I Loaded the Occult Panel

On the way back from the canal, it was already past four in the afternoon. Few people were out walking along the main road of the Academy District.

Richard carried his canvas bag in his hand, walking at a steady, unhurried pace.

His mind was still going over his three recent harvests.

The Labyrinth Fragments had given him three completely correct but entirely useless statements.

The Carolingian saint statue had given him a handful of locked teeth.

Demeter’s Bowl had given him a three-thousand-year-old meal ticket, along with the bad news that ”the mouth on the meal ticket has already changed owners.”

Each of the three items had its uses, and each brought its own troubles.

But right now, something else was far more important.

He reached into his canvas bag, his fingertips brushing against the bronze face of the saint statue.

Richard had been restraining himself from touching the Carolingian saint statue ever since the day he acquired it.Now, when he obtained a supernatural item, he wasn’t like he had been in the beginning—desperate for points and eagerly draining them dry.

Draining too much ether from certain supernatural items would cause their inherent functions to fail.

Upon returning to his dorm, Richard placed the saint statue squarely in the middle of his desk.

He first completed a full cycle of Tide-Shifting Breathing.

Once his breathing steadied, he placed his right hand over the bronze statue’s head.

Ether flowed through his palm, making contact with the incredibly pure, thick layer of ancient ether coating the bronze surface.

The absorption began.

The ether inside the saint statue was... far too clean.

Absorbing it felt like drinking a mouthful of fresh spring water, cold and sweet, chilling him from the root of his tongue all the way down to his Seat of the Sun.

[Available Points: 1.43... 1.61... 1.84...]

The row of numbers on the panel climbed steadily.

Richard controlled the absorption speed, keeping it at a pace he felt was safe.

Although he couldn’t untie the knot for now, the ether surrounding it served as the external environment keeping that knot stable.

It would be fine if it merely loosened, but if it shattered, there would be nothing left.

He stopped when he had extracted seventy percent; draw any more, and the knot would start to come undone.

[Available Points: 1.43 → 2.77]

Despite only draining seventy percent, the saint statue had still given him around 1.3 points.

With the dual benefits of thousand-year-old quality and a clean ritual, the ether was exceptionally dense, just as he’d expected.

He then took out Demeter’s Bowl.

He couldn’t absorb too much from the bowl.

The client had commissioned him to appraise it, not drain it dry.

But during the appraisal process, the three-thousand-year-old layer of ether inside the bowl’s walls would inevitably leak...

Well, it was a reasonable loss, much like a chef naturally having some ”shrinkage” when cooking ingredients.

Richard placed the bowl on the desk and coated it with his Inspiration once more.

He read it very slowly this time, tracing from the rim of the bowl all the way down to the ring of fully deciphered short prayers at the bottom.

Once he finished reading, he conveniently intercepted the few drops of ”brine” that splashed out from the bowl’s walls.

[Available Points: 2.77... 3.01]

He quit while ahead as soon as he scraped together a flat three points; doing business required a steady, long-term approach, and he couldn’t afford to be too greedy.

Richard sealed the bowl back into its clay pot, packing the opening down tight with coarse salt.

He sat back in his chair for a moment and called up his panel.

[Body] Breathing Lv.4 / eating Lv.3 / sleep Lv.3 / walking Lv.3

[Mind] Knowledge Lv.4 / Speculation Lv.3 / Perception Lv.3

[Spirit] Spiritual Capacity 20/20 / Astral Projection 1 wisp

With his Available Points breaking past three once again, he first previewed the advancement conditions for his three skills.

[Speculation]

”This item is active. To advance further, the following must be met:

Reach Lv.4 at 100% progress;

2 Available Points;

Independently restore the complete operational logic of a lost Spell Formula.”

”Unlockable Effect Preview — Speculation·Morphostructuring:

Greatly enhances the original Speculation effects; when dealing with logical structures on the ether level, the constructed entity will possess an innate ’self-check’: during the identification process, one can immediately detect which part will become unstable.”

Richard looked at the text, pondering silently.

When ordinary Scholars built a seal or a Spell Formula framework, they relied on experience and time.

They layered it piece by piece, checked it repeatedly once finished, and tore it down to start over if they found an issue.

Morphostructuring was the equivalent of welding the quality control inspection directly into the construction process.

As he built, his hands would automatically tell him at a certain spot, ”This beam is placed three degrees askew; if you build two more layers up, it will collapse.”

Furthermore, it applied to all Scholar-related work. Whether it was constructing seals, appraising supernatural items, deciphering encrypted texts, or improving Spell Formulas, it could be used for everything.

