I loaded the Mysticism panel.

All the sounds in the room suddenly disappeared, leaving only the continuous dripping of water from the enamel basin.

Richard sat behind the table by the window, momentarily lost in thought.

A master of classical texts and traditions is not necessarily an expert.

Richard's throat felt a little dry, and the blue cloth-covered book, "Records of Great Achievements Throughout History: Classics Volume," came back to mind.

"……professor."

"What's wrong?"

"What are you taking me to do?"

"Students are obviously responsible for carrying bags and running errands; do I need to tell them that?"

Mortimer said impatiently, "I'm getting on in years, you need to be more considerate."

"Just to carry a bag, you traveled all the way from Beijing to Milan?"

Richard looked at that wrinkled old face.

His face was blank, just like every time he pretended to be confused.

"professor."

"Um."

"You..." The rest of the sentence stuck in his throat.

No way, Richard's palms were starting to sweat.

There are usually only two reasons to go see the one who sits at the very top in tradition.

One is to relay messages for others, the other is...

"What are you thinking about?"

Mortimer picked up the scissors and gestured at a piece of newspaper that had already absorbed moisture and become soft.

"Milan in November is foggy, but cleaner than the fog in Beijing."

"We need to go through the Fran side. You should complete the formalities in your passport beforehand, so that you don't get stopped at the dock."

"Once you get there, talk less and observe more."

"That person is different from me; He doesn't pretend to be confused."

………………

:

On the night of October 15th, Richard closed his eyes and counted to seven.

As the starry sea receded, the marble temple materialized, with seven stone chairs surrounding a round table.

Hecate's first words tonight were very short.

"Was anyone questioned last month?"

Hercules slammed his olive club on the ground and was the first to speak.

"They got into a fight."

Dionysus picked up the cracked amphora from his lap and then put it down.

"I've fought half a battle myself."

"What do you mean by 'half a frame'?" Hercules turned his head.

"That means I didn't lose."

Demeter's hands were spread out on her knees, the dirt under her fingernails washed off that evening.

"Someone from my side also came, but they didn't do anything."

Prometheus nodded as well.

"My master's workshop received an order last month, but the person who came was a bit strange."

Above Nemesis's head, on the balance scale, two words appeared on the left pan.

"Yes, I have."

After asking around, all eyes finally fell on the last chair.

Richard nodded from his seat: "Yes."

Hecate placed her hands on the table.

"All six people were questioned."

The slight relaxation that had been on the table just moments before was instantly wiped away.

Hercules was the first to react: "...And you, Chief?"

"I don't."

Hecate tapped the table: "It might be a coincidence that one or two people are approached individually, but everyone except me, the head of the household, has been approached..."

Dionysus chuckled: "If they come to ask the chief, then we've already broken off relations and are about to start another team battle."

:

Hecate remained noncommittal. "It could also be another possibility."

Which one?

"They've gotten enough information from the six of you; they don't need to come looking for me anymore."

These words caused the atmosphere, which had been slightly lifted by Dionysus, to plummet once again.

The woman removed her hand from the table: "Let's not talk about this tonight."

"Let's start communicating as usual."

Prometheus made the first move today; he raised his hand, and a small projection appeared in the center of the round table.

Six hand grenades stood side by side, with the numbers a01 to a06 engraved on the bottom of their casings.

Hercules stretched his neck out as far as it could go.

"This is the one Hermes commissioned for your workshop, right? It does look quite interesting; it's not quite the same as regular enchanted items."

Go to Must Search

Prometheus nodded and began to introduce himself to Richard, the client.

"In August, Your Excellency gave us that jar of yellow powder that would line up on its own; we'll use it as a fuse."

"The bottle of nitrocellulose with sediment is used for pointing and loading the medicine."

"The cartridge case serves as the carrier, and the casing, propellant, and fuse are all sourced from the same shed; they are a perfect match."

Dionysus turned the cup halfway around.

