I Loaded the Occult Panel

At ten-thirty in the evening, Richard sat down at his desk.

His notebook lay open to a blank page. A fountain pen rested beside it, the nib inked but yet to touch the paper.

He closed his eyes and sank his Breathing into the third cycle.

The sea of stars receded layer by layer, and the chill of marble condensed beneath his feet.

By the time he opened his eyes, he was standing inside the temple.

Seven stone chairs encircled the round table.

Hecate sat at the head of the table. The upper half of her Golden Mask depicted a young maiden, while the lower half was an old crone.

The Torch and Key solidified above her head, their forms unusually dense tonight.

Richard’s gaze first swept across the circle of chairs.

The seventh chair, empty during the previous gathering, was now occupied.For the first time, all seven seats were filled.

Richard reviewed the rules Hecate had established early on.

Once all seven chairs were filled, the gathering would enter its second phase, which involved the divine names of everyone seated.

He glanced up at the head of the table. Hecate made no mention of it. The Torch and Key remained steadily condensed, showing no intention of proceeding to the next step.

Richard pushed down his lingering doubts and focused on the present.

He looked at Ares first.

Last time, the left side of Ares’s copper mask had been cracked, and his entire left arm had been gnawed off just below the shoulder, leaving teeth marks on the stump.

Two months had passed. Richard originally thought that with [Moon Nail: Reflection] sustaining a bit of vitality in the stump, the man would have recovered somewhat.

He was wrong.

Ares sat in his chair, his entire body curled inward.

The crack in his copper mask was wider than before, running all the way from the left eye to the jaw. A dead, ashen hue—like the inside of an emptied furnace—seeped through the fissure.

Previously, the stump of his severed arm had simply been a clean break.

Now, the outer edge of the wound was tinged with a sickly gray that had no business appearing on a living person.

His right hand maintained a death grip on the armrest, holding on so tightly it seemed he would slide out of the chair the moment he let go.

Richard’s gaze lingered on that severed shoulder for half a second.

It seemed the ”feverish burning” mentioned in his consultation letter had not been suppressed.

Over at the head of the table, Richard’s Inspiration caught the shift in the ambient ether a step faster than his eyes.

It was very faint and incredibly brief.

When Hecate looked at Ares’s severed shoulder, the ether surrounding her subtly retracted.

It was a kind of disgust. Just a sliver of it leaked out from beneath the Golden Mask before she rapidly withdrew it.

He shifted his gaze away.

When his eyes fell upon the seventh chair, Richard’s breathing hitched slightly.

The person sat with profound steadiness, almost as if the chair had grown specifically for her.

It was a woman.

She wore a mask made neither of gold nor copper, but of thoroughly baked terracotta.

The mask bore only a few extremely shallow grooves pressed into the brow and cheekbones, so simple it bordered on crude.

But what Richard couldn’t look away from was the space above her head.

A sheaf of wheat—so plump it drooped—condensed there, connected to a sickle.

The heavy wheat hung low, every single grain swollen and threatening to drop from the stalk at any moment.

The sickle lay horizontally beneath the wheat, its blade facing inward.

The nourishing wheat and the reaping blade. One above, one below, manifesting over her head in an uncompromising standoff.

Richard knew exactly who this was.

Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest, Mother of Grain and the Earth.

She controlled the flourishing and withering of the crops, and held sway over the life and death of the earth itself.

In mythology, when her daughter was abducted by the Lord of the Underworld, she fell into a rage and caused the entire earth to stop growing. Plants refused to sprout, grain failed to ripen, and even the offerings of incense to the gods were cut off at the source.

The King of the Gods ultimately had no choice but to step in and mediate, returning her daughter for half of every year.

From the head of the table, Hecate spoke first.

”Before introducing our newcomer,” her young maiden’s voice began, ”I will first share a piece of good news with everyone.”

The entire table’s gaze converged on her.

”Dionysus.” Hecate’s motherly voice took over, warm and benevolent.

”Congratulations on your advancement to Minor Adept.”

Richard’s gaze immediately snapped to Dionysus.

The man in the deep purple ivy mask picked up the Double-Handled Kantharos in front of him and raised it slightly toward Hecate.

”Many thanks, Chief,” he replied slowly, his voice drawing out into a drawl from beneath the ivy mask.

