I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Richard thought of Black Ditch, and then of the first job he and Mrs. McNeil took on.

If the deceased is unwilling to acknowledge their death, it is because there is no part of their body that they can identify as dead.

Whether it's the knife wound, the floodwater, or the collapsing rocks, these are all signs of their death.

But if you lie there, your clothes are neat, your hands and feet are there, and your face is there.

How can you judge someone like that and tell them they're no longer alive?

Everyone fell into deep thought.

Hecate raised her head and began to assess the progress of everyone's mask resonance.

"The seven chairs besides me are the cup of Dionysus, the staff of Merchant, the sickle of Saturn, and the club of Hercules."

The golden mask swept across the faces of the four people one by one.

"The four sets of divinely crafted weapons have been successfully deployed."

Then her gaze shifted in another direction.

"Prometheus, your fire is still swirling around the tip of the pipe."

The hall fell silent for a moment.

"The chief is right," Prometheus replied calmly. "I've been tending to the furnace these past few months."

"You've been patching up the hole your master left when he removed that mask."

Hecate exposed her: "I've calculated how long that will take."

"Three months," Prometheus said.

"Three months and a few days." Hecate stared at him.

"You are a minor expert, while Hermes is merely a practitioner."

"His rod fell to the ground before your fire."

Richard silently lowered his head; those words were a direct slap in the face to Prometheus.

"I've noted it down," Prometheus finally said.

Hecate stopped looking at him.

"Nemesis".

The tilted scale shifted slightly.

"Your scales used to be tilted haphazardly."

It keeps tilting this way and that way, it's driving me crazy.

"But in the last few months, it's become more and more evenly crooked."

Hecate said with certainty, "Someone has twisted that force into one for you."

Words appeared on the scales above Nemesis's head, floating very quickly.

"I twisted it out myself."

Hecate, of course, did not believe it.

"It doesn't matter who helped you; I'm only talking about what I read."

You shouldn't be far from having your portrait taken; maybe in a month or so, maybe even sooner.

The words on the scales were written a little slower than before: "I'll be looking forward to it."

Hecate then offered another suggestion.

"You don't need to take Nemesis's power so seriously."

What you lack is the willingness to admit it.

"The name behind the mask asks you a question, and you must answer it."

It will ask you: Is this retribution something that you absolutely have to bear?

There are no words on the scales anymore.

Richard turned his head to look over.

The balance scale was suspended there, neither of the plates moved, and the balance seemed deliberately flat.

Hecate looked away.

"Each of you should work hard, but my table has six chairs, so we all need to move forward together."

"You two slow down. The whole table has to wait for you. Don't slow everyone down."

She placed her hands on the table.

"There's another thing I need to tell you four who have already achieved resonance."

You probably think that the radiance of the face has already connected this pipe.

But connecting the well only brings water to the wellhead; none of you have ever put your head down to see how deep it is.

She clicked on them one by one.

"Dionysus, you only know the intoxication of the god of wine."

But that being was actually a god torn apart and pieced back together; the power of that divine name lies in both shattering and wholeness.

The man stopped swirling his wine glass.

"Hercules, you only know the strength of Hercules."

But most of the twelve great works He accomplished were not achieved through physical strength.

He even went down to the underworld on behalf of others and brought back those who were meant to remain there.

The burly man touched his forehead, trying to think.

"Demeter, you have only ever cared about the harvest in the fields."

But during the three months that man searched for his daughter, not a single seedling grew in the field.

The woman's calloused hands paused for a moment on her knees.

It was Richard's turn.

"Hermes, the messenger is His outermost face."

He is also the god of the marketplace and farmers, the one who guides people into dreams.

Oh right, He also stole Apollo's cow.

Richard silently wrote these down, inwardly grumbling to himself.

Indeed, a large part of the work he did over the past year was actually done on that face of the cow thief.

Hecate continued speaking.

"Rank determines how much power you can borrow, but foundation determines how much you can withstand."

Everyone should strive for mastery; masks can help you on this path, so don't slack off.

She withdrew her hand.

"I originally planned to talk about this in June."

As she finished speaking, the flames inside the hall suddenly dimmed and then burst back up.

"But after thinking about it, I'll tell you all today first."

"I did eleven divinations this month, and the same card came up seven times out of those eleven readings."

Which one?

Hecate replied, "The Ten Swords."

Richard silently recalled the card's face.

