I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Chapter 527 Hades' Dog-Skin Hat

Richard bolted the door, and the Hermes mask materialized.

When I came out of the restaurant by the breakwater, my mask was still burning hot, like I was carrying a roasted sweet potato in my arms.

He sat down in the chair, pondering what his new divine weapon might be.

The best was a shepherd's flute. Hermes played a reed flute and lulled all one hundred eyes of the hundred-eyed giant Argos to sleep, then cut off his head.

Richard didn't care much about beheading; what he was interested in was hypnosis.

The mirror by the Black Earth River, the pottery shards scattered by Apophis... and all those people who schemed against him over and over again—if only they could all be put to sleep at once.

The harp is also good; Hermes could exchange the whole harp for Apollo's forgiveness.

Just then, darkness seeped in from the inside of the mask.

Black liquid gushed out from the mask's two eye sockets, dripping onto the towel Richard had folded beforehand, and condensing into a large blob of unidentified substance.

Richard frowned and remained motionless, sensing that something was amiss.

A dozen seconds later, a hat appeared on the towel. He leaned closer to smell it and couldn't help but gag.

A musty smell from the cellar mixed with the pungent odor of wet dog hair... Hades probably doesn't wash his hair much.

Later, during the war between the gods and the giants, Hades lent the dog-skin hat to Hermes to spy on others, and Hermes eventually assassinated the giant Siblüttus.

In the context of demigod heroes, Perseus wore this hat to cut off Medusa's head.

He wore shoes borrowed from Hermes and a dog-skin hat from Hades on his head.

The panel lit up.

【Facial glow·Complete】

Hermes - The Helm of Hades (Borrowed)

【Effect: During the period of wearing the helmet, the wearer will be temporarily recorded as a person of the underworld on the curtain.】

The sight, hearing, smell, touch, and temperature sensations of the living, along with spiritual vision and mirrors, all pass through it.

[Note: This item did not originally belong to Hermes, and its value does not increase with resonance level; obtaining it grants its complete form.]

[Limitations: The concealment only applies to the helmet wearer. The effects of touching objects cannot be concealed. Furthermore, if the helmet wearer actively touches or attacks a living person, or casts a spell on or calls out to them, that living person will be able to see them.]

The presence of the dead, the sounds of death, and the underworld is actually clearer when seen than usual; ether is continuously consumed during the wearing period.

It's instinctive for the living not to look after the dead.

Even those with great mastery are like this; in fact, the higher one's inspiration, the stronger this instinct becomes.

But when he saw "not increasing with resonance", Richard's lips began to droop.

When I first got the Twin Serpent Staff, it said "The core ability has not yet been unlocked," but it eventually grew to "Messenger Passage."

The flight shoes have also been improving, making each flight a little less strenuous than the last.

These are all weapons with the potential to grow; no one can say for sure how high they will eventually go with their master.

But now... this tattered dog-skin hat, sigh.

Richard sighed and turned his hat upside down.

He then thought that there were advantages to borrowing; once he got it, it would be the complete version.

Richard had always had a question: looking at all these tables and the names of the gods on them, there wasn't a single one of god-king or creator god level. The most important one was someone like Apophis.

When he first told his aunt about the team battle and clarified the situation at the Divine Salon, he casually asked her this question:

"What would happen if someone made a mask with Zeus's name on it?"

Isabella blinked and crunched the candy in her mouth.

"No, that won't do. For three thousand years, every oath made in the name of Zeus—marriage vows, covenants, livestock sales, children gambling with marbles—will be recorded on the masked man. Whose shoulders can bear so much?"

"The same goes for Poseidon, and as for Hades..."

She lowered her voice, as if someone outside the wall was really listening.

"The Greeks themselves dared not pronounce His name, but instead called Him Pluton, meaning the rich one, as if calling Him too politely would make Him unheard."

"What do you use to make a mask for a god whose name no one dares to pronounce?"

"Not to mention the creators."

Chaos doesn't even have a face, but Gaia, once you put it on, the earth beneath your feet becomes your skin, the earth of the industrial age... heh heh.

