I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Chapter 520 Minerva on the Station

The unlock conditions for the transformation have been displayed on the panel for more than half a year, but Richard still cannot find a suitable lost technique.

He noticed that the administrator used the word "borrow a book," not "give him a copy of the original text."

In that case, the plan to directly obtain a precious original text and absorb the ether from it will not work.

But then again, even if it's a copy that slipped out of the master's hands, it might still be a rare artifact that's been around for quite some time.

By simply passing through someone's hands, one can at least manage to snag a little something.

Have you decided which book to borrow?

Richard placed both hands on the edge of the cabinet.

"Sir, does the library have any books on the art of branch cutting?"

He was somewhat greedy, hoping that the books he borrowed would not only solve the urgent problem of unlocking the [Critical Thinking] skill;

It can also improve one's understanding of "broken branches" and help one reach full proficiency sooner, allowing one to perform "Shadow Reversal".

The administrator responded with an "Oh." "The current inheritor of the Branch Severing Technique should be Hector McFee."

"Broken branches have two problems: the cut-off strokes will grow back, and the cut-off strokes will remember the person who made the cut."

The earliest people to carve characters with a knife were actually aware of this problem.

Richard nodded: "Most of the ancient books in the outside library are abridged versions, while your library should contain only complete ancient books."

"Yes, and every scholar who reads a book carefully will write annotations in the margins, which become appendices."

Richard's eyes lit up; sometimes the appendix is ​​more valuable than the original.

The administrator took four cards from the drawer and placed them on the cabinet: The Book of Palimot, The Book of the Dead, The Emerald Book, and The Mahabharata.

"If you want to solve the two problems with the broken branches, you can choose one of the four books."

He first placed his finger on the card of the Book of Barimot.

"The Book of Barimote contains the most complete account of the Ogan, and it was written in 1390. McFee learned his own Broken Branch technique from this book."

But McFee knows all of the Barimott Book you borrowed.

"McFee can't teach you this, and it's not in the Book of Barimott either." The administrator's finger moved to the card in the Book of the Dead.

"The Book of the Dead talks about how the names of the dead are weighed and recorded in the ledgers of the underworld, which happens to address two of your problems."

At your current level, you can only understand the story in the Book of the Dead, not the incantations.

If you insist on reciting incantations, the Book of the Dead will read you through your eyes.

Richard glanced at the name "The Jade Book" on the card again, and the Hermes mask became even more agitated.

The administrator denied it for him.

"The Jade Record has only a dozen or so sentences, and each sentence has been studied by countless scholars for countless years."

"Right now, you can only understand the literal meaning of the *Jade Record*. Wait until you become a master before borrowing it."

Richard pulled out the last card: "What is here, is also here; what is not here, is not here anywhere else." (from the Mahabharata)

Claimed to be the world's longest epic, the book contains 100,000 verses and fully describes a great war between brothers on the subcontinent, as well as the gods, kings, saints and spells of the subcontinent.

This collection contains palm leaf manuscripts, with the notes of scribes, wizards, and shadow puppeteers all inscribed on the edges of the leaves.

Included are annotations by scholars from the subcontinent, written in Sanskrit, Tamil, Javanese, and Latin. The administrator explains:

"You know too little about the subcontinent, because there is very little knowledge and literature about the Spice Islands and the subcontinent on the western continent."

Richard nodded. It is said that the mystical side of the subcontinent has never ceased for thousands of years.

Scholars from the Western Continent have studied it for over a hundred years, but to this day they still haven't figured out the mysticism of the subcontinent.

The continuous learning that has taken place on the subcontinent for thousands of years must contain many lost techniques.

But Richard had a doubt: "Kipling said that east is east and west is west, and that the east and the west will never meet."

"The subcontinent and Ireland are so far apart, can the knowledge from there solve the problems I'm facing in the Broken Branch Technique?"

The administrator placed the copy on the cabinet.

"Those who read Kipling only memorize the first line. The rest is: There is neither east nor west, no borders, no race, no origin... When two strong men stand face to face, even if they come from opposite ends of the earth, what he really meant were the last two lines."