"So you didn't create anything new, you just reassembled it."

"Yes." Prometheus nodded; processing was what most craftsmen did.

He turned one of the grenades on the projector screen around.

"This portable explosive has three detonation methods."

Using ether as a fuse, the caster can simply tap it from a distance;

Alternatively, ignition with fire could delay the detonation, with an impact lasting approximately seven breaths, but it would still detonate immediately.

"The explosion isn't very strong at the material layer; it's not as powerful as a proper hand grenade."

"It's different on the etheric plane," Prometheus emphasized.

"It can tear apart the entire etheric structure of a small area."

:

"Lower-level evil objects simply dissipate, while mid-level etheric layers will have a tear that cannot heal."

"Even a minor mastery of a technique's structure can cause a short-term collapse."

Richard noticed that the other party's word choice was somewhat imprecise.

"...How short is 'short'?"

Prometheus put the projection away: "It will take at least two seconds, but the final stability test of this explosive is not yet complete."

Everyone saw the rain in Beijing this year.

That jar of yellow powder originally came from a damp shed; we don't know if it will lose its effectiveness after absorbing water.

"We were also afraid that the explosives would spontaneously combust in the high-ether field, and if we brought them into a weak point, they would set on fire inside our pockets."

"Mutual detonation is also a problem. If six are put in a bag, and one goes off, will the remaining five also go off?"

"What about the delivery time?" Richard asked.

"The next gathering will be handed over directly to you in mid-December."

Richard nodded, took a cloth bag from his pocket, and placed a bank draft on top of it.

"Thirty pounds, plus five pieces of coagulated material, medium to high concentration."

Prometheus untied the bag, glanced at it, then tied it up and put it away.

"Seven-thirds of the finished product is kept as a sample for archiving in the workshop."

"As usual."

After paying the bill, Prometheus did not immediately sit back down.

"Sir, my master has also sent a message."

Richard raised his head.

He said that if more materials are delivered, the price is negotiable.

"He also said he was willing to speak directly with Hermes himself, without going through me."

Everyone present seemed to be deep in thought when a highly skilled craftsman actually said he wanted to have a face-to-face meeting with a practitioner.

Richard was very accommodating: "It's my honor. I'll give priority to your master next time I have materials."

"I will speak on your behalf."

Hercules couldn't wait any longer and slammed his hand on the edge of the table.

:

"Those six explosives... I'll buy two."

"Why are you buying two?" Dionysus glanced at him.

"If you hit it with that stick, it would make a much louder noise."

"Sticks aren't very effective against non-physical evil entities."

Hercules became serious and turned his head.

"Lord Hermes, I will be going to the no-man's-land on the front lines again next month."

Richard thought for a moment and said, "Then I'll give you two."

"How much?"

"It's free."

Hercules scratched his head; he knew that what was free was often the most expensive.

Richard stated his purpose: "I need firsthand information from the front lines."

"After you finish frying, bring me back the layer of mud from the frying area."

Also, write down the wind direction, the explosion effect, and your own ether consumption for me.

"That's all?"

"Also, if any new types of evil creatures appear after no one takes care of them, be the first to tell me."

"make a deal!"

The deal was finalized, and at that moment, the bronze mask in Richard's arms started to heat up.

If you only take in money and don't give it out, hoarding all the coins in your own hands, that's called being a miser, not commerce. Only when there is circulation can you be a merchant.

Besides, firsthand intelligence and collected materials are worth far more than a few pounds.

The following was a routine transaction; Demeter handed over the condensate for the quarter as usual, in exchange for two expert reports that Richard had prepared for her.

Nemesis posted the commission to collate the inscription, and Dionysus and Prometheus each brought out some texts;

Hercules then took out a small packet of fragments of evil artifacts from the northern wastelands and sold it to Prometheus's workshop.

In less than fifteen minutes, all the transactions were completed, and Hecate placed her hands back on the table.

