I Loaded the Mysticism Panel

Richard opened the book to the first page.

The foreword was written in a very standard, steady academic tone. The footnotes were numbered from 1 to 47, and the citation format was perfectly conventional.

Its content concerned how agricultural communities in remote regions of the Western Continent organized labor and ritual activities based on weather patterns.

It was a standard ethnographic study, so academic it was enough to put one to sleep.

If he were his past-life self, he probably would have classified this book on the forums as:

”Serious academic literature. No juicy revelations. Safe to skip.”

But as he reached the third page, his gaze was caught by a line of small print.

There was a citation in the text, with its source noted in parentheses:

”See Appendix C, presented in the original language, untranslated.”

All the other citations in the main text were accompanied by a translation or at least a summary.

This one alone only provided a page number, with no explanation whatsoever.

He flipped to Appendix C. It was three full pages of Latin.

The text was a dense block of hand-set lead type, one font size smaller than the main body.

The line spacing was compressed, packing a great deal of content onto those three pages.

His mind began to race:

The learning acceleration from Scholarship Level 1 meant that whenever he saw an obscure word, its related roots, etymology, and derivatives were instantly retrieved from his memory and neatly arranged for him.

Then there was the intuition he’d accumulated from years of lurking on folklore forums in his past life.

There was a classic thread on the forums:

”You Think You Don’t Understand It Because You’re Not Good Enough? No, It’s Because Those Words Were Never Meant for You.”

It discussed how religions and secret societies around the world used language itself as a tool for encryption.

There was a code in this book. Appendix C was encrypted.

Richard closed the book, took the note Mr. Hutton had given him from his notebook, and unfolded it.

The thin paper, once unfolded, was about the size of his palm.

It was covered in tiny script, written with an extremely fine-tipped pen. The handwriting was neat and the pressure applied was so light that the marks were almost illegible from a distance.

At the top was a line written in small Albion Language:

”This is the only copy. Keep it safe after reading. Do not show it to others. Do not lose it.”

Below that was a cipher key.

The left column listed common Latin words, while the right column provided a corresponding set of substitutes.

Some were obscure Old Latin words, others were specialized terms found only in religious texts.

There were even a few he’d never seen before, and could only guess at their meanings based on their roots.

Beside each pair were miniscule handwritten annotations explaining the context and rules for substitution.

It only covered the substitution patterns for a portion of the core vocabulary; he would have to deduce the rest himself.

Richard closed the book and scanned his surroundings.

The third floor was still deserted. The fluorescent lights hummed, and one faulty tube flickered intermittently.

The nearest sounds of life came from the second floor below: the faint rustle of turning pages and the scrape of chair legs, filtering up through the floorboards.

He stuffed the book into his bag, zipped it shut, and stood up to head downstairs.

As he passed through the second floor, he slowed his pace, deliberately weaving around a bookshelf and brushing past a few students who were checking out books.

With his bag slung casually over one shoulder, he looked no different from any other student stopping by the library during lunch break.

.........

After dinner, Richard helped his mother clear the dishes.

His father was reading the newspaper in the living room while Evelyn was hunched over the dining table doing her homework, the tip of her pen scratching against the paper.

”I’m heading upstairs.”

”Is your homework done?” his mother asked, poking her head out of the kitchen.

”Almost. I’ve just got a little left to finish upstairs.”

His mother just hummed in acknowledgment and said no more.

Halfway up the stairs, Evelyn called out to him from below:

”You’ve been holed up in your room every day lately. You don’t even go out on weekends. What on earth have you been doing?”

”Doing homework.”

”...Liar.”

”Doing a lot of homework.”

Evelyn muttered something he couldn’t quite catch, but it was probably along the lines of ’you’ve been so weird lately’ again.

He closed the door and drew the curtains.

He switched on his desk lamp, and a circle of orange light spread across his desk.

Richard took the book from his bag, laid it on the desk, and turned to Appendix C.

He unfolded the cipher key, placed it beside the book, and used a copper button to weigh down the corners of the paper to keep it from curling.

He tore a few blank sheets from his notebook. On the top sheet, he wrote ”Original” on the left side and ”Substituted” on the right, then began his word-by-word analysis.

Soon, the sky outside was pitch-black. Downstairs in the living room, the rustling of his father’s newspaper ceased, and the lights went out.

Richard rubbed his eyes and looked down at his notes.

The white sheets were covered in dense columns of corresponding words, the ink smudged in several places where his hand had rested.

He had just about finished deciphering the first page of the code.

He took out a clean sheet of paper, transcribed the decoded Latin text onto it, and then began translating it sentence by sentence into the Albion Language in the margins.

The first paragraph he translated read:

”That you are reading this proves you possess, at minimum, a solid foundation in classical languages and the intuition to recognize steganography.”

Richard’s pen paused.

”The intersection of these two skills is exceedingly rare among the general populace.”

”The following content concerns the ’Hidden Disciplines’.”

”If you do not know the meaning of this term, we advise you to close this book, return it to where you found it, and forget you ever read any of this.”

”If you do know, or if you still choose to continue...”

”Then, you are welcome.”

He put his pen down, his concentration now absolute:

”Here is the first truth a novice must understand: the world does not function as you have been taught in your classrooms.”

”Or rather, what you are taught is merely the surface of the truth.”

Richard stared at the last line he had transcribed onto the paper.

His fingers were ice-cold, though whether from the late-night chill or some other reason, he couldn’t say.

The lamp’s light pooled on the pages before him. The freshly written words glistened, their ink still dark and wet.

The Hidden Disciplines.

The things Mr. Hutton had mentioned in class—the Priests of the Black Earth River Basin, the temple information network of the Aegean Sea, the redacted conclusions in the New Continent’s colonial archives...

All these topics had circled around a single core, yet never named it outright.

Now, someone had. In coded Latin, hidden within the appendix of an obscure academic monograph published decades ago.

Richard folded the translated pages twice, tucked them into his notebook, and locked it in his drawer.

He put the book in there as well and locked it all away.

Two pages of Appendix C remained undeciphered, but his mind was exhausted. Forcing himself to continue would be inefficient and would only lead to mistakes.

’I’ll save it for tomorrow.’

He turned off the desk lamp and sat in the darkness for a moment.

His breathing was steady. With every inhale and exhale, the numbers on the edge of his status panel ticked upward quietly.

[Breathing Lv.1] Progress: 67%

’Almost there.’ He was eager to see what changes upgrading Breathing to Lv. 2 would bring.

Richard lay down on his bed, the cryptic phrases he had translated replaying endlessly in his mind.