He picked up a blank card, wrote two words on it, and pushed it in front of Richard:

ir, from the Ogamma alphabet, means oak.

ār, a Sanskrit word, means wood. "More than a hundred years ago, a judge named Albion studied Sanskrit in Calcutta."

"The judge found that Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Irish look very similar, like the four languages ​​are one family."

Thousands of years ago, the ancestors of the Irish lived together with the ancestors of the other side, speaking the same language and marking the same kinds of trees.

Richard looked down at the manuscript on the cabinet.

The palm-leaf manuscript of the Mahabharata was bound with teak boards and engraved with elephant-headed, human-bodied gods.

This is Ganesha, the god of knowledge and wisdom, who, according to legend, broke his right tooth while recording the Mahabharata.

Elephants are indeed among the most spiritual of animals, and it would be quite fitting to consider them wise gods.

When the spiritual vision touched the teak board, it slid open immediately, and the ether was sealed tightly.

The administrator roughly guessed what the other party was thinking: "I sealed the ether of the copy."

"Palm leaves will start to rot after a few decades in the tropics. Every few generations, the locals have to copy the words on the old leaves onto new leaves and then send the old leaves into the Ganges River."

"After sealing the ether, the leaves will not rot."

In April of this year, Richard met a Punjabi soldier in Flanders. The subcontinentalists were already fighting in the trenches of the western continent.

Dozens of slips of paper were tucked among the leaves, with pencil writing on them. Richard recognized the administrator's handwriting.

"I slipped some notes inside, some saying 'You can look at what's good,' and some saying 'Don't try,' which you won't understand."

The notes were stuck everywhere. Richard randomly picked one out, which read: "This item is something your advisor doesn't understand either."

"...Which of my advisors is being referred to on this note?"

Richard thought to himself that there were far too many people who could be considered his mentors.

"None of the people you know in the capital can do that."

The librarian reached a conclusion, then took out a pencil, wrote a library card, and pushed it over:

Borrower: l.

Title: The Mahabharata (Palm Leaf Manuscript)

Loan period: one month.

Renewal rules: The borrower's loan period will be extended by one month for each new story they complete. Richard looked at the library card and understood what the other party meant.

"Are you... trying to find a way to urge me to submit my manuscript?"

The administrator tapped him with the pencil in his hand.

"Every story you write will be put on a bookshelf."

"The more you write, the more books will appear on your bookshelf. Everyone gets what they need; it's fair."

"What if I can't even finish one article in a month?"

"Once the loan period ends, the Mahabharata manuscript will automatically disappear."

"I'll take your half-finished draft as well."

Richard thought of the stack of drafts stamped with red seals and felt a chill run down his spine: "I'll get it done as soon as possible."

The administrator, however, is quite experienced in this area:

"The author's 'as soon as possible' is no different from the debtor's 'as soon as possible'."

Richard picked up the manuscript of the Mahabharata and noticed that the librarian had only sealed the ether from the palm leaves, not the teak planks and red cotton rope. The two teak planks and red cotton rope were added later, after they had been sitting on the fourth floor of the Ambrosian Library for over a hundred years, saturating with ether.

The panel reacted the moment Richard's finger touched the teak board.

Available points: 2.46...

Richard removed his fingers from the teakboard.

The two went up to the second floor together, where a bright ray of sunlight shone through the stairwell window.

"Oh, right," the administrator said from behind him.

"I already checked off Mortimer's request last week, telling him not to contact me again."

"He asked the wrong person in Pavia, and the librarian at that monastery was so frightened by him that he couldn't sleep all night."

Richard followed behind him uphill, and as he looked at the hunched back in front of him, a memory surfaced from the depths of his being.

The day before he left the capital, after the Cicero Cup ended, he went to the Imperial University Library.

He was arguing with Phillips about the scene in the Aeneid that led to the underworld, while an old man was playing chess outside.

"No way, this old man started watching me two years ago when he first entered the mystical realm?" Richard couldn't help but ask as he reached the first floor.