This is a person lying on the ground with swords stuck all over his back, neatly arranged, not a single one crooked.

That meant they had completely lost, to the point that they didn't even have the will to stand up anymore.

Hecate said.

"The first time I thought it was just a slip of the hand, the second time I used a different deck of cards, and the fifth time I changed the location and the time."

"After the seventh time, I stopped counting it."

"By the eleventh time, one card was missing."

The hall was so quiet that you could hear the fire burning between the pillars.

Words appeared on Nemesis's scales: "Which one is missing?"

Hecate did not answer.

"It's no use telling you. All you need to know is that a few tables have already shown hostility towards us."

But I can't tell you exactly which tables and which people were there.

Richard frowned beneath his mask.

Even a master of the traditional web-weaving techniques couldn't pinpoint who harbored ill intentions towards them.

It could only be that among these malicious people, there is a master of the same rank.

Hercules spoke.

"If there really is a team fight, where will we fight it?"

Hecate said, "We don't have to choose ourselves; the party that comes to us will set up the venue first."

She waved her hand, reminding the people at the table.

"From now on, you must prepare in advance."

"First, prepare the spell casting medium, healing alchemical potions, and protective alchemical items two months in advance."

Don't actually show up that night wearing just a bathrobe.

"Also, don't wander far alone behind the curtain."

In particular, do not go to the Deep Realm, or even its edge.

"There is one more thing you should remember."

From now on, if the token in your hands feels cool but not hot...

That means the table that proactively sought out us has already arrived.

Everyone responded, with Hercules's reply being the loudest.

Richard spoke up at this point.

"Chief, I have an idea."

"Speak."

"Even if we can't find out who is targeting us, they still need to be prepared before they make their move."

Richard spoke slowly:

"They must prepare, and also buy evil materials and products from behind the veil."

Perhaps we need to find craftsmen to complete orders and find out where the weaknesses lie.

These things, once they come to light, will definitely leave traces.

"Whoever suddenly starts buying silver marrow water, or is searching the whole city for some rare materials, that middleman's business has been exceptionally good these past few months."

He continued speaking.

"A single point may not prove anything, but if you put twenty or thirty points together, you might be able to find some clues."

Hecate took it very seriously.

"Hermes, your idea is excellent."

"I have messengers here, and dozens of tokens that have been scattered out. I will follow my own channels to find these traces."

A sentence emerged from Nemesis's scales: "The fight is going very fast."

"I can go with Hermes to sort through the clues and intelligence."

The others also agreed, saying they would use their own channels to find these traces.

Hecate was the final choice.

"Let's leave it at that for now. Everyone should use their own channels to look for possible clues."

We'll put all the information together and organize it at the next gathering.

Until then, everyone must prepare diligently, just in case.

"The next gathering will be in mid-June."

"Take care until then."

Richard closed his eyes.

One, two.

A factory with six thousand steel cylinders, its lights on at night.

Three, four.

The mice ran backward, leaving the sky completely clean.

Five, six, seven.

The sea of ​​stars has dispersed.

A breeze stirred beneath the faded starry sea outside the palace.

Li noticed that the wind was blowing from behind him, making the back of his neck feel cool.

When I woke up the next morning, the chill on the back of my neck hadn't completely dissipated.

Richard sat on the edge of the bed for a while, then first opened the window a crack.

The April wind blows, carrying a faint floral fragrance.

Speaking of which, the antler tip wrapped with the reins lay in his arms for two months.

The hunter said he would wait, but he himself needed to know which night the endless herd would emerge from the cracks of darkness next.

But Professor Mortimer's rule is that you have to copy one stack before you can get the next one.

So Richard copied it for another two days.

He filled in the catalog page by page, including the year, location, medium, and signature of the person who made the copy.

The next afternoon, Fisher somehow found his way in, having caught a whiff of the scent.

He was very enthusiastic and took a stack of them.

"I'll copy it for you." He rolled up his sleeves to his forearms, looking ready to get down to business.

Half an hour later, Richard picked out two mistakes from the three pages in his hand.

"The year 1763 was copied as 1673."

"I thought that three was six."

"You copied the inscription master's surname here as someone else's."

"...Those two names look very similar."

Fisher put down his pen and stood up very seriously.

"I've discovered that proofreading is my forte; it's more suitable to leave this menial task of copying to you."

Mortimer sat across from him, holding his pale, colorless cup of tea, his shoulders shaking with laughter.