I loaded the Mysticism panel.

As dawn approached, the Wild Hunt's "drive-by" operation was nearing its end.

Richard, wanting to see them through to the end, led the six people back to the palace gate.

After dismounting, the group looked back and saw that the Wild Hunt team was still standing on the clouds, with tens of thousands of riders standing motionless, as cold and aloof as mountains.

"From now on, I'll leave the matters concerning the Hunter to you, Your Excellency."

"certainly."

As the group entered the hall, the hall disintegrated on its own.

The next moment, Richard heard a "whoosh" behind him as the lobster soldier in the red coat unbuttoned his crisp military overcoat.

"They've left, haven't they?"

"I'll talk once I leave."

The lobster soldier put his hands on his hips.

"When the last little girl mounted her horse, she held the reins backwards!"

The young man wielding the axe burst into laughter, his laughter immediately shifting from his horse to his wits.

"I saw it, I saw it! I've been wanting to say it all night."

"You're really good at holding it in; you were standing there like a stake just now."

"I call this momentum."

"Your legs are just numb."

The barefoot one also stuck his feet out of the shadow of his mount: "I didn't dare to move much tonight either."

"What are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid people will see that I'm not wearing shoes, and I'll lose face."

"You haven't worn shoes for centuries, what are you afraid of?"

"That's different; it's unlikely anyone will come tonight."

Richard also relaxed, and now he finally didn't have to keep a straight face anymore.

The hunter's mount also moved over.

It pointed the horn at the shadow: "You made a mistake tonight, but I'll make an exception and give you one condition, just don't go too far."

As soon as he said that, Richard could sense that the other person regretted it a little, and a small piece of frost fell off the deer antlers.

Perhaps out of fear that it might ask for a rare or unusual material, it was reluctant to part with any of the collectibles in that cabinet.

Richard looked around and found that not only the riders around him, but even the warhorses and hunting dogs were staring intently at him.

He suddenly had a plan: "How about this, I want a spirit messenger."

The hunter stopped the deer whose antlers were still shedding frost: "Is this the one you want?"

"Yes, that's the one I want."

Furthermore, I hope that my messengers will use your channels from now on to ensure that my communications are not hijacked or blocked.

Upon hearing this, the hunter burst into laughter, and all the warhorses in the entire party pawed their hooves twice.

"That's easy, I have plenty of messengers here."

However, they're all made from dead people, so they're not very useful; they might even get confused about directions.

It was difficult for it to make a promise: "How about this, if you have time in a while, I'll personally take you to the spirit world to catch a good one."

The crowd immediately erupted in excitement, with everyone coming to join in the fun.

"Go to the spirit world to capture a messenger?"

"I want to go too! I want to go too!"

"I know where to find good ones; the moths in the south are bigger than elsewhere."

"What's so great about moths? They might scatter halfway through their flight."

"So, how do you feel?"

"Of course we need deer! Deer in the spirit world are the best at finding their way around."

The old scholar looked up helplessly and reminded, "Master Hunter, if all these people go with us, there will be no one to keep an eye on things in the group."

"It's okay, we're not fighting now."

The hunter shook the reins in his hand: "What trouble could possibly arise from capturing a messenger?"

The sky gradually brightened.

The Hunter glanced at the horizon and reminded Shadow, "It's about time; you should head back."

In the past, it would have stayed and become a permanent member of the hunting party.

But it seems that the other party benefits more from its external activities.

And now, even masters of classical traditions have been approached.

Just as the hunter was about to leave, he turned back and said:

"By the way, I haven't used the hunting opportunity I gave you last time."

This offer is valid for three years; otherwise, it will not be accepted.

Upon hearing this, several names automatically popped into Richard's mind: Loki, Apophis, Hecate... and the Black Earth River expert hiding deep within the veil.

As for the experts from the Black Soil River, they don't need to tell him; the hunters will go hunting themselves whenever they have the chance.

"I understand," he replied.

The hunter turned his mount around, raised his horn, and blew a short, closing tune.

