After leaving Duke Negan's mansion, on the carriage, Hastur was already pondering how to properly make use of the 53,580 gold pounds.
This time, Greg had helped him turn 5,000 gold pounds into 53,580, there must have been a lot of behind-the-scenes manipulation involved.
Such underhanded tactics couldn't be repeated again in the short term; otherwise, Greg wouldn't have stopped investing.
This was already the greatest extent of "opening a back door" within the limits of his authority.
From now on, how this money would be invested was his own business, and he would have to bear both profit and loss himself.
The safest investments would be in steel mills and banks, not highly profitable, but stable and reliable.
If he were to invest in some emerging industries, however, that would test his judgment, it could bring immense profits or devastating losses.
Hastur thought for a long time, then decided to go against the conventional path.
With the introduction of the Corn Law, the nobles' lands were becoming increasingly devalued, now was the perfect time to purchase large amounts of land.
If he bought up land to grow grain crops, he would gain an early advantage when chaos inevitably broke out.
Once war began, food prices would surely soar sky-high.
The only drawback was that the cycle was too long, it would take quite some time.
The war was expected to begin in two years; investing in land now would bring a low short-term return.
After some thought, Hastur decided to divide his funds into two portions, one of 50,000 gold pounds and the other 3580 gold pounds, and from the larger 50,000 pounds, one part for stable investments, and one part for emerging industries.
By the time the carriage returned home, he had already laid out a clear plan for how to use the money.
He handed the remaining 580 gold pounds to Butler Neil for household expenses; another 3,000 gold pounds were stored in his private vault, reserved for purchasing Beyonder materials.
As for the main sum of 50,000 gold pounds, 20,000 would be invested in banks and the steel industry, with an annual return rate expected to fluctuate between 15% and 25%; the remaining 30,000 would go toward emerging industries.
That was quite a high-risk investment ratio.
At first, he considered swapping the proportions of the two, but ultimately decided on this more aggressive approach.
After all, he was well aware of how the situation would unfold, high risk meant high reward.
Back home, Hastur immediately instructed Butler Neil to prepare a list of current investment projects in various industries across Loen. He also told him to hire two chefs, and to handle any other staffing needs as he saw fit.
By around ten that night, Hastur took a carriage to a tavern not far from the Roselle Memorial Exhibition.
He planned to act tonight, to infiltrate the exhibition and steal the Black Emperor Card.
He had already scouted the area thoroughly in advance and was very familiar with the surroundings.
He drank at the tavern until nearly two in the morning before staggering out the door, swaying unsteadily.
He had already sent his coachman home earlier. Alone, he walked drunkenly down the street.
After walking some distance, he pretended to be about to vomit and turned into a dark alley, continuing forward in the shadows.
Unfortunately, his luck wasn't great, three small-time crooks started tailing him.
They had likely been watching him since he was drinking at the tavern, thinking they could take advantage of a drunken man.
Catching sight of them in his peripheral vision, Hastur noticed they weren't carrying weapons, they probably wanted money, not blood.
After walking deeper into the alley, the three could no longer resist and were ready to make their move.
"Well, that's fine, they can serve as my witnesses tonight," Hastur thought.
If any investigation led to him, these thieves could serve as useful distractions.
Not that anyone would likely suspect him in the first place.
Reaching a corner, Hastur stopped and activated the Beyonder abilities he had gained from the Third Chain ,the Authority of Secrecy, instantly plunging the three thieves into sleep.
Taking advantage of the time, he hurried to the spot he had scouted earlier and prepared to infiltrate the Roselle Memorial Exhibition.
First, he hid his physical body in a concealed spot, setting up a wide-range alert rule around the area just in case anything unexpected happened.
Then, in his spiritual form, he passed effortlessly through walls until he reached the outer wall of the exhibition.
His body, ghost-like, melded into the wall and followed the pre-planned route inward.
Along the way, he saw members of the Machinery Hivemind guarding the site, but they could not perceive him.
