I Loaded the Occult Panel

By the time the carriage arrived home, the butler was already waiting under the porch to take the grandfather and grandson’s hats and coats.

Soup was still warming in the kitchen, but they had both eaten at the Phillips residence.

Gerard waved a hand and headed upstairs alone. His steps were much steadier than the day before, though he still had to catch himself on the handrail after climbing a few stairs.

Richard returned to his own room; he still needed to take stock of his gains from the night of the Day of Mourning.

His first order of business was the usual routine: feeding his shadow, the tireless contributor that had put in so much hard work.

The pitch-black mass floated up from behind the veil on its own. It was worn down to such a thin layer that it could barely stand upright.

Richard retrieved the high-concentration Serpent Mother residue he had brought back from Whitby out of his hidden compartment and placed it on the desk.

Richard sat nearby and watched. As the shadow consumed the residue, its edges gradually solidified in the lamplight, shifting from wispy black smoke back into dense ink.

Half an hour later, the shadow retracted its tendrils. Less than a third of the residue had been consumed.

Richard pushed the medium-concentration residue over as well. ”Eat a little more tonight,” he said.The shadow hesitated. Its edges quivered—somewhat resembling a human burp—but it pressed itself against the offering once more.

Only when it finished eating did Richard take his Sphinx Lamp from his inner pocket.

Nearly half a year had passed since he achieved Signature at the end of his summer research trip last year.

Over those six months, the lamp had transformed from its original mottled, rusted state, growing smooth and polished from his constant handling.

The Sphinx relief on the lamp’s surface was more than twice as clear as when he had first seen it in the Clement Antique Shop.

His Still Water spread out on its own, detecting a continuous stream of heat seeping outward from the lamp.

The ether within the lamp now bore Richard’s traces.

The ether clung to the inner wall of the lamp, following a path Richard had never seen before as it coiled into layered vortex patterns.

The vortex grew denser toward the center, finally converging in the very middle of the lamp—directly above the forehead of the Sphinx’s human face.

This was the exact spot where he had discovered the first new engraved mark last month. Now, a second one had appeared.

[Learning] activated on its own, pulling up the relevant information from his memory.

In the writing system of the Black Soil River Basin, a single zigzag water wave appearing alone was pronounced as the consonant n.

Three stacked waves represented water itself.

Sitting at his desk, Richard pondered this. In the symbolic system of the Black Soil River, water could evoke a whole string of meanings.

Concepts like the primordial waters, floods and abundance, or the abyss of chaos.

But the lion-bodied, human-faced Sphinx guarded the gate between the two realms. In this context, water could only symbolize one thing: reflection.

The surface of the water reflected all things, revealing their true image.

He had now officially chosen the breathing method of the Mirror Tradition.

Just as his aunt had once said, a signature artifact constantly evolved to align with its master.

Richard suppressed his mirror condensation method.

The ether fluctuations began to compress following a familiar rhythm.

It projected an endless expanse of the shallows, with a few distant silhouettes that could have been either mountains or waves.

His shadow stood in the very center of the tidal flats, its arms hanging loosely by its sides.

Using the shadow as a focal point, a massive swath of the landscape behind the veil was reflected directly into his vision.

A few lingering thoughts drifted through the fog, pools of ether lay beneath the distant silhouettes, and a slowly collapsing crater sat to the southeast of the flats—every detail was reflected with perfect clarity.

On its own, the shadow could only see a distance of about a dozen steps around itself.

But with the ability of the transformed Sphinx Lamp activated, its perception range expanded dozens of times beyond what the shadow itself could reach.

Only now did Richard understand exactly what new ability the lamp had developed.

The shadow was his reflection cast onto the other side of the veil. As the lamp aligned with him, it took on the properties of a mirror, and it was only natural for a mirror to reflect a shadow.

Perhaps he never should have made the shadow physically scout its surroundings in the first place, since any movement could alert the entities deep within the veil.

He simply had to let the shadow stand there, and the surrounding landscape would automatically reflect back to him like an image in a mirror.

Richard tried moving the shadow toward the collapsing crater he had seen earlier, which was currently inhaling and exhaling a massive amount of ether.

There seemed to be movement inside, but despite Richard reflecting the area, whatever was over there showed no reaction to his presence.

Richard let go and leaned back in his chair. He now possessed a wide-area surveillance eye that could move freely behind the veil while remaining almost entirely undetected.

The third new mark that had surfaced on the Sphinx was much shallower than the first two.

The stroke broke off halfway through. The broken edge was rough, as if it were still slowly creeping outward.

He felt that the supernatural item’s transformation was not yet over, meaning his own potential was still far from its limit.

With the signature artifact tested, there was still one more thing left to try.

Richard raised his hand, and a staff about three chi long automatically condensed in his palm.

Two golden snakes coiled together, head to tail, forming the shaft, their scales overlapping tightly.

The craftsmanship was exquisitely fine; the twin wings at the crest of the snakes were folded inward, closing together with seamless precision.

[Hermes: Caduceus]

Richard rested it across his knees, closing his eyes to let his Inspiration run along the shaft. He checked its first ability.

He didn’t need to actively decipher it; the Caduceus practically spoke on its own, feeding the detailed information of its ability directly into his mind.

[Inviolability of Emissaries (Inviolabilis)]

The rule was so simple it was almost crude.

As long as the one wielding this staff did not attack first, they would be recognized as an emissary.

From the moment they were recognized as an emissary, any entity on either side of the veil that still acknowledged the concept of an emissary was bound to act according to the rules.

They could block him, ignore him, or even throw him out, but they absolutely could not attack him.

If they did, misfortune would instantly fall upon their heads.

Richard stood up, gripping the Caduceus in his hand, and began to pace around the room.