"Sir, were you the person playing chess outside the Imperial University library two years ago?"

The administrator did not give a direct answer:

"The Bible says that there are many books, and none are finished."

"The number of people waiting for the book is endless."

This means that no matter what you think, wherever there are people studying, there is Him.

He walked behind the book and sat down, continuing to touch his chessboard.

Beneath the archway in the courtyard, a figure leaning on a cane waits.

Mortimer had probably come directly from Pavia; his coat was covered in mud, and his face looked exhausted.

"Little Richard, why are you staying so late?"

"Oh, I'm helping the old man."

Richard glanced at the clock on the wall. The museum usually closes at 7 p.m., and it was already past 7:30. "Professor, I've found the person you're looking for."

Mortimer turned around, and his half-open, half-closed old eyes suddenly opened wide.

"Where? Who is it?"

Richard raised his hand and pointed to the book for borrowing.

The old gentleman behind the borrower was leaning against a pillar, dozing off.

Mortimer looked in the direction Richard was pointing.

He first saw the chessboard, and then the cushioned chair he had occupied for an hour.

Richard stood beside him, watching the old professor's face gradually turn from red to white and then to green.

The old professor's mustache twitched, his lips were pressed tightly together, and his cheeks puffed out, showing that he was desperately trying to swallow something back.

"...What did He say to you?"

His voice sounded a little unsteady, as if he were feeling guilty.

"He already checked off what you wanted to ask last week, so you didn't need to contact him anymore." "...What else did he say?"

"Tell me the face you're looking for; He doesn't need it anymore."

The old professor closed his eyes.

"I told him that His eyesight was bad."

"They even took his chair and made him stand for an hour to play chess."

He grumbled inwardly, thinking how could this master be so unpretentious?

Otherwise, with my limited expertise, how could I dare to steal someone else's chair?

Left with no other option, he took off his hat and bowed deeply in the direction where the books were to be borrowed.

After borrowing the book, the old man leaned against the pillar without even opening his eyes, and just waved his hand.

The meaning is clear: the museum is closed, let's go.

The two walked out the door and took about twenty steps when Mortimer stopped and braced himself against the wall with one hand.

He let out a sound Richard had never heard from him before, a sound that was both a groan and a laugh, something he had been holding back for too long and couldn't stop once it came out. "Little Richard, this week has been the most embarrassing week of my life."

"Um."

Mortimer looked up at the narrow strip of dark sky outside the alley.

"He said it was a checkmark, which means..."

"...From now on, it's up to me."

On her last morning in Milan, the Lyon proprietress's baguettes were baked on time as usual.

Mortimer didn't touch the bread right away; instead, he handed Richard a memo of what he wanted to buy.

"Can you help me see what else is missing?"

The paper listed five types of ritual materials:

The bark paper in Oaxaca was unwritten;

Andean knots, at least one knot, must not be touched by anyone;

Cochineal, one pound dried; a line completely covered in ink, making it impossible to discern what was originally written.

Two pounds of Darjeeling, not Ceylon.

Richard's gaze lingered on the last line.

"Professor, is Darjeeling also used in ceremonies?"

"Darjeeling is what I need." Mortimer pushed his reading glasses up.

"Milanese people live on coffee; I drank dishwater here for two weeks."

"And what about the fourth line?"

"I haven't thought about that yet. I'll write it down when I do."

Richard looked at the first few again, and it seemed that they were all originally from the New World.

My previous idea was correct; the materials from the mysterious side of the New World are indeed of a higher grade than those from the Old World.

Mortimer tapped the baguette on the edge of the table; the bread was harder today than yesterday.

"In 1562, a bishop in the Yucatan Peninsula (a meteorite crater in Mexico) lit a fire in the square of Mani town." "He collected the books of the Maya that had been burning for hundreds of years, threw them into the fire one by one, and after he finished burning them, he returned to Spain and wrote a book specifically about what was written in those books he had burned."

"And then?"

"Later, a few were lucky enough not to go into the fire and were taken back to the Old World, scattered in Dresden, Madrid, and Paris."