Tens of thousands of riders dispersed in the southeast direction. The last few riders in the queue were still arguing about whether the shoe was made of sheepskin or some other kind of leather. After arguing for a while, they fell silent.

The clouds dispersed, revealing the plains below, and the white light on both banks of Isonzo dimmed.

Its daybreak.

Inside the Fico Hall, morning light streamed through the high windows, illuminating the wooden crates.

Richard opened his eyes.

Professor Mortimer was sitting in a wicker chair, dozing off with a newspaper over his head.

Hearing Richard get up, he immediately snapped back to reality: "You're back?"

"I'm back."

"Are you tired?" the old professor asked.

"fine."

"You must be tired. Don't copy books today, take a rest."

He folded the newspaper and stood up, leaning on his cane.

"Let's go have breakfast."

"Today is November 1st, a festival here. On the streets, they sell a kind of pastry called 'dead man's bone'."

Richard stood amidst the hall full of wooden crates, momentarily stunned: "What did you say?"

"Dead Man's Bones, that's what the pastry is called, made of almonds, like hammering nails."

The reason they're eating this today is to keep the dead company.

After he finished speaking, he walked towards the door.

Richard followed and walked to the courtyard, where he found the scribes already hunched over the long table, with more than twenty pens moving back and forth across the paper, creating a continuous rustling sound.

Luca sat at the innermost table, copying something while yawning.

Upon seeing him, Richard waved and nodded.

The fog outside has lifted, and people carrying chrysanthemums are still walking down the street.

A pair of very small shoes were placed in front of a house, with candy inside.

………………

In Copenhagen, on the other side, the sun doesn't rise above the sea until 8 a.m. in November.

Loki woke up in the attic of Freeport’s backstreet and the first thing he did was touch his face.

He laughed as he washed his face, looking at the water in the basin:

"Look at yourself, you've been divided and disintegrated overnight."

I lost half a year's worth of liquor money, and was even told in front of a room full of people that I could be replaced at any time.

The water in the basin, of course, wouldn't answer him, and Loki didn't expect it to either.

After washing his face, he took a notebook and started calculating.

There are only two places where I lost money. First, the profits no longer go through his hands, so he can't even get a drop of oil between his fingers.

Furthermore, Hermes' messages will now have to go through the envoy's hands first, and he won't get back a single copper coin of the wine money, gold coins, and smiles he's given away in the past six months.

Loki was upset for only a short while before he started thinking about other things.

There were eleven candidates standing against the wall last night, their bodies wrapped in curtains.

These eleven people witnessed the palace doors open, the fire trail stretching from the threshold all the way to the top of the clouds, and tens of thousands of cavalrymen simultaneously turning the backs of their swords.

What these people saw could not be hidden.

He estimated that by this morning, quite a few people must have mentioned this to others.

When they bring it up, they usually lower their voices and add, "You absolutely mustn't tell anyone."

Those who usually warn others not to tell anyone are the ones who spread the news the fastest.

Loki knew very well that information was only valuable when it could be kept secret.

When you can no longer hide it, cash it out quickly before it becomes worthless.

He set aside a sheet of paper and wrote:

Hunter:

In the northern region, the number of people who have nowhere to turn has increased several times compared to previous years.

I'm willing to recruit more people into your team without pay.

—Loki

The most important rule when dealing with hunters is never to let them pay you.

Upon hearing that it was free, the reply came very quickly.

Before long, a note landed on Loki's table.

There was only one line of very neat handwriting at the top, probably written by an elderly scholar:

"Yes, there is no limit to the number of people you can recruit into the team."

Furthermore, the seating arrangement at the theological salon must remain unchanged.

The seven chairs form the framework of the entire ceremony; no one can turn seven into seventy, or it would no longer be the ceremony.

Loki quickly convened a new gathering that very evening, and the temple was lit as usual.

The number of heads hanging in the darkness of the dome was the same as last month, and Fenrir's chair had been empty for nine months, from February to November.

Loki rose from his high chair and held up the Hunter's reply: "The Hunter says the position will never change again."

He deliberately misinterpreted the hunter's meaning. The hunter meant that no more than seven seats could be added, but he meant that their seats would remain unchanged.

