He changed Tiwat

"Since then, this medal has become one of the highest honors in Fontaine, and can only be awarded by the Water God himself. It is said that Lady Funina also wears the blue sash and the 'Order of Garter' to commemorate this event."

After listening to Yura's introduction, Han Fulai couldn't help but glance at the old gentleman again.

...I never expected this animal rights activist from Fontainebleau to have such a powerful background. Of course, even if he had a noble title like an earl, nobody here would pay him any attention.

The old man sat back down, gritting his teeth, and started chugging down his Fontaine. Then he slammed the teacup down and started gesturing wildly, demanding that the staff get him a new cup—yes, the Fontaine had been sitting for too long, and the carbonation had long since evaporated.

But isn't it a bit too much for such a big shot to come to the circus to advocate for animal protection? Hmm, but nobles are probably always this idle... Just as Han Fulai was thinking to himself, the stage lights dimmed and a staff member came forward to remove the wooden fence blocking the audience seats—this meant that the theater's most popular "show" was about to begin.

The intermission lasted about ten minutes. The staff cleaned up the stage, and then the spotlight came on again, shining on the center of the stage. A girl in a black costume with a large green bow tied behind her head appeared under the spotlight.

The girl had long, light brown hair, a pentagram symbolizing magic painted on her left cheek, cat ears on her head, and a cat tail behind her... A murmur arose from the audience, mostly discussing whether the girl's cat ears and tail were real or part of her costume.

The girl remained expressionless, seemingly unconcerned by the surprised or skeptical looks from the audience. She bowed to the audience with perfect posture and began to introduce herself: "I am Lynette from the 'Multifunctional Magic Assistant Agency'."

Her voice was completely flat, almost like that of a robot.

"Huh? Has Fontaine's mechanical technology become this advanced?"

"She said she works for an organization!"

The Mondstadt audience, seeing Lynette for the first time, erupted in even louder chatter.

Yura, who was also meeting Lynette for the first time, couldn't help but ask, "Could she be a distant relative of little Diona?"

Han Fulai couldn't answer the question. Although he had seen Lynette in the game's PV before, it was just a fleeting image. He knew almost nothing about Lynette's background.

The old lord beside him sneered: "Hmph, what a deceptive trick. There isn't such anthropomorphic mechanism in the Fontaine Kinetic Engineering Research Institute."

Chapter 181 Linnie and Lynette's Magic Show

Lynette spoke again, making a few "ah" sounds as if she were testing her voice before singing. With each "ah," the pitch of her voice dropped a few degrees, and slowly, her voice changed from a girl's clear tone to a deep male voice.

A cat-eared beauty speaking in a man's voice... how to put it... it's like Diona suddenly turning into Duraf, leaving people shocked while also feeling a sense of regret for what a waste of talent.

Especially the gradual voice changing, it's as if she has a voice-changing mechanism in her throat that can produce a different sound with a flick of the wrist... Many viewers are even more convinced that Lynette is the so-called "multi-functional magic assistant mechanism".

At this moment, Lynette took off the large green bow tied behind her head, unfolded it in front of her, and it turned into a very large green curtain.

"People crave things that transcend the norm."

She still spoke in a masculine tone, slowly raising her hand to let the curtain cover her chest.

"The more mysterious it is, the more it will stimulate the senses."

The green curtain rose again, obscuring half of her face.

"In this brief performance, I will break down the boundaries between illusion and reality for you, allowing you to see another side of the world."

The curtain completely covered her body.

Lynette released her grip, and the curtain fell to the ground.

A man wearing a black top hat suddenly appeared where Lynette had just been standing. He had a teardrop painted on his right cheek, but a bright smile on his face.

He raised his hand, and a small hand reached out from behind him and placed on his palm.

The magician removed his hat, turned around, and revealed the cat-eared girl behind him. The two of them bowed deeply to the audience at the same time.

"Welcome to the magic show by Linnie and Lynette!"

The magician's voice resounded throughout the venue.

