I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Richard sat in the chair, unable to move.

Scenes from the past two years began to appear before his eyes.

Richard had always thought that the idea of ​​a revolving lantern was a hoax.

Even now, he sees his mother, Margaret, brushing honey onto the ribs.

His father, Rogers, placed his hand on his shoulder: "It's okay if you don't pass the exam."

Mr. Hutton handed him a folded piece of thin paper...

Mr. Holland returned from "going to the toilet" with two chicken legs in his hand...

Old Bigger used a penny to perform a magic trick, asking him to buy peanuts from the old man at the corner of Grafton Street...

Wentworth charged headlong into the shadowy hand, setting himself ablaze...

My aunt had a few toffee candies in her mouth, her cheeks puffed out...

Grandfather stood in the wind in the backyard, his right hand pressing down diagonally...

Phillips stood guard over those dozens of teacups, his eyes half smiling, half filled with tears...

These scenes flashed by quickly, but Richard saw each one clearly.

Finally, it stopped on a face.

The little girl finished the box of snacks, leaving a layer of crumbs at the bottom.

She looked down for a long time, dipped her index finger in, and then put it in her mouth and sucked on it.

After she finished eating, she looked up and saw him watching, and her face immediately turned red.

With her hands behind her back and her neck stiff, she said, "What are you looking at? Nothing's being wasted!"

That cute little face just stayed there, motionless.

His cheeks were puffed out a little, and the saliva on his fingers hadn't even dried yet.

His eyes were wide open, filled with unfinished business.

Richard stopped in front of that face and withdrew his hand.

He did the action of stopping himself.

The silver ring and the eagle hook are dead.

The old professor was asleep in a house miles away, Mrs. Mary was sitting in the Mirror Room on Flower Moon Street, and my grandfather was watering flowers at the mansion... all out of reach.

He lowered the ether fluctuations from the normal level, and when they reached that line, he continued to push them down.

Normally, he would let the still water spread out during this step, allowing things outside to shine in.

He didn't take a picture this time.

The line of attention that was moving in this direction fell on this side of the water.

His attention lingered there for a moment, then, seemingly finding it uninteresting, he looked away.

The floor inside the room has been vacated.

The leaves of the tree of light in the Sun Seat unfold one by one.

Richard gripped the edge of the table, sweat dripping down his chin.

Place a drop of ink next to the ink dot on the right page, and spread the ink around the dot in a small circle.

The panel lit up after he caught his breath.

[Perception level 3, progress 100%.]

[Perception level 3 → 4.]

[Perception level 4, progress 100%.]

[Perception] It jumped from almost full level 3 to full level 4 in an instant.

The change came so quietly that he initially thought nothing had happened.

He opened his eyes, and the room was still the same one.

The table, chairs, bed, and the gas lamp on the wall that was almost burned out.

He spread out the still water and then he understood.

The level 3 [Contemplation] skill gives him a pool of water.

Water is a flat surface, so it can only reflect light onto the surface.

He has read countless things by this water in the past six months, and he has become more and more familiar with them.

Now the water level is at a good depth.

The ink bottle, which used to be a dark outline when the light shone in, is now illuminated by layers upon layers of light.

The glass is one layer, and the structure inside the glass, which has been processed by the alchemist, is another layer;

The innermost layer of ether, which he had intercepted from himself, was another layer;

It sank layer by layer until the bottom of the bottle was visible.

He spread the water out the window, and the background noise from the dormitory building came in.

There's an even lower layer below.

Beneath the foundation of the entire Imperial Capital University lies a series of sealing layers pressing down.

Richard quickly collected the water.

………………

After the party ended, Hecate was still sorting out her thoughts.

She looked out the window at the anchorage, where rows of gray-painted boats stood side by side.

The soot spewed from the chimneys dragged along the water's surface to the southeast, smearing the once-bright horizon with filth.

The seagulls kept calling out, and after landing on the mooring bollard and being waved away, they circled around and landed back.

