I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Chapter 528 The Chicken and the Egg and the Snowball

Even if we don't charge money, we can at least attract people.

As for whether the item is genuine or counterfeit, Mercury himself has a certain ability to distinguish between them.

Besides, this is also an opportunity to befriend the other party.

When the news spread, the first person to come looking for them was an old woman from Camorli.

Camoli is a fishing village east of Genoa, where every man in the family goes out to sea.

The old woman brought over three painted wooden boards, which were left over from her brother's family.

Each board depicts a ship tilting in a storm, with waves higher than the ship's mast.

The Virgin Mary sits in the clouds in the upper right corner, with the four letters VF carved below her.

Richard translated the letters: "Make a wish, receive a favor."

In the past, sailors who encountered danger at sea would make a wish upon the Virgin Mary.

If I had come back alive, I would have painted these boards and hung them in the sanctuary on the mountain. These three boards were never hung up; they lay in the old man's house for forty years.

Richard placed his hand on the wooden board and said he wanted to take a closer look at the paint.

Available points: 4.46...4.59...4.71.

Each of these boards is a testament to our sincerest gratitude.

The sailors thought they were going to die under the waves, but they didn't.

Those fears, along with decades of lingering gratitude, were sealed inside the wood.

He nodded to Mercury: "It's true, and it's painted quite well and is well preserved."

Mercury was very accommodating, quoting a price much higher than those of the vendors in the back hall.

The old woman looked down at the three boards, took out only two, and kept the remaining one in her arms.

"The person who came back from this board is my brother, he's not for sale."

Soon a second person came over, an old fisherman from Leridge.

He actually came carrying a boat oar to sell, and then seriously poked at the oar handle with his finger. "Kid, I heard you're from Albion."

It just so happens that a poet from Albion drowned in our village in 1822.

His boat capsized at the time, and this was his oar from 1822.

A poet? Richard searched through his memory bank and quickly found a similar record.

That summer, Shelley was sailing his Don Juan from Livorno back to Leridge when he encountered a storm.

It wasn't until ten days later that the body washed ashore, with a book of Keats's poems still in its arms.

When he delivered the news accurately, those around him looked at him with some surprise, including Mercury.

He thought to himself, Hermes doesn't have a strong memory.

In other words, this comes from the young man's own abilities.

But the next moment, Richard looked at the small shop mark on the bottom of the oar and pointed it out to Mercury.

Mercury grunted.

"These are goods from that boat tackle shop in Liwo. That shop only opened forty years ago." The old fisherman blushed slightly as he said this.

"The oars are fake, but the story you told is true."

Richard smiled and took his hand off the oar.

Available points: 4.71...4.83.

At least he gained something, though not much.

Mercury coughed deliberately, indicating that he didn't want this deal.

The old fisherman shrugged and walked away.

He shouldered the oar and walked towards the main building, then shouted at a foreign buyer wearing a Panama hat:

"Sir, would you like the oar that the great poet Shelley held before he died?"

Several more people arrived later, but none of the old things they brought were contaminated with ether.

Richard waited calmly, thinking that there would always be an opportunity.

Even if this doesn't work out, I can always make up the five points by visiting the antique shops Mercury recommended later. At two o'clock in the afternoon, a man in his thirties came to the stall.

His face was tanned dark, and he quietly placed a small gourd on the table.

A silver straw was inserted into the mouth of the gourd, and a flat spoon with a small hole was attached to the tip of the straw.

He scratched the back of his head and asked hesitantly, "Is this valuable? I've asked so many people, and they all say they don't recognize it."

Richard examined it carefully and recognized it as a mate tea cup.

The herders on the Pampas would stuff dried leaves into a hollowed-out gourd, pour in hot water, and drink it through a silver straw.

This one gourd can be passed around among a group of people, and they can drink from it all night long.

The man explained, "I have a relative who has lived in Buenos Aires for eleven years. This May, the king summoned all the reserve soldiers back to fight, and he came back by ship and gave me this."