Upon hearing this, the audience erupted in jubilation, as it was tantamount to abolishing the most crucial rule of positional warfare.

Loki nodded: "The position-switching battle will be abolished starting tonight, but the vacant positions must be filled."

He went to the empty chair Fenrir had left behind and placed his hand on the back of the chair:

"Starting tonight, I will recruit more substitutes."

From Copenhagen and Bergen to Christiania, anyone interested can apply; there is no limit.

The discussions inside the hall grew even louder.

Loki looked up and gazed at the circle of candidates at the base of the wall:

"Even if you candidates don't get to sit in this last vacant seat, you can still ride with the hunting party and spend the whole night in the wild hunt."

Furthermore, all the profits and distribution will not pass through my hands; it will be determined by the hunter.

These candidates, having witnessed the entire presentation last night and the various benefits promised by the envoy, were already somewhat envious of the Wild Hunt.

Upon hearing that they also had the opportunity to participate, everyone became excited.

Loki nodded; this was exactly the effect he wanted.

He started explaining the rules: "First, you have to join, which costs a ticket: materials, cash, intelligence, connections, anything."

"The ticket money is mine; after all, I'm taking you to the hunting party to familiarize yourselves with the area on the first night, so it's my responsibility."

Freya immediately understood what Loki was planning.

She thought to herself that this way, Loki would regain some of the initiative.

If this news spreads and enough candidates come, he'll be rolling in money from ticket sales alone.

Moreover, this is a promise that only the chief can make.

But Freya's eyes lit up, and she immediately came up with a plan: "Can we bring in people we know?"

"sure."

Loki wanted this viral spread effect.

He was about to say it when Freya blurted it out herself.

The more people he recruits, the more commission he can take.

"Regarding the ticket revenue, if you bring in people, I'll only take 50%... no, I'll only take 30%."

"Twenty percent," Freya began to bargain.

Loki feigned indignation: "Twenty-five percent! I only got this opportunity after discussing it with the Hunter, don't get me wrong!"

Freya sneered inwardly, but she was too lazy to haggle any further.

"Okay, that's settled then. You take 25% and the rest of the ticket money goes to those who bring people in."

Tyr scoffed from the side, "So, does that mean we all have the right to recruit others?"

"Of course," Loki replied directly.

"However, you will have to go through me, and I will screen them before reporting to the Hunter Master, so I will take 25% of the profits."

Tyr then asked the crucial question: "If someone dies in the hunting party, whose responsibility is it?"

Loki laughed heartily: "Of course it belongs to the Hunter."

"Let me make this clear to you all. Anyway, we can't hide this from you. Most of the people who run with the hunting party will die."

At least half of them died in the first year, and of the surviving half, even more will surely die in the second year.

But now everyone can see the chaotic state of the battle outside.

"If you die with the hunting party, there's a chance you'll be recorded on the roster after death, and a chance to continue being part of the Wild Hunt."

Upon hearing this, the candidates basically signed up without hesitation.

Many of the people who come here are either living a comfortable life outside or are in urgent need of a way to grow quickly.

Otherwise, why would they risk their lives to fight for a seat?

Even Lillian herself, when she embarked on the path of the abyss, fought her first battle with Ba, and those several perilous battles of switching positions, wasn't she always putting her head on the line?

Loki himself said that joining the Wild Hunt only carries a chance of death.

This is not even as brutal as the positional exchange battle, where one person is guaranteed to die in a single battle.

They're even willing to participate in positional battles, so why would they be afraid of the risks of the Wild Hunt?

Lillian stood by without saying a word the whole time.

She could vaguely sense that whenever Loki or anyone else mentioned the Wild Hunt or the Wild Hunt, her Skadi mask would become slightly warm.

Skadi was originally the goddess who ruled over winter and the hunt.

After the meeting, Lillian conducted an experiment in the attic of Prague.

She put away the Skadi mask and stood in the middle of the attic, relying on herself to create a blizzard without any external assistance.

The blizzard started quickly, and it felt even smoother than last month.