People were talking on the street, their language had too many vowels, and they were dragging out a sentence for a long time.

She finished the last sip of coffee in her small cup.

In the capital, it should be dark by now.

Hermes' suggestion at the party was quite good.

The main point is that it's simple and direct. If you want to take action, you have to stock up on goods and spend money, which will leave a mark on the market.

When twenty or thirty of them gather together, their tails will naturally show.

But in the end, he was just a practitioner, and his idea was to ask each company one by one.

Hecate, of course, couldn't possibly ask them one by one.

She got up and drew the curtains, then cut something out from the shadows in the corner.

After the cut-out items stood upright, the gray robe hung to the ground, and there was everything under the brim of the hat.

She cut one strip after another, and by the time she got to the forty-first strip, there wasn't enough room for anyone to stand in.

The gray shadows were stacked one on top of the other, remaining quiet and motionless.

She assigned tasks to each of the servants.

There are connections between buying and selling; the counter, the scale, the weight bar—every single coin counted with saliva-soaked fingers leaves a trace.

People can lie and change their stories, and they can burn the ledgers, but the counter staff won't.

The grey-robed figures emerged from the closed windows, one after another, until all the darkness in the room dissipated.

Hecate herself sat back down at the upright loom by the bed.

The warp threads of this old-fashioned loom hang down, with dozens of ceramic hammers suspended below.

These terracotta hammers correspond one-to-one with the servants she dispatched.

If an employee wants to check the accounts, they have to take the train themselves; a junior employee can assign their subordinates to run the errand.

And she herself, sitting here, can transmit information back and forth across all forty-one lines simultaneously without delay.

Seven came back on the first night, and sixteen came back on the second night;

By the early hours of the third night, the last one squeezed in through the window, carrying the smell of asphalt from the southern harbor.

Hecate attached each thread to the spinning thread and touched it.

The first thing she asked was his name.

The meridians were taut, and we couldn't even ask for their names.

Hecate was not disappointed; she had known all along that this would be the outcome.

Those who actually reach this stage have their names covered.

If you reach out to touch it, you'll only touch your own hand.

Next, she tried to ask about the quantity, but she couldn't get the answer.

How much stock was stored on those tables across the way, how many middlemen had been bribed... these things that hadn't happened yet wouldn't affect her loom for the time being.

This is good news, at least it proves that the other side's preparations haven't fully begun yet.

Next, she prepared to ask for directions.

Halfway through, three warp threads on the loom tightened simultaneously.

There are actually three directions!

Hecate sat there with her eyes closed, beginning to connect her inspirational threads.

This isn't really a technique; mediums naturally acquire this ability once they reach a high level of mastery.

Anyone in the world who harbors genuine intent to harm you or those connected to you.

Once an idea takes shape, the inspiration thread begins to tremble.

This line is definitely correct; that's its biggest advantage.

Hecate followed the direction and discovered that the first tremor came from the northwest.

This dish, thin and cold, with a frosty texture, is from the table in Scandinavia.

Hecate was somewhat puzzled.

He told her through his own channels that the table had just been turned upside down by a highly skilled scholar who had gone on a hunting expedition.

One of the proficient ones died, and the rest were all seriously injured. They shouldn't pose any further threat for a while.

But only a short time later, this malice began to swirl around her table.

She wrapped the thread around her finger an extra half turn to feel its specific direction.

This malice wasn't directed at her; it brushed past her and turned away into the distance. Someone wanted to use her table as a crowbar.

Hecate noted this down, but she couldn't yet decipher what the crowbar was trying to pry open.

The second inspiration line trembled from due south-southeast.

When she followed the trail, there was nothing there.

The ether in that direction was very quiet, without the slightest movement.

Her hand stopped in mid-air, and then she did something she rarely did: she cut the thread off the loom.

When it was cut, the cut end still tried to reach towards her, but it only drooped down halfway.

This is from the table at Heituhe.