She pulled out another piece of candy. "Don't think only the Greeks are like this. Ra and Amun of the Black Earth River, Odin in the north, Brahma and Shiva in the south—these are all the same. The names of gods are too heavy for anyone to bear."

Isabella simply tossed her a book titled "A Collection of Major Mythological Systems of Various Countries".

"A name that is old enough, pronounced by enough people, and whose status is not so high as to be overwhelming is just right."

There is also a rule about the condensation of divinely created weapons, which Hecate herself spoke of.

Some gods have very few weapons; for example, Nemesis only has scales and a whip.

Some had many weapons; for example, Hercules had lion skin, a giant club, poison arrows, and so on.

Hermes is one of the more numerous types, while Richard can have at least five divine-made weapons.

Hecate's explanation at the time was that more or less has its advantages and disadvantages; the more weapons the gods create, the more means they have, but the fewer weapons they create, the purer their power.

Furthermore, once all the divine weapons are fully condensed, the corresponding divine skills can be enhanced through resonance.

Therefore, the sooner someone acquires their divinely crafted weaponry, the sooner they can enter the next stage.

Richard counted on his fingers: a cane, he had it; shoes, he had them; and a hat, he had that today too.

There was also the tortoise-shell harp, the reed flute, and that winged travel hat... Even if we don't count the hat, there was also the scimitar that Perseus lent to Medusa.

Five is an understatement.

He picked up Hades' hat, nodded to it, and that was his way of greeting him.

Then he put it on his own head.

The cap fit snugly against the scalp, much like a silicone swimming cap.

The smell of wet dog hair suddenly became very strong.

Richard sneezed and looked up at the top of the washbasin stand, where a small shaving mirror hung.

The mirror showed his bed, the teakwood Mahabharata he studied every night by the bedside, and the coat draped over the back of his chair... but not himself.

Richard raised his hand and waved it in front of the mirror, but nothing was reflected in the mirror.

He looked down at his hands, but couldn't see them.

All five fingers are clearly there, but the eyes cannot find them.

He then took out the Venusian silver mirror from his canvas bag, wiped it, and held it up to his face. The mirror reflected the mold spots in the corner of the ceiling.

The silver mirror, suspended in mid-air, turned itself around.

He stared at the air for a few seconds, a sense of panic and emptiness slowly spreading through his mind.

A person can't find their own form anywhere... Richard suddenly understood the psychology of some experts after they were promoted.

When I closed my eyes, the feeling of controlling my body returned.

Richard took out his pocket watch, stood still, and counted for a while. He estimated that his microcirculation of ether would only last for about two minutes before he had to burn the [spiritual form]. If he moved around, it would deplete even faster.

We should also try clairvoyance.

He made his shadow stand up from the cracks in the floor tiles, attach the [Sentinel], and sweep it in the direction he was standing.

The shadow swept back and forth, standing there blankly, turning its faceless head toward the door, probably thinking its owner had gone out.

Richard laughed.

The laughter had barely begun when Shadow turned his head back immediately.

He kept his mouth shut; if he couldn't greet anyone, his invisibility would be gone. The stairs creaked a few times, and the landlady came upstairs.

She had a habit of stopping to catch her breath and say the name of the Virgin Mary every three steps when climbing the stairs.

"gentlemen?"

She knocked on the door, paused, and then knocked twice more.

Richard stood motionless in the center of the room.

The key turned in the lock once, the door was pushed open, and she walked in carrying a stack of washed and folded shirts.

She put her shirt on the bed, straightened up, and twitched her nose.

The proprietress's face changed, and she cursed a long string of words in the Genoese dialect.

Richard understood the words "dog" and "Albion man," which meant that this kid from Albion left his windows open when he went out, and stray dogs were getting in.

He then realized that the air in the room had been soaked through when he held that hat.

The landlady suddenly grabbed a broom from behind the door and bent down to poke under the bed, trying to find the dog.

Richard held his breath and quietly pushed Ether to his ankles, whereupon the tiny wings silently unfurled. He lifted off the ground, floating to the top of the wardrobe, his legs curled up in mid-air, the back of his head almost touching the ceiling.