However, the unlock condition was incredibly rigid:

”Independently restore the complete operational logic of a lost and fragmented Spell Formula.”

He had to piece together the entire blueprint from fragments, and the resulting structure actually had to run.

Viewed within the professional system of a Scholar, this condition was simply a natural extension of pushing his core duties to their extreme.

Deciphering → Collation → Restoration... From reading what others had written to completing what was lost.

He currently had no direction to fulfill this condition.

Although he had successfully navigated through the Labyrinth Fragments of Crete, the Voice of the Labyrinth didn’t count as a lost Spell Formula.

It had always been there; he had just used the wrong method to read it previously.

The name locked inside the Carolingian saint statue wasn’t a Spell Formula either.

Frankly speaking, he had only ever paid attention to complete Spell Formulas; he had never deliberately thought about hunting down fragmented or lost Spell Formulas.

He would set it aside for now. Since his network of contacts was already beginning to take shape, he could figure out a way to ask around about it later.

His Speculation had only recently advanced to Lv.3 and was still a long way from Lv.4. It was too early to be thinking about the unlock conditions for Lv5.

He shifted his gaze downward.

[Learning]

”This item is active. To advance further, the following must be met:

Reach Lv.4 at 100% progress;

2 Available Points;

Completely translate a segment of knowledge from one traditional mode of expression into another traditional mode of expression, and ensure the translated version can operate independently within the new tradition.”

”Unlockable Effect Preview — Learning·General Knowledge:

Increases the deciphering and learning speed of all unfamiliar knowledge, including unseen languages, codes, or inscriptions;

The extent of the increase depends on your existing reservoir of knowledge.”

[Erudition] handled the existing volume—he remembered everything he had read.

[General Knowledge] handled the incremental volume—allowing him to grasp unknown concepts by analogy even if he hadn’t read them before.

If Erudition was a library, then General Knowledge was the librarian starting to write books himself.

If he encountered an unseen inscription written in a brand-new system, Erudition would merely tell him, ”Not in the database.”

General Knowledge would use the thousands of books already in the database to deduce the structure of that thousand-and-first book, automatically filling in those missing nodes.

The unlock condition was also quite clear—”Translation.”

He felt this condition was actually harder than the one for [Speculation]. The various major traditions were entirely distinct from one another. Translating between different traditions and still getting it to run?

That was simply too difficult.

A few vague possibilities drifted through Richard’s mind, only to be rejected one by one. This unlock condition also required long-term planning.

He then moved his gaze to the final item.

[sleep]

”This item is active. To advance further, the following must be met:

Reach Lv.4 at 100% progress;

2 Available Points;

Naturally have a dream during a single period of sleep that is later confirmed to be true.”

”Unlockable Effect Preview — sleep·Precognition:

When circumstances involving the safety of your surroundings or major choices are brewing or about to occur, a Precognitive Dream will automatically trigger during sleep.”

Richard’s eyes widened instantly.

It was different from divination. Divination involved him actively asking a question.

Holding cards and a question, using intent to pry open an answer.

A Precognitive Dream was a passive notification. You lay there doing nothing, and the dream came to find you itself.

The more crucial difference lay on another level.

Divination had an upper limit. If it involved an existence of a higher Rank than his own, his Inspiration would issue a warning or even suffer a backlash.

But with a Precognitive Dream, he was the passive party being informed.

As long as something on the other side felt, ”This person should know,” the dream would come.

Richard should have felt excited.

Yet as his eyes landed on ”Precognitive Dream,” a certain dream floated up from the depths of his memory.

The night before he set off for the Imperial Capital at the end of May, he had slept exceptionally deeply.

In his dream, it was the day the results were posted.

Everyone was smiling, clapping their hands, and saying ”Congratulations” to him.

The table was packed full of dishes, yet exactly one bowl sat empty.

At the time, he couldn’t put into words what was missing.

Later, he went to the Imperial Capital.

Later, Old Biggs died.

Later, the paper twine binding that bundle of sage was never untied.

And then... the Copper Penny was passed from Mrs. MacNeil’s palm into his hands, and was ultimately returned to Lizzie.

It was only then that he finally knew whose bowl that was.

But even knowing it, what could he do?

Richard reached up, covering his face as he leaned back against his chair.

Crouching behind the killer was the projection of a Virtuoso from the depths of the veil.

What could he have used to stop them?

A Copper Penny? A bundle of sage?

That man had done his job well.

And then he sat behind the counter where he had worked his shifts for fifteen years, waiting for the one who came to collect him.

Precognition, Precognition... Richard suddenly recalled the words Mrs. MacNeil had spoken by the edge of the Black Trench.

