I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Richard did not agree immediately.

【Reflection and Inner Awakening】 lit up at this moment.

Writing a book yourself takes at least several months, and that's the easiest task;

Then, even if he becomes a master, it will be decades later.

Finally, there is no set time limit for overthrowing the throne; whether it can be done or not, it counts as long as the intention is there.

None of the conditions offered by the other party needed to be fulfilled immediately, and none of them would cause Richard any harm.

Richard recalled that the other person had spoken to him before.

"Every Christmas I send my teacher a postcard so she knows I'm still alive and that she'll remember me."

"When someone cares about you, there's something to look forward to."

A series of ghost stories released every two months, a reunion decades later, and a game of chess whose ending he himself didn't know... Richard probably understood Matthew's thoughts.

"make a deal."

"That felt great." Matthew stood up, and the chair returned to its original position with a sigh of relief.

"Sir, I'd like to add one more condition."

Matthew raised his eyebrows.

"I've never heard of a buyer voluntarily raising the price..."

Richard thought for a moment and said very sincerely:

"From now on, I will send you a postcard every Christmas."

The gas lamp in the room hissed, and Matthew stood there silently.

On his sun-reddened face, Richard wore an expression he couldn't quite understand.

"...You little brat."

He put his hands in his pockets, turned around, and walked towards the wall.

"Okay, I'll tell you where to send it later."

He stopped when he reached the wall.

"Oh, right."

"gentlemen?"

"I will come that night, but don't give me any notice before I enter."

"...What do you mean?"

"Let her see for herself."

Richard stood up on the edge of the bed.

"Do you know her?"

Matthew did not turn around.

The road is now closed.

The smell of coal smoke, typical of a winter morning in Bristol, slowly dissipated from the room.

………………

Matthew stepped back from the wall and stood for a long time on the path that only he could see.

There was nothing on either side of the road.

He forged this path himself, and in the end, even he couldn't say where it led.

But one thing is constant along the way... wherever he has been, it is still there when he looks back.

So that mirror room is still there.

Forty years ago, Matthew was chopping wood in the backyard that afternoon.

The teacher had many students, and they took turns doing odd jobs. That month it was his turn.

He was just getting up to greet someone when the courtyard gate was pushed open.

"Excuse me……"

It was a girl's voice, very soft and gentle.

He looked up and saw the girl standing at the gate of the courtyard, wearing a faded white dress, her hands twisting the hem of the dress.

She was not tall, and her hair was casually tied up at the back of her head.

"Who are you looking for?" Matthew stuck the axe into the wooden stump.

"Mrs. Marie Viktoria".

"She is not seeing any visitors today."

The girl stood there, her hands clenching even tighter.

Matthew had been with his teacher for two years by then and had seen too many people in that position.

The vast majority of them come to ask for something: to have their fortune told, to find something, or to have someone call back a dead person to say a word.

"What do you want?"

"I don't ask for anything," she said.

"Why would I ask you to come if not for something?"

"I'll learn."

Matthew laughed back then just as carefree as he does today.

"Learn?" He pulled out the axe.

Do you know how much it costs to learn this trade for a year?

The girl took a very old cloth bag out of her pocket.

She opened the cloth bag and laid it out in her palm.

Matthew went over and took a look; it contained coins.

All of them were copper, pennies, half pennies, and a few that were worn down to the point of being unrecognizable, piled up in a small heap.

"How many."

"Four pounds and eleven shillings," the girl said.

"I counted it many times."

A bird called out once and flew away from the old plum tree in the backyard.

Matthew stood there, unsure of what to say.

"I can do things." She put the cloth bag away.

"I can do laundry, light the stove, and keep accounts. I can do accounts very quickly; I can sort out the shop's accounts in a day."

"I can do any odd job, anything."

Later, the teacher accepted her.

Matthew never understood how the teacher made the decision.

He only remembered that evening when the teacher came out of the house, stood on the steps, looked at the girl for a while, and then said:

"Come in, we haven't fetched water yet."

Later, she sorted out the shop's accounts in just a few days, and after that, the teacher stopped managing the accounts.

She could smell seventeen kinds of medicinal herbs, five more than Matthew.

On her first inspiration test, she got all twenty items right, two more than Matthew had done back then.

Later, he sent a postcard back from the New World, and the teacher replied with only one line: "Understood."

At the end of the letter, the teacher casually mentioned something.

The girl from the north left last winter.

He left without taking anything with him except that bronze plate.

Matthew stood on that road for a long time.

He took his hand out of his pocket and looked at his palm.

"...Time has a truly profound impact on people."

It muttered something and took a step forward.

"Mid-June is a good time to go and take a look."

June 12th, 10 PM.

Richard sat at his desk in the dormitory, with three sheets of paper spread out in front of him.

