I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Casalis's face stiffened for a moment.

A full professor personally endorses a one-penny pamphlet; for him, a mere clerk in the Ministry of the Interior, to press further would be ungrateful.

"...I was overthinking it."

Casalis put the booklet into his briefcase and bowed slightly to Mortimer.

He nodded to Richard again, then turned and left.

"My housekeeper took a copy of your booklet home," the old professor said.

"She said that reading two stories kept her up all night."

"Feel sorry."

"No need to apologize." Mortimer smiled.

"Only well-written things can scare people, and only when people are scared will people follow them."

After the special edition was published, the entire page of rules was circulated in various ways.

Edith read it aloud to those who couldn't read.

The families who had come from the northern countryside to work in the capital surrounded her, listening to her read out each point one by one.

When the text read, "If someone is wet, they are not from your family," an elderly woman who had just lost her son quietly stuffed the wet handkerchief she was holding into her pocket.

Fisher held that page and recited it aloud.

As he was carrying it on his back, he suddenly looked up.

"Williams, your rules have a nice rhythm." He said earnestly.

"Salt on the threshold, light left on the windowsill—you have the talent to be a poet."

Richard: "..."

"I'm serious." Fisher slammed the booklet on the table.

"It's a shame you don't write poetry. I'll set these six lines of your poems to music and let everyone sing them."

"Please don't!" Richard quickly stopped him.

"If this were set to music like Tipperelli and sung everywhere, that would be a real problem."

Fisher thought about it and seemed to agree, so he reluctantly closed the booklet.

"Then I won't sing it," he muttered. "It's a waste of a poet."

Montagu didn't say anything.

He silently pulled out an entire stack of special publications from Richard's desk.

"For whom?" Richard asked.

"Tenants in the area of ​​my family's estate in North Yorkshire."

The blond youth tucked the stack of booklets into his briefcase: "They're most vulnerable on the night of the day of mourning."

On the day of the ceremony, Richard gave the two professors an explanation.

He was only half telling the truth:

"I was present the night the batch of Black Soil River fragments in the museum was swallowed up, observing as a scholar."

In the instant that wisp of ashes dissipated, I used a special method to capture the reflection of three syllables of its true name.

"Three syllables." Mortimer looked puzzled.

"Yes." Richard nodded.

"I can't capture the full real name; it's too hot to touch. I only captured three syllables from the reflection."

"I can't read these three syllables myself," he added. "I'd die if I did."

The seed did indeed originate from that pile of ashes; that's true.

As for the idea of ​​"cutting off the reflection of three syllables," he made it up.

He said these words without batting an eye, and his mask immediately began to heat up slightly.

Richard felt the mask's resonance increase, and he silently broke out in a cold sweat.

Professor Mortimer certainly knew about the museum fragments; it was an operation personally overseen by the curator, Welby.

But the old professor didn't believe a single letter of Richard's method of intercepting names.

In a venue set up by two influencers, a professional intercepted a segment of an influencer's real name in front of everyone, and no one noticed.

That's impossible.

Mortimer stared at Richard for a long time.

He didn't expose it.

Regardless of how this kid got this name, one thing is certain... it's definitely valuable.

All the rare resources they had prepared—ancient texts, moonstones, and expert guarantees—were now useless.

Use the real name of an expert to replace the name of a highly skilled hunter.

The other side of the scale was too heavy, so heavy that the hunter not only had to admit his mistake, but also had to seek recourse from the other side.

At this point, McFaye explained the rules of the Wild Hunt to Richard.

"The hunter who leads the Wild Hunt is merely using the rituals of the Wild Hunt."

"use?"

"They didn't set these rules," McFaye said.

"It has been accumulated over thousands of years; the entire set of rituals of the Wild Hunt is older than any living master."

"The hunter can use these rules to do what it wants, and correspondingly, it must strictly abide by these rules."

Richard understood the meaning of those words.

"So," he said slowly, "if what I give up in exchange is far more valuable than the name I'm going to get..."

"Then the hunter will have to offer additional benefits in exchange."

McFee nodded: "That's the rule. If you give too much, it has to make up for it."

"And," he stared at Richard, "it also has to give you a certain degree of protection."

"shelter?"

"You gave it something it had always dreamed of."

"You have become its sacrifice, and according to the old custom, the sacrificer is protected by the hunter."

“Of course,” the white-haired giant changed the subject, “this rule only applies when this hunter is still an expert.”

"What if one day it becomes a master..."

McFaye didn't continue.

Richard understood.

An expert is someone who has reached the end of a tradition; the road was paved by others, and the rules are set by others.

A master is someone who forges their own path.

Once it reaches that point, it can rewrite the Wild Hunt at will, and even the rules that have been established for thousands of years will have to obey it.

Richard had the panel imprint the three syllables of the true name, through the shadow, stroke by stroke, into the black bronze mirror of the ash band.

Anyone will only see that Richard Williams performed an automatic scribe task on a certain day of a certain month.

I wrote some fragments about the spirit world, but most of them were just scraps.

As for the black bronze mirror branded with three syllables by the spirit, it was completely inconspicuous in the scribe's jumbled mess of characters.

When Richard woke up, he remembered nothing.

