I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Nemesis wrapped the whip tightly around his forearm and reached into his clothes with his left hand to pull out a moonstone.

Another arrow came flying, this time aimed at Richard in the center of the circle.

Hercules flung the arrow away at an angle.

After so much time, they only saw arrows and not people.

Nemesis silently activated the Moonstone, and a moon appeared on the Seven Hills, leaving behind the shadow of half a shoulder of the person who fired the arrow.

Before the next arrow even left the bowstring, Catherine's whip had already lashed out.

"Smack..."

A burst of white light erupted from the pillar, and the figure let out a painful groan, shrinking back in panic.

The interval between arrow releases then changed from one arrow every five seconds to one arrow every half minute.

After several rounds, all the Greek hunters were wounded.

Demeter's scythe continued to cut, one row after another.

Dionysus stopped spilling wine; he began to use it sparingly.

"If this continues, people on our side will die." A line appeared on the scales of Nemesis.

Richard gritted his teeth; the ether in his circulation was incredibly thick at that moment.

The practitioners are few and scattered, and they are easily caught off guard if things get rushed.

He was fourth in resonance at this table and also the lowest in rank, so he received a lot of boosts during the team battle.

But compared to going forward to fight, the pen in his hand can actually play a greater role.

"Gentlemen, I have a solution."

At first, doubt appeared on everyone's faces, and then they slowly turned to skepticism.

"What are you going to do?" Dionysus asked first.

"I need to analyze it," Richard slowly stated his plan.

"This city recognizes the Roman name, and some of you already had it."

Once the recorder's pen has been written, someone has to take responsibility for it.

What makes this city acknowledge it? It's because he, the recorder, is its guarantor.

From the moment his name was written down, all the tolls the city was required to collect were recorded in his account.

He is the guarantor; no guarantor has ever guaranteed for themselves.

Deep inside the Imperial Capital Museum's storeroom, Saint Seiya once said something.

"Do not usurp, do not fake, and do not use the name of others to seek personal gain."

"Only record what you have seen."

The pen can write for anyone else, but it cannot write for itself.

Well, he wasn't planning on writing about himself tonight anyway.

"I need you to buy me time," Richard said.

"I can't move or get distracted while I'm analyzing the data."

"If you write it incorrectly, the name will turn around and swallow that person up." He deliberately exaggerated the threat.

Hercules pulled his club back and stuck it into the ground.

"Then I'll come back and take the blow for you."

Prometheus raised his hand, and the inscriptions all over the doll's body turned from dark bronze to dark red.

"I've already switched to defensive mode on my end."

Demeter pulled her hand out of the crack in the stone slab, dragged her scythe over, and sat down with her back to him.

Hecate stood on the outermost edge and raised the torch.

"Hermes, this table will be yours tonight."

Minerva frowned; she sensed something was wrong when she saw the Greeks surrounding Hermes.

She and Fortuna exchanged a glance, and she took out a sheepskin from her sleeve.

"I don't know if it will work."

The moment the sheepskin was unfolded, Richard felt someone slam the lid down over his head.

A large section of the ever-expanding library in my mind has darkened.

"Closed book," Minerva explained to Mars.

"The scholars of the classical tradition have all their skills in their minds. If I lock up his shelf of books, I become an ordinary person holding a cane."

Richard opened his eyes.

[Bowen] has indeed had a large area temporarily blocked.

The sealed items were all the classics, commentaries, rubbings, and coded messages he had read in the past two years.

But what he's going to do tonight isn't in that part at all.

The mirror reflects the present.

The water didn't ripple at all.

"...He's still taking pictures," Fortuna said.

"I know." Minerva slowly lowered her hand.

"He wasn't using a book tonight; the intelligence was wrong."

The first one is Hercules.

The city's oldest altar was dedicated to a strongman who was passing by with his cattle from out of town.

Richard pulled the reed pen out of the inner pocket; the shaft was hot in his palm.

"Hercules".

"what!"

"You have a name in this city," Richard said.

"Even earlier than Mars' son."

"They drive their cattle across the river, demanding a share from your altar, and they swear an oath in your name to make the deal."

"So you were never an outsider."

He put pen to paper.

Hercules.

The entire city of Seven Hills trembled.

【Lingrong 20/20→17/20】

Richard felt numb on one side of his body and took a half step back, but Demeter held him back from behind.

The man looked down at his feet.

The stone slab didn't bite him when he took the step forward.

"...This is what I am doing."

"You're a local now."

When Hercules swung his club and charged forward, all the stone slabs beneath the seven hills simultaneously made way for him.

This time he didn't take a detour and smashed down directly on Mars.

With a loud thud, Mars' two iron boots sank into the stone slab, and he was slid back more than ten steps.

Hercules had already knocked Mars down several times that night.

Something's not right.

The big, clumsy guy slammed his enormous stick into the ground.

"This stick of mine is a dead man's stick; if you get hit by it once, you'll be bedridden for at least half a month."

"How many seconds was he lying there?"

"Four seconds." The word surfaced on Nemesis's scales, and he gave chase.

"...Four seconds." Hercules' face turned green.

Richard poured still water over Mars, illuminating the crack that had just been smashed open.

Ether surged up from the stone slab beneath his feet, pushing the crack back into place from the inside.

Down the slope, Mars straightened the bent iron spear on his knee.

"You figured it out?"