Later, in July he went to Isonzo, where he lost his life, and this thing ended up in my hands.

He patted the gourd with his hand: "Over there, the natives call these outsiders 'Apennines'; back in the village, they call them 'Americans.' Neither side treats them as one of their own."

Richard placed his hand on the gourd and could smell a bitter scent of grass mixed with smoke seeping from the wood.

It contains countless evening memories: a person sitting on the threshold of a foreign land, watching the sun sink into the endless grassland, sipping bitter tea, and thinking about the ocean on this side of the western continent.

The panel moved.

Available points: 4.83...4.95...5.07.

Richard put his hand down: "It's a good gourd, and it's been well preserved."

Mercury only cared about the silver straw.

He said that since the straw was made of real silver, it should be priced according to the silver price.

At four o'clock, the venue began to pack up.

Mercury had Piero lock the collected items in an iron box, then told Richard that the exhibition hall was a bit stuffy and asked him to go up for some fresh air.

The two were riding in a public elevator.

Richard watched through the glass as the rock walls receded layer by layer until they reached the end, where a breathtaking view suddenly opened up before him.

The entire city of Genoa lay beneath my feet.

Layer upon layer of rooftops, cranes by the harbor, and a lighthouse perched on the cliff edge. He also saw a white hospital ship, its red cross gleaming in the setting sun.

The two of them leaned against the railing and enjoyed the evening breeze for a while.

Richard casually chatted with him: "Sir, when I first entered the industry, a senior colleague told me that mastery is the ceiling of the Old World."

He said this while staring at the distant lighthouse.

"But since the start of the war, I feel like I've heard about or met more and more experts."

Mercury spoke to him in a casual tone:

"The senior you mentioned is actually right."

He also rested his elbow on the railing and pointed to the rooftops below.

"In the material world of the Old World, the ceiling is indeed a mastery of the universe."

As for the enlightened beings, their dwelling place is not in the material world, but either in the central part of the New World or behind the veil.

"Have you ever seen a whole ship carrying quicklime being unloaded at the dock, only to be caught in a sudden downpour?"

Mercury narrowed his eyes as he spoke. "I've seen it once before, when limestone would roll up on its own, emitting white smoke, and crack the stone slabs of the dock."

The boat owner later had to pay a lot in compensation. He said he would rather the boat have sunk that day than pay so much.

"If the true form of a master were to stand on the land of the Old World, it would become that ship of limestone... no, worse than that."

He gave an example.

It is said that in the summer of 1783, the entire northern part of the western continent was shrouded in a layer of yellow fog for several months.

The midday sun was red, crops in the fields withered and died, and people collapsed from coughing.

"Although it was officially said that a volcano in Iceland erupted, the real reason behind it was a tragedy caused by the advancement of a certain master."

Richard thought of nuclear weapons from his past life, and felt that the appearance of this expert was similar to the effect of nuclear contamination.

"Generally speaking, experts will at most cast a glance at you."

Occasionally, if you put in enough effort, it might be willing to lend you some strength or help you change the venue.

That night in the city of Seven Hills, the man in the furrow who drew boundaries for the entire city was actually renovating the site.

"Of course, there are also those who come in person." He glanced at Richard as he said this, thinking of the man with the straw-like hair who came that night.

Even so, those who come are never the real ones.

They often borrow a body, or pave a road, or ride a horse.

The true identity of this expert... In all my years in this industry, I've never heard of anyone having seen him, and even those who have probably couldn't tell me personally.

Richard thought about all the experts he had met, and it was indeed true.

Let's not even talk about the three: Black Soil River, Sun, and Furnace Fire.

Although the hunter always rides on horseback with deer antlers on his head, that must also be an incarnation.

Matthew squeezed out from inside the wall and said that his body was painstakingly assembled.

Old Bige quoted Mrs. Mary as saying that the experts "could not find examples" in the Old World.

