I Loaded the Occult Panel

Mr. Hutton’s class was the last period of the afternoon.

It covered city-state politics during the decline of the Aegean Sea civilization. With no connection to the occult, it fell squarely into the category of a proper history class.

Richard listened carefully anyway. Mr. Hutton had a habit of burying clues whenever his lectures took a detour.

When the bell rang, the students flooded toward the door.

Richard deliberately took his time packing his bag.

Once only he and Mr. Hutton remained in the classroom, he zipped his bag shut and walked up to the podium.

”Sir, I have a question.”

Mr. Hutton was tucking his lecture notes into a folder. ”Go ahead.”

”During the last class, you mentioned the Oracle of Delphi. I’ve been reading up on the knowledge systems of ancient priests, and I’m stuck on something.”

He worded his thoughts carefully, running every syllable through his mind before speaking:”Do you think those priests’ ’predictions’ came purely from synthesizing information, or were other factors involved?”

Mr. Hutton set the folder on his desk. The way he looked at Richard shifted.

He was no longer looking at a student, but rather appraising a potential colleague.

”Your question goes far beyond the scope of the textbook.”

”I know.”

The old gentleman took out his pipe and made to light it, but after a glance at Richard, he left it alone.

”Williams, have you ever heard the term ether?”

Richard gave the answer he had prepared long in advance:

”From the Greek word pneuma, meaning spirit breath or breath of life. The Stoic school used it to denote the rational force permeating all things, and Aristotle used a similar concept as another name for the fifth element when discussing celestial motion.”

”The textbook answer.” Mr. Hutton smiled. ”Not bad, but incomplete.”

”The ancients chose this word because, with specific training, people can indeed perceive things that are not just air.”

Mr. Hutton rubbed his pipe.

”Of course, within the framework of contemporary science, there is zero evidence to support this. The professors at the Royal Society will call it psychological suggestion, and I’m obligated to teach it that way in class.”

He set the pipe back on his desk and sat on the edge of the podium.

”But personally, I believe a truly rigorous scholar shouldn’t conclude that something doesn’t exist just because our current instruments can’t measure it. What do you think?”

”I think you’re right,” Richard said. ”The range of what our instruments can detect is constantly expanding. People three hundred years ago couldn’t measure electromagnetic waves either.”

The old gentleman nodded, looking somewhat gratified.

Richard seized the opening, tentatively steering the conversation in another direction:

”Sir, I ran into Lillian Hayward on the third floor of the library. She seems to go up there quite a bit.”

The old gentleman raised an eyebrow, his tone teasing:

”Williams, is it really appropriate for you to be asking me for gossip about a female classmate?”

”That’s not what I meant...”

”You’re a young man. It’s perfectly normal to take an interest in a pretty girl.”

Mr. Hutton waved a hand, his expression screaming that he understood perfectly. ”But asking your teacher about it? I can hardly play matchmaker for you.”

Richard felt a bit helpless. The old man had cleanly and efficiently derailed the topic.

Yet, because the deflection was so smooth, it confirmed that Hutton had zero intention of revealing anything on the matter.

Naturally, that in itself was a piece of information.

He dropped the probing and pivoted to the question he truly wanted to ask. ”Sir, I’ve finished reading Appendix C.”

”Three days, including decoding the cipher.”

Mr. Hutton turned serious. ”Three days?”

Richard didn’t try to play dumb. He could only get guidance for his next steps if the old man knew his true capabilities.

”The second section mentioned the classification of breathing methods, but it didn’t provide any specific instructions for practice. I’d like to find those methods.”

The old man stared at him.

”Do you know why I made you go to the trouble of deciphering it yourself instead of just telling you the contents directly?”

”As a filter,” Richard said.

”Elaborate.”

”You needed to confirm two things.

”First, whether I possessed a strong enough foundation of knowledge to comprehend the material;

”Second, whether I possessed enough prudence to handle it responsibly.”