Linette added an entrance sound effect with great emotion: "Ding ding."

The audience in the theater were stunned for a moment, and then burst into thunderous applause.

Everyone could see clearly that there was only Lynette under the spotlight just now. Lynette simply pulled up the green curtain, said a few lines, and in those few seconds, a living, breathing person appeared in front of the audience and even switched places with Lynette!

Fontaine's top magician is indeed extraordinary; even his entrance is so amazing.

"Is this magic?"

Yura's eyes sparkled; she couldn't believe how the great magician named Linni had suddenly appeared in front of everyone.

Han Fulai smiled slightly but didn't reveal the secret. After all, magic tricks are most interesting when you don't know the mechanisms inside.

As a successor of the Guhua School, Han Fulai knew that many of the street performers' tricks in the Guhua School were essentially magic shows. In a way, Han Fulai and Lin Ni were colleagues. He guessed that the tricks Lin Ni and Linette used just now were clever tricks, and they had many similarities to the "sword swallowing and fire breathing" tricks that he and Xing Qiu performed at Qingce Village.

First, it's certain that Linni didn't use any spatial teleportation or similar powers like the immortals, otherwise Han Fulai and Yura, who were so close, should have been able to sense the power fluctuations. All of this was accomplished through ingenious design.

According to Han Fulai's idea, Lynette's initial appearance, her claim to be a mechanical doll, her speech without any intonation like a mechanical doll, and her mechanically changing voice were all misleading—to make the audience believe that the person in front of them was the cat-eared girl Lynette.

The audience might wonder if she's a mechanical doll, but they wouldn't think that the cat-eared beauty in front of them is actually a boy dressed as a girl...

In fact, magician Linnie had already dressed up as Lynette and stood before the audience. His physique is very similar to Lynette's, and as long as he wears the same clothes and cat ears and tail props, it's easy for the audience to believe that he is Lynette. As for "voice imitation," it should be easy for a magician to do with training.

All the stage lights were focused on Lynne, who was disguised as Lynette, in the center of the stage. At this moment, the real Lynette could quietly appear from the shadows where the lights didn't reach her. She might know some kind of stealth magic, in any case, moving in the dark would make her figure invisible to the surrounding audience.

As Linnie pulled up the large curtain to cover her body, she also blocked the audience's view. Linette seized the opportunity to sneak behind the curtain and then helped Linnie change clothes with a single click.

Taking off clothes is much easier than putting them on. If all goes as expected, Linnie was actually wearing a prop costume over his own clothes, which came off easily with a pull. Linette ripped off Linnie's prop costume, put a hat on him, and everything was done.

As for where the clothes that were taken off disappeared? Hehe, that's like asking where the sword went when Xingqiu performed "sword swallowing"... Linni and Linette are both holders of the Eye of God.

In fact, Han Fulai's guess was pretty much right. If there was any difference between his design and Linnie and Linette's, it was that the thing used to hide the costume wasn't the Eye of God, but a storage bag called a "magic pocket." It was sewn onto the costume like a pocket, but its internal space was enormous and could hold a lot of things.

However, it seems that Han Fulai wasn't the only one who thought of the Eye of God's wondrous use. The old lord of Fontaine sitting next to him had already pointed to the fire-type Eye of God on Lin Ni's waist and loudly declared his conclusion—

"Hmph, you're just using the magical power of the Eye of God to deceive the audience!"

His voice was heard not only by the nearby audience, but also by Linnie and Lynette on stage.

As renowned magicians, Linnie and Lynette were already used to such guests.

People don't want to be deceived, yet they willingly sit in the audience to watch a magic show whose purpose is "deliberate deception."

Some people immerse themselves briefly in a glamorous illusion, while others want to demonstrate that they have a discerning eye that can see through falsehoods.

This old lord of Fontaine is clearly the latter.

Linni, of course, had his own ways of dealing with this kind of person.

He smiled slightly and casually removed the Eye of God from his waist, displaying it to the audience.