It's not that we can't see them, but that they don't exist; that's not wrong.

Mercury turned around and looked directly at him.

"For an expert to make a personal trip, it must either be someone it values, someone it believes can stand on the same level as in the future; or someone who can bring it profits; or someone who has someone behind it that even an expert has to think twice about. I wonder which category you belong to?"

Richard did not answer, and Mercury did not care.

"Does Your Excellency know how Mars is doing now?"

Richard shook his head.

"He asked the man in the furrow to help him, betting everything he had."

Mercury sighed.

"I heard that after his house was emptied, his wife took the children back to their rural hometown, and he himself has disappeared without a trace."

Being missing is generally worse than being dead, as both of them knew.

The wind picked up while we were enjoying the view, and it hurt our ears.

Mercury then recounted examples he had witnessed:

"My grandfather actually invited a master, but he only got a glance in return."

But for that one look, he mortgaged his entire fleet of ships in Gibraltar. He looked at Richard, asking with a mixture of curiosity and caution:

"What did you pay in exchange for enlisting the help of that expert from the New World?"

Richard decided to tell the truth, since no one would believe him anyway.

"Oh, it asked me to write one for it."

Mercury paused for a moment, then gave a polite, forced smile: "You're quite the joker, sir."

After laughing, he composed himself and patted Richard on the shoulder:

"I know the rules. If it's inconvenient for you to say, then don't."

I know that feeling; the more you talk about the price you paid, the more painful it becomes.

Richard lowered his head and tried to suck on the flesh on the inside of his cheek.

I didn't actually contribute anything from beginning to end, and even met a master by chance.

Mercury's grandfather, however, risked an entire fleet just to attract the attention of the experts.

Mercury assumed Richard's stifled expression meant he was recalling something painful he didn't want to talk about. He considerately turned his gaze back to the sea, changing the subject to something lighter.

"Dante cursed us Genoese in Canto 33 of Inferno."

He said we had all sorts of bad habits and asked God why He hadn't taken us away yet.

Richard chimed in, "Petrarch did call Genoa the 'City of Pride.'"

Mercury smiled proudly: "We are indeed proud of this."

As for vices, when we Genoese read that passage, we only think: "He's cursing so fiercely, did no one bribe him back then?"

By the time I got back to the hostel, it was already dark.

The professor's room was lit, and Richard returned to his own room, turned on the light, and brought up the control panel.

Available points: 5.07

"That's enough, you can preview it now," he said excitedly as he opened the interface.

[Preview - Breathing Lv.7]

[Advanced Requirements: Breathe completely for 24 hours in a vacuum (no air, no ether) without external assistance.] [This includes places deep within sealed rock layers, empty jars, and places shrouded in silence.]

[Breath and Elements: Microcirculation shifts from "retention" to "self-generation".]

A single breath can affect the earth, water, wind, and fire.

Where ether is scarce, it arises ceaselessly; where ether is abundant, it is used sparingly.

Richard's expression wasn't very pleasant when he saw the unlock conditions.

vacuum?

Putting aside the current technological limitations, it would be extremely difficult to achieve a vacuum or send him to such a place.

...and have to stay in that place for a full twenty-four hours.

He placed his hand on his chest, and could feel his ribs through his shirt.

[Breathing] lv.3 gives [Healing], lv.5 gives [Yongquan], both of which are for healing.

He was once very unwilling, thinking that the hunter's full breath could ignite a blood-burning explosion, and could even form a substantial wind pressure bomb;

He had been patching things up all along, mending his own old wounds and others' old wounds. Now he finally understood.

To advance to the level of an [Element], one must first strengthen one's body to a sufficient degree.

The problem is, how can one survive for 24 hours in a place without air, relying on the life force stored in the breath from the [Yongquan] spring?

[Yongquan] Save up for three months, enough for a 50-minute physiotherapy session for my mother.

If you really cut off external energy to use for yourself, you can only last for a quarter of an hour, or at most half an hour.