Hecate, still not satisfied, got up and took down the corresponding clay hammer, throwing it into the fire.

She stood in front of the stove until the sound completely disappeared before returning to the window.

Hecate had no intention of reasoning with that guy; she planned to stay far away from him.

The third line of inspiration came from southeast to south, and she knew what it was before she even reached out.

"It's the Pantheon in Rome," Hecate smiled.

Nineteen hundred years ago, the Romans took over the entire pantheon from across the sea, only changing its name.

The messenger was renamed Mercury, the god of war was renamed Mars... After making the changes, they turned around and said, "These were originally ours."

Thus, the theological tables of ancient Greece and Rome were natural enemies.

She had mastered all three lines of inspiration.

Then she realized that the inspiration thread was still trembling.

Her first thought was that she had miscalculated, or that some bad line hadn't been cleaned up yet.

She loosened all the remaining silk threads on the loom.

Loosen each thread one by one until there is no tension left on the entire loom.

The dust in the room had all settled, and not a single one of the forty-one messenger lines remained, but the shaking was still going on.

It came from very nearby.

Inspiration lines never go wrong.

And this person seemed to be holding the token she had personally handed over in his hand.

Hecate took her hands off the loom and placed them on her knees.

Outside the window, someone at the anchorage started sounding the ship's horn—one long and two short—the sound carrying far before fading away.

She sat in the shadows, mentally going over the six people at her table.

Hercules is the newest addition, has the least distinguished background, and is therefore the most suspect.

Because it was the easiest thing to suspect, she put the other person aside for the time being.

An answer that is readily available and obvious is usually something that someone else has already calculated for you.

Dionysus's cup had just settled down; the other party's ability to intoxicate people was still quite rare.

Demeter guarded the field, pressing down on an ancient, vulnerable spot.

This is the only thing on my desk that's still producing things for other countries.

Prometheus had only recently gained independence, and although he had just become a minor master craftsman, the master craftsman behind him was far more valuable than himself.

Behind Nemesis stood a scholar well-versed in the tradition of moon hunting, who had recently overturned an entire table by himself.

And Hermes.

Hecate tapped her knee with her fingertip.

The child's expertise in deciphering, identification, and networking made him a valuable asset to everyone at the table.

If she were to cut off any one of these six now, it would cause massive bleeding, no matter which one she cuts.

Hecate stood up and walked to the windowsill.

A row of ceramic pots were placed on the windowsill, filled with branches that had been collected from elsewhere.

Some of them developed white roots in the water, and one is still completely bare.

She continued to change its water every day as usual, and kept the scissors by the basin.

She reached out, picked up the scissors, weighed them in her hand, and then put them back.

Hecate recalled how everyone had a good time when the last party ended.

They each have their own channels, and they use their own channels to trace the clues.

The table had just started to feel a bit united, but what if she raised her hand at the next gathering and said that one of the people there was dishonest?

That hard-won positive atmosphere will completely crumble on the spot.

Perhaps by then, the three tables outside won't even need to fight; internal strife within our own table will cause it to fall apart.

Hecate sat back down at the loom and began to stretch the warp threads one by one.

She thought of another method: the next gathering was in mid-June, and before then she would divide the intelligence she had into six parts.

The six skeletons are identical, with slight differences in details.

All six portions are distributed, and one day they will inevitably be heard from someone else's mouth or from someone else's field.

Which one came back? Whoever holds that token is the one who will return it.

Hecate meticulously considered the method in her mind until every detail was perfect before she was ready to implement it.

She didn't even use the word "traitor" in her mind.

After I finished tidying up, it was already getting light, and the seagulls started calling again.

People were launching small boats from the anchorage, and figures began to move around on the ship, one after another emerging from the windows and hatches onto the deck.

It's unclear which boat started it, but then a second and a third followed.

Thousands of people are singing the same song, the one that everyone knows and that says they have a long way to go before they get home.

Hecate stood by the window listening.