"Some people say that someone like me, who has the eye of God, can freely use elemental power, so what's so difficult about performing a magic trick? Therefore, I hereby make a promise to everyone—from now on, everything that happens on stage has nothing to do with elemental power."

He handed the Eye of God to Lynette, who was standing next to him.

Lynette took his Eye of God and walked backward off the stage.

Linni smiled again: "Look, everyone, I've now removed the Eye of God. Hehe, now the gods can't help me anymore."

Linni's sincerity and open-mindedness instantly won over the audience, eliciting another round of enthusiastic applause. The old lord who had questioned him grunted and fell silent.

Linni bowed to the audience again, tapping his top hat: "Even the most realistic magic is nothing more than a performance, a drama. Let's just treat them as a rare form of entertainment in the face of unpredictable fate. Now, please enjoy this... 'Illusory Light Show'."

Chapter 182 Salon Environmental Master

As Linnie tapped his hat, a pure white dove suddenly fluttered out of the empty hat.

Yes, there will always be pigeons in the magician's hat.

"Oh dear! How did you fly out?"

Linni looked panicked and reached out his hands to grab the pigeon, but the pigeon slipped through his fingers with great agility.

Linni hurriedly gave chase, but couldn't keep up with the pigeon's speed at all.

The spotlight followed Linni's movements. Linni ran a small lap around the field, but unfortunately returned empty-handed, and could only stand there with his arms crossed, sulking. But the pigeon mischievously flew back and landed right on Linni's head.

At that moment, gasps rang out from the audience—because another spotlight shone back onto the spot where Linni had been standing when he conjured the dove.

The audience, whose attention had been drawn to Linnie chasing the pigeon, then realized that the magic hat from which the white pigeon had flown was still suspended in mid-air!

The hat floated silently in the air without any support, at least several meters away from Linni, who was staring at the pigeons.

Linni caught the pigeon, angrily stuffed it back into the floating top hat, then held the hat in both hands and plucked it off as if picking fruit from an invisible tree. He then put the top hat back on his head and bowed to the audience.

The audience erupted in enthusiastic applause. Making a dove out of a hat is a very basic magic trick, but Linnie used this simple trick to draw everyone's attention, silently completing a top hat levitation trick—that's where this great magician turns the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Linni raised her hands high, showing the audience her empty palms.

Then he flicked his hand, and a playing card appeared in his palm.

Left hand, right hand, left hand, right hand—every time he shakes his palm, an extra card appears in his hand.

Finally, Linni waved his hands forcefully, holding a deck of cards in each hand. He twirled the cards around like fans, then released them—the cards seemed to be blown by an unseen gale, spraying out of his hands like a fountain, scattering across the ground like a shower of flowers.

Han Fulai did know this technique. It's called "playing cards with bare hands," and magicians use this technique in almost every magic show on Earth. He had seen explanations of it on video websites before.

The principle is roughly as follows: fold the playing card behind your back, pinch the two edges of the card between your index and little fingers, and while shaking your palm, bend your middle and ring fingers simultaneously, and gently hook the edge of the card with your thumb, turning the card from the back of your hand to your palm. Then, extend your middle and ring fingers. Throughout the process, you must continuously shake your palm, so that to the audience it appears as if the card suddenly appears out of thin air in their hand.

While the technique of "playing cards with bare hands" is a basic magician's skill, Linni has clearly mastered it to perfection. All his movements are seamless and flawless, leaving no room for doubt.

His final move, the "card fountain," utilized a technique commonly seen in gambling movies: holding the deck of cards between two fingers, much like bending a spring, causing the cards to gush out of his hand due to inertia.

Although the principles are simple, performing these movements so quickly, accurately, and effortlessly requires more than just understanding the principles; it demands countless days and nights of hard practice to achieve such perfect results.

Linni's performance, of course, would not end so simply.

He took off his top hat again, as if he wanted to do something, but after a moment he shook his head.