The two professors used their respective expertise to help him completely remove the remaining traces on his body.

Mortimer used the traditional "annotation" technique to erase any textual connection between Richard and that name as a mistaken annotation.

McFee used the traditional "Moon Concealment Ritual" of the Moon Hunting tradition to further darken the shadow that Richard's lamp cast on the curtain.

After all this is done, any divination performed by experts or below will read the following in Richard's mind:

"This person's name is unknown."

Finally, McFaye verified the facts.

The people of the Highlands have a rule called "smell, don't read."

He didn't bother reading the name in that bronze mirror; if he did, he'd be on the list himself.

McFee leaned down, brought his hand close to the lead box, and took a very light breath.

His face visibly turned bluish.

The white-haired giant straightened up, took two steps back, and remained silent for a while.

"It's true," he finally said in a hoarse voice.

Mortimer remained motionless.

He stared at the lead box for a very long time.

Suddenly, the old professor smiled, a smile exactly the same as the one he had when he was fishing by the canal that day.

"Kid," he said slowly, "what you're doing now..."

Richard looked at him.

"You've thrown a piece of bloody meat in front of a hungry wolf."

The lead box was sealed and tucked into Richard's arms.

The three of them sat in the office for a while, and no one spoke.

Then, the two professors confessed something.

"On the day of mourning," Mortimer said, setting down his teacup. "The academic system can't stop it."

"Can't be stopped?"

"Public opinion cannot be stopped, nor can the decisions made by those above." The old professor shook his head.

"Eight hundred families at sea, hundreds of thousands of families on the front lines."

If you were to stand up now and say, "No bells to be rung, no prayers, no mourning on the night of the day of mourning," which of the gentlemen in Parliament would dare to do so?

"This is a national tragedy," McFee continued.

"The bells must be rung, the hymns must be recited, and the moment of silence must be observed. This is actually the government's explanation to the living."

"This tap, this thought, this silence... is equivalent to the entire nation holding the largest séance at the same time."

"We can't stop them," Mortimer said, "but we can do something else."

That night, all the teachers and students who remained at Imperial University united.

"Imperial Capital University is built on an area of ​​high ether activity."

"The entire campus itself is a huge sealing array. We opened it all on the night of the day of mourning to minimize the influence of the mystical side."

Richard thought they were saying all this because they wanted to assign him a task.

Enter the sealing array, or go to a certain node to stand guard.

Mortimer shook his head.

"You should go to No. 17 Huayue Street."

Richard looked at him.

"Mrs. Mary also has her own plans and is prepared to do what she can."

"You have a few things that others don't."

Mortimer didn't continue, but just smiled knowingly.

"You'll be more useful helping Mrs. Mary than staying here in this sealing formation."

Richard held the lead box in his arms and slowly nodded.

Hermes himself had the responsibility of being an extraditer.

"Go back and prepare."

Richard stood up and bowed to both professors.

He walked out of the office; the wind was cold in the corridor.

Meanwhile, in the small, rivet-studded room on the second floor of Ashford House, Gerald was preparing the last things he needed.

A complete set of fieldwork equipment was laid out on the table, with the hunting knife that had been with him for most of his life placed in the center.

Gerald sat behind the table, grinding away with an oilstone.

The blade gleamed coldly under the lamp.

He grinded very slowly and steadily, applying the same force with each stroke.

He's been doing this routine for almost fifty years, and he can do it flawlessly even with his eyes closed.

As he continued grinding, the old man's thoughts drifted away.

Richard managed to trick me into saying everything, both what I should and shouldn't have said.

He told him everything: his old debts, Rosemary's affair, the rebellious hunt, the invitation on the doorpost...

They even taught each of them the sign language used only in the hunting grounds, one by one, step by step.

After teaching, what was the result?

That kid went straight back to school.

Gerrard paused for a moment, then continued grinding.

I only have a few days left.

That kid is clearly in the capital; it would only take him less than an hour to get here by carriage.

He, on the other hand, is busy with his lousy books.

He didn't even think about spending more of his final days at the mansion with him.

Thinking of this, Gerald couldn't help but think of his troublesome children.

The eldest daughter, Margaret, was determined to marry out of the country and move to Briston, that coal-ash place.

Over the years, coming back once a year is considered frequent.

The youngest daughter, Isabella, teaches at Imperial University, not far from the mansion.

This girl never lives at home; she stays in her dorm room at school all year round.

He, as her father, could count the number of times he saw her in a year on one hand.

The eldest son was even more audacious; he went to the New World in search of some kind of breakthrough, and stayed there for more than a decade.

In the first few years, they would send a postcard, but later they stopped sending postcards altogether.

Whether someone is dead or alive depends entirely on someone else occasionally sending back a message saying, "The person is still alive."

Gerald's sharpening of the knife slowed down again.

These kids I gave birth to are all more troublesome than the last!

Now, finally, a grandson who seems the most reliable has appeared.

But that kid didn't come back!

The more the old man thought about it, the angrier he became.

He spent his whole life with a stern face and guarding his home, only to end up dying alone.

The sound of sharpening knives echoed through the small hut.

As Gerald pondered, images of past memories began to play in his mind.