"Of the seven people at this table, I'm the only one who has the blessing of a master."

"As long as I stand in this ravine, you can't kill me."

The second is Dionysus, which Richard has already begun to master.

The other person's name is the root of the word "freedom" in the city's language.

The feast day of Dionysus is on March 17.

On that day, all the boys in the city took off their children's robes and put on adult white robes.

From that day on, he was no longer anyone's child, but officially became a citizen of Rome.

On that day, commoners drank, swore, and pushed carts through the streets, which the Senate could not interfere with.

"Dionysus".

"Your name in this city is older than your wine glass."

Richard put pen to paper.

"Bacchus".

【Lingrong 17/20→14/20】

That ring of mist has changed; it has become the city's own carnival.

Beneath the Seven Hills, Mars's faceless legion marched forward, its steps measured.

Dionysus slammed the empty glass down on the ground.

The first row's steps became scattered, causing chaos, and the second row bumped into each other.

"Stop!" Mars shouted from the bottom of the slope, "Stop..."

People in the third row have already started backing up.

"March 17th," Dionysus said slowly, "your soldiers should be given leave."

The third is Demeter, who was even faster this time.

She remained in the same sitting posture, her two calloused hands hanging down on her knees with her back to him.

"God of the common people, whoever harms the tribune, will be offered up along with his property."

"The most crucial thing is the other meaning behind this name."

He looked up at the furrow that winds around the seven hills.

"That expert used a plow to draw the boundary, but the original purpose of a plow was not to draw boundaries."

"The first task of the plow after its invention was to turn the soil and sow seeds; it belongs to you."

"Ceres".

【Lingrong 14/20→11/20】

Demeter stood up.

She walked to the edge of the furrow, threw the sickle into the ground, squatted down, and stuck her hands into the freshly turned soil.

The city of seven hills began to shake.

From beneath his iron mask, Mars roared almost incoherently: "The chasm of the master, you..."

"Even the furrows of a master are plowed out," said the God of Agriculture.

"The soil turned up by the plow belongs to me from beginning to end."

The ether along the edge of the ditch, which had been pushing others inward, began to split to both sides.

Catherine's uncle immediately retorted, and the crack below the doll's knees stopped climbing.

The others no longer have Roman names, so Richard can only be strengthened.

"Nemesis".

The tilted scales turned right back to normal.

"You don't need to change your name."

"Your name has always been on the city's register, but no one has ever called it out for you."

"Your shrine is on every door of the arena."

"Whether the gladiators have to perform a ritual there before entering the arena, or whether they walk out or are carried out, is entirely up to you."

"They call you... Nemesis of the Arena."

There's only one rule there.

He put pen to paper.

"What happens on the field should be settled on the field; no one is allowed to get something for nothing."

【Lingrong 11/20→5/20】

Venus leaned against the pillar, her smile, which had been unbroken, frozen on her face.

What she did in the second half was simple: she didn't leave the field, just smiled on the mountain, and Hercules' bat would be half a beat slower.

But now, that entire stretch of sand has accepted a different rule.

"The people outside the arena," Catherine began.

She spoke loudly for the first time that night, her voice so hoarse it was almost incoherent, but the whole city heard it.

"Don't reach out!"

On the balance scale, the left pan fell to the bottom with a "thud".

The whip lashed out, its tip extending through the air, bypassing the battling Hercules and Mars, before striking the pillar of the third hill.

"Smack..."

Venus was pulled off the pillar and rolled down seven or eight steps, spitting blood onto the stone steps.

This time, she couldn't get up again.

Below the seven hills, Hercules' fourth batter did not slow down.

Mars' iron spear bent at an angle from the middle, never to straighten again, and he was smashed into the stone slab, his knees buried in the soil.

Richard turned around; he actually wanted to write about Hecate.

The one at the highest rank on this table—if she can break free from the label of "outsider," she won't have to suffer so much tonight.

Just as I was about to push it over, the reed pen became abnormally hot in my palm.

Hecate's name appeared on the surface of the water.

The Romans did not ignore her; they called her trivia (three-way intersection).

The Romans erected shrines for her, and they were everywhere.

It stands at the junction of the city outskirts and the tomb passage, at the fork where two country roads diverge, outside the base of the wall.

Not a single one stood in the city.

"No need to write anymore."

Hecate's voice came from the outermost circle.

"chief."

"I felt what you did just now." She raised the torch higher.

"You were put on Xiao Jingtong's side tonight, and you've borrowed someone else's pen so you can vouch for Xiao Jingtong."

"You can't afford to vouch for me."

Richard remained silent.

The last bit of ether in his palm shrank back along the pen shaft.

"I don't need you to write about me." Hecate held up the key.

"I was the one standing outside the door."

"The person inside the door can't open it; only the person outside has the key."

She turned around and inserted the key into the air.

"Cheer".

Below the Seven Hills, another whole group of people who had died outside the city stood up.

Richard tried again to shine the light on Prometheus, but failed once more.

He was not on the city's register.

There wasn't a single temple or altar, and he wasn't even mentioned in any oaths or vows.

The Romans moved so many gods, but they didn't move him.

"...I'm sorry," Richard said.

The flame beneath the crimson mask flickered.

"If we can't find it, we can't find it." The craftsman was neither sad nor happy.

"Those who steal fire shouldn't be recognized by the city walls in the first place. I've always thought it's better to be nameless."