"Oh dear, the audience just saw me stuff a pigeon into my hat. If I say it's an empty hat, no one will believe me, right?"

Laughter erupted from the audience.

Linni tossed the hat around and threw it into the audience, and no one knows which lucky audience member received the souvenir from today's magic show.

He clapped his hands and said loudly, "So this time, I need a hat I've never touched before—well, is there any kind audience member willing to lend me his top hat? Ah, I assure you, I won't damage your hats."

As Linnie spoke, he strolled toward the audience—the gentlemen in the front row always wore top hats, and besides, an old lord from Fontaine had just questioned the magician.

He bowed to the old lord.

"Sir, would you mind lending me your top hat?"

This was undoubtedly Linnie's "retaliation" against the disruptive guest who caused trouble during the performance.

The old man just accused Linni of using his divine eye and elemental power to perform magic tricks, so surely his hat doesn't have such a mechanism?

Linni was provoking him, daring to challenge the magician's skills with his personal belongings? If the magician could produce something from the hat on his head, he would have nothing to say.

Lord Fontaine hesitated for a moment, but still took off his top hat.

However, as he handed over the hat, the old lord added very seriously, "This is a gift from the Queen of the waters, the lands, the peoples and the laws, and it must not be allowed to suffer the slightest damage."

As a Fontaine, Linnie naturally knew the old man was referring to the hat as a gift from the Water God. Generally, when Fontaine's knights received their medals of honor, the Moman Palace would provide a formal suit, complete with a top hat, cloak, sash, and other accessories. Clearly, this hat was a precious item worn during the medal ceremony.

"Oh dear, my apologies." Linni carefully took the hat and asked, "Thank you for your kind cooperation. How should I address you?"

The old lord straightened his back even more, adopting a dignified expression: "My name is Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, the current Marquis of Caritat, a courtier of Her Majesty the Queen, a holder of the Order of the Garter, a former technician of the Fontaine Academy, the owner of the 'Caritat Salon,' and a knight who protects Fontaine's ecological environment and women's rights..."

Han Fulai chuckled softly.

"What are you laughing at?" Yura asked in a low voice.

"This is the first time in my life I've heard such a long name. Just imagine how hard it must have been for him to sign the documents," Han Fulai replied with a smile.

Yura also laughed out loud.

"So you're that columnist for the Steambird News, the famous 'Salon Environmental Master'?" Linni leaned back strategically.

“Hmph, that’s right.” Marquis Carandé nodded proudly.

However, before he could finish feeling smug, his hat suddenly caught fire.

Chapter 183 Next, the moment to witness a miracle will arrive.

As flames erupted, the Marquis of Carandé was startled and jumped to his feet, his old face twitching.

However, before he could react, Linni gently pinched the fireball with his hand, and the flames went out.

Linni grinned and moved closer to the old Marquis, spinning the hat in front of his eyes once... The hat remained perfectly intact.

Han Fulai, sitting next to him, could see it clearly. In fact, the flames that Lin Ni had just created were a common illusion technique used by magicians, commonly known as "magic paper".

This paper is soaked in a chemical solution beforehand, making it burn very quickly without leaving any ash. The magician only needs to keep a small amount of flammable material, similar to phosphorus powder, in his hand to ignite the magic paper, and a large fireball will rise up when it is lit.

The visual effect of burning magic paper is quite stunning, and it can disappear silently, making it a great tool for magicians to attract the audience's attention.

Magicians usually use this trick in conjunction with conjuring flowers or doves... But Linni didn't start the fire for no reason this time. While he was calming down the old marquis, he already had an inverted triangular wine glass in his hand.

"Oh my, there's a glass of fine wine in the Marquis's hat. Thank you for the gift."

Linni raised the glass in his hand to show the audience the white liquid inside, which should be white wine.

The old marquis's lips twitched twice, but he still sat down. They had indeed suddenly created a fireball in front of him and pulled a wine glass from his hat, and he, standing closest to Linni, hadn't reacted at all.