”It’s a good thing for them that they can’t remember. Ordinary people can’t bear the weight of ’having seen’ things.”

Couldn’t bear ”having seen.”

But even heavier than ”having seen” was ”having seen, yet being unable to do anything about it.”

Richard let out a long, drawn-out breath.

Precognition was a tolling bell ringing out in advance.

When the bell tolled, you might not have time to run.

But at the very least, you wouldn’t still be sitting there drinking tea right up until it rang.

He glanced back at the row of numbers at the bottom of the panel.

[Available Points: 3.01]

All of his skills were still a long way off from Lv5. Now that he had finished previewing them, he prepared to invest his idle points into [Astral Projection].

Upgrading [Astral Projection] from one wisp to two only required one point.

A single wisp of spirit had already brought him tremendous changes.

His shadow now had a core; it could train independently behind the veil, wear a mask, and serve as an independent carrier for naming.

What would two wisps of spirit do?

He ran through a few guesses in his mind.

With one wisp embedded in his shadow as a core, the second wisp could attach to something else, serving as another remote eye.

Or he could stuff both wisps into his shadow, making its ”core” thicker, more stable, and far more durable.

It was also possible that both wisps would just manage their own separate affairs.

Without testing it, he wouldn’t know the exact effects.

He invested one point into it.

The hollow sensation in his chest was significantly heavier than last time.

Closing his eyes, he rested for about ten seconds, letting the rhythm of his breathing method slowly suppress that empty discomfort.

The newly manifested wisp drifted in the air for a moment before moving toward the shadow.

The first wisp was already embedded in the shadow, and the second instinctively felt they should gather together.

Richard intercepted the second wisp.

He was in no rush to stuff them both into the shadow; he needed to test things one by one.

First, he pressed the second wisp onto the Copper Dish on his desk.

The moment the spirit touched the dish’s surface, his Perception gained a second Anchor point.

It felt similar to the first time he attached his spirit to an inanimate object.

He could see, he could hear, and he could feel the density of the ether, but he could not move.

But this time, there was an added layer of change.

There was a channel between the two Anchor points.

The first wisp was inside his shadow, and his shadow was currently waiting in the shallows behind the veil.

The second wisp was in the Copper Dish, which sat on his desk in the material world.

The channel between the two wisps of spirit spanned both the inside and outside of the veil.

Richard closed his eyes and tried to send a tiny bit of ether from the material world side through this channel to the area behind the veil.

It went through.

Starting from the second wisp on the Copper Dish, the ether traversed the channel and arrived at the first wisp inside his shadow.

Receiving the ether, the shadow’s outline visibly solidified a notch to the naked eye.

Richard then tried it in reverse, having his shadow intercept a small pinch of ambient ether from the shallows behind the veil and send it down the channel toward the material world.

That worked too.

The ether concentration on the surface of the Copper Dish rose slightly.

The amount was minuscule, and the transmission efficiency on both sides was incredibly low.

The channel was simply too narrow; one could easily imagine how much cargo a bridge built from a single wisp of spirit could handle.

But it was connected.

Richard withdrew the second wisp of spirit from the Copper Dish, suspending it back in front of him.

Then, he stuffed both wisps into his shadow.

After swallowing the two wisps of spirit, the shadow’s changes were obvious.

It could now do two things simultaneously.

One wisp managed one task; two wisps managed two tasks.

Previously, the shadow could either practice Stone Armor or practice the Moon Nail—it couldn’t do both at once.

Now, he had his shadow maintain Stone Armor with its left hand while condensing the Moon Nail with its right... With both sides synced up, they surprisingly didn’t interfere with each other.

Even though the efficiency on each side was reduced compared to when a single wisp of spirit was fully concentrated, the very fact that it could do two things at once was a qualitative leap in itself.

However, the consumption had risen along with it.

With both wisps of spirit running around outside, the hollowed-out sensation in his main body persisted.

The breathing method could suppress this discomfort to a tolerable level, but it wouldn’t disappear entirely.

The spirit was entirely carved out from his own body; it didn’t just generate out of thin air.

If it was like this with just two wisps, what would happen when he split off even more later on...

Richard had his shadow continue its daily training in the shallows.

[Available Points: 2.01]

He mentally calculated his upcoming plans.

While expanding his [Spiritual Capacity] was good, its priority didn’t rank at the very top under his current circumstances.

What he lacked most right now was pushing the half-finished products he had on hand forward;

Training the Silence Spell to the point of mediumless casting, continuing to hone his feel for his naming abilities, and managing the risks of his shadow’s dual-form utilization while wearing the mask.

He would save the points for now.

He would wait until he had a clearer need before deciding where to invest them.