He put down the baguette and pointed to the second row with his finger.

"The knotted ropes of Peru were used by the Incas to keep accounts, record population, and track who owed whom a few bags of corn."

Richard raised his head.

Mortimer didn't look at him, and instead lowered his head to wipe away the bread crumbs.

"Little Richard, I've read almost all the papers from the Old World in my life."

"I want a few things I can't understand."

After he finished speaking, he went to pick up the tea, but when he brought it to his lips, he remembered that it was coffee and put it back.

Richard folded the paper.

"These materials will be hard to buy after the war." "Of course they will be hard to buy. Half of the ships from the New World have been requisitioned to transport troops, and the other half are sailing cautiously in the Mediterranean."

Mortimer sighed.

"There are auction houses in the capital, but the asking price is higher than my old life."

"What about Genoa?" Richard suggested.

The old professor lifted his eyelids slightly.

Richard said, "That's Columbus's hometown. To this day, more than half of the ships bound for Buenos Aires, Valparaiso, and Veracruz still depart from the docks of Genoa, and the returning cargo is weighed there first."

"Do you know anyone there?"

"I know a gentleman who runs a freight forwarding business; he gave me his business card."

"Is he reliable?"

Richard thought about the bronze seal.

"He has a very good reputation," he said carefully.

"Things should be a little better than before." Hmm... Mercury was killed by him once with the Branch Severing Technique, so there should be a period of rebound in his luck afterwards.

Mortimer gave him a suspicious look but didn't ask any further questions.

"Okay, let's go to Genoa then."

The old professor took his hat off the back of the chair.

"The committee's business is finished. To get back to the capital, we would have to go through Turin anyway, and taking an extra detour south would only add two days to the journey."

Upon hearing "Turin," Richard felt a little guilty and quickly stood up: "I'll go call a carriage."

"Wait a minute."

Professor Mortimer tore the fifth line of the list into a small strip, folded it, and stuffed it into his shirt pocket.

"If we can't buy Darjeeling, we don't need to buy any other materials."

Without tea, I can't concentrate on reading a single word.

………………

Milan Central Station is an old stone building. The waiting hall is crowded with gray-green military uniforms. Several mountain soldiers have black feathers stuck in their felt hats, which flutter as they walk. At the far end of the station, there are carriages painted with red crosses, and stretchers are being passed down from the doors.

The fighting along the Isonzo River had just stopped last week, and the newspapers said the front line had been pushed forward by several hundred yards.

Luca caught up with them at the ticket gate, still carrying something in his arms, this time an oil paper package.

"This is Focaccia." He panted as he shoved the paper package into Richard's hand.

"I'm afraid you won't be able to afford Genoese bread when you get there."

Luca looked serious.

"My cousin worked as an accountant in Genoa. He said that even if people there only lend you an umbrella, they will come to collect the money as soon as the rain stops."

Richard grunted, thinking the other person was exaggerating.

Luca then pulled another folded piece of paper from his pocket.

"Marco asked me to bring this to you."

The note was written in the handwriting of the tall Padua man:

"Check for me what's printed on the manhole cover in Genoa." There was another line on the back of the note, the handwriting changed to Neapolitan: "It should say 'Goods GG'."

Richard put the note into his notebook and said goodbye to Luca.

The whistle sounded, and Luca stood on the moon, waving.

Besides the two of them, there was an old lady and a salesman dozing off while holding a briefcase in the carriage.

About half an hour after the train left the north of the city, Richard nudged the old professor's arm.

"Professor, we've arrived in Pavia."

"I know," Mortimer replied curtly, somewhat annoyed at being woken up from his nap.

"The monastery librarian was so frightened by you that he couldn't sleep all night. Would you like to go down and apologize to him?"

The hat placed on the old professor's face remained perfectly still.

"don't want."

"The car needs to be repaired here, and it will be parked for a long time."

"I don't want that either." Richard suppressed a laugh and sat back down, letting out a long sigh from under his hat, which drew the attention of the old lady across from him.