”I finished the ritual back in March. I’ve only just recovered.”

What tradition, what direction—he didn’t mention a single word about them.

Richard made a silent note of this.

Dionysus had officially moved past Richard’s previous assessment of him being ”at the peak of a Senior Practitioner, or just touching the threshold of a Minor Adept.”

The man still carried that careless tune about him, but the underlying thickness of his ether was no longer comparable to a few months ago.

”Congratulations,” Prometheus spoke up first.

”Congratulations,” Nemesis followed.

Ares moved his lips as well.

A heavily slurred word squeezed out from the crack of his mask.

”...Congratulations.”

Richard also raised the temporary cup he had condensed in his hand.

”Congratulations.”

The person in the seventh chair had not made a sound from beginning to end.

She merely tilted her head slightly toward Dionysus, acknowledging that she had heard.

Dionysus set his cup back down and said no more.

Hecate shifted her gaze away from Dionysus and let it fall upon the seventh chair.

”Next, allow me to introduce tonight’s newcomer to you all.”

Only then did the figure in the seventh chair finally move.

She lifted the hands resting on her lap.

The woman’s hands were rough, her palms calloused. They didn’t look like the hands of a noble, but rather those of a farmer.

”Everyone, I am Demeter. Thanks to Hecate’s favor, I’ve come to sit at your table tonight.”

With a single sentence, she announced her title, then rested her hands back on her lap and sat in absolute silence.

The entire table fell quiet.

She didn’t flaunt her background, nor did she extend any warmth. She lacked even the cautious politeness Richard and Nemesis had shown the first time they sat at this table.

She had simply arrived, sat down, announced her name, and waited for others to speak.

Yet, inside that quiet stillness, there was a weight far heavier than ostentation.

Hecate’s maidenly voice piped up.

”I invited Demeter here personally. She is also a Minor Adept, and not far from becoming a Major Adept.”

The atmosphere at the table instantly shifted.

A Minor Adept personally invited by Hecate, and one reportedly close to becoming a Major Adept at that. No wonder she exuded the aura of a heavyweight the moment she sat down.

Richard quickly ran the numbers in his head.

Seven people at the table. Hecate at the head of the table was virtually confirmed to be a Major Adept.

Out of the remaining six, Dionysus had just crossed the Minor Adept threshold tonight, and Demeter was a veteran Minor Adept personally vouched for by Hecate.

The Practitioner Rank was practically relegated to the bottom rung now.

”As for the path Demeter walks,” Hecate’s motherly voice smoothly took over, ”how much she wishes to share is her own business.”

”Mhm,” Demeter acknowledged, then fell silent once more.

The vast majority of Minor Adepts were either trapped in the strained resource chains of their families or struggling alone to build their seniority.

A Minor Adept like Demeter, who styled herself as a humble farmer, was a first for Richard.

At the head of the table, Hecate’s Golden Mask faced Demeter, her young maiden’s voice still bright and clear.

”This is Demeter’s first time here.”

”The rules are still unfamiliar to her, so she’ll just observe tonight. Next time, we’ll formally handle the tokens of identity.”

”Alright,” Demeter replied.

Hecate’s gaze swept across the entire table.

”The trading segment,” she announced. ”Let us begin.”

The moment the trading segment opened, the table’s atmosphere cooled considerably.

This was normal.

After two consecutive heavyweight trading sessions with items laid out one after another, anyone’s inventory would be severely depleted.

Even after a two-month gap, the meager stock in everyone’s hands hadn’t yet recovered, and new items hadn’t been gathered.

While everyone still needed time to digest past gains, forcing them to produce items would only yield unpresentable scraps.

Nemesis laid out a cloth first.

Resting on the fabric were some leftover scraps and old items from the Moon Hunting Tradition.

What she wanted in exchange was equally ordinary: a status report on the wandering evil creatures in the Northern Highlands.

If someone had it, she’d trade; if not, so be it.

No one took the offer.

Prometheus laid out a few bottles of alchemical stabilizers, sourced from the same batch as last time.

He wanted firsthand news from the interior of the New Continent in exchange.

No one at the table had been to the New Continent, so no one took the offer.

Ares’s good arm extended from beneath his robes, placing three evil creature materials on the table.