The changes manifested immediately.

His Still Water automatically cast its reflection, revealing that the sharp edges and corners of everything in the room seemed to have softened.

The corners of the cabinets, the rim of the copper basin, the hooks on the coat rack—every piercing, sharp trace they left on the etheric plane had been smoothed away.

This was the natural affinity of an emissary.

He walked over to the windowsill with the Caduceus in hand. Outside the window, the gray sparrow that came to peck at the eaves every day didn’t immediately fly away.

It tilted its head and hopped along the ledge, stopping less than a chi away from him.

Richard shifted the Caduceus to his other hand, and the sparrow still didn’t flee.

He willed the Caduceus to dissipate, and with a flutter of wings, the sparrow immediately took off.

Richard silently calculated the limitations of the Caduceus.

First, he could not launch any offensive attacks while holding it.

He didn’t even need to test it to find out; the staff itself had already relayed that rule to him.

Moreover, the twin snakes were wound together tightly into a perfectly smooth shaft; there was nothing on the staff that could even serve as a weapon.

Even if he swung it with all his might, it wouldn’t inflict any real damage.

Secondly, this protection only worked on intelligent entities capable of recognizing the concept of an emissary.

Against hollowed-out pawns stripped of their names, or mindless evil creatures with no self-awareness, it would be useless. They didn’t even know what they were, let alone comprehend rules.

And then came the most important question: if the opponent’s Rank was vastly higher than his own, would this rule still hold true?

Professor McPhee had once mentioned that even the lord of the hunt merely operated within the rituals of the Wild Hunt.

Even a Virtuoso had to obey the rules, because the rules themselves were far older than they were.

Richard thought about it; this Caduceus could definitely serve as one of his trump cards.

Wielding the Caduceus made him an emissary, but its true value didn’t lie in blocking other people’s blades.

Its real value was allowing him to walk into places he normally wouldn’t be able to enter, say his piece, and then walk right back out again safely.

For a Scholar, this ability was vastly superior to a simple boost in combat power.

The second ability: [Ferrying (Deductio)].

He studied it for a moment, his brow furrowing.

First, this ability’s greatest limitation was that it was passive. The user could not actively initiate it. Only when a lost spirit actively sought to be ferried would it approach the Caduceus and acknowledge the staff.

When that happened, Ferrying would trigger automatically. The staff would open a door leading to the spirit’s rightful resting place and send it on its way.

This was the duty of the Caduceus, the very same duty accumulated over three thousand years by Hermes, the god who guided the souls of the dead.

Throughout this process, the user merely acted as the doorway.

He didn’t need to reach out and push them; the spirits would walk in and cross over entirely on their own.

Richard recalled the events of the previous night. At that time, his Caduceus had yet to condense.

Using his mirror as ink and his Breathing as paper, he had painstakingly reflected and chanted the names of the lost souls one by one, before using runestones to lay down a guiding path.

He had to rely on that Fire Worship Temple Pillar torch, then use his paperweight and little scale to weigh them, one by one.

It had taken a whole team of over a dozen people working furiously for seven or eight hours to get it done.

Now that he had this Caduceus, he would never have to go to such lengths again.

In the future, he could simply stand back and let the Caduceus handle its duty automatically.

Richard examined the ability closely for another moment and discovered a hidden rule.

If he, as the user, went against the grain and refused to wait for the spirits to come to him, actively seeking to gather spirits and forcefully initiating Ferrying, the door would swing wide open on both sides.

And he would have no way to stop whatever wanted to push its way through from the other side.

At best, his soul would be damaged. At worst, whatever lurked on the other side of the door would follow the path right to him—replacing him, possessing him, or dragging him away entirely.

At this point, the nature of the ability was crystal clear.

If spirits actively came to him, everything would flow naturally. But if he aggressively sought out the spirits, he would be inviting wolves right into his house.

Curious, he decided to give it a shallow test run, feeding a tiny sliver of ether into the staff.

The Caduceus let out a low hum. Behind him, the solid wall suddenly gave way to an empty void as a gate to the Spirit Realm slowly yawned open.

A dense, swarming mass of shapes drifted sluggishly within, and more than a few restless entities immediately began gravitating toward his side of the door.

Richard instantly deactivated the ability. The Caduceus dropped to the ground, and the low hum immediately cut off.

Those things were clearly not souls seeking to be ferried.

They were entities steeped in malice, startled by his presence, eager to force their way through the open gate.

’Unless absolutely necessary, I must never forcefully activate Ferrying,’ he silently reminded himself.

’If the spirits come to me, I ferry them. If I seek them out, I invite disaster.’

Richard was reminded of Madam Marie’s words: he needed to take hold of the right of definition himself.

Since this staff defined him as an emissary, he had to adhere to the duty of an emissary.

Carrying words from one side to the other, and safely escorting spirits across the divide—he would only ferry those who willingly sought to make the journey.

As for the uninvited entities hoping to piggyback on his path in reverse, that gate would absolutely remain shut.

Richard dismissed the Caduceus. Outside the window, the rain had finally stopped.

Drops of water fell from the eaves into the tin bucket below, the rhythmic sounds spaced far apart.

Only now did exhaustion finally begin to wash over him. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he took off his coat and hung it up.

As he lay down, his Lv.4 [Breathing: Healing] set to work automatically, slowly ironing out the deep fatigue he had accumulated over the past few days.

Half-asleep, he recalled the progress bar for his [Breathing Lv.4] on the panel; it had already crossed the 90% mark.

He was on the verge of reaching Lv.5. [Gushing Spring] was just around the corner.

As the thought crossed his mind, another drop of water struck the tin bucket outside, ringing out with a clean, clear plink.

Accompanied by that soft white noise, he drifted into a deep sleep.