He poked around under the bed with the broom and only found a sock that he had lost three days ago.

The proprietress picked up the sock, smelled it, and her expression became even more certain.

She reached under the wardrobe with a broom, and then behind the door.

Finally, he stood in the very center of the room, right at his feet, tilted his head back, and took a deep breath.

Richard was less than two feet above her head and could see the black hair clip pinned to her hair.

The ether in the microcirculation is burning out very quickly, and both the hat and shoes are being activated, consuming energy much faster than expected.

Unable to find the dog, the proprietress could only grumble as she opened the window, letting the sea breeze in to dispel the dog smell.

Before leaving, she took the socks to wash.

The door closed, and footsteps echoed down the street.

Richard hung in mid-air for another five seconds to make sure she wouldn't turn around and then slowly landed back on the floor, tearing off his hat.

In the mirror, the face was flushed red, and the hair was pressed against the forehead by the hat. [Spirit Appearance: 47/50]

The sea breeze outside the window was still blowing into the room, and a familiar cough came from next door.

Richard looked up and tried everything: the mirror, his clairvoyance, his shadow, and even the landlady.

One more mastery is needed.

Richard thought about it for a moment and realized that what he really needed to guard against was someone becoming suspicious.

If a great master becomes suspicious, he can open up the etheric field and sweep the room inch by inch until he sweeps a hole through it.

There should have been air, heat, and sound, but now it's completely empty; there's nothing there.

Mortimer didn't come downstairs for dinner again.

The proprietress came downstairs with a tray, having already drunk half of the soup and gnawed off a corner of the bread.

She tossed the tray onto the counter and started muttering to herself.

They say the old gentleman upstairs locks himself in his room and writes for days on end, and the food he eats each day isn't even enough to feed a sparrow.

After finishing her rambling, the landlady leaned closer to Richard and said mysteriously, "A dog went into your room this afternoon. I smelled it out, there's no mistake."

Richard nodded with a stern face and a very serious expression:

"Don't worry, I will make sure to close the windows tightly when I go out from now on."

The proprietress was pleased to hear this, patted his arm, and turned to go back to the kitchen to wash the pots.

Richard slowly sipped his soup, but before he had even finished half of it, he was already planning his next move.

Using Professor Mortimer to experiment with invisibility effects, if discovered, the worst that would be a scolding and two more stacks of books copied.

The result is that when you encounter someone with a high level of expertise in the future, you will have a better understanding of their abilities.

Just after eight o'clock, he put his hat on in his room.

This time, he even made himself float slightly in the air. The stairs were made of centuries-old wood, and the sound of stepping on them was impossible to hide.

He floated down the corridor and stopped in front of the crack in the door to wait.

The door downstairs facing the street creaked open, and a gust of cold wind swept up the stairs, pushing the professor's door inward.

Richard turned sideways and slid in along the doorframe. The stove inside was burning brightly, and the air was filled with Darjeeling soot.

The tea was good tea, and the coal was bad coal, but mixing them together masked his smell.

As for the dog-skin smell, he washed it repeatedly in the afternoon and added some ether, which actually removed most of the hairline.

Mortimer sat at the table with his back to the door, wearing only a shirt and a vest, his head down, seemingly writing something.

The briefcase was placed within easy reach, and faint ethereal fluctuations emanated from it.

Richard drifted far away from it, disappearing into the shadows on the other side of the table.

The old professor was writing very attentively.

Richard was curious and held his breath to crane his neck to look.

On the title page, it was still the old professor's crooked handwriting:

People I Know

Each subsequent page has a name in the header, followed by the birth and death dates.

The page before me reads: "Tobias Wren (1768–1844), tutor..."

This section has already filled seven pages and is still not finished.

"Harold Kingsley (1790–1861), a contemporary of mine, owes me a shilling and says he'll pay it back in the next life. I'm keeping a note for him so he won't forget."

Elias Grant (1794–1870), contemporary.

He was better at Latin than me, and worse at Greek, but we couldn't decide who was better before he died. After he died, no one argued with me anymore.

There were eleven people in the same period, and each person took a segment.