”Not entirely correct, but close enough.” Mr. Hutton stood and pushed his chair in.

”There’s a third thing. I needed to confirm whether you had a sense of boundaries—whether you knew which questions could be asked out loud, and which answers you had to find on your own.”

He walked over to the window and latched it shut.

”Williams, there’s a reason some knowledge must be encrypted, written in ciphers, and tucked away in the appendices of obscure books. It isn’t because the authors enjoyed being unnecessarily cryptic.”

”It is because the knowledge itself carries a certain kind of... contamination.”

”If occult knowledge is written in plain text and read by someone lacking the proper foundation, it places a massive strain on them.

”In mild cases, it induces headaches and hallucinations. In severe cases... well, you wouldn’t want to know.”

”The cipher acts as a protective mechanism. Anyone capable of cracking it usually possesses the necessary foundation to withstand its contents.”

Richard mentally flagged this information as his highest priority.

Knowledge contamination. Combined with the term ’wandering soul’ from the warning at the end of Appendix C’s third section, it confirmed that the world behind the veil was exceedingly dangerous.

”So, about the specific details of the breathing method...”

Mr. Hutton cut him off.

”That row of bookshelves you saw on the third floor—have you counted how many books there are in total?”

Richard thought back. ”Around twenty or so.”

”Right. Whatever you manage to decipher from them depends entirely on your own abilities.”

The old man picked up a red pen and began annotating his lesson plans.

”Some of those books contain absolutely nothing; they’re just standard academic texts.

”Others hide secrets in their appendices, some bury them within the main text, and some offer no more than half a sentence.”

He didn’t even look up. ”I pointed you to the bookshelf. The rest is up to you.”

”Furthermore, I’d suggest you cultivate text decryption as a long-term skill.”

The tip of his pen drew a sharp red line across the paper.

”If you want to go far in this field, the encrypted texts you encounter will only grow more numerous and complex. If you can’t read them, you won’t be able to step through the next door.”

Richard nodded. ”I understand. Thank you, sir.”

He turned and headed for the door.

”Williams.”

”Sir?”

”The Cicero Cup is more important than you think. Prepare well, and don’t let yourself get distracted.”

The door clicked shut.

Mr. Hutton set down his red pen, leaned back in his chair, and gazed at the old map hanging on the opposite wall.

The map depicted the coastline of the New Continent. Its corners had curled inward over time, and its thumbtacks had left rusty brown stains.

In his mind, he weighed his two students on either side of a scale.

Lillian had a sharp mind for learning and enough sensitivity toward steganographic texts.

She had taken that book last month and spent two weeks decrypting the cipher in the appendix, achieving roughly seventy percent accuracy.

For a student with no background in cryptography, that was already an exceptional feat.

Yet, Lillian had never sought him out on her own initiative afterward. He didn’t know if she was too afraid to ask or if she simply didn’t want to delve any deeper.

Then there was Richard Williams, who had cracked all the ciphers in just three days, including the second layer of nested substitutions.

Now he had actively sought him out to ask about the breathing method, his questions both precise and restrained.

The boy knew exactly where he stood and where he needed to go next. It showed clear foresight and a strong drive to act.

Mr. Hutton screwed the cap back onto his red pen and tucked it into his jacket pocket.

In his youth, while studying in the Imperial Capital, all the brilliant minds of the Empire had gathered there. Geniuses had been as common as Copper Pennies.

But the true gap between people, aside from raw talent, was the sheer drive to push forward.

Lillian had pushed the door open just a crack, peered inside, and retreated when she found the darkness too daunting.

Richard, on the other hand, pushed the door wide open, shouted into the dark, gauged the size of the room by the echo, and only then decided whether to step inside.

The latter approach was far more dangerous than the former, but the rewards were equally immense.

The old man sighed and closed his lesson plans.

”This young man...” he muttered to himself.

’’’