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I Loaded the Occult Panel

Chapter 5: [Learning] · Oct 30, 2026

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Chapter List (554)

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1 Chapter 1: Breathing 2026-10-30
2 Chapter 2: Stop the Investigation 2026-10-30
3 Chapter 3: Spirit Board 2026-10-30
4 Chapter 4: Approaching Science 2026-10-30
5 Chapter 5: [Learning] 2026-10-30
6 Chapter 6: Cicero Cup 2026-10-30
7 Chapter 7: Mrs. MacNeil 2026-10-30
8 Chapter 8: Appendix C 2026-10-30
9 Chapter 9: Hidden Disciplines 2026-10-30
10 Chapter 10: Clement Antiquities 2026-10-30
11 Chapter 11: I Am a Student! 2026-10-30
12 Chapter 12: Behind the Veil 2026-10-30
13 Chapter 13: Moderation 2026-10-30
14 Chapter 14: Fellow Travelers 2026-10-30
15 Chapter 15: Tides of Parallelism 2026-10-30
16 Chapter 16: Breathing Lv.2 2026-10-30
17 Chapter 17: Knowledge Contamination 2026-10-30
18 Chapter 18: Introduction to Breathing Methods 2026-10-30
19 Chapter 19: Old Money 2026-10-30
20 Chapter 20: Kept Man 2026-10-30
21 Chapter 21: Surrounded by Beautiful Girls 2026-10-30
22 Chapter 22: The Invitation 2026-10-30
23 Chapter 23: Vampire Strain 2026-10-30
24 Chapter 24: Voice of the Dead 2026-10-30
25 Chapter 25: The Basement 2026-10-30
26 Chapter 26: Reenactment 2026-10-30
27 Chapter 27: Fog Wall Spell 2026-10-30
28 Chapter 28: Caught in the Act 2026-10-30
29 Chapter 29: Rank 2026-10-30
30 Chapter 30: The Three Major Directions 2026-10-30
31 Chapter 31: Newcomer 2026-10-30
32 Chapter 32: Chicken Leg 2026-10-30
33 Chapter 33: Seal Identification 2026-10-30
34 Chapter 34: Thus Far 2026-10-30
35 Chapter 35: Human Roadblock 2026-10-30
36 Chapter 36: He Who Dares Wins 2026-10-30
37 Chapter 37: Tongue as a Sword 2026-10-30
38 Chapter 38: Gift 2026-10-30
39 Chapter 39: Flower Moon Street 2026-10-30
40 Chapter 40: Evelyn’s Dream 2026-10-30
41 Chapter 41: Ashford 2026-10-30
42 Chapter 42: Changing Feet 2026-10-30
43 Chapter 43: Gatekeeper 2026-10-30
44 Chapter 44: Supernatural Item 2026-10-30
45 Chapter 45: Gargoyle 2026-10-30
46 Chapter 46: I Am No Longer Involved 2026-10-30
47 Chapter 47: Hunter Training 2026-10-30
48 Chapter 48: One Wall Away 2026-10-30
49 Chapter 49: Fire Worship Temple Pillar 2026-10-30
50 Chapter 50: Copper Coin and Censer 2026-10-30

When he reached the main gate, Evelyn was waiting at the school bus stop so they could head home together.

Richard didn’t join the line. He waved to his sister and made a walking gesture, signaling that he was going to walk back on his own.

The girl wrinkled her nose in suspicion but didn’t say anything, letting the crowd sweep her onto the bus.

Two stone griffins perched on the gate pillars, their wings caked with bird droppings.

Richard walked between them and turned onto the street heading south.

His reason was simple: he just wanted to walk a little more.

The [walking] entry under the Body category was still grayed out, but he wanted to confirm something.

Could un-activated skills secretly accumulate experience in the background?

If they could, then walking home would be a win-win—he would get a workout and gather experience at the same time.

As he walked, he kept his focus on the panel’s [walking] entry.It remained gray and completely motionless.

After walking for about five minutes, he checked it again.

Still gray. The experience bar was entirely blank, without a single digit.

He walked for another ten minutes, his breathing growing slightly heavy.