He flipped the page forward and found a few short pieces of paper tucked away at the very front, where they would easily be overlooked.

"Brother, Samuel (1788-1856), a stockings maker."

"Hannah (1790-1861), the elder sister, married into Loughborough and had seven children, of whom only three survived."

"Father, Joshua, a stockinger from Leicestershire."

"Mother, Martha, is illiterate."

The day I left home at eleven, they stuffed two roasted potatoes into my pocket.” Richard glanced at the few thin sheets of paper in his hand, then at the thick stack of loose pages below filled with notes from his mentors and classmates.

The memories Mortimer received from his family are so few that they could only be written in a few lines.

The remaining half of the notebook was added later by my tutor and classmates.

He activated his spiritual vision and saw that Mortimer's notebook was actually warm.

Each name written in the notebook is connected to a thin, almost invisible line.

Richard couldn't say for sure where the thin thread led; it might lead to the spirit world, or it might lead nowhere.

Mortimer lived to be 123 years old, a true centenarian, and most of the people he knew were now buried in their graves.

There are too few living people to gather enough to remember him, so he can only write down the names of the dead.

Seeing that his [spiritual count] was continuing to decrease, Richard knew it was time for him to leave.

Just as I was about to leave, the wind squeezed in through the crack in the door, lifting the edges of several loose pages on the table.

Mortimer reached out and pressed the loose pages down, glancing up at the doorway.

Richard huddled in the shadows, too afraid to move, even suppressing his breathing to the absolute minimum. The old professor glared at the doorway and muttered, "The whole room is filled with wind, all directed at this old man's bones."

Perhaps provoked by the word "wind," he continued muttering:

"That brat keeps opening the windows and blowing out my stove."

Mentioning Richard, Mortimer pulled out a blank sheet of paper from under the loose pages and wrote a line:

Richard Williams, year of birth: to be determined.

Richard's heart skipped a beat.

The old professor wrote very quickly; the pen tip almost never stopped.

He guessed that the old professor had been keeping his thoughts about him to himself for a long time, just waiting for an excuse to let them out.

"I say 'I'm okay,' but I'm so tired I can't even stand up."

"When eating, they always put the best food aside and save it for last. That's how kids from poor families are; they can't change it."

Richard opened his mouth in mid-air.

"When someone compliments me, I'll think about it for a while before I start to smile." "If I have something on my mind, I'll press my left chest with my right hand, thinking I don't know."

Richard opened his eyes wide and lowered his head.

He couldn't see his own hand, but he could feel his right hand pressing hard against his left chest, touching the antlers wrapped with reins through his clothes.

He quickly put his hand down and found that the old professor was still writing.

"The handwriting is neater than when I first arrived, but it's still ugly."

"They plan everything perfectly, but often forget about themselves."

As I wrote this, the pen lingered on the paper for a long time.

Mortimer took off his glasses, wiped them with his shirt cuff, put them back on, and wrote:

Wordsworth said, “The child is the father of the adult.”

This child always thinks too much, considering his family and those around him.

This is both an advantage and a disadvantage.

[Spiritual Appearance: 29/50.] Richard gritted his teeth and floated back to the half-closed door.

He waited for two minutes, and it was quiet downstairs.

He had no choice but to reach out and gently push the door open himself.

Mortimer stopped writing.

Richard squeezed through the crack in the door, his back pressed against the wall of the corridor as he slid downstairs.

The moment his toes touched the floor of his room, he quickly ripped the dog-skin hat off his head.

The smell of wet dog hair wafted up from Richard's head again.

The sound of a pen scratching on paper came from the crack in the door next door again, and Richard couldn't guess what the old professor was writing.

The next morning, Mortimer came downstairs full of energy. His hair was neatly combed, he had changed from his vest to a coat, and his appetite had returned. He ate two fried eggs in one go.

He picked up his teacup, blew on it, and suddenly sniffed.

"You... you hugged the dog last night?"

Richard nearly choked on his coffee, coughing twice. "The landlady said a dog got into my room."

The old professor grunted, took a sip of tea, and didn't even bother to lift his eyelids.

