroom, the Black Soil River expert used the five old items whose real names had been read as leverage to confront the two defenders head-on.

The two defenders used the remaining Holy Scepter and a few other unlocked core artifacts in the warehouse as a barrier.

After being enhanced with five old items, the Black Soil River expert was significantly stronger than in the previous two trials.

It spread that overturned mirror over the entire museum.

The shadows of the entire museum came alive.

Everything that casts a shadow casts a shadow that falls toward the upside-down pyramid.

The two guardian experts worked together to push the Holy Scepter to its maximum power.

The golden light transformed into a sun disk, hanging directly above the museum.

The furnace fire transformed into a melting pot, enclosing the museum.

The sun shines down, and the furnace bakes inside.

The Black Soil River expert was caught in the middle, and his strength began to wane.

But it has five old items as its support, so its decay is very slow.

Richard's inspiration caught something coming from afar.

A new force is approaching.

A gust of wind came from the northeast of the capital.

There was also a very deep and heavy stream coming from due north.

A wisp of fire came from the west, originating from the same source as the wisp of fire by the furnace master in the museum, yet not entirely the same.

Sure enough, they called for reinforcements.

The capital is the heart of the empire; if the heart malfunctions, the entire body will mobilize blood to save it.

The first thing to arrive was the wind.

It did not participate in the war; it only erected a barrier around the museum.

Like the overturned bowl above the harbor, the barrier keeps the noise and disturbances inside, preventing them from leaking out to ordinary people.

Then the water arrived.

Water gushed up from underground, completely activating the entire sedimentary network beneath the museum's foundation.

Originally, only the Holy Scepter was helping the defenders, but now the entire foundation has become a barrier for them.

The mirror of the Black Soil River expert was pushed up from below and began to crack.

The third force has arrived.

That wisp of fire from the west, wrapped in a layer of gold, immediately joined the siege upon arrival.

The capital city is located in the heart of the empire; when one region is in trouble, help comes from all directions.

You beat two, and they roll four.

If you beat four, eight are on their way.

You can never win in this city by fighting.

Richard's consciousness was pulled out of the trial.

Back in the stone chamber, Thoth did not hand over any papyrus.

It just stood there, the reed pen resting on the memo board, motionless.

Richard stood in front of it for a while.

"No new leads?"

Thoth picked up his reed pen, wrote a line on the whiteboard, and turned it to show him.

"Sesh en maat, iu er khet."

(The scribe of truth has traveled to the other side.)

It was exactly the same sentence as before I quit last time.

This time, however, there was a tiny note at the bottom of the board.

"The nodes can then be selected freely."

Richard's eyes lit up.

A panel appeared at the bottom of his mind, displaying a row of options.

[Entry Point Selection]

I. Offshore Anchorage Area (Starting Point)

II. Inner Harbor of the Imperial Capital

III. Museum Back Access Entrance

IV. Outer ring of the museum storage

V. Deep within the museum's storage area (Sealing Array Area)

He can skip the sections he's already familiar with and start directly from the museum's storage area.

Those steps that he has already "passed" do not need to be repeated.

The seed skipped all the preliminary steps for him.

He will only face one final hurdle—the scepter.

Now he has all the intelligence he gathered from the three trials.

Beyond this intelligence, he still needed a complete plan.

So is it possible to find a way to bypass the scepter without offending Thoth?

There was one last chance tonight. Richard left the stone chamber and lay on his bed in the dormitory to think.

The knowledge accumulated from the three trials was so vast that it filled my mind to the brim. Going in without organizing it all would be no different than blindfolding myself and banging my head against a wall.

He had already grasped the crux of the problem regarding the scepter.

The Holy Scepter rejects substitutes; it judges falsified accounts, and the Black Earth River Master happens to be the one who has altered the entire book.

Try to touch the scepter with the strength of an expert; the more powerful you are, the angrier it will become.

But he doesn't yet have an answer as to how to get around it.

The Seed Trial is a purely ethereal construct environment.

When he went in, he couldn't take anything with him, nor could he bring anything in.

But you can do your own fortune telling outside.

He was already very familiar with this method; whenever he was unsure of something, he would consult the oracle.

Without hesitation, Richard took a wooden box from the bedside table drawer.

The wooden box was bought from "Yinzhitang" inside the Imperial University campus.

Yinzhitang is a shop located in a narrow alley next to the Department of Classical Studies, specializing in non-metallic ceremonial items.

Prices range from a few shillings to tens of pounds; the items are generally not cheap, but the quality is guaranteed.

He didn't have the money to buy alchemical items, but he had bought almost all the regular items.

Richard opened the wooden box.

Inside the box, a brand-new tarot deck lay face down.

The back of the card is a deep indigo background with a swan bird in the center, its beak holding a crescent moon.

Everyone knows Tarot cards, but few know that there is also the Thoth series of Tarot.

Lady Mary and her disciples taught the classic Rider-Waite, which is the most widely circulated.

The Thoth series is much less popular.

Its designer was a scholar from France more than a hundred years ago who hybridized the hieroglyphs of the Black Earth River basin with classical Tarot.

