I Loaded the Occult Panel

While Richard was chatting with Pendleton and Phillips, a young man separated from the throng of fine clothes in the center of the hall and walked toward them.

The young man wore a suit of premium fabric, tailored to a flawless fit.

His face bore a resemblance to Montagu’s.

However, the innate composure that graced Montagu’s features wore thin on his, reduced to a mere facade.

Having just left Montagu’s side, his bearing carried a lingering trace of that grand air.

Pendleton whispered a warning in Richard’s ear.

”Oliver Montague, from the branch family.”

Oliver stopped in front of Richard and looked him up and down.

”Just now, my cousin nodded at you.”

”I was curious to see who you were.””Richard Williams.”

”Williams.” Oliver rolled the surname over on his tongue. ”I haven’t heard of it. Which family?”

”My mother is Margaret Ashford,” Richard replied.

Oliver raised an eyebrow.

”Ashford.” He nodded, his lips curling into a sneer.

”Oh, I remember. The Miss Ashford who married an engineer and moved to a northern industrial city?”

Richard said nothing.

Oliver scoffed.

”My mother mentioned your branch.

She said there was an Ashford girl who threw away a fine match in the Imperial Capital to marry beneath her station to a man who builds bridges and paves roads, and now the whole family lives huddled under smokestacks.”

”Building bridges and paving roads.” Oliver shook his head. ”I suppose that counts as a trade.”

”Mr. Williams, let me be honest with you.”

Oliver put on a show of earnest sincerity.

”A practitioner’s foundation is written in blood and bone. Trace the Montagu Family back four hundred years, and every generation has stood on the very frontlines of the veil.”

”And you? Half Ashford blood sounds respectable, but it’s watered down. What do you have to compare with?”

Before his words even landed, Phillips’s teacup clattered against the windowsill.

From the corner of his eye, Richard noticed a flash of red hair move in the nearby crowd.

Catherine, who had been standing by the window with her tea, heard the exchange and was just stepping forward to intervene.

Phillips beat her to it.

”Oliver.” Phillips arched an eyebrow.

”Watered-down blood, pure blood... I’m a bit curious. Did you draw this blood yourself to have it tested, or did your mother just tell you about it?”

Oliver’s face stiffened.

”Don’t you dare—”

”I didn’t say much.” Phillips picked his tea back up and took another sip.

”I just think that if a man hasn’t even sorted out what’s in his own head, rushing to categorize the blood in someone else’s veins is a bit backward.”

Several people nearby in the hall discreetly turned their faces toward them.

Catherine paused mid-step.

She looked at Phillips, then at Richard—who hadn’t even bothered to lift his teacup—and quietly pulled her foot back.

Some situations didn’t require her intervention.

Oliver choked on Phillips’s words, but the contempt in his eyes didn’t dissipate.

To him, Phillips was just a tea-obsessed mediocrity; his opinion carried no real weight.

He turned his head and refocused his attack on Richard.

”Williams,” he sneered.

”Your friend has a sharp tongue, but I’m speaking to you. What right does he have to interrupt?”

”And what about you? Aside from hiding behind your friend, do you not even dare to answer a single sentence?”

Richard finally shifted his gaze to Oliver’s face.

Restraint and fury could coexist.

”Mr. Oliver,” he said softly, yet that small corner of the hall suddenly grew a few degrees quieter.

”You were wrong about one thing.”

”Oh?”

”My father, Rogers, is an engineer.”

Richard spoke slowly, enunciating every word.

”He participated in drafting the blueprints for the three bridges spanning the canal in the North District of Briston.

Hundreds of boats pass beneath those bridges every day, carrying coal, cotton, and grain.

More than half of the food, fuel, and clothing for hundreds of thousands of people in the north passes under the bridges my father built.”

Oliver could no longer maintain his show of earnest sincerity.

”A bridge builder...”

”That elder of yours,” Richard cut him off, his eyes pinned firmly on Oliver’s.

”I dare to ask, has he ever done his part for the public and the people?”

Oliver didn’t answer.

”Probably not,” Richard answered for him.

”Those born noble do not walk the bridges over the canal, but hundreds of thousands in Briston walk them every single day.”

Oliver’s face darkened.

He opened his mouth to retort, but Richard took a step forward.

”You just said that foundation is written in blood and bone.”

Richard stared at him. ”What you are proud of is your Montagu Family’s past four hundred years.”

”Mr. Oliver, I’d like to ask: of those standing at the frontlines of the veil over those four hundred years, which one was you?”