"It's really rare to see a dog that doesn't bark."

Richard looked down at his plate and saw that the thickest piece of cheese on his bread had already been pinched off, which he planned to save for last.

He stared at the cheese for a while, then simply stuffed it into his mouth, scalding it so hot that he gasped for breath.

The old professor sitting opposite me chuckled, his mustache twitching with laughter.

In the afternoon, Mortimer went out leaning on his cane, and said something at the door:

"If you let the dogs into the house again today, I'm donating my smoke glasses to the Vatican."

Richard agreed very readily.

As soon as the gate was closed, he immediately respread the salt ring.

On the panel, there is a new label after the broken branch.

[Broken Branch (Reversible)] The ether in the body paused for a moment, and then began to flow backward.

Richard recalled the feeling of the severing branch with his knife. When the branch was severed, the ether was pulled outwards, and the blade cut diagonally along the edge, peeling a piece off the target.

There was a force pulling back on the blade, but Richard abruptly cut it off.

Now the force pulling back has reversed, pushing outwards from Richard's fingertips, only to pull back halfway.

[Reversed Result: Grafting Technique (isii bre)]

[Effect: Any stroke cut from a broken branch can be attached to another carrier.]

Once the carrier is connected, it can perform the task that was originally cut off.

[Restriction: The next stroke must be a cut-off branch that was personally removed; it cannot be made up out of thin air;]

It can only be followed by a verb, not a noun;

The carrier and the stroke that follows must match; only one stroke can be attached to a carrier at a time.

Richard thought to himself, "Cut off a branch and reattach it; the two techniques are a perfect match, one at the beginning and one at the end."

He continued thinking, realizing that the more famous the item, the less likely a cut would remain. A cut on Mercury's business card grew back in three days.

A piece of an ancient artifact that has lain in a tomb for hundreds of years and is forgotten by everyone, could be cut off and its value could last for several months.

Thinking about it this way, the best material for grafting is the most forgotten antique in the world.

He took out the Peruvian whistle jar.

There is no record of a whistle jar in the archives, and Mercury is the only person who has seen one in Genoa.

As for Peru, the family that buried the whistle jar in the ground back then is probably long gone.

Richard placed the whistle jar into the salt ring, holding the silver needle in his right hand and spreading his left hand out, palm up.

First, point out the landing spot, and the shadow will stand up from the crack in the floor tiles.

The shadow stood to Richard's left, its faceless side facing the table.

"i! (Settled!)"

The needle tip traced a slanted line down the ridge behind the bird's head on the whistle jar.

The echo flew out of the jar and went straight for the shadow, which then absorbed it. Richard quickly pushed the grafted ether over and tied a knot in the shadow's body along the spiritual thread.

The shadowy outline swayed and let out a "chirp".

There is no sound in the material world.

The pigeons outside the window still cooed under the eaves, and the landlady downstairs was still chopping onions in the kitchen.

From the shallows behind the curtain, a bird's song echoed far and wide.

When the echo returned, it also brought back the shape of the entire shallows.

Richard then used the "Recorder's Pen" to attach a "sentinel" to the shadow.

Once the "sentinel" was hung up, its shadow spread out in all directions, and its entire outline became alert.

It then called out again, and the second call was different from the first. The sentinel could now distinguish the different levels of intensity and urgency in the sounds it heard.

Richard thought to himself that he could now assign "verbs" to the shadow, while the recorder's pen was responsible for assigning "nouns," and the two worked together perfectly.

He then used the broken branch to cut off the "lead" from the lead roll, intending to transfer the lead's unyielding nature to the shadow, so that the shadow could pretend to be deaf and dumb when encountering spiritual vision and ethereal field probing in the future.

The graft had barely been pushed over when the cut "lead" bounced back, slinking back into the lead roll. "Lead" is a noun, but grafting doesn't use nouns.

Richard, undeterred, took the "Recorder's Pen" and named the shadow "The Screamer," but the pen slipped off as soon as it touched the ground.

The chirping is an action, and the recorder's pen does not stop moving either.

After the test, some restless thoughts began to pop into his head.