The panel still gave no reaction. The grayed-out entry refused to accept any input; there was no hidden accumulation.

Sure enough, an un-activated skill simply didn’t function. There were no shortcuts.

He sighed, stopped watching the panel, and focused his attention back on the road.

The distance from Greenwood to his house was about three miles (4.8km), passing through a small section of Briston’s Old Town.

Terraced houses stood shoulder to shoulder along the street. Decades of coal ash had settled over their walls, completely masking the original color of the red brick.

Turning the corner past the post office, he found the flea market straight ahead.

He hadn’t walked today purely for the sake of walking. He had planned to drop by the flea market on his way home, hoping to find another antique that might yield points.

They called it a market, but it was really just a narrow alley barely a hundred meters long.

Most of the vendors were elderly. They were shrewd judges of character, able to tell at a glance whether a passerby was there to spend money or just stretching their legs.

So when Richard slowly strolled into view, not a single vendor tried to solicit his business.

Richard was perfectly fine with that. He slowed his pace, letting his gaze slide over the stalls.

Brass trinkets, old books, badges, worn Pocket Watches, and tarnished silver chains.

He split his attention back to the panel, keeping a close eye on the available points column.

Zero. It remained at zero.

He passed more than a dozen stalls, inspected countless engraved brass pieces, and ran his hands over several dilapidated old books.

The panel stayed dead silent, without even a 0.01 fluctuation.

It seemed not every old object harbored secrets.

The only reason the pendant and the Spirit Board had yielded points was likely because they genuinely contained lingering traces of supernatural power.

No matter how ancient an ordinary object was, if it didn’t hold anything inside, it was nothing more than scrap metal and waste paper to him.

Richard placed a brass cigarette case back onto the stall. The vendor didn’t even blink.

By the time he reached his front door, the back of his shirt was soaked with sweat.

A three-mile walk might be a leisurely stroll for an ordinary person, but for him, it was a grueling march.

He stood outside panting for a moment, waiting for his breathing to even out before pushing the door open.

The upstairs was empty. Father wasn’t off work yet, and his mother was likely in the kitchen.

Richard headed upstairs, shut his bedroom door, and completely immersed his attention in the panel.

[Available Points: 1]

The single, full point provided by the Spirit Board sat there quietly, waiting to be spent.

First, he tried dumping the point back into Breathing to see if it would stack.

That was always his strategy in video games. Spreading points across every stat was a fatal mistake; maxing out one specific trait yielded the greatest return.

Making his decision, his consciousness touched [Breathing Lv.1] and attempted to push the point in. The panel immediately popped up a gray prompt:

”This entry is activated. Further advancement requires the following:

Base level reaches Lv.2 Max Experience; personally acquire an extraordinary breathing method.”

A line of even smaller text was attached below:

”Unlockable effect preview — Breathing: Healing.

Where breath flows, minor injuries self-repair, and chronic ailments gradually retreat.”

Richard stared at the word ”Healing.”

If Healing truly meant that ”chronic ailments gradually retreat,” then as long as he kept breathing, his body would continuously mend itself.

His thoughts drifted even further.

If Lv.3 healed minor injuries, what about Lv.5? Or Lv.10?

As the level continued to climb, could his breathing eventually strengthen his muscle density, increase his bone toughness, and optimize his neural reflexes?

If so, then Breathing—seemingly the most ordinary skill on the list—was actually the absolute bedrock of his foundation.

It would never stop, whether he was awake or asleep.

The higher the level, the greater the returns from every single breath. It was the pure logic of exponential growth.

He even envisioned a much crazier possibility.

What if unlocking a specific ”extraordinary breathing method” allowed his breathing to siphon energy straight from the outside world?

According to the panel, one of the advancement conditions was to ”personally acquire an extraordinary breathing method.”

Extraordinary breathing method. Just those words were enough to send his imagination running wild.

Supernatural powers absolutely existed in this world. The pendant and the Spirit Board had already proven that beyond a doubt.

If he ever tracked down such a breathing method one day and combined it with the panel’s bonuses...

The feats that required others to meditate, consume elixirs, or perform rituals, he could accomplish simply by breathing.

