I Loaded the Occult Panel

Old Biggs clearly had no desire to dwell on the subject.

He lifted the tin cup from his lap and let out a belch.

The sound cleanly punctured the heavy atmosphere in the room.

”Alright, alright, we’re getting carried away.” He slapped his thigh and stood.

”A Newcomer like you worrying about what happens past Major Adept is like a toddler in diapers fretting over a change in prime minister. You just have too much time on your hands.”

Richard winced, temporarily lost for words.

”Just focus on what’s right in front of you.

You passed the Inspiration test, which means you have the foundation for Spirit Vision. Now the real lessons begin.”

Old Biggs smoothed his trousers and walked around behind the desk.

He crouched to rummage through his canvas tool bag and pulled out a few items.The first was a palm-sized Copper Dish. Concentric circles were engraved into its face, with a small, cloudy crystal shard embedded in the center.

The second was a gray, thumb-thick stick of wax.

The third was a cloth pouch that clinked when he moved it.

Old Biggs lined the three objects up on the table.

”Now I’m going to teach you two fundamentals: the formal introduction to Spirit Vision, and basic divination.”

He picked up the Copper Dish first.

”You’re already using Spirit Vision. That Perception test was the prototype.

You push ether out, and when it bumps into something, you feel the feedback.”

”But that’s only the most superficial stage. It’s the equivalent of stumbling around a dark room with your hands out.

You can tell where the table is and where the chair is, but you can’t tell what kind of wood the table is made of, or whether someone is sitting in the chair.”

He handed the Copper Dish over.

”The formal introduction to Spirit Vision requires you to learn one thing: the fixed gaze.

You don’t just push the ether out and pull it back after a single bump. You have to let it rest on the target’s surface, maintain stable contact, and continuously read the feedback.”

”What’s the difference between a bump and a fixed gaze?” Richard asked.

”A bump is a spring. It shoots out, hits something, and bounces back. The information you get is instantaneous and rough—only enough to tell you if something is there or not.

”A fixed gaze is a hand. You press it against something and don’t let go.

You can slowly feel out the texture, the temperature, the material, the shape. The amount of information is on an entirely different level.”

Old Biggs placed the Copper Dish in the center of the table. Under the lamplight, the crystal shard gleamed with a hazy gray sheen.

”This dish is a teaching aid for Spirit Vision. The concentric circles act as a scale to help you calibrate the distance and direction of the ether you push out.

The crystal shard is the bullseye. When you practice, you focus your fixed gaze on the crystal, holding contact for as long as possible.”

”At first, you might only manage three to five seconds before the ether slips off the target. When it slips, just start over. There’s no rush.

”Once you can hold it steady for over twenty seconds, you’ll have grasped the basics.

After that, the way you look at things will be completely different from an ordinary person.”

He tapped the edge of the Copper Dish.

”When an ordinary person looks at a supernatural item, they see its shape, its material, its weight, and its age.

When you use a fixed gaze on a supernatural item, you can see the deep structure of its inscriptions, the flow and density of its ether, and the integrity of its seal.”

”These things can’t be seen by the naked eye or measured by instruments. Only Spirit Vision can reveal them.”

Richard picked up the Copper Dish and carefully examined the back.

It was smooth and unadorned, save for a tiny line of text engraved near the edge: M.V.B.

The maker’s initials.

M.V.B.—he searched his memory but couldn’t place the name.

”My teacher made that,” Old Biggs said casually.

”She made a training dish for every student. We each got one to keep. I have no use for it now, so it’s yours.”

Old Biggs picked up the gray wax stick.

”Next is basic divination.”

He scored the surface of the wax with his thumbnail.

”There are many avenues for divination. The method passed down in our lineage is the most basic Wax Reading. It doesn’t even have a formal name; my teacher just called it ’Wax Talk’.”

He snapped the stick in half and stood one piece upright on the crystal shard in the Copper Dish.

”Simply put, you light the wax, let it drip naturally onto the Copper Dish, and read the information based on the shape it forms as it solidifies.”

”What information?”

”That depends on what you ask.”

Old Biggs pulled a match from his pocket, struck it, and lit the wax.

The flame was not the orange-yellow of a normal candle, but a cool white tinged with cyan.

It was a tiny flame, burning steadily in the still room without a single flicker.

Wax slowly slid down the side of the stick, pooling on the Copper Dish and rapidly solidifying into irregular white bumps.

”Keep your eyes on the wax,” Old Biggs said softly.

”At the same time, ask a simple question in your head. Don’t ask anything too complicated, like ’how long will I live.’

The wax can’t answer a question like that, and even if it could, you wouldn’t understand the answer.”

”What should I ask?”

”Start simple. Think of a question you already know the answer to, and see what shape the wax gives you.

Use the known answer to calibrate your ability to read the shapes.”

Richard stared at the solidifying wax on the Copper Dish and silently posed a question.

The wax hardened into a crooked Y shape.

”A Y shape.” Old Biggs glanced at it.

”In Wax Reading, that usually indicates a ’fork’ or a ’choice’. What did you ask?”

”I was wondering which task I should tackle first tonight.”

”Seems you have two things to do.” Old Biggs nodded.

”The wax read the fork in the road in your mind.”

He scraped the wax off the dish with his thumbnail, clearing the surface.

”The core of Wax Reading doesn’t lie in the shape of the wax itself.

The shape is merely a vessel. What actually matters is the brief resonance between your ether and the trace ether in the wax during those few seconds you gaze at it.”

He tapped the gray wax stick.

”This wax is made from a special formula mixed with Ashcore Grass powder. It inherently contains a microscopic amount of ether.

Once lit, the ether in the wax is activated, and as it drips, it resonates with the crystal shard on the dish.”

”Your ether Perception also joins in at that instant. The question in your mind shapes how the wax solidifies.”

”So essentially, Wax Reading doesn’t read the future at all—it just reads you?”

Old Biggs blinked.

”When I asked my teacher the exact same question, she gave me this reply:”