Birds can fly, horses can run, fish can swim, fire can burn, and doors can open.

The limit to grafting is the number of actions that can be performed in the world.

If a colleague gets injured in the leg during a field mission.

Could he take the word "run" from something and attach it to that leg?

The thought was still popping into my head.

He remembered the crown his aunt had mentioned.

The traditional crown of change shattered into three pieces: the one that reflects, the one that observes, and the one that substitutes. Each piece was taken away and grew into a mirror, a star map, and a substitute that refused to show itself.

The tree was long gone, leaving only a few broken branches scattered across the Old World. The [Shadow Reversal] on his body was labeled "Change Tradition (Fragment)" on the panel.

He himself was now like a branch that had been broken off.

Richard put down his pen.

The idea was so big that he dared not think about it any further.

As McFee once said: "Say a name and the name will recognize you."

At the time, he didn't take it to heart. He thought that he was only cutting down insects in the factory, malicious things on lead sheets, and a few unwanted cursed items. Even if he was remembered, so what?

Now that the broken branch has a point of contact, the echo of the cut will no longer stick to his wrist, but the grafting has brought it back.

"Less is better than more."

He took the whistle jar out of the salt ring, filled it halfway with water, and shook it back and forth with both hands.

The chirping now hangs on Richard's shadow; the whistle jar is empty.

Richard counted on his fingers; nobody remembered the whistle jar, and the broken end could probably stay open for quite a while.

He had originally planned to take a break and write some articles for himself, but it seems that's not going to happen. He can only take over the work from other media; he'll still have to write the articles himself.

Richard glanced at the library card on the corner of the table. It was already the end of November, and he had less than two weeks to use it.

………………

On the last Saturday of November, just as the church bells rang, Piero came knocking on the inn's door.

He changed into a crisply starched shirt, his hair was slicked back with oil, but he still stammered when he opened his mouth:

"The boss is here, waiting for you at the booth."

Mortimer sat by the fireplace, flipping through his leather notebook:

"In 1851, Hyde Park in the capital also hosted an industrial exposition."

I've been there. Inside, there's a machine that counts money by itself, and a diamond bigger than a pigeon's egg.

From 1851 onwards, all world expositions have been modeled after Hyde Park; you should go and see for yourself.

The old professor added slowly, "Although with the little money in your pocket, you can only buy an apple."

Richard reached into his pocket and found three lira and a few coins—the old professor wasn't exaggerating at all. The exhibition venue was on the east side of the old town, right next to the sea; the International Maritime Exposition had just been held at the same venue last spring.

Upon entering the main hall, Richard saw only rows and rows of booths.

Mercury's booth was located on the side of the main hall near the window; it was small and had a brass sign hanging on it.

The sign reads "Transshipment and Insurance," with smaller print below stating: Neutral Port Transshipment, Lukang, Barcelona, ​​Marseille.

He wore the Chamber of Commerce badge on his chest and looked smug as he shook hands with a Hervétian man wearing pince-nez to say goodbye.

"Your Excellency!" Mercury spotted Richard at a glance and immediately went around the table to greet him.

"Thanks to you, I am now a member of the Wartime Shipping Committee of the Chamber of Commerce."

My name is also printed on the list of organizers for this expo.

Richard asked Mercury, "Where is the Order of the Crown?"

"The telegram from Rome says there's a queue."

Mercury let out a long sigh.

"...I never expected there to be over two hundred other kind citizens as enthusiastic as me." He gestured towards the back of the hall with his chin.

"There may be many items in the back of the restaurant that may interest you."

The back hall is a secondhand goods trading area filled with long tables that were temporarily put together.

The secondhand dealers wandered around, picking up items and deliberately grimacing before trying to find various reasons to lower the price.

Richard walked around and came out with a plan in mind.

He's planning to go back to his old ways, groping and taking advantage of people for free.

Richard walked up to the Mercury booth and went straight to the point:

"Sir, I would like to offer free appraisals to the stall owners in the back area."

If you come across a good item and like it, buy it; you can negotiate the price yourself.

Mercury's eyes lit up immediately when he heard that the appraisal was free.