"Now let's get down to business, about what kind of trials you all encountered."

"Start with Demeter."

:

Upon hearing this, Demeter began to recount her story.

"The person coming from my direction is a traveling merchant who collects medicinal herbs."

"At noon on the 19th of last month, he drove a mule cart to the edge of my field."

"He was very polite. He stood outside the paddy field ridge and waited for me to finish tidying that row before he spoke."

"What does he want?"

"The asking price is outrageously high."

She turned her hand over.

"My ordinary stuff, dried chamomile, wormwood, a few handfuls of old poppy shells... would sell for at most a pound at the town market, but he gave me two pounds."

But the man kept asking the same question over and over again:

"Have you seen anything from elsewhere this year that you can't tell the year of?

Demeter sold him two ordinary items and sent him away without giving it much thought at the time.

Prometheus's master's workshop received a large, anonymous order last month, with a price so high that even the master himself was somewhat puzzled.

What I need are empty shells of rare items, the older and cleaner the better, and there is no limit to the quantity.

His master didn't answer, the reason being: the other party refused to say what they were pretending for.

Richard's heart skipped a beat as he recalled his suspicions about this dormitory room back in August.

"The cost and pollution are poured into the empty shell, and the empty shell becomes... a cursed object?"

At that moment, looking at a room full of strangely shaped objects that had been drained dry, he felt that he had come up with a path that no one else had taken.

As it turns out, someone else was doing the same thing as him, but on a much larger scale.

Hecate skipped over that topic and moved on to the next person.

"The next two, Dionysus and Heracles, actually fought with them."

"I don't know if you would be willing to project the footage from that time."

Dionysus sighed.

"Chief, I didn't play very well in that game."

Hercules shouted from the side, "What are you afraid of? You haven't lost yet."

The mouth beneath the ivy mask opened and closed.

:

"...Alright then."

He began by recounting the events leading up to the battle at the City of Seven Hills, after which his double-eared cup cracked during a team battle.

"I've been fixing it for the past few months."

Dionysus put his arms on the armrests of the chair and leaned back.

"I consulted many alchemists, and the first one said that the crack was in the ether layer and could not be repaired;

The second one was young and very capable. He said he could fix it, but after he finished, he would ride on my head and become my master.

Demeter chuckled beside her.

"The third person charged me twelve pounds, and I paid for half a month's worth of supplements, but it still tasted bitter when I poured it out."

Dionysus even had Prometheus ask his master, who glanced at him through the curtain and said, "It may not be a bad thing."

He didn't understand at the time, but the turning point came one night in early September.

The projection shows a closed old tavern, with a man leaning on the counter, and only an empty wine glass in front of him.

"I drank my seventh glass that day, and I couldn't take it anymore, so I slammed it on the table."

In the projection, the double-eared cup made a dull thud as it hit the wooden counter.

I yelled at the glass: "At least give me something sweet!"

"It won't come out."

That relaxed tone suddenly became serious.

"Then I lay there and suddenly realized that suffering isn't so bad after all."

I tried to purify the bitterness so that it would be barely palatable.

He shrugged.

"Bacchus governs intoxication and the dissolution of boundaries. The wine I originally developed using the Dionysian cup allows people to utter the words that are bottled up inside."

"The new bitter brew we're making now... let's call it that for now. It's extremely bitter at first, almost like medicine, with a hint of sweetness on the aftertaste."

"The wine clings to the sides of the glass, as thick as syrup."

"The effect of this bitter brew is also the opposite; it makes people sober."

Hercules jerked his head up, a sobering realization: was it still wine?

Dionysus ignored him and continued speaking:

:

"After drinking this wine, you won't be affected by emotions for about two or three hours."

"Fear, grief, homesickness, the dead are calling your name outside the door."

"And when my name is called, the instinct to respond is completely suppressed by the bitterness."

The tranquility within the temple had taken on a different nature.