They were the leftover scraps he had brought back from the Ash Belt last time and failed to trade away.

”...Whoever wants them, going cheap.”

No one answered. The table remained quiet for a moment.

It was Dionysus who presented the most items tonight.

Having just advanced to Minor Adept, his options had suddenly broadened.

He pulled things out of a Tin Box one by one, producing quite a few items.

Richard used [Erudition] to identify them one by one.

An advanced technique for environmental ether interception, accessible only to Minor Adepts;

A partial catalog from a restricted archive at Imperial Capital University;

And two advanced catalysts that only circulated within Minor Adept circles.

They were excellent items, but none of them were of any use to the people at this table.

That interception technique could only be utilized by a Minor Adept;

Very few at the table could even gain entry into that restricted archive for the catalog to be of use;

As for the two catalysts, they were separated by an entire Rank.

After laying them all out, Dionysus was perfectly aware of this himself.

He pushed the items toward the center of the table, his voice drawling out from beneath the ivy mask.

”Browse as you like, make an offer if you see something you want. I don’t expect to trade them away this time.”

The others at the table cast a glance over the items but didn’t make a move.

Richard understood perfectly.

Dionysus was flaunting his foundation—showing off to the rest of the table, and more importantly, to the head seat.

”I am a Minor Adept now. I have these things in my possession.”

Whether he traded them or not was secondary. Letting everyone know he had them was the true objective.

Demeter hadn’t moved from start to finish.

She watched the items coming and going at the center of the table, yet didn’t reach out to touch a single one, nor did she make an offer.

The sheaf of wheat above her head hung quietly.

But beneath her mask, her face had actually long since lost its composure.

Before entering this temple, she’d assumed Hecate must have had a profound reason for inviting her, and had planned to observe the backgrounds of those present.

Yet, after sitting down and sweeping a glance over them, she found the table was mostly filled with youngsters.

Every one of them wore an ”I’m pretending to be calm but I’m actually very nervous” look. There was even one with a severed arm sitting there dejectedly, looking pitiful enough to make someone’s heart ache.

She quietly thought to herself, ”What kind of secret round table is this? This is just a brood of chicks huddled around an old mother hen.”

The old mother hen being Hecate.

That Dionysus fellow had just advanced to Minor Adept and wore a triumphant air, practically itching to let the entire table know. Demeter couldn’t help but chuckle inwardly.

Then again, on the night she advanced all those years ago, hadn’t she also run a dozen laps around a crooked tree in the wasteland?

She was still the only one who knew about that, and she fully intended to take that secret to her grave.

It was Richard’s turn.

”I have two items on my end.”

He retrieved two items from his leather pouch and placed them in the center of the table.

An Ebony Box and a palm-sized Bronze Mirror.

The others at the table looked over. Ares’s good arm twitched.

He recognized these two items.

They were the two questionable supernatural items he had brought back from the Ash Belt last time, which Richard had traded for.

”These two,” Richard said, tapping his fingertip on the box and the mirror respectively.

”Ares brought them back from the Ash Belt, and I traded for them.

”As you all know, they were suspected supernatural items, and whatever was inside them had unknown origins.”

”After I took them back, I had them appraised.”

”Sealed inside the Bronze Mirror was a low-tier curse from the Web Weaving Tradition, a ’Correspondence Curse.’

”The item inside the box was something that fed on resonant absorption. Much more troublesome.”

Richard pushed the box and mirror slightly further toward the center of the table.

”Both have been fully appraised, and whatever was inside them has been cleanly dismantled. Only the empty shells remain.”

Over at the head of the table, Hecate could no longer sit still.

”Hermes, when that box passed through my hands, I added a seal to it.”

”How did you dismantle my seal?”

The others at the table immediately looked over in unison.

Richard knew the crucial moment had arrived.

The seal Hecate had personally added was meant to prevent someone from recklessly dismantling it.

As for Professor Mortimer’s remark, ”Old Mo asks you, did you plagiarize Chapter 3 of his 1887 paper?”

If he tossed those exact words onto the table, it would be equivalent to slapping Hecate in the face in front of everyone.

For a person like her, being publicly called out on a shortcoming was the ultimate taboo.

Richard’s emotional intelligence wasn’t that low. He had prepared a response in his head long ago.