Last month, she had to work hard to circulate her breathing and concentrate fully in order to condense a little snow above her palm.

She had only thought about it seriously tonight, and the entire attic windowpane was now covered in frost flowers.

Lillian opened her notebook and began recording the extent of her skill improvement.

She had a premonition that once she joined the Wild Hunt team and it expanded, she would be able to reap even more benefits.

After finishing taking notes, Lillian closed the notebook, stuffed it back into the box, and placed it next to the glass jar containing the tit specimen.

The box containing the snacks still sat by the bedside, the sugar rabbit on the lid crooked.

There were also two almond cookies in the box, which she couldn't bear to part with.

Thinking of the person who brought her the snacks, Lillian hugged the snack box and drifted peacefully into sleep.

She is unlikely to have nightmares tonight.

………………

An old man had appeared in the courtyard of the Ambrosian Library at some point.

He liked to keep a chessboard on the table, and since the white pieces were missing a bishop, he replaced it with a brass button.

The old man had a peculiar habit: he liked to play chess against himself.

After he finishes his white move, he stands up and moves a black piece to the opposite side, then moves his black piece and goes back to the white side.

He could make over forty rounds in a morning, and most people watching just shook their heads and felt sorry for the old man.

But this seemingly mentally unstable old man set up a temporary lending desk in the courtyard, and everyone who borrowed or returned a book had to go through him.

No one in the entire library could remember who arranged for the lending desk or when it was placed in the atrium.

Moreover, when it comes to the business of borrowing and returning books, everyone unconsciously trusts the old man's management, even the librarian is no exception.

The scribes called him "Old Gentleman".

Luca said that when he first started working there, the old man was already sitting under the pillar.

Marco, a tall scribe from Padua, also said that the old gentleman was already there when he entered the museum.

Richard asked the curator, and the old priest thought for a long time before answering.

"He was already here when I started working at this museum."

"How many years has he been here?"

"Child, I asked the former librarian, and he said that when he came to borrow books as a child, the old gentleman was already sitting under the pillar."

Richard thought that every old library had someone like that, someone who seemed to have been built into the wall along with the bookshelves when the building was constructed.

His first encounter with the old man was over a book.

Richard needed to use the 1580 catalogue, which was over 600 pages long, and he had to refer to it constantly while indexing.

I'll borrow it for three days.

The old man reached out, took the borrowing slip, and glanced at it.

"The borrowing period at this library is two hours."

"I need to compile an index, which will take two hours to complete."

"I'll borrow the rest tomorrow."

"Will it also be two hours tomorrow?"

"Two hours tomorrow too."

Richard thought for a moment and said, "Then I'll borrow it four times a day."

"You can only borrow once a day, that's the rule."

"Does the library have any books that can be borrowed?"

The old man thought about it carefully.

"There is one."

He pulled a thin booklet from under the lending desk and pushed it in front of Richard.

The cover of the booklet reads: "Library Borrowing Rules".

Richard returned to his seat with the book, even though two hours was enough for him to read through the more than 600 pages several times.

[博闻] He read it once, and all the content stayed in his mind.

He asked to lend it out mainly because he wanted to take the catalog back to the hostel and flip through it slowly while lying in bed.

During the break, Luca, as usual, brought him a small white porcelain cup.

Richard stood under the corridor, took a sip, and frowned.

"No candy today either?"

"There's none for the whole year; all the sugar has been supplied to the army."

The old man woke up at some point and snatched the cup from Richard's hand.

Despite his slow movements, Richard felt an irresistible urge to move.

"No coffee allowed in the reading area!"

"...I'm standing in the central courtyard corridor."

"The corridor can also be considered a reading area."

"Where in the library isn't a reading area?"

The old man gestured with his chin toward the gate.

"On the street outside the gate."

Richard could only carry his cup outside the door; the November wind blew in from the alley, and the coffee had gone cold.

Iced coffee > Hot coffee > Coffee cooled from a hot blanket to room temperature—even a dog would shake its head at that.

Mortimer then entered the courtyard carrying the chipped cup, only to be stopped by the old gentleman in the corridor.

