I Loaded the Occult Panel

During the Monday lunch break, Richard shoved the copy of ”On the Organizational Forms of Early Agricultural Communities in the Western Continent” into the bottom of his schoolbag, planning to return it to the third floor after he finished eating.

He had already copied and backed up the entirety of Appendix C. Keeping the original book was pointless and would only serve as a hidden risk.

Warren had ordered lunch again today: tomato oxtail soup, two thick slices of bread, and a cup of hot milk.

The broth was thick, and the meat on the bones had been simmered until it fell apart at the lightest touch of a spoon.

Richard polished off his meal, even using his bread to mop the bottom of the bowl.

Sitting across from him, Warren gnawed on a roasted chicken leg, mumbling about the news from the Imperial Capital.

”Did you hear? An earl over in Exeter hosted a ball at his manor and claimed they ran into a ghost.”

Mason chuckled beside him. ”What did the papers say?”

”Wrote it off as a joke, of course. Something like ’Night Fright at the Ancient Castle.’ They even included an illustration that made it look like a farce.”

Warren set his chicken bone on the edge of his plate and wiped his mouth with a napkin.”But when the lady of our house visited a few days ago, she specifically mentioned it and told us not to go anywhere near Southwest County anytime soon.”

Richard sipped his tea and didn’t reply.

If a professional medium was specifically warning them to stay away, the incident probably wasn’t as simple as the newspapers made it out to be.

Hugh, who was gnawing on bread beside them, suddenly leaned in. ”Richard, you’ve been burying yourself in the library every day lately. You never leave with us anymore.”

”I’m preparing for the Cicero Cup.”

”Oh right, that Latin competition.” Hugh took a bite of his bread, chewed a couple of times, and then remembered something else.

”Are you really taking it seriously? I thought you just gave Holland a half-hearted promise...”

”When have you ever seen me give a half-hearted promise about anything?”

Hugh thought for a moment and nodded. ”Actually, I haven’t.”

He scratched at his perpetually unruly bangs. ”Well, good luck then. Not that I can help with anything.”

”I’m counting on you for stage presence practice.”

”True, sitting and listening is something I can do.”

When the lunch break ended, Richard grabbed his schoolbag and headed for the library.

A few lower-year students were flipping through journals on the first floor. The second floor was quiet, occupied only by a librarian sorting through returned books.

At the landing of the stairs leading up to the third floor, he nearly bumped into someone.

Lillian was holding two books to her chest. Her path blocked, she took a half-step back.

The two of them exchanged a look on the narrow stairs.

The low-wattage bulb in the stairwell cast a dim light that only illuminated half her face, leaving the other half hidden in shadow.

”Are you heading to the third floor too?” Richard turned sideways.

”...I come here often.” Lillian’s voice was so quiet it seemed as if speaking another word would cost her a fee.

Clutching her books, she stepped aside as well, motioning for Richard to go first.

Taking advantage of the opening, Richard quickly glanced at the books in her arms.

One was a standard geography textbook—a new edition, with a corner of the title page poking out.

The other cover was heavily worn. The cloth binding had pilled, and the gold-foil lettering had faded, leaving behind only shallow indentations.

Its trim size, the binding method, and even the publisher’s logo at the bottom of the spine were identical—the Royal Anthropological Society Affiliated Press.

His heart skipped a beat, but he didn’t stop walking, and his face gave nothing away.

”The third floor is quiet. It’s a good place to read.” After saying that, he continued up the stairs.

Behind him came the sound of Lillian walking down the stairs, her steps light and hurried, fading away completely by the time she rounded the corner.

Upon reaching the third floor, Richard first walked over to the bookshelf between the geography and agriculture sections.

Fourth row, seventh slot. He took the book out of his schoolbag and put it back exactly where he found it.

His gaze shifted two slots over.

Fourth row, ninth slot. The space was stuffed with a few thin booklets, roughly the same size as the one he had just returned.

He crouched down to look at the shelf at eye level.

Someone had recently taken a book from this spot and hadn’t put it back.

The heavily worn old book in Lillian’s arms matched the publisher, the trim size, and the era.