After the train crossed the Po River, the fog thickened, and small stations emerged from the fog one by one before disappearing back into it.

Just after 2 p.m., the train conductor squeezed through and called out in the local dialect.

Richard understood roughly that the route across the Jiaowei Pass ahead had been temporarily given to the military supply train.

This train stops in Noviligure, where passengers must transfer to another train bound for Genoa. The waiting time is approximately forty minutes.

"A supply train?" Mortimer took off his hat.

"There's a factory outside Genoa that makes cannons and cannonballs," the salesman eagerly explained.

"The trucks from the other side of the mountain keep going north, while we ordinary people can only stand aside."

"Forty minutes." The old professor was clearly not optimistic about this.

"They say forty minutes here in Italy, how long is it usually?"

The salesman thought about it carefully.

"Sir, it depends on who's speaking. The conductor said forty minutes, but you should calculate it as one hour."

The train slowly came to a stop, and outside the window was a faded station sign: vi lire (Novi Ligure).

Richard stood up to get his luggage, his fingertips brushing against the silver mirror in the side pocket of his canvas bag.

He got out of the car and took a look outside.

In the summer of 1799, the Franco-Russian allied forces fought a battle on these hills.

French commander Joubert was shot shortly after the start of the battle and fell from his horse. It is said that he was still shouting for his men to charge forward before he died.

The still water spread out, and beneath those hills lay a thin layer of ether.

Over a hundred years of rain have washed it away, making it so faint that it's indistinguishable from fog.

He picked up Mortimer's suitcase and got out of the car.

The connecting train was already parked on the other side of the station. The carriage was cold, and the train attendant was handing out foot warmers from one compartment to another.

Mortimer put both feet up on the ground and hummed with satisfaction.

Richard sat by the window. The inside of the windowpane quickly fogged up, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand to look out.

Another train was parked on the opposite track, with a sign on its body saying it came from Turin and was also going to Genoa, but it was taking a different route over the mountains.

The door to the opposite carriage was open, and some passengers got off to get some fresh air, hunching their shoulders and stamping their feet on the platform.

Richard watched for a while, and then a woman caught his eye.

Judging from the woman standing alone, she should be about the same age as her aunt Isabella.

She wore a long trench coat and a felt hat, her gray hair was neatly styled, and she carried an old briefcase in her left hand.

On the platform, several soldiers who were stomping their feet saw the woman's face and forgot to stomp their feet.

She had very fair skin, a high and straight nose, and a clean and sharp jawline; her whole face was as dignified as a marble bust from the Roman era.

The soldiers stared at the woman's face for a while, their gaze falling on her eyes, and their initial amazement quickly turned into regret.

The woman's eyes were open, but her eyeballs were covered with a thin layer of white film.

Its head would occasionally turn, but its eyes, covered by a white film, never followed.

Richard's breathing slowed, and the still water, illuminated by the Mirroring Technique, reflected an owl. The owl perched on the gray-haired woman's right shoulder, its wings folded, its head buried in its feathers, and its eyes tightly closed.

Richard recognized the owl and quickly turned his Perception & Reflexes to maximum.

He waited for the gray-haired woman to make a possible move, but after more than ten seconds, there was no reaction on the water's surface.

Minerva looked up at the unseen sky, without glancing at Richard's carriage.

The great masters of star charts have always been able to observe the world without ever needing to use their eyes.

Richard reached into the side pocket of his canvas bag, the silver mirror of Venus pressed against his fingertips.

Fortuna's spokes were placed in the suitcase, under the wooden box containing stardust.

He looked at the person standing opposite through the glass, thinking to himself:

Was Minerva waiting for him here on purpose, or was he already on his way to Genoa and it just so happened that their paths crossed here?

He couldn't tell the difference.

In the presence of a master of the star chart tradition who excels at calculations, coincidences and arrangements appear exactly the same.

Minerva turned her head back and took a few steps toward the side of the carriage. Then she stopped in front of the carriage door and took off her gloves in front of Richard's window.