The first sheet lists the seven people who might appear that night, with each listed by tradition and rank.

The second document shows how many times he can use his Swift Crossing technique, how many Soul-Devouring Beast Tooth Needles he has left, and how long his Spirit Form can last.

The third one is the shortest, with only one line of text: Foreign aid - to be determined.

He put down his pen and was about to close the window tightly.

There is frost on the windowsill.

The weather in Beijing in June has long since warmed up. The wall of the dormitory building faces south and has been exposed to the sun all day, so the bricks are still warm at this time of day.

A bird, white all over and a little larger than a sparrow, was perched in the center of the frost circle on the outer edge of the windowsill. It was motionless and silent.

Richard spread out the still water, and the bird appeared in layers on his side of the water.

The outermost layer is the standard structure of a spirit messenger.

Its grade is not high, several levels lower than those scattered by Hecate.

Richard looked at the next floor for a long time.

Every feather on this bird is pointing in the right direction.

The angle of the wing coverts, the forking of the tail feathers, even the inconspicuous curve of the third segment of the toe are all correct.

A messenger never needs to go to such lengths; all a messenger needs to do is be able to fly and know the way.

This bird was made based on a real skeleton.

The person who made it pieced together that skeleton one by one with their own hands.

With that thought in mind, Richard opened the window.

A bird flew in and landed on the corner of the table, dropping two things from the frost: a square package wrapped in oiled paper and a letter.

Then I started waiting.

Richard first took out a bronze paperweight and a small bronze balance from his canvas bag and placed them on the table, one on each side.

According to Mrs. Mary's instructions that night, all the divination tools were locked in a drawer, but the weighing was his own handiwork.

The sage's long beak veered towards the square bag.

The package was so clean that it didn't look like any other package he had handled that year.

Only then did he begin to unwrap the oil paper, revealing layers of old newspapers wrapped inside.

The newspaper was in a foreign language, with densely packed type, and he recognized the top line—Prague.

The first one to emerge was a dark red stone, polished into a somewhat irregular oval shape.

The stone looked unremarkable under the light, but when the angle was changed, a small cluster of red light suddenly appeared.

Then there was a wooden knight puppet, about the size of a palm, with four strings tangled together above its head, making the knight look crooked, with one leg dangling in mid-air.

Richard stopped when he picked up the next item.

It was a small, dried branch sandwiched between two pieces of transparent paper.

The leaves are opposite, leathery, and the two berries at the top are flattened, still retaining a bit of translucent white.

This is mistletoe.

The last item tucked away at the bottom of the box was a letter.

The envelope had no postmark, only a name: Richard.

He recognized the handwriting at a glance.

Richard:

It was raining in Prague when I wrote this letter.

It's much hotter here in June than in Bristol; the rooftops are red and the river is green.

I stayed in an attic in the old town. My landlady didn't speak Albion, so we survived for three months by gesturing.

I attended a class at Charles University, where the library has been excavated since the 14th century and continues to this day.

I went down to the deepest shelf, where the wood had been gnawed into holes by something.

I'm doing alright with Germanic languages, but Czech is very difficult; I only know a few basic greetings.

I'm still working on the specimen. The tools here are better than in Beijing. I brought that titmouse and put it on the windowsill.

I need to explain what's in the paper package to you, so you don't try to see it with your psychic abilities.

You can't see anything special in the photos; they're all just ordinary objects.

The stone is a Bohemian garnet, which locals say can help you sleep.

I bought the knight puppet in an alley behind the Old Town Square.

By the way, I wanted to ask you something.

There is a professor at Imperial University named McFee who wrote a book called "Structure and Evolution of Gaelic Script".

Do you know him?

If I knew him, what kind of person would he be?

I now have a name given to me by someone else. That name comes from a place far north, a place that governs winter and hunting.

I saw the professor once in February in a place far away, and he didn't lay a hand on me that time.

I've thought about it for a long time, but I still can't figure out why.

There's something else I don't know if I should tell you: my hands have been cold all year.

Wearing gloves is useless, and soaking in hot water only helps for a short while.

I've seen the doctor twice, but they couldn't find anything wrong.

If you feel you shouldn't reply to this letter, then don't; the messenger will come back on its own.

Also, I still kept that four-leaf clover.

Lillian Hayward

Richard placed the paper on the table.

The titmouse on the windowsill remained motionless.

He knew about what happened in February, of course; Hecate had mentioned it at the party.

As he spoke, Richard mentally cheered for Professor McFee.

I also gave Catherine a little boost, thus elevating myself a bit.

He sat down at the table and began to ponder.

It governs winter and hunting, and it also has a table in Scandinavia.

[Bowen] Automatic indexing, isn't that Skadi, the goddess of winter?