Between half an hour and twenty-four hours, there is an insurmountable chasm.

This brings us back to the old chicken-and-egg problem.

[Element] allows him to breathe in places where there is no air, but unlocking [Element] requires him to breathe in places where there is no air...

Without any [elements], how could he hold his breath for 24 hours?

Richard thought about it and decided that he could only wait and see if there were any other methods.

The second line, "[Perception lv7]", then lit up.

[Advanced Requirements: Perceive an object you completely do not understand, and afterwards independently analyze its structure.] [Perception & Suspension: When the perceived target exceeds your capacity to bear it, you will retain the portion you can bear, while the rest will shatter into fragments and suspend themselves, allowing you to examine each fragment individually (you cannot perceive yourself by perceiving the target).]

Richard took the Venusian silver mirror out of his canvas bag, the Latin inscription on the back facing him.

Those who see are also seen.

Old Big explained this rule thoroughly during the first month he taught him clairvoyance.

He spent so long perfecting the art of "concealment," yet he never dared to look up.

[Suspended] To allow a mirror to hold something larger than itself.

What can't be contained will shatter into pieces, hanging there, none touching one another.

Because no part of it is complete, the person on the other side cannot find "themselves being watched" in the reflection.

If you can't find it, there's no way to follow the reflection back.

Richard's fingers slowly traced the edge of a silver mirror on a window that opened only to one side.

That's exactly what he wanted: to bring the battlefield back behind his desk.

He looked up and glanced at the small mirror above the washbasin stand. His face was reflected in the mirror, his hair disheveled.

A mirror can reflect everything, but it cannot reflect itself.

Richard turned the silver mirror over, with the back facing up, and pushed it aside.

Then he looked back at the advanced condition: "To see something that one does not understand at all."

How can I explain something if I can't even understand it?

He leaned over the table, looking at the last item.

[Preview - Knowledge Level 7]

[Advanced requirement: To make a piece of dead knowledge usable again by at least 100,000 living people.]

[Knowledge and its transmission: Knowledge that is remembered and used by others ultimately benefits oneself.]

Richard was immediately delighted; this was the only time he didn't have to obtain something first to accomplish something—a vicious cycle.

The first thing that popped into his mind was the six entries from his "Collection of Strange Tales".

Evelyn stood there with her hands on her hips, while a group of children skipped rope and sang "No answer at first, no answer at second," the rope swinging and hitting the frosty stone slabs with a thud. He passed by on his way home, and at the time he only thought his sister was very impressive.

And there was that mailbox at the Duckworth printing plant that got damaged.

The check that the Ministry of Finance signed was distributed in 5,000 copies to all the police officers in the capital, one for each officer.

And on the night of the day of mourning, someone actually sprinkled salt on the threshold of hundreds of thousands of doors.

He always believed that what he was doing was reducing the number of deaths.

Now every rule that those people remember will flow back to him.

His joy was short-lived; he calmed down and began to carefully analyze the requirements of [knowledge].

This requires retrieving knowledge that has already died.

Not counting niche topics, and those still being researched, they can't be considered dead.

When a piece of knowledge becomes completely dead, it means that the last person who could use it is already in their grave.

Finding such dead knowledge requires a lot of effort.

Moreover, knowledge can die, which means it may have fatal flaws. There is also a big difference between "being used" and "being read". It is completely different for 100,000 people to read a sentence in the newspaper and for 100,000 people to actually do what the newspaper says.

Richard turned to a new page in his notebook and wrote down the most optimistic estimate.

The most advanced skill right now is [Breathing], which is only halfway through at level 5.

[Breathing] is still the best skill to level up and unlock the earliest.

He factored in fieldwork, wild hunts, and all sorts of special events he might encounter.

If he can raise all his skills to 100% of level 6 within five years, that would be quite good.

Even excluding these rare and unpredictable special events, Richard estimates it would take at least ten years.

Ten years later, I'll be almost thirty.