Oliver was momentarily speechless.

”It certainly couldn’t be you, could it?” Richard smiled.

”How old are you this year? Have you even formed a Signature yet?”

Oliver’s face instantly flushed bright red.

Richard’s words had stabbed right into a sore spot.

”That four hundred years of glory you are so proud of.”

Richard’s words stacked up layer by layer, building until the other man couldn’t breathe.

”Not a single inch of it was earned by you.”

”You stand here borrowing the lingering shade of your ancestors, of Virtuosos and Major Adepts.

You drape yourself in the glory of others and parade it as your own honor.

But if you strip off that tailored suit and wipe away the surname ’Montagu’... Mr. Oliver, what do you have left?”

Many people in the hall had already stopped their conversations and were gathering around.

Richard acted as if he didn’t see them.

”A Rank transition requires a ’Declaration’. A Hunter declares with blood and blade, a practitioner of the Secret path declares with arrays and drawings, and a Scholar declares with words.”

”Yet no text has ever recorded... that a person can rely on their ancestors to ascend the Ranks for them.”

”The moment a Signature is imprinted, the veil recognizes you as an individual.

Not your surname, not your blood, and certainly not those ancestors hanging on your wall.”

At these words, everyone who knew their trade was slightly moved.

Oliver’s chest heaved violently. He opened his mouth but found himself unable to utter a single rebuttal.

Richard wasn’t finished. He glanced at the book in Phillips’s hands.

”Genus et proavos et quae non fecimus ipsi, vix ea nostra voco...

(Birth, ancestry, and that which we have not done ourselves, I can scarcely call our own.)”

”Cicero’s ancestors never produced a decent official.”

”He stood in the Senate, right in front of everyone, and said this:

’Your lordships inherited your high positions in your sleep.

I earned mine awake, toiling night after night, handling matters one by one. I earned it.’”

”Two thousand years have passed. The portraits of those great families rotted on their walls, and no one remembers them.

But Cicero’s words are still recited from our lips.”

”Why?”

Richard asked and answered himself.

”Because those people in the portraits were merely born noble.

But Cicero, word by word, earned his own immortality.”

Richard picked up the teacup beside him and took a sip.

”I am half Ashford, half an engineer’s son. I acknowledge both halves of my blood, and I resent neither.”

”But blood, by its very nature, cannot make a man stand.

What makes a man stand is what he earns while awake.”

”It is the three bridges my father built. It is the things I forged myself, night after night.”

A dead silence filled the hall.

Oliver stood frozen, his chest heaving.

His face had flushed dark purple, his right hand clenched into a fist, his entire arm trembling slightly.

Crushed under the weight of the words Richard had stacked onto him layer by layer, his reason was stretched to its absolute limit.

Meanwhile, the eyes of everyone in the room were entirely fixed on Richard.

The representative from the Department of Internal Affairs, standing alone by the east wall, gave Richard a highly intrigued look before adding a stroke to his ledger.

In the corner, several young people from the School of Theology in black robes exchanged a glance.

One of them muttered something to his companion. No praise or criticism could be heard in his tone, but the coldness in his eyes had thawed.

The girl named Edith Carter was still huddled in the farthest corner.

She had been watching and learning, but at this moment, the way she looked at Richard changed.

Walking her path to get here, she had been suppressed by people using that rhetoric of ”blood” and ”pedigree” more times than she could count.

But she had never seen anyone push that rhetoric back, sentence by sentence, right in front of a hall full of aristocratic families.

In her heart, she silently cheered for him.

The young ladies of the House of Earl Blackburn, who had brought their cousins to ”size up” the prospects, also ceased their laughter and began to whisper among themselves.

The branch-family cousins of lower birth held a flash of unspoken satisfaction in their eyes;

And the legitimate daughters weren’t annoyed; instead, a fresh wave of interest stirred within them.

They were used to the usual hall etiquette—the mutual flattery and the socializing where no one dared to lose face.

A northern boy like this, who dared to dress down Oliver Montague until he was on the verge of throwing a punch, was a first.

Just as Oliver’s fist was about to rise...

”Oliver.”

A voice rang out from the side.

Montagu had strolled over at some point.

Judging from his demeanor, he had probably heard the entire exchange from start to finish.

He didn’t look at his cousin first.

The first person he looked at was Richard.

”Williams,” Montagu nodded at him. ”I heard most of that just now.”

Richard returned the nod in greeting.

