Once the gathering ended and Altair's consciousness returned to his body, he sat up abruptly. Checking his pocket watch, he discovered that although the gathering had felt quite long, only two minutes had passed in the real world.
After a moment of thought, Altair smiled and shook his head. 'It seems Adam's Twilight Hermit gathering also involves consciousness-based communication, which led to a temporal illusion.'
After resting for two minutes, Altair got out of bed and opened the door to Vivian's room, only to see Vera still standing guard at the door.
Hearing the door open, Vera turned and saw Altair. She smiled and patted her modest chest, saying to Altair:
"Count Altair, you can rest easy. Vera will keep watch at the door and guard it strictly to ensure no one disturbs you."
Altair could only nod awkwardly and instructed Vera, "Go downstairs and call Hahn up. I'll be waiting for him in the study."
After saying this, Altair didn't wait for Vera's reaction and left immediately for the study.
Vera rubbed her forehead and muttered to herself as she went downstairs, "Didn't he just say he didn't want to be disturbed while resting? Now he's not resting anymore and wants me to call Butler Hahn to the study. How strange."
...Tap, tap, tap.
Hahn knocked on the study door to signal his arrival. After waiting two seconds, he opened the door and entered.
Altair, who was still contemplating his plans, looked up and saw Hahn, asking directly:
"Hahn, among the family's channels for acquiring Beyonder materials, is there one located in Backlund, East Borough, 13 Iron Gate Street, at the Bravehearts Bar?"
After a few seconds of recollection, Hahn replied, "No, Count Altair. The gathering you mentioned is a low-end Beyonder gathering held by an old gentleman codenamed 'Eye of Wisdom.' The level of materials appearing there is limited, so we did not arrange for anyone to join."
Altair paused before saying, "Later, ask Simon for a clever person and have them start attending this gathering from now on. The primary goal is to observe if there are any unusual situations. If anything seems wrong, report to me at any time."
"Also, how much cash does the house have right now? I need 20,000 gold pounds in cash within two hours."
Hahn nodded and said, "Understood."
He paused for a moment, thought it over, and spoke again: "After the last purchase of Beyonder characteristics, I didn't deposit the surplus cash into the bank. There are currently about 18,000 gold pounds in cash at home. It's still short of 20,000, so if it's urgent, we can only use the gold coins from the treasury."
"Mm, I see." Altair nodded and said to Hahn, "Go now and bring me 20,000 gold pounds' worth of money; I'll need to use it shortly. As for the Bravehearts Bar matter, you can arrange that tomorrow. Mm, that's all. There's nothing else."
Watching Hahn's retreating back, Altair clicked his tongue. Nobles of this era rarely kept ten thousand pounds in cash at home. After all, it went against current financial habits, security logic, and social norms.
The reason his own home had so much cash was that those Beyonder gatherings only accepted cash, and Altair had recently purchased a large number of Beyonder characteristics. This had led Hahn to keep a significant amount of cash on hand; otherwise, he really wouldn't have been able to produce 20,000 gold pounds tonight.
After all, for large-scale expenses in daily life, one could directly use bank checks. For small-scale purchases, it didn't cost much. It was better to put the money in the bank and let it grow.
At the same time, he felt fortunate that the gold pound used a gold standard exchange system; otherwise, at this point in time, there would be no way to make up the shortfall.
Not long after, Hahn returned with two servants, carrying a heavy chest into the study. Once the servants had set down the chest and left, Hahn took out the banknotes, placed them on the desk, and explained:
"There are only 17,850 gold pounds in banknotes at home right now. I've taken another one thousand 2-pound gold coins and one hundred and fifty 1-pound gold coins from the treasury. These total 20,000 gold pounds."
After speaking, Hahn opened the chest the servants had brought in. Seeing the chest filled with shimmering yellow coins, Altair's mouth began to water uncontrollably.
After all, these gold coins were truly made of genuine gold. A 1-pound gold coin had a pure gold weight of approximately 7.32 grams.
Who wouldn't love gold? It emitted a charming yellow glow, felt heavy when dropped on the table, and made a dull, rich sound. That wasn't a feeling banknotes could provide.
Once Hahn had left, Altair suppressed his reluctance to part with the gold coins and spoke to the air: "Adam."
"I am here."
As the voice fell, a blonde priest in a white robe appeared where there had been nothing a moment ago. Altair smiled at Him:
"Good evening, Mr. Adam. Sorry to trouble you this time."
He maintained His usual warm smile and produced a parcel, saying:
"Good evening, Miss Altair. You are too polite. These are the items from your trade with the Artisan and the Apothecary."
Looking at the parcel Adam handed over, Altair stepped forward, took it with both hands, and asked with a curious smile, "Actually, I'm quite curious. How do you arrive here the instant I call for you?"
Adam nodded with an unchanged expression and explained, "Omniscient Perception + Dream Traverse."
"The former triggers a 'Psychic Radar' the moment you call, instantly locating your coordinates and intent."
"The latter allows me to etherealize my body and dive into dreams, jumping from one dream to another to achieve physical teleportation with zero distance delay."
"I believe once your Sequence reaches my height in the future, you will be able to do the same."
Altair: ⊙▽⊙
Sensing his confusion, Adam explained to Altair in a gentle tone, "According to my observations, the four different Pathways of Beyonder characteristics in your body have been constantly devouring one another to fuse and evolve."
"Perhaps this will manifest the next time you consume a potion. After all, as you know, a sequence 7 potion can be considered a minor evolution."
"My suggestion is that you consume your potion inside the 'Ancient Castle' during your next advancement."
After hearing Adam's words, Altair looked down and fell into deep thought. Meanwhile, Adam silently departed with the gold pounds.
By the time Altair looked up to ask for more information, he could only shake his head helplessly at the empty room.
He thought that according to what Adam meant, the four Beyonder characteristics within him were not'stable' but were in an active state, constantly devouring each other and self-optimizing.