Beneath each image of the Great Arcana is a line of inscription in the Black Earth River priestly script.

When Richard chose this deck, the shop owner told him that only two decks had been sold in the past five years, and this was his third.

"Most people can't use this series," the shop owner said.

"The meaning of the cards is very biased, and the entry barrier is high."

Richard didn't talk to him much, took out his money and left.

After returning, he spent two whole weeks familiarizing himself with the deck.

It has two fundamental differences from the Waite series.

The first is the inscription on the bottom of the card.

The priest inscription at the bottom of each card in the Thoth series adds another layer to the original meaning of the card.

The order of life and death, weighing and recording, the opposition between shadow and light... using the Thoth series for divination is naturally closer to what he is facing than regular tarot cards.

The second one doesn't distinguish between upright and reversed positions.

The Rider-Waite series of cards determines good or bad fortune based on the orientation of the cards. Upright, they have one meaning, while upside down, they have another.

The Thoth series doesn't follow this path; it uses "elemental nobility."

Each card corresponds to a specific elemental attribute; a single card only has its literal meaning and has no front or back.

The auspiciousness or inauspiciousness of a card is not determined by its own orientation, but by the elemental relationship between it and adjacent cards.

When elements of the same origin are placed together, they complement each other, implying a move towards strength;

When opposing elements are placed side by side, they press down on each other, and the meaning sinks towards the weaker side;

Neither generating nor restraining is contained within, preserving the original meaning, neither adding nor subtracting.

This is the real reason why the Thoth series has a high entry barrier.

You can't just flip through the cards one by one; you have to lay out the whole deck and look at the relationships between them.

Richard took the cards out of the wooden box and then pulled two other items out of the side pocket of his shoulder bag.

Saintly bronze paperweight, bronze balance scale.

The resentment in these two items has mostly dissipated.

They were originally Thoth's objects.

The paperweight holds down the records, and the balance measures the weight.

The moment the two objects were placed on the table, the ether concentration in the air seemed to increase.

This time, his question was: How can we effectively utilize the existing information and resources to break the deadlock?

Shuffle the cards seven times, then stop.

Cut the cards, draw them.

The first one was turned over.

The sign depicts a person standing between two stone pillars, holding an object in each hand.

Above his head was a double serpent staff hanging upside down.

The priestly inscription beneath their feet emitted a cold light under their spiritual vision.

Richard recognized this card: the Major Arcana No. 1 - The Magician.

The Magician from the Thoth series has a very subtle difference from the Rider-Waite version.

The Wade version of the magician has an infinity symbol hanging above his head, representing his mastery of tools and his ability to use everything.

The Thoth version features a double serpent staff atop its head, with the inscription below reading: "iri en rekh (by the knowledgeable)".

Elemental attribute: Wind.

He stared at the card for a long time.

The magician has tools in his hand, all of which are readily available on the table.

The tools themselves don't do the work; it takes someone who knows how to use them.

Who is that knowledgeable person?

He was alone.

He placed the card on the left side of the scale.

The second one was flipped over.

The card depicts a veiled priestess sitting between two pillars.

A half-unrolled roll of papyrus lay on his lap.

Major Arcana No. 2 - The High Priestess.

The Thoth series inscription reads: "seshet (writing)".

Elemental attribute: Water.

The priestess guarded the knowledge and secrets, but she remained seated.

If you want that scroll of papyrus on her lap, you'll have to go to it yourself.

He placed this one on the right side of the scale.

After the third card appeared, Richard's finger stopped.

The familiar half-naked woman stands under the sky, her left hand holding a large jug, pouring water into two rivers.

One river flows down to the ground, another flows up to the sky, and overhead is a huge eight-pointed star.

Grand Arcana No. 17 - Star.

The inscription on the bottom of the Thoth series was blurred, so he leaned closer and used his spiritual vision to read it.

"maat renpet (Year of Truth)".

Elemental attribute: Wind.

He lingered on this one for a very long time.

In classical Tarot, the Star card represents hope, inspiration, and healing.

The layer that the Kotto series adds is completely different in meaning.

In the Black Earth River faith, the so-called Year of Truth is the first year after the souls of the dead pass through judgment and enter the "Field of Reeds".

That year, the dead were given new names.

He placed the third card between the two objects.

Three cards are laid out on the table, with the paperweight on the left and the scales on the right.

Now it's time to read about the noble elements.

The Magician and the Star are positioned at opposite ends, both belonging to the element of wind.

The two wind tiles lift each other up, pushing the meanings of discerning and bestowing names to their strongest point.

The High Priestess belongs to the Water element and is sandwiched between two Wind cards.

Wind and water are neither mutually generating nor mutually destructive; they are neutral.

The writing was neither weakened nor strengthened; it remained quietly in the middle.

The conclusion of the card spread is clear.

Those with knowledge picked up writing tools to complete the task of naming the child.

Tools won't help you, nor will they stop you; they're just there.

Whether you can reach the end depends on both ends... who you are, and the name you choose to give it.