The woman's hands were very white, with long, slender fingers. There was a thin callus on the side of the first joint of her index finger, a feature that only someone who frequently rotates the focusing wheel of a telescope would develop.

Minerva raised his index finger, placed the tip on the outside of the glass, and began to write, writing backwards.

From where Richard was sitting, every letter was perfectly aligned: e ipse.

His heart skipped a beat, and after a moment's thought, he understood what it meant.

Inside the canvas bag, the back of the Venusian silver mirror is engraved with a complete Latin phrase: "qi sper, e ipse sper. (He who sees is also seen)."

Minerva only wrote the second half of the sentence, "e ipse," which means "myself too."

This is telling Richard that he knows he took Venus's silver mirror and that he follows the mirror tradition.

Richard sat there, a thought popping into his mind: Should I reply?

The moment the thought crossed my mind, [Inner Awakening] lit up.

Respond with a single sentence, write a word on the fog, or draw the curtains and look away; every reaction becomes Minerva's observational data.

Minerva is blind, so what it needs most is reaction data. Inside the cubicle, Professor Mortimer removed the hat covering his face.

He stood up, using the luggage rack for support, walked to the car window, and wiped away the two Latin words on the outside through the glass.

"sit down."

Professor Mortimer's voice echoed in his mind: "Don't say anything to Madam Chang."

"No matter what you reply, she can deduce your habits from your answers. I'll talk to her."

Richard then realized that half of his body had left his seat and quickly sat back down.

Professor Mortimer took out an old notebook from his jacket pocket and opened it.

The white-haired old lady near the door and the salesman yawned at the same time. The salesman closed his eyes while holding his briefcase, and the old lady took out a ball of yarn from her handbag and began to knit a sweater.

The classic texts are best known for their page-turning feature.

What the white-haired old lady and the salesman heard from the next cubicle was nothing more than a boring chatter about train delays and the price of roasted chestnuts.

After getting off the bus, they wouldn't even remember what they had talked about.

Professor Mortimer rolled down the car window, letting a blast of cold air into the compartment. Minerva put her gloves back on and, with her left hand, pulled a small bronze astrolabe from her sleeve.

As the astrolabe pointer moved a notch, the gazes of passing baggage handlers and passengers averted from Minerva.

"The eldest lady of Turin Astronomy."

Professor Mortimer spoke through the car window, his words carrying a hidden meaning: "Are you... assigning homework to my students?"

"Professor Mortimer, I am now the former director."

Minerva turned his face to the car window with a smile on his lips, speaking in a very standard Beijing accent.

"I resigned last month."

"You recognize me?"

"Yes, it is said that there is an old professor from the capital in the Milan committee who calls coffee 'dishwashing water' and even snatched the only cushioned chair in the atrium of the Ambrosian Library."

Your number isn't on my star list, Professor Mortimer, but I recognize your name.

Professor Mortimer's mustache twitched.

"The people of Milan spread gossip faster than the trains of Milan." "The people of Milan are always punctual in spreading gossip, while the trains of Milan are never punctual," Minerva replied.

"What do you plan to do here?"

"I don't plan to do anything." Minerva shook her head and turned her face toward Richard.

With his eyes covered by a white film, he didn't look at the face, but instead looked at the seat where the canvas bag was placed.

"Mr. Williams, you are taking two stars from my star catalog with you in the Old World."

Anyone in the Old World who can count stars can find out your location by following the silver mirror and spokes, as long as they get a copy of my star chart.

I was originally going to bring the star charts on board, and I didn't leave the copy for the Turin Astronomical Society either.

But there are people at the table by the Black Soil River who can tell astronomical phenomena, so I suggest you find someone to deal with these two items in the future.

Remembering the old professor's instructions, Richard sat motionless in his seat and did not answer anything.

"Thank you on behalf of my student."

Professor Mortimer spoke up to answer on his behalf.

"Where are you going by boat from Genoa?" Minerva didn't hide his itinerary; a simple inquiry with an astronomer would reveal the answer.

"On November 20th, a ship departs from Genoa for the New World."