Richard's back was pressed against the stone bench, and on the night of the mourning day, through Mrs. Mary's mirror, he could see the knocking sounds echoing all over the street.

Behind one half of the door came screams, and behind the other half came laughter.

That night, if everyone in every household had a small bottle of this, and if Black Ditch hadn't been in the pit that night...

Dionysus, seeing everyone staring intently at him, quickly added to his list of shortcomings.

"If you drink too much, you won't even feel hungry."

"What about production capacity?" Hecate asked.

"Very limited, restricted by my meager ether reserves, at most one bottle per night."

"I initially just wanted to give them away as gifts."

In the projection, there is a small room in a guild office, with three small dark bottles on the table.

"The first batch was sent to several familiar folk guilds in the capital."

There were field workers, people who saw guests off, and an old man who looked after the door at the funeral home.

"When I delivered it, I told them it was an experimental product and probably wouldn't taste good, so please don't be disgusted by it."

"A week later, the old gatekeeper came to us wanting to buy it."

"He said he's been keeping watch since he was young, and now his hair is all gray. This is the first time he hasn't heard anyone call his name all night."

"He offered me three shillings, but I refused. He then stuffed the money into my pocket and ran away."

"After that, people started ordering goods by the boxful."

Dionysus picked up the cup again.

"The buyer is an intermediary who runs errands for the military supply system. Ostensibly, they are purchasing medical sedatives, but their actual whereabouts are unknown."

"I was very cautious at first."

"The label on the bottle didn't have anything written on it. Later, the distributor came to us and said that it was hard to sell without a brand, so they printed a mark on it."

The projector zoomed in, revealing a small, dark bottle with an ivy leaf printed on its label.

:

Richard's breathing slowed down.

"By this month, this bottle with ivy leaves printed on it had spread to almost half of the empire."

Dionysus shrugged.

"Manchester City, Liverpool, Glasgow... I saw it in the window of a pharmacy in a small town in the south last week, a diluted version next to the medicine for rheumatism, one shilling and two pence a bottle."

"The pharmacy owner told me that this sells faster than aspirin."

He put the cup back on his lap.

"Because this bitter brew is selling so well, my resonance level has increased particularly quickly in the past two months."

In fact, he has already quietly condensed a second divine weapon, but he hasn't revealed it.

Inside the temple, some people began to wonder. Although they were curious about the bitter brew the other party had made, it seemed to have nothing to do with what they were talking about.

Richard and Nemesis exchanged a glance, and they already understood.

The bitter brewing process is effective and sells well, but with great success comes great scrutiny, and the next step will likely be someone coming to their door because of it.

Sure enough, Dionysus immediately got back to the main topic.

"Now let's talk about the one I fought."

The projection changed again, and it was still that old tavern, but the door was bolted from the inside.

There was a man standing in front of the counter. He was very tall, and his exposed skin was reddish-brown.

The person wasn't wearing a mask, but no matter how you looked at their face, you couldn't remember it. They were surrounded by extremely fine red sand that floated in the air without touching the ground.

When Dionysus saw the man, he looked as if he had swallowed a fly.

"He started talking business as soon as he walked in, but I refused."

"Then he offered a price so high that it tempted me, but I refused again."

"Then he asked about the night of June 17th."

Hecate, seated at the head of the table, tapped her finger on the edge of the table.

"Continue."

I said: I was drinking on the night of June 17th.

He said, "Then let's have a drink together."

The person in the projection reached out and pressed a button on the counter, causing the air in the entire tavern to tremble.

:

"This is the third seat at the table by the Black Earth River—Seth, whose power is thirst."

Hecate also provided an introduction from the side:

"Deserts, red sands, foreign lands, chaos—anything wet, soft, or intoxicating cannot last."

Dionysus also raised his cup.

"The chief is right, his power is somewhat restraining to me."

"My power is intoxication; the moment he walked in, he sucked all the alcohol out of the room."