The old professor could only stand at the front door, finish half a cup of weak tea, and mutter in Albion, "Stubborn old man."

The documents to be copied that day were all 17th-century receipts, each one more boring than the last.

Richard's mind wandered as he copied, and he wrote a few lines on the back of a blank card.

The Romans conquered all of Gaul, leaving only a small village on the coast that remained unconquered.

The village's Yi Hui would brew a pot of medicine, and after the villagers drank it, they would become incredibly strong.

The shortest person in the village was the quickest-thinking, and there was also a fat man who carried a standing stone around all day.

The fat man fell into a pot of medicine when he was a child, so the adults in the village forbade him to drink medicine anymore. The small village was surrounded by four Roman barracks.

This is the famous Asterix from the previous life, a national treasure-level comic, which even presidents would bring with them as gifts to foreign heads of state when visiting other countries.

When Richard was writing about the four barracks, a hand reached over his shoulder and snatched the card away.

"Writing or copying irrelevant content is not allowed in the reading area."

The old man stood and read the card once, his lips twitching, then he put the card directly into his pocket.

"...confiscate it."

"Hey! You're not my advisor, what right do you have to confiscate it!"

"Come to the lending desk to pick it up before 2 p.m.

Richard went to collect the card at 1:58.

The old man returned the card to him; on the back, there was an extra line of pencil writing: "Wrongly written. I hope to see a follow-up."

Richard assumed the old man had been sitting in the courtyard for a long time and was bored, so he wanted to find some amusement.

As for the Italian language, he no longer needs the vocabulary list his aunt wrote for him.

With the added advantages of his knowledge and critical thinking, he was able to understand most of the insults Luca and his companions hurled at the dinner table.

Sure enough, no matter what language it is, learning swear words is always the fastest.

As things unfolded gradually, Richard is now considered to have no reading difficulties.

But my spoken English is still not very good.

When he spoke, the emphasis was entirely on the positions that the Albion people were accustomed to.

As the tall Marco listened to him discussing the dating of manuscripts, his glasses slipped down to the tip of his nose.

"How long have you been in Milan?"

"About two weeks."

"You've been here for two weeks, and this is all you've seen?"

He was holding a notarized document in the 16th-century Lombard dialect, which even the locals had to decipher by guesswork.

"Apennines originated from Latin and are partially interchangeable."

The tall man opened his mouth.

"Then why do you stutter when you speak?"

"...oral practice."

Mortimer has spent very little time in the museum these past few days.

As soon as the meeting ended, the old professor went out with his cane and didn't return until evening.

Brera’s library, the seminary’s collection of books, several old bookstores behind the cathedral, and a shop in the south of the city that specializes in old sheet music.

He would ask everyone he met, "Does your place have an administrator, around forty years old, of medium height, with a pencil tucked behind his ear?"

Most people said no, and even if they said yes, when they brought them out, it turned out to be someone else entirely.

A bookstore owner, who said he was in his forties and had a pencil tucked behind his ear, asked the professor what he wanted to see him about.

Mortimer looked the man up and down, said he was fine, then bought a prayer book he had no use for and left.

He also asked the old gentleman in the courtyard.

In the afternoon, the old man was playing white chess.

"Excuse me, is there a librarian in the library who is around forty years old and has a pencil tucked behind his ear?"

The old man became lazy.

"Never seen it before."

Mortimer turned to Richard and said in Albion:

"It's normal for people of this age to have poor eyesight."

Another time, while the old man got up to play black on the opposite side...

Mortimer sat down in the only cushioned chair in the courtyard, the one on the white side.

The old man returned after finishing his game with the black pieces and stood beside the chair.

Mortimer pulled his hat over his face and started snoring.

The old man had no choice but to stand and play white pieces for an hour.

During that hour, Mortimer would occasionally lift the brim of his hat to offer a comment.

"No one started like this a hundred years ago."

"Someone did this a hundred years ago."

"Who?"

"I."

Mortimer chuckled, taking it as the old man joking around.

When they returned to the hostel that evening, the restaurant had left them some food.