He would grow stronger while eating, stronger while walking, and stronger still during sleep.

Combined with the inherent stacking effects once the skills were activated... He quickly suppressed his rising excitement. It was too early to be dreaming about all that.

Reeling in his thoughts, he re-examined the panel.

Since Breathing refused to swallow a second point for now, he had to look elsewhere.

His gaze shifted down to the remaining three entries under the Body category.

His reason for dismissing them remained the same: these three skills required massive amounts of either time or resources, neither of which he had.

His gaze flicked over to the Mind category.

[Perception: Heightened acuity of the five senses]

Once he genuinely brushed against the supernatural realm, acute Perception might just save his life.

But for now, having an overly high Inspiration might actually attract disaster.

[Speculation: Reasoning, analysis, logical deduction]

It was an incredibly powerful ability, and he found himself heavily tempted.

He prodded Speculation with his consciousness, only for the panel to pop up another prompt:

”Activating this entry requires a prerequisite: Learning ≥ Lv.3.”

The panel’s logic was simple: he needed to lay down a foundation of knowledge before he could build a tower of reasoning.

Without that foundation, Speculation would just be left hanging in thin air.

Which led him to the final entry, [Learning]: Rapidly master, memorize, and comprehend foundational knowledge.

Richard mentally compiled a list.

The part-time jobs available for a student to earn money—translating, transcribing, and tutoring—were all built on the premise of having sufficient knowledge.

On the occult side, both times he had obtained points were through coming into contact with antiques that harbored supernatural power.

If he wanted a stable source of points going forward, identifying and tracking down antiques was the critical path.

And the expertise required to identify those antiques—archaeology, paleography, folklore, and theology—all fell directly under the umbrella of Learning.

Every logical thread led right back to this exact starting point. He locked onto his target.

The gray text faded, and the characters flared to life.

[Learning] Lv.1 Experience: 0/200

The resulting change was far quieter than the activation of [Breathing].

Richard pushed off the edge of his bed and crouched on the floor to rummage through his schoolbag.

He pulled out his Latin textbook first. It was the subject that gave him the biggest headache.

In the past, staring at Latin declension tables was like staring at a bowl of clumpy batter. All the suffixes blurred together into an indistinguishable mess.

He flipped to the chapter on verb conjugations and stared at the page for several minutes.

The relationships between the roots and their suffixes began to surface in his mind.

Amo, amas, amat—the suffix variations of the first conjugation verbs were no longer a string of gibberish he had to learn by rote.

There was structure. There was logic. The suffixes were clearly communicating exactly who the subject was, the active tense, and the grammatical mood.

He flipped to the next page and read for a few more minutes, silently keeping time in his head.

Content that would have taken him a grueling hour to barely comprehend in the past now took him about ten minutes to fully map out.

The effect was incredibly pronounced when it came to languages, pure memorization, and categorization.

As for deeper concepts—such as higher mathematics, philosophical arguments, or legal deductions—the boost wasn’t nearly as exaggerated.

Learning provided a massive acceleration in breadth, but breakthroughs in depth would have to wait for Speculation.

In other words, he could become an erudite generalist at a much faster pace than anyone else.

But plunging deep into a specialized field would still require time, Speculation, and slowly gnawing away at the material bit by bit.

He closed the textbook and glanced at the panel:

[Learning] Lv.1 Experience: 1/200

From just those few minutes of reading, the experience bar had already begun to move.

Unlike Breathing, Learning required active study to trigger its progression.

Reading, attending lectures, observing, practicing... every instance of effective knowledge intake pushed the experience bar forward.

He mentally mapped out a plan: pay close attention in class during the day, and bury himself in the library after school.

The density of information in a classroom was ready-made. As long as he earnestly absorbed it, the experience he gathered over a single day would be substantial.

If he threw after-school self-study into the mix, he could probably hit Lv.2 within a month.

He read for a little while longer until the clatter of dishes drifted up from downstairs.

His mother was already setting the table, and Evelyn was shouting his name at the top of her lungs.

Richard called back, rising to his feet to head downstairs for dinner.

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