”That piece of yours.” Montagu’s gaze lingered on his face. ”That went beyond mere glibness.”

”Oh?”

”Glibness is just speaking prettily.”

”That display just now wasn’t a talent for arguing.”

Montagu looked at him, emphasizing every word. ”That was the embryo of rhetoric.”

Richard’s heart gave a slight jolt.

”When the summer seminar starts, let’s have a proper chat.”

The blond boy finished his piece, turned, and left.

As for his cousin—face red, fist clenched, trembling like a leaf in the wind...

Montagu didn’t spare him a single glance.

He walked right past Oliver, eyes straight ahead, as if the person standing there was a stray dog of no importance.

Oliver’s half-raised fist froze in midair.

He stared at the back of his cousin, who refused to even look at him, and the last trace of color drained completely from his face.

Richard watched Montagu’s back, then glanced at Oliver, who was shrinking his shoulders and retreating into the crowd.

The man Oliver wanted to be his entire life never cared about the dogma he defended in the first place.

”Beautifully done.” Pendleton placed his empty plate back on the windowsill and brushed the pastry crumbs from his hands.

He held out a hand to Richard.

”For the sake of today’s excellent show, I’ll pick a bed with good lighting for you during the seminar.”

”Thanks.” Richard shook his hand.

Phillips stood with his tea, saying nothing for a long while.

Finally, he took a huge gulp of his Darjeeling tea and muttered under his breath:

”...I finally understand completely why you took second place in the Cicero Cup.”

As the tea party neared its end, Isabella walked over.

She had stood not far away during that exchange, watching the entire thing unfold.

”Seen enough?”

”Seen enough.”

”Any thoughts?”

Richard thought for a moment.

”I really can’t compare to a family like the Montagus right now.”

Isabella shot him a glance.

”If you can’t compare, then don’t.

The path of a Scholar has never been about whose backing tree is thicker, it’s about who can see just a little bit more.”

She smiled, then went on to praise her nephew.

”However, that speech of yours just now was truly beautiful.”

”Claim glory for yourself; do not feed on the lingering shade of your ancestors.”

”It’s easy to say, but hard to do.

Nine out of ten people in this room would verbally deny it, yet they all live by relying on the tree behind them.”

”For you to say it in front of the entire hall today, and leave them utterly speechless...”

She looked at Richard, the pride in her eyes impossible to hide.

Isabella led him outside.

Just as they reached the door, Phillips caught up to them.

”Richard, let’s exchange contact info.”

Phillips pressed a slip of paper into his hand.

”Once the seminar starts, we should hang out more.”

”Alright.”

Phillips waved at him, turned, and headed back into the tea party.

Richard tucked the slip of paper away and followed his aunt out the door.

In the Imperial Capital, the evening sky was gradually darkening.

The gas lamps on the street flared to life, one after another.

Richard climbed into the Ashford family carriage.

The carriage set off, the wheels grinding out a steady rumble across the cobblestone roads.

It was past ten o’clock by the time they returned to the Ashford Residence.

Richard washed up but didn’t immediately go to sleep.

”During the seminar,” Isabella had told him in her office that day, ”there will be Major Adepts patrolling the grounds.”

”Patrolling for what?”

”Looking at the seedlings.”

”All year long, the Department of Classics banks on this seminar to gather the best talents in the country in one place.

The pillar professors of the department take turns observing, and at least one Major Adept will show up.”

”...A Major Adept would personally come to see a bunch of students who haven’t even imprinted their Signatures?”

”They will,” Isabella answered crisply.

”The seminar is where the academy system puts down its roots.

Which talent will be able to carry a whole discipline in the future is largely decided in this single month.

A Major Adept taking a look is gatekeeping for the department.”

”And that’s not all,” his aunt had added.

”The seminar is held at Imperial Capital University. The campus has a high ether concentration and many nodes.

At this time every year, the students’ Inspirations trigger all at once, making it quite lively.”

”With such a lively scene, even Virtuosos will occasionally spare a glance.”

”Virtuosos?” Richard’s breathing had slowed.

”Yes. They stay on the other side of the veil for so long that they get bored.

A place swarming with young people has plenty of pure aura, which is quite refreshing to them.”

Richard had noted those words that day but hadn’t taken them entirely to heart.

Tonight, sitting at his desk, he suddenly connected that matter to another.

The Theogony Salon.

The next gathering was exactly in the middle of June.

And the seminar started next Friday, running for four weeks.