Who referred her?

Was it also Mr. Hutton? Or some other channel?

It was naturally impossible to chase after her and ask, but the name Lillian had undoubtedly climbed higher on his priority list.

Perhaps she was a fellow traveler?

The next time he saw Mr. Hutton, he could find an appropriate way to probe into Lillian’s circumstances, and perhaps ask if there were any other books worth looking at while he was at it.

Hmm... Preferably a book related to the breathing method.

Walking out from the third floor, he noticed a window at the end of the corridor left slightly ajar. Cold wind poured in, drying the layer of sweat on his back.

He looked down at his Panel.

[Breathing] Lv.1 Experience: 191/200

Soon. At this rate, Breathing would level up to level two by tomorrow or the day after.

He hiked his schoolbag straps further up his shoulders and walked along the connecting corridor back to the teaching building.

...

At two thirty on Tuesday afternoon, Richard arrived punctually at Holland’s office.

The room was a little neater than last week, likely because Holland had moved a stack of old journals out to clear up half a desk’s worth of space.

”Take a seat.”

The bald, middle-aged man set down his cup of black tea and flipped open his notebook.

”Have you finished memorizing the three paragraphs I assigned last time?”

”I have.”

”Pick a few sentences at random and recite them for me. Which paragraph will you start from?”

”The fourth paragraph of the second oration. Quod si te...”

”Alright, go ahead.”

At the end of their tutoring session last week, Holland had circled three of the most difficult paragraphs in Cicero’s ”Catiline Orations” and told him to memorize them verbatim.

He was also expected to explain the rhetorical structure of each sentence in the Albion Language, without looking at the original text.

For the original Richard, it would have taken a whole week just to read these sentences fluently.

Cicero’s Latin was famous for its long sentences. A single main clause could drag out three or four layers of subordinate clauses.

And each layer of subordinate clause would contain participial structures and ablative absolutes. Reading a whole paragraph felt as suffocating as holding one’s breath underwater.

But with [Learning] as a foundation, the memorization process was broken down into distinct modules.

The roots provided the skeleton, the grammatical rules provided the joints, and the rhetorical logic provided the muscle. Once the three layers were combined, the sentence came alive.

He started from ”Quod si te interfici iussero... (If I should order you to be put to death...)”, and continued all the way down.

All the way down to, ”credo, erit verendum mihi ne non potius hoc omnes boni serius a me quam quisquam crudelius factum esse dicat. (I believe I must fear not that anyone will say I acted too cruelly, but rather that all good men will say I acted too late.)”

He finished reciting the whole paragraph without a single pause.

Holland’s red pen never touched the paper, which meant there were no mistakes to mark.

He set the pen down and leaned back in his chair.

”Your pronunciation is fine. Last time you were a little off on the long vowel in ’potius,’ but you nailed it this time.”

”I woke up early every day this week to read it out loud for an hour.” Richard was telling the truth; he really had been practicing.

”Just reading isn’t enough.” Holland flipped his notebook to a new page.

”The Cicero Cup is not a recitation contest. The judges focus their scoring in three areas: pronunciation accuracy only accounts for thirty percent, rhetorical comprehension accounts for another thirty percent, and the remaining forty percent is stage presence and live delivery.”

”You’ve basically met the standards for the first two now, but I haven’t seen your third.”

He stood up and grabbed his coat hanging behind the door.

”Come with me.”

”Where to?”

”To test your stage presence.”

Richard followed Holland out of the office, heading down the corridor toward the lecture hall in the east wing.

Along the way, Holland walked in front, his pace unhurried.

”I brought it up in passing at a teaching and research meeting a few days ago, saying a lower-year student might participate in the Cicero Cup this year.”

”And as a result, Mr. West said he wanted to take a look.”

Richard remembered the name. Mr. West was the upper-year Latin teacher, as well as the head of the classical department.

Rumor had it that he had also participated in the Cicero Cup when he was younger and taken second place.

”Mr. West is free today?”

”He’s not the only one who’s free.” Holland pushed open the door to the lecture hall.