With the Authority of Secrecy and a rule-enhanced invisibility, even Sharon herself would have difficulty detecting him.
His spiritual form moved unimpeded and soon reached the second floor, where Roselle's manuscripts were kept.
Like a thin sheet of paper, his spirit peeled off from the wall, drifted onto the floor, and merged silently into it.
On the first floor, from the grand crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, a faint, invisible human face bulged outward, but this eerie sight went unnoticed by the Beyonder guard below.
The man, still holding his weapon, occasionally glanced toward the door, pacing lazily, his vigilance slightly relaxed.
Understandable, this was the most secure inner area of the Roselle Memorial. If there was no disturbance outside, this place should be perfectly safe.
After observing for a moment, Hastur's form materialized from the ceiling and floated to Roselle's desk, which sat beneath a glass cover.
Inside, within arm's reach, lay the childishly doodled bookmark, the Black Emperor Card.
The glass case could not stop his spiritual form, but the contents inside were surely protected by an alarm spell. A single touch would trigger the warning.
At that moment, the guard's gaze swept toward him, but failed to detect the spiritual presence mere meters away.
His eyes moved on, oblivious.
At this point, the Black Emperor Card was practically in Hastur's pocket. Even if discovered, he could instantly retreat to the Hall of Stars and return to his body afterward.
But he wanted to test his own Beyonder abilities, particularly the Lawyer Pathway's power to see flaws, to find any weaknesses in the alarm formation, allowing him to bypass it entirely without alerting anyone.
Fixing his gaze on the glass cover, he gently activated his spirituality. Faint gray threads appeared, weaving around every object inside.
These threads were delicate, they would break at the slightest touch, and the moment they did, they would alert the Beyonder guarding the exhibit.
It was similar to a network of invisible lasers in a movie, one touch, and the alarm would sound.
After observing for a while, Hastur found two weaknesses.
The first: there were small gaps between the threads, with careful precision, two fingers could slip through to pinch the Black Emperor Card.
The second: there was a central nexus point connecting the threads. If he disabled it, even touching the lines wouldn't trigger the alarm, like cutting off the power supply.
Hastur extended his right hand's index and middle fingers, slipped them neatly past the threads, and successfully pinched the Black Emperor Card.
He retracted his fingers, and the card came free.
At once, he wrapped the card in his spiritual energy to conceal it, preventing it from appearing to float inexplicably in midair.
After completing the theft, Hastur glanced once more at the patrolling guard, still oblivious.
Then, his body drifted lightly back up to the ceiling, merged in, and reappeared on the second-floor surface.
Following the same route, he exited the museum effortlessly.
From infiltration to theft, the entire operation went unnoticed.
Back in his hideout, Hastur, taking no chances, immediately tossed the Black Emperor Card into the Hall of Stars, before his spirit re-entered his body.
He took out his pocket watch and checked the time, from beginning his infiltration to returning to his body, the whole process hadn't even taken three minutes.
"So easy," he murmured.
Leaving the alley, he approached the three still-sleeping thieves. Keeping some distance, he lifted their sleep spell, letting them wake.
They had no memory of having fallen asleep, and upon spotting Hastur's figure ahead, they hurried after him.
Hastur began to jog, always staying just far enough ahead for them to see but not catch up.
When he reached the street, the three gave up the chase, watching as he stopped a carriage and rode away.
Half an hour later, at the Royal Museum's Roselle Memorial Hall, the Beyonder guard stationed in Roselle's study finally noticed that one of the manuscripts seemed to be missing a bookmark.
He couldn't be sure if he was misremembering, after all, he had been watching the area closely, and not even a mosquito could have slipped in.
How could a bookmark just vanish without a trace?
Still, out of caution, he called in other Beyonders to help confirm.
The final conclusion: there had indeed been a bookmark, a childish, doodle-like one, among Roselle's manuscripts.
But now, that bookmark had disappeared without a trace.