In the projection, the man named Set raised his head.

The red sand on his body fell onto the floor, stirring up sand all over the room.

"My thought at the time was: 'That's it, I have to find a way to escape.'"

After all, I'm not good at head-on combat, as everyone knows.

He said that, but Richard saw that the man in the picture, whose face was covered by a layer of purple, showed no sign of panic.

This person is definitely not as bad as he claims.

Hercules, however, gripped the giant club even tighter.

In the projection, Dionysus flipped the cup over, pouring out a syrup-like liquid that dripped onto the floor and seeped into it.

The swirling sandstorm was put on pause, and Seth's red sand could no longer pour in.

In the projection, he could only pull his hand back from the counter.

"You've done a very good job in this business, so good that our chief has found out."

"If you want to make a deal someday, the price is negotiable."

Hercules jumped up from his chair.

"You're only bringing out something this good now!"

"You said it tasted bad when I brought it out last time."

"When did I say that?"

"In August, your exact words were: This tastes like the medicine my grandma used to make."

"...That's because I didn't know it was useful!"

Hercules rubbed his large hands together.

:

"I want a hundred bottles."

Dionysus put the cup down.

"I drink a bottle every night."

"...Then you'll have to work for a hundred nights."

"I'll go out for a hundred nights and then I'll die first."

The banter made the atmosphere on the field a bit more relaxed.

Prometheus proposed that the workshop could help him with bottling and stabilization, turning production capacity into a replicable process.

However, if it wasn't made by Dionysus himself, the effect would definitely be greatly reduced, and increased production capacity would allow it to be used by ordinary people.

He made a condition: he wanted a copy of the recipe file to be kept, and Dionysus hesitated.

Hecate, seated at the head of the table, spoke again.

"Dionysus, I need to remind you, Seth was the first, but he certainly won't be the last."

The mouth beneath the ivy mask moved slightly.

"……I know."

"You won't know until the second person comes to your door."

She lifted her hand off the table.

"Hercules".

The eyes beneath the lion's mouth mask lit up for a moment.

"It's my turn."

The projection location is the northern wasteland, a den of evil creatures that is being cleared.

Hercules was working when a figure appeared on the ridgeline of the wasteland.

The man walked slowly and stopped about twenty meters from the edge of the pit.

The golden falcon head mask has two eyes of different colors: the right eye is like the sun and the left eye is like the moon.

He held a short spear in his hand, a live peregrine falcon on his shoulder, and his body was covered in a bright and hard ethereal substance.

On the projection screen, that person spoke.

"I am Horus, the second seat on the Black Earth River."

:

Where were you on the night of June 17th?

In the projection, Hercules, carrying a giant club, pulled the club out of the crack in the rock.

"I'm fighting."

"With whom?"

"That table in Rome."

The golden falcon's head mask tilted slightly.

"Then let's have another match."

"You won beautifully, I believe in you."

"If you're hiding anything, I can tell at a glance."

Inside the temple, Dionysus placed the cup on his lap.

In the projection, the peregrine falcon flew up from the shoulder.

Hercules made the first move.

He never uses fancy fighting techniques; he just swings the huge stick with both hands and delivers a powerful blow.

The staff swept through the air, cleaving through the raging winds of the wasteland.

Jin Jun took a half-step to the side, just enough to avoid being hit by the wind.

The stick slammed into the ground, sending pebbles flying far away and creating a large crater big enough to bury a person.

Horus lunged forward, thrusting his short spear forward.

The spear thrust out just as Hercules was still in the air after he had finished smashing the club and before he could retract his body.

The giant stick came sideways to block it.

The spear tip slid off the shaft, and as it did so, the peregrine falcon swooped down from the side, its wing grazing the back of Hercules's neck.

"That bird is annoying," Hercules said through gritted teeth.

"It doesn't peck at me with its mouth, it just flies right past me."

"When a wing flaps against me, I have to instinctively turn my head."