The hostel owner was from Lyon, but even after marrying into the family, she still baked a baguette every morning and evening without fail.

Mortimer picked up the bread and slammed it against the edge of the table.

Boom!Boom!Boom!

"I tried to escape it all the way from Dover to Milan, but I still couldn't get rid of it."

Richard suppressed a laugh and remained silent.

Mortimer has been coming back later and later each day these past few days, and he's been talking less and less each day.

He broke the baguette in half:

"Young Richard, there's someone who wouldn't want to see you. Even if they stood right in front of you, you'd probably ignore them. That's what a master is!"

He put the small piece of bread he had broken off into his mouth, chewing and sighing.

"...I probably don't have that luck."

Mortimer was still uneasy about the breakthrough expert and kept thinking about finding that master again to ask him, but the master just wouldn't show up.

Meanwhile, the evacuation of the precious texts also gradually reached a stalemate.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, the official from Rome stood up and read a telegram.

The telegram contained four lines, but all conveyed the same meaning:

All documents to be evacuated were included in the "National Catalogue of Art and Historical Property".

Professor Tagliafello asked him how long the committee that studied the format had been established.

The gentleman looked down at the notes under the telegram.

"...1902."

"Who decided to establish this committee?"

"A committee in 1899."

"What does that committee study?"

The official hesitated for a moment: "...we need to study whether it is necessary to standardize the format."

Someone in the audience dropped their pen on the floor and spent a long time bending down to pick it up.

But that's not the worst part.

The most crucial part is on the last page of the list: the archives of the cathedral workshop.

From 1387 to the present day, it records where each stone came from, which ship transported it, which stonemason carved it, and how many copper coins he was paid.

In addition, there are more than two hundred manuscripts donated to the workshop throughout history.

These items have one thing in common: each one is printed with three letters: a...f.

Professor Taliaferro pulled out one of the pages and laid it out in the center of the long table.

"am faba" means "for construction site use".

"More than 500 years ago, the Grand Duke of Milan set a rule: all the stones transported to the cathedral construction site should have these three letters marked on the boxes, and they could pass through the gates and checkpoints without paying a single copper coin in taxes."

"Later on, Milanese people said that something was free by calling it 'af,' and that word comes from those three letters."

Someone in the audience chuckled.

The key point is that the Milan Cathedral was never truly completed; it was built intermittently for hundreds of years.

Milanese even have a saying that describes something that never ends as "like building a cathedral."

On the mystical side, anything marked with "a..f." will not spoil or rot.

This has been the consensus of the entire city of Milan for the past five hundred years; everyone tacitly agrees that this matter is not over yet.

So those 15th-century papers still look like they were written on yesterday.

The original plan for the conference was to transport the precious documents to the cellars of the neutral country of Helvetica to avoid the war, but once they left Milan, no one recognized them.

Three years ago, Professor Tagliafello tried to take a single page of paper across the lake to Locarno on the other side. When he disembarked, half of the writing had faded.

Leaving Milan, the five hundred years of time that never seemed to age will be made up for in just a few days.

Copying it won't help; words can be copied, but the etheric traces accumulated over five hundred years cannot.

Next, the whole house erupted into chaos.

Moving it will cause it to break, leaving it might lead to it being blown up, and copying it won't be able to capture everything.

Even Professor Mortimer explained to Richard that even a great master couldn't possibly pack up and take away five hundred years of a city's history.

The officials from Rome said that regardless of whether the goods are moved or not, they should be included in the general catalog.

After the meeting, Luca and the others dragged Richard to the arcade for dinner.

It was the same place as last time, and the mosaic bull on the ground had been stepped on and lit up again.

As soon as the waiter saw Richard enter, he turned around and shouted towards the kitchen.

The fat cook came out, leaned against the door frame, and crossed his arms.

Richard ordered a saffron rice and a fried veal steak, which he quickly devoured.

"One more, please."

After finishing the second serving, two other helpers peeked out from the kitchen, one of them still holding an unpeeled potato.

"What kind of opening?" Luca asked.

Richard put down his knife and fork, pondering how to describe it.