He pondered that if he could get any skill to level 7 first, it would undoubtedly open up a gap in the situation.

Once the [Elements] are unlocked, no matter which barren place you go into, it will never run dry.

Deep within those thick, scorching curtains, places others can't even escape to, become Richard's supply depots.

[Suspension] Unlocked; the number of people who can read their own information will further decrease. Conversely, the number of people Richard can read will increase.

[Passing on the Torch] Unlocking: All kinds of books and pamphlets that were originally distributed with the intention of doing good will become a river flowing back.

And these are just the characteristics of three skills; there are four more skills to come.

Furthermore, the [Spirit] skill requires unlocking, which requires Richard to reach level 7 in all seven of his skills, and will unlock new features.

There is also a third seed: "Quantity, Boundary, Gift", the planting condition is that all four aspects of the body reach level 5.

And [Shadow Reversal], [Recorder's Pen], God-made Weapons... all of them have great potential.

Before you know it, the snowball is getting bigger and bigger.

He dared not even imagine what it would be like to become a full professor at Williams College one day.

Before washing his hands, Richard quickly splashed cold water on his face.

He stopped thinking about what would happen next, otherwise he wouldn't be able to sleep tonight.

Then he scrolled down the panel and stopped at the "Critical Thinking" line.

[Critical Thinking Lv.4, Progress 100%. All advancement requirements have been met. Required Points: 2.] [Preview] You've already finished viewing, so there's no need to save your points. Advance sooner and enjoy the benefits, and you can continue to accumulate points for the next level.

He clicked it.

Available points: 5.07 → 3.07

[Critical Thinking Level 4 → Level 5]

[Restructuring: The original speculative effect is greatly enhanced; when it involves the logical structure of the etheric level, the constructed object has a built-in 'self-check': it can detect which part will become unstable during the identification process.]

He decided to try keeping quiet first.

He's practiced this technique so much that he can practically recite it with his eyes closed.

Once the vacuum was formed, he inexplicably felt that there was something uncomfortable about the lower right corner of the vacuum mass.

Once the repairs were done, the procedure immediately became much more stable.

Immediately afterwards, all sorts of minor problems surfaced.

After finishing all the various tasks, he exhaled the vacuum again, feeling that his spell was unusually stable.

"...Just like having auto-correction enabled." Richard blinked, particularly excited; it seemed he wouldn't be able to sleep tonight.

Over the next two hours, he checked each of the surgical techniques he had mastered.

Stone Armor, Moon Spikes, Shadow Armor... all have been greatly improved.

Finally, there's the condensation method, which uses structural decomposition to break down the structure:

The still water condensed by the breathing technique and the required surgical method originally went their separate ways, but he connected them into a series.

The ether first supports the water surface, and after it's done, it sends out a portion to solidify into nails... If the front moves, the back collapses.

So he tried to split the two roads.

The Sun's Seat sends out two beams, one spreading out to illuminate, and the other sinking down to solidify.

The water surface was very stable, and at the same time, the moon nail condensed between his right fingers.

The clock downstairs struck twice; it was two in the morning.

Richard quickly scattered the nails and put away his notebook.

...The next morning was the last day of November.

The librarian extended Richard's borrowing period to December 9th, which meant there were only ten days left.

When this date was mentioned, Richard suddenly remembered Lillian's library card application form that he had seen before.

After the last Easter of her junior high school spring semester, she returned to the capital with her uncle.

The librarian at Greenwood Library was clearing out her library cards when she found a botanical encyclopedia she had forgotten to return.

The building manager knew that the two of them had shared the abandoned room behind the main building, so he asked him to sign the cancellation form.

He went through her file folder from beginning to end, and found the application form she filled out when she was fifteen.

He pulled up the form, and all the columns were filled in neatly.

In the "Date of Birth" column, she first wrote "12/3", then crossed it out and rewrote "3/12" next to it.