"With a slight turn of his head, Horus's spear was upon him."

In the projection, a short spear thrust upwards and struck the ribs.

:

The sound of metal rubbing against leather armor could be heard even through the projection.

"I was furious."

Hercules was somewhat discouraged.

"You know the price of this mask. The more you fight, the more hyped you get. Once you're hyped, you don't want to think about anything else, you just want to smash everything in front of you."

In the projection, the big guy carrying the baton began to become agitated.

The blood flames, almost materialized, traveled from his shoulder to his arm, staining the surface of the olive wood staff with a red glow.

He kept hitting it with the stick.

The first strike missed, the second strike missed, and the third strike forced Horus to take two steps back.

In the fourth swing, he suddenly changed to a sweeping motion halfway through.

In the projection, Horus was no longer in the same spot halfway through his swing.

"...This is it."

Hercules frowned.

"This tactic has become instinctive for me. No matter how irrational I am, I can use it without thinking, so that no one can read my intentions."

"But he didn't even look at it; he had already moved away before I could change my move."

In the projection, the golden right eye was facing this direction.

His right eye was like the sun, and his left eye was like the moon.

Horus and Set fought for eighty years, during which time Horus had both his eyes gouged out once.

Later, the sun and the moon were placed in those two eye sockets, one to illuminate the daytime and the other to illuminate the nighttime.

On the projection screen, that match went on for a very long time.

Hercules fought with increasing ferocity, his blood rage turning his entire body bright red.

With each strike of the giant olive wood club, the withered grass on the wasteland was shaken and bent to both sides.

Horus has been retreating.

He retreated with great skill: he took three steps back and stood still; then he took two more steps back and stood still, each time stopping precisely where Hercules' next strike couldn't reach.

The peregrine falcon circled above the two people's heads, neither calling out nor coming down.

Hercules smashed harder and harder, but the things he smashed became more and more scattered.

:

The giant olive wood club no longer aimed at people; instead, it smashed the ground.

Horus is still retreating.

"He's been testing me," Hercules said.

"Try what?"

"Test when I'm completely hooked."

The eyes beneath the lion's mouth mask were cold at this moment.

In the projection, the bright red man swung a stick.

It looks no different from before; it's still a relentless attack from top to bottom, with no room for retreat, a bloodthirsty and desperate stance.

Horus stepped half a step to the side.

The stick landed on the gravel in front of his feet.

In the projection, the layer of rubble frozen by the wind under Shinan was blasted into a barrage of scattered bullets.

Horus's dodge maneuver was distorted.

He held the short spear horizontally, then spun it around in front of him.

Pebbles struck the spear, scattering in both directions with a crackling sound.

The peregrine falcon swooped down from the sky, intending to shield its master from the attack.

But the air, which had been empty, was suddenly caught by an invisible net, dragging the peregrine falcon into the grass.

A woman stood up from the grass, her face covered with a headscarf.

"...Who is that?" Dionysus asked.

Hercules scratched his head: "My wife."

In the projection, a peregrine falcon was pinned down in the grass and flapped its wings.

Horus couldn't help but look at his bird.

Hercules threw down his club and rushed out of the rubble to seize the spear.

"My thinking was very simple at the time; I felt that the spear was the most unreasonable one."

"I'll take it, and that'll be the end of this round."

In the projection, the two large hands gripped the spear shaft and actually took it.

:

Horus was pulled forward by that force, and the short spear slipped from his hand.

Then the spear spun around in Hercules's palm.

The spear tip turned and pierced the big man's chest from bottom to top.

"The weapons of the Black Soil River have recognized their master."

Prometheus, the most knowledgeable of them all, spoke up.

"The tighter outsiders hold their weapons, the greater the backlash will be."

"...I know." Hercules scratched his head. "Now I know."

The big man in the picture looked down at his chest, where the spearhead had already pierced through.

He chuckled and threw a punch.

: