Chapter 527: Hades's Dog-Skin Cap

Richard slid the door latch into place and manifested the Mask of Hermes.

Ever since he left that restaurant by the breakwater, the mask had been burning hot, as if he were carrying a roasted sweet potato in his coat.

He sat down on a chair, wondering what his new Divinely Crafted Armament might be.

The Reed Pipe would be ideal. Hermes had played the Reed Pipe to lull all one hundred eyes of the giant Argus Panoptes to sleep before cutting off his head.

Richard didn't care much about the decapitation part; what he wanted was the hypnosis.

That person from the Black Soil River with their mirror, the pottery shards scattered by Apophis... plus the various people constantly scheming against him. It would be great if he could put them all to sleep in one breath.

The lyre wouldn't be bad either. Hermes had managed to exchange it for Apollo's forgiveness.

As he thought this, a patch of darkness seeped out from the inside of the mask.

Gurgling black water spilled from the mask's two eye sockets, dripping onto the towel Richard had laid out in advance, pooling into a large lump of unidentified matter.

Richard frowned, staying still. Something felt off.

A dozen seconds later, a hat appeared on the towel. He leaned in to sniff it and immediately gagged.

A cellar's musty stench mixed with the rank smell of wet dog fur... Hades probably didn't wash his hair very often.

During the war between the gods and giants, Hades had lent this dog-skin cap to Hermes so he could scout for intelligence, ultimately leading to the assassination of the giant Hippolytus.

Among the demigod heroes, Perseus had worn this cap to cut off Medusa's head.

Now he wore the shoes Hermes had borrowed on his feet, along with Hades's Dog-Skin Cap on his head.

His panel lit up.

[Mask Shadow Radiance: Complete]

[Hermes: The Borrowed Helm of Hades]

[Effect: While worn, the wearer is temporarily recorded upon the veil as a denizen of the Underworld.]

[The sight, hearing, smell, touch, and temperature sensitivity of the living, along with Spirit Vision and Mirror techniques, will all bypass them.]

[Description: As this item originally did not belong to Hermes, it does not grow with resonance. Upon acquisition, it is already at its complete state.]

[Restriction: Invisibility only applies to the wearer's person; effects caused by touching objects cannot be concealed. Furthermore, if the wearer actively touches or attacks a living person, casts a Spell Formula upon them, or speaks to them, that person will immediately be able to see them;]

[Ghosts, voices of the dead, and entities affiliated with the Underworld will perceive the wearer even more clearly than usual. Ether is continuously consumed while worn.]

It was an instinct for the living to overlook the dead.

Even a Major Adept was no exception. In fact, the higher their Inspiration, the stronger this instinct became.

But seeing the words "does not grow with resonance," the corners of Richard's mouth turned down.

When he first obtained the Caduceus, it had stated "core abilities not yet unlocked," but it had eventually grown to unlock "Messenger's Passage."

The Flying Shoes had also been growing constantly; Levitation took slightly less effort every time he used it.

These were growth-type weapons. There was no telling how high they might eventually scale alongside him as their master.

But now... this ratty dog-skin cap.

Richard sighed and turned the hat over.

On second thought, a borrowed item had its perks: it came in its fully realized form right out of the box.

Richard had always harbored a doubt. Looking at all these tables and the divine names upon them, there had never been a single god-king or creator-level deity. The most heavyweight figure was on the scale of Apophis.

Back when he had told his aunt about the team battles and laid out the situation with the Theogony Salon, he had casually asked:

"What would happen if someone used Zeus's name to make a mask?"

Isabella had blinked and crunched down hard on the candy in her mouth.

"It wouldn't work. Over the past three thousand years, every single oath sworn in Zeus's name—marriage vows, alliances, livestock trades, kids betting marbles—would all be tallied onto the person wearing that mask. Whose shoulders could bear that much weight?"

"It's the same for Poseidon. As for Hades..."

She had lowered her voice, as if someone were actually listening from beyond the walls.

"Even the Greeks themselves didn't dare utter his name. They changed it and called him Pluto—the wealthy one—as if addressing him politely meant he wouldn't hear them."

"How are you supposed to make a mask for a god whose name no one even dares to speak?"

"The creator deities are even further out of the question."

"Chaos doesn't even have a face. And Gaia? If you wore her mask, the earth beneath your feet would become your skin. The earth in the industrial age... heh."

She fished out another piece of candy. "Don't think it's just the Greeks. Ra and Amun of the Black Soil River, Odin in the North, Brahma and Shiva in the South—it's all the same. Their divine names are too heavy; no one can bear them."

Isabella had then directly tossed him a copy of A Compilation of Major Global Mythological Systems.

"A name that is old enough, spoken by enough people, but lacking a status so high it would crush you to death—that is the perfect fit."

There was also the rule regarding the manifestation of Divinely Crafted Armaments, as explained by Hecate herself.

Some divine names had very few Divinely Crafted Armaments; for instance, Nemesis only had the Scales and the Whip.

Some had many, like Heracles, who had his Lion Skin, Great Club, Poison Arrows, and other weapons.

Hermes belonged to the latter category. Richard would have at least five Divinely Crafted Armaments.

Hecate's explanation at the time was that having more or fewer both had pros and cons. More armaments meant more methods, but fewer armaments meant purer power.

Moreover, once all Divinely Crafted Armaments were fully manifested, one could further elevate the related techniques of their corresponding divine name through resonance.

Therefore, the sooner one collected all their Divinely Crafted Armaments, the sooner they could advance to the next stage.

Richard counted on his fingers. The staff, he had it. The shoes, he had those. The cap, he got it today.

There was still the tortoise-shell lyre, the Reed Pipe, that winged traveler's hat... Even excluding the hat, there was still the curved sword lent to Perseus to behead Medusa.

Five was a conservative estimate.

He held up Hades's cap and nodded at it by way of greeting.

Then, he pulled it onto his head.

The cap pressed tight against his scalp, fitting seamlessly, much like wearing a silicone swimming cap.

The stench of wet dog fur instantly intensified.

Richard sneezed and looked up at the small shaving mirror hanging above the washbasin.

The mirror reflected his bed, the teak-bound copy of the Mahabharata he studied every night by the headboard, his overcoat draped over the back of the chair... everything except himself.

Richard raised a hand and waved it in front of the mirror. Nothing waved back.

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

He could clearly feel all five fingers, but his eyes couldn't locate them.

He pulled Venus's silver mirror out of his canvas bag, wiped it, and held it up to his face. The mirror's surface only reflected a patch of mold in the corner of the ceiling.

The silver mirror hovered in midair, seemingly turning around on its own.

He stared at that patch of empty space for a few seconds, a sense of panic and nothingness slowly spreading through his heart.

To be unable to find one's own physical form anywhere... Richard suddenly understood the psychological state of some Virtuosos after their advancement.

When he closed his eyes, the sensation of controlling his body actually returned.

Richard pulled out his Pocket Watch and stood motionless, counting for a moment. The ether in his Micro-circulation would only last for about two minutes. After that, he would have to start burning his Spiritual Capacity, and if he moved around, it would drain even faster.

He needed to test Spirit Vision too.

He made his Shadow rise from the cracks in the floor tiles, equipped it with Sentinel, and had it sweep toward where he was standing.

The Shadow swept its gaze back and forth, standing blankly in place before turning its faceless head toward the door, probably assuming its master had gone out.

Richard burst out laughing.

The moment he laughed, the Shadow's head snapped right back around.

He clamped his mouth shut. He couldn't actively engage, or the invisibility effect would vanish. The stairs creaked a few times; the landlady was coming upstairs.

She had a habit when climbing stairs: every three steps, she would pause to catch her breath and murmur the Holy Mother's name.

"Sir?"

A knock on the door, a pause, then she knocked two more times.

Richard stood in the center of the room, completely motionless.

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

She set the shirts down on the bed, straightened her back, and twitched her nose.

The landlady's expression changed, and she let loose a long string of curses in the local Genoa dialect.

Richard caught the words "dog" and "Albion." The general gist was that this brat from Albion had gone out without closing the window, and a stray dog from the street had sneaked in.

He finally remembered. He had been holding that cap earlier, and the air in the whole room had long been soaked in its scent.

The landlady fiercely grabbed the broom from behind the door and bent down, poking it under the bed to flush the dog out.

Richard held his breath and quietly pushed ether to his ankles. The small wings unfurled silently. He lifted off the ground, Levitation taking him as high as the top of the wardrobe. He hovered in midair with his legs tucked, the back of his head nearly grazing the ceiling.

The broom poked around under the bed, only managing to sweep out a sock he had tossed there three days ago.

The landlady pinched the sock and gave it a sniff, the look on her face growing even more certain.

She probed under the wardrobe with the broom, then checked behind the door again.

Finally, she stood right in the center of the room, directly beneath his feet, and tilted her head back to take a massive sniff of the air.

Richard was less than two feet above her head; he could clearly see the black hairpin tucked into her hair bun.

The ether in his Micro-circulation was almost burnt out. With both the cap and the shoes active, the drain was much faster than he had anticipated.

Unable to find the dog, the landlady grumbled and threw the windows open to let the sea breeze blow in and scatter the dog stench.

Before leaving, she took the sock to wash it.

The door closed, and her footsteps receded all the way downstairs.

Richard hung in the air for another five seconds, making sure she wouldn't pull a surprise return, before slowly dropping back to the floor and yanking off the cap.

In the mirror, his face was flushed red, his hair plastered flat to his forehead by the cap. [Spiritual Capacity: 47/50.]

The sea breeze outside the window was still gusting into the room, and a familiar cough rang out from next door.

Richard raised his head. The mirror, Spirit Vision, his Shadow, the landlady—he had tested them all.

There was only one Major Adept left to test on.

Richard mulled it over. What he really had to guard against was someone getting suspicious.

If a Major Adept grew suspicious and released their ether field, sweeping the room inch by inch, they would end up scanning a gaping void.

Where there should have been air, body heat, and sound, there would now be an empty space lacking all three.

At dinnertime, Mortimer didn't come downstairs again.

The landlady came down the stairs carrying a tray. The soup on it was only half-drunk, and the bread had just a single corner nibbled off.

She dumped the tray onto the counter and started yammering.

She complained that the old gentleman upstairs had locked himself in to write for days on end, and all the food he ate in a day wasn't enough to feed a sparrow.

After she finished complaining, the landlady leaned in close to Richard and said conspiratorially, "A dog sneaked into your room this afternoon. I smelled it with my own nose, no mistake."

Richard kept a perfectly straight face and nodded with utter solemnity.

"Don't worry, ma'am. From now on, I'll make sure to shut the windows tight when I go out."

The landlady looked satisfied at that. She patted his arm, turned around, and marched back into the kitchen to scrub the pots.

Richard held his bowl of soup, sipping it slowly. Before he was even halfway through, his brain was already plotting his next move.

Using Professor Mortimer to test the invisibility effect meant that, if caught, he'd suffer a scolding at worst and get assigned two extra stacks of copying work.

In exchange, he would have a solid baseline of confidence whenever he ran into someone at the Major Adept level in the future.

Just past eight o'clock, he pulled the cap on in his own room.

This time, he also slightly engaged Levitation. The stairs were made of century-old wood; any footstep on them would be impossible to hide.

He floated into the corridor and stopped to wait by the crack in the door.

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

Richard turned sideways and slid in right against the doorframe. The stove inside was blazing fiercely, the air heavy with Darjeeling tea mixed with coal smoke.

The tea was good, the coal was cheap, but jumbled together, they were enough to mask his scent.

As for the dog-skin smell, he had washed the cap repeatedly that afternoon and even pumped a little ether into it, which had surprisingly managed to dispel most of it.

Mortimer sat at his desk with his back to the door, wearing nothing but a shirt and a wool vest, his head bowed as he wrote heaven knew what.

His briefcase sat within arm's reach, faintly emitting ether fluctuations.

Richard stayed far away from it, floating into the shadows on the other side of the desk.

The old professor was deeply engrossed in his writing.

A little curious, Richard held his breath and craned his neck to get a look.

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

People I Knew

The header on every subsequent page featured a name, followed by their birth and death years in parentheses.

The page currently in front of him read: "Tobias Wren (1768-1844), Mentor..."

This single entry had already filled seven pages, and it still wasn't finished.

"Harold Kingsley (1790-1861), classmate. Owed me a shilling and said he'd pay it back in the next life. I'm keeping a record for him so he doesn't forget."

"Elias Grant (1794-1870), classmate.

His Latin was better than mine, my Greek was better than his. We still hadn't settled who was superior by the time he died. After he died, there was no one left to argue with me."

Eleven classmates, each getting a paragraph.

He flipped toward the front. Wedged at the very beginning, in a spot easily flipped past, were a few sheets of paper with very brief notes.

"Brother, Samuel (1788-1856), stocking weaver."

"Sister, Hannah (1790-1861), married in Loughborough, bore seven children, only three survived."

"Father, Joshua, stocking weaver of Leicestershire."

"Mother, Martha, illiterate.

The day I left home at age eleven, she stuffed two roasted potatoes into my pocket." Richard looked at the few thin pages, then at the thick stack of loose sheets filled with mentors and classmates underneath.

The memories Mortimer's relatives had left him amounted to barely enough to fill a few lines.

The vast majority of the notebook consisted of mentors and classmates he'd met later in life.

He switched on his Spirit Vision and saw that Mortimer's notebook was actually warm.

Every time a name was written down, a thread almost too thin to see connected to it.

Richard couldn't exactly say where these threads led—maybe to the Spirit Realm, or maybe nowhere at all.

Mortimer had lived for a hundred and twenty-three years, a bona fide centenarian, and most of the people he knew were already in the grave.

There were too few living people left, not enough to remember him on their own, so he had no choice but to write down all the dead.

Seeing his Spiritual Capacity continually dropping, Richard knew it was time for him to leave.

Just as he was about to move, the wind squeezed in through the crack in the door, lifting the corners of a few loose sheets on the desk.

Mortimer reached out to press the sheets down, glancing up at the doorway.

Richard cowered in the shadows, not daring to move a muscle, suppressing even his breathing to the faintest degree. The old professor glared at the door and mumbled, "A whole room full of wind, all blowing straight for my old bones."

Perhaps provoked by the word "wind," he continued his grumbling:

"That brat leaves the windows open all day long. He's blown my stove completely out."

At the mention of Richard, Mortimer pulled out a blank sheet from under the pile and wrote a single line:

"Richard Williams, birth year: to be asked."

Richard's heart skipped a beat.

The old professor's pen moved exceptionally fast, the nib barely pausing at all.

He guessed the old professor had been bottling up his thoughts about him for a long time, just waiting for an excuse to pour them all out.

"When he says 'I'm okay,' it means he's too tired to stand."

"When he eats, he pushes the best parts to the side to save for last. Kids from poor families are all like that; they can't break the habit."

Richard parted his lips in midair.

"When praised, he'll weigh it in his heart for a moment before he starts smiling." "Whenever something's on his mind, his right hand drifts up to press his left chest, like he thinks I don't notice."

Richard's eyes widened, and he looked down.

He couldn't see his hand, but he could feel that his right hand was currently pressing fiercely against his left chest, touching the piece of antler wrapped in reins right through his clothes.

He hurriedly dropped his hand, finding that the old professor's pen was still moving.

"His handwriting is neater than when he first arrived. Still ugly, though."

"He calculates everything perfectly, but often leaves himself out."

The pen nib lingered on the paper for a long time at this point.

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

"Wordsworth said that the child is father of the man.

This child always thinks too much. He thinks of his family, and he thinks of the people around him.

It is a strength, and also a flaw."

[Spiritual Capacity: 29/50.] Richard gritted his teeth and drifted back to the half-open door.

He waited for two minutes. It was perfectly quiet downstairs.

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

The pen in Mortimer's hand stopped moving.

Richard squeezed sideways out through the crack, keeping his back pressed flat against the hallway wall as he slipped down the stairs.

The moment his toes touched his own room, he frantically ripped the dog-skin cap off his head.

That wet dog smell immediately wafted up from the top of Richard's head again.

The scratching sound of a pen on paper resumed from the room next door. Richard couldn't guess what the old professor was writing now.

Early the next morning, Mortimer came downstairs looking remarkably energized. His hair was combed impeccably, he had swapped his wool vest for a coat, and his appetite had returned—he wolfed down two fried eggs in one go.

He picked up his teacup, blew on it, and then suddenly twitched his nose.

"Did you... hug a dog last night?"

Richard nearly choked on his mouthful of coffee. He coughed a couple of times. "The landlady said a dog sneaked into my room."

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

"A dog that never barks. Now that is a rare sight."

Richard looked down at his own plate. The thickest chunk of cheese on his bread had long been casually pinched off, left there for him to save for last.

He stared at the cheese for a moment, then simply scooped it up and shoved it into his mouth all at once, hissing as it burned his tongue.

Sitting across from him, the old professor was so amused that his mustache gave a little quiver.

That afternoon, Mortimer left the house leaning on his cane. Just as he reached the door, he tossed out a single line:

"If you invite another dog into this house today, I'll donate the Smoking Mirror straight to the Vatican."

Richard agreed with utmost alacrity.

The moment the front door closed, he immediately re-scattered a salt ring.

On his panel, a new annotation had appeared next to "Severed Branch."

[Severed Branch (Invertible)] The ether within his body paused for a moment before instantly starting to flow backward.

Richard recalled the feeling when the Severed Branch blade fell. When it struck, his ether was drawn outward, the edge slicing diagonally along the groove to strip away a single "stroke" from the target.

There had originally been a backward pull on the blade, which Richard had forcefully cut off at the time.

Now, that backward pulling force had reversed, pushing outward from Richard's fingertips before retracting halfway through.

[Inversion Result: Grafting Spell Formula (isii bre)]

[Effect: As long as it is a stroke severed by Severed Branch, it can be grafted onto another vessel.]

[Once the vessel receives the graft, it can perform the original function of the severed stroke.]

[Restriction: The grafted stroke must have been personally severed by Severed Branch; it cannot be fabricated out of thin air;]

[It can only graft "verbs", not "nouns";]

[The vessel and the grafted stroke must be compatible, and a vessel can only receive one graft at a time.]

'Severed Branch does the cutting, Grafting does the attaching,' Richard thought. The two Spell Formulas formed a perfect pair, head to tail.

He followed this line of logic: the more famous an object, the harder it was to retain its severed stroke. A stroke had been cut from Mercury's business card, and it grew back in just three days;

But a severed stroke from an antiquity that had lain in a tomb for hundreds of years and was completely forgotten by the world might last for months once grafted.

Thinking of it that way, the absolute best materials for Grafting were the most forgotten antiquities on earth.

He pulled out the Peruvian Whistling Jar.

There was no record of the Whistling Jar in the archives, and in Genoa, Mercury was the only person who had ever seen it.

As for Peru, the family that had originally buried the Whistling Jar in the dirt was probably long gone.

Richard placed the Whistling Jar inside the salt ring. He pinched a Silver Needle in his right hand and held his left hand flat, palm facing upward.

First designating the drop point, his Shadow rose from the cracks in the floor tiles.

The Shadow stopped to Richard's left, its faceless side facing the desk.

"i ! (Settle!)"

The needle tip slid diagonally down the ridge behind the bird's head on the Whistling Jar.

An echo flew out of the jar and darted straight toward the Shadow, which sucked the echo in on its own. Richard hurriedly pushed the Grafting ether over, tying a knot inside the Shadow's body along the spiritual threads.

The Shadow's outline wavered, and it let out a sharp "chirp."

In the material world, there wasn't a single sound.

Outside the window, pigeons continued cooing under the eaves. Downstairs, the landlady continued thumping away, chopping onions in the kitchen.

But on the shallows behind the veil, a bird's call rolled out far into the distance.

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

Richard then used the Chronicler's Pen to hang a "Sentinel" label on the Shadow.

The moment "Sentinel" was applied, the Shadow spread out in all directions, its entire outline going on high alert.

It immediately chirped again, but this second cry was different from the first. The movements that the "Sentinel" could hear were now clearly distinguished by weight and urgency.

'I can install "verbs" onto the Shadow now, while the Chronicler's Pen installs "nouns,"' Richard thought. The two complemented each other perfectly.

He then used Severed Branch to sever "lead" from the Lead Scroll, planning to graft the lead's non-communicative temper onto the Shadow so that it could play deaf and dumb whenever it encountered Spirit Vision or ether field scans in the future.

The moment the graft was pushed over, the severed "lead" bounced right back, scurrying dejectedly back into the Lead Scroll. Lead was a noun, and Grafting did not accept nouns.

Undeterred, Richard took the Chronicler's Pen and tried to name the Shadow "Chirper." The nib slid right off the moment it touched down.

Chirping was an action, and the Chronicler's Pen didn't accept actions either.

After finishing his tests, some rather restless ideas began bubbling up in his mind.

Birds flew, horses ran, fish swam, fire burned, doors opened.

However many actions existed in the world, that was exactly how high the ceiling for Grafting was.

If a companion's leg was injured during fieldwork...

Could he sever "run" from something else and graft it onto that leg?

The ideas kept coming.

He thought of the crown his aunt had mentioned.

The crown of the Tradition of Change had shattered into three pieces: one of Reflection, one of Observation, and one of Substitution. People had taken them away, and they had eventually grown into the Mirror, the Star Map, and that final hidden branch of Substitution.

That tree was long gone; all that was left were a few broken branches scattered across the Old Continent. The Shadow Inversion on his body was labeled on the panel as a "Tradition of Change (Fragment)."

Right now, he himself counted as one of those broken branches.

Richard set the pen down.

This thought was too big. So big that he didn't dare explore it any further.

MacFie had once said: Speak a name, and that name will remember you.

He hadn't taken it to heart at the time. He had figured he was only ever cutting bugs in factory warehouses, malice on lead scrolls, and a few unwanted cursed objects. Even if he was remembered, what did it matter?

Now that Severed Branch had a drop point, the severed echoes would no longer stick to his wrist. But Grafting had brought the problem right back again.

"Better too little than too much."

He took the Whistling Jar out of the salt ring, poured it half-full of water, and sloshed it back and forth between his hands.

The chirp was now pinned to Richard's Shadow, and the Whistling Jar was empty.

Richard counted on his fingers. Nobody remembered the Whistling Jar, so the cut would probably stay open for a very long time.

He had originally wanted to be lazy and graft a stroke for "drafting" onto his hand, but it looked like that was a bust. Grafting could only be applied to other vessels. He'd have to slowly write his manuscripts himself.

Richard glanced at the library card on the corner of his desk. It was already late November; at most, he had less than two weeks left to use it.

...

On the final Saturday of November, right as the church bells chimed, Piero came knocking on the inn's door.

He had changed into a stiffly starched shirt, his hair slicked back till it gleamed with grease, but his speech was as stuttering as ever:

"The b-boss is w-waiting for you at the booth."

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

"In 1851, they held an industrial exhibition in Hyde Park over in the Imperial Capital.

I went to see it. They had a machine that counted banknotes all by itself, and a diamond bigger than a pigeon's egg.

Since 1851, every exhibition in the world has followed the Hyde Park model. It'll do you good to go and broaden your horizons."

The old professor lazily tacked on one more sentence: "Though with the few coins in your pocket, you'd only have enough to buy an apple."

Richard patted his pocket. Three lira, plus a few coppers. The old professor wasn't exaggerating in the slightest. The exhibition grounds were on the east side of the old city, right next to the sea. Just last spring, an international maritime exhibition had been held on this very same site.

The moment he entered the main hall, Richard saw nothing but row after row of exhibition booths.

Mercury's booth was on the window side of the main hall. Its storefront wasn't large, but it hung a brass plaque.

The plaque read "Transit & Insurance." Beneath that, smaller words read: "Neutral Port Transit: Deer Port, Barcelona, Marseille."

He wore the General Chamber of Commerce badge pinned to his chest, looking immensely proud of himself as he shook hands in farewell with a pince-nez-wearing Helvetian.

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

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

My name is even printed on the preparation committee list for this year's exhibition!"

Richard asked Mercury, "And the Crown Order medal?"

"Rome sent a telegram back. They said I have to get in line."

Mercury let out a long sigh.

"...I never imagined there would be more than two hundred good citizens just as enthusiastic as me." He jutted his chin toward the back of the hall:

"There might be quite a few items in the back hall that would interest Your Excellency."

The back hall was the secondhand trading area, packed with hastily assembled long tables.

Secondhand dealers milled about, picking things up and deliberately curling their lips in disdain, finding all sorts of excuses to drive the prices down.

Richard walked a lap and came out with a clear idea in mind.

He was ready to fall back on his old profession: touching everything and absorbing the benefits for free.

Richard walked up to Mercury's booth and cut straight to the chase:

"Sir, I'd like to offer free appraisals for the stall owners in the back hall.

If we run into anything good, you can buy whatever catches your eye. You handle the price negotiations yourself."

Hearing the words "free appraisal," Mercury's eyes instantly lit up.