The Albionese write dates with the day first and the month last; she was probably too nervous and wrote it backwards.

November 30th is St. Andrew's Day, and the night before is the day when girls in the Central European countryside would use lead to divine their future husbands.

The six-day holiday runs from November 30th to December 5th. This winter, the entire Helvetii sanatorium is scrambling to find patients.

The warring parties are in talks, with the Red Cross leading the way and the Vatican acting as intermediaries, to send the seriously wounded and lung-disease prisoners of war from both sides to neutral countries for detention and treatment.

The first batch is expected to arrive in January next year.

Davos, Lessing, Montana, Leukerbad—wherever there are beds on the mountain, the owners are all vacating their rooms.

The war had been going on for over a year, and all the guests at the sanatorium had long since fled.

Nowadays, a prisoner of war is paid by the government per person, and in francs.

He overheard it briefly while chatting with Mercury at the expo yesterday, but didn't think much of it at the time.

Now he looks at this matter from a different perspective.

"Freeing up beds" means that any place that is still willing to accept ordinary patients is a place where the beds have not yet been booked.

Those that have already been ordered don't even need to be asked.

The advanced "critical thinking" ability made his reasoning process much smoother.

The materials he had for reasoning were: a directory of neutral hotels and sanatoriums attached to the Genoa Shipping Yearbook, last year's version; and a stack of GGs he picked up at the expo, which Mercury had given him.

In addition, there were the two Hervé newspapers I flipped through in the hostel living room last night.

The newspaper had a GG (Gentlemen's) section about the sanatorium.

Those eager to attract customers will print out price lists and write things like "Open all year round" and "Three meals a day including milk" to entice people.

Those who have already signed contracts with the government only list the address and the dean's name in one line, not even bothering to write the price.

He compared the list with the GG column.

Thirty-seven companies, first cross out the nineteen that have the names of the hospital directors listed in the contracts.

Then cross out the ones in Davos and Lessing, those two places have been recruiting nurses in the newspapers since October, and the more urgently they recruit, the more full the beds are.

Eleven companies remain.

He then crossed out four more houses located in valleys where they wouldn't get any sun in winter.

It's a high-altitude, cold mountain area. If you don't see the sun for four months in winter, even doctors have to travel far.

He read through the wording on the GG labels of the remaining seven hospitals one by one. Three of them had added a small note at the end of the GG labels: "This hospital also accepts patients who are not suffering from lung diseases and require rest."

The reason someone was willing to write this sentence is because there were so many empty beds that they didn't even pick and choose patients.

Of the three, one is on the shore of Lake Neuchâtel, which is too far away and too close to the French border.

One family lives in Appenzell, where there is no train service.

Both of these places, including Prague where Lillian lives, have had very difficult times in the past.

That leaves only one, on Rigi Mountain.

Richard put down his pen and looked at the folded route map at the back of the directory.

Mount Rigi is nestled between Lake Lucerne and Lake Zug, with Küsnacht at its foot.

In 1871, the first cogwheel mountain railway in the Western Continent was built there, and it operated even in winter, with two trains a day.

The sign for the sanatorium on the mountain only had three lines, with the last line reading: "South-facing panoramic view, a few quiet guest rooms still available."

On the other side of Lake Lucerne lies the monastery Mortimer was heading to.

Richard drew a line under "Kussnacht". He wasn't sure, but since it was on the way, he might as well go and take a look.

The coughing from next door started again.

"Little Richard."

"exist."

"What are you muttering to yourself in the house?"

"...memorize Latin."

Which line did you memorize?

Richard casually picked up a phrase: "Spir, sper (As long as you're alive, there's hope)."

The person on the other end hummed in agreement: "That's a good line, it's just been overused."

Richard smiled and asked through the wall, "Professor, when do we set off for Helvetii?"

"Tomorrow morning then," Mortimer muttered.

"I've already finished the good tea. Otherwise, if I bring it on the train, customs will ask me what kind of tea leaves I'm carrying."