I Loaded the Mysticism Panel

"Mom, where’s Evelyn?" Richard asked.

"She’s asleep." Mother sounded a bit helpless.

"She ate too much at dinner. She’s never seen so many meat dishes back home.

Especially that baked creamy lobster pasta—she ate more than half of it herself."

"She got sleepy as soon as she got back to her room, so I had her go to bed early."

Margaret smiled softly as she said this, but the smile quickly vanished. Her gaze fell on the gargoyle in her son’s hands.

She recognized it. Richard was sure of it in an instant.

"Mom, Grandfather told me a lot of things. Do you have anything to..." he began, testing the waters.

Margaret raised a hand, stopping him from continuing. "I don’t involve myself in the affairs of that world anymore."

Richard noted that his mother used the words "don’t involve myself," not "don’t know."

"I left this house after I married your father. From that day on, I cut all ties with these things."

Richard recalled some things from the past.

His mother’s health was poor, made especially worse by the smog in Brighton.

But she was uncannily accurate at predicting changes in the weather, more so than the forecasts from the weather station.

She could also tell who was at the door before they even entered.

Evelyn thought their mother just had sharp hearing, and Richard used to think so too.

Now he knew it wasn’t sharp hearing.

It was inspiration—suppressed, sealed away, voluntarily abandoned... but the foundation was still there.

"By the way, your Aunt Isabella—you should be able to see her after the Cicero Cup."

When his mother spoke her sister’s name, her tone was completely different from when she mentioned their grandfather.

When speaking of her father, her voice was tense; when speaking of Isabella, she was completely relaxed.

"She also walks the path of a Scholar, having started more than a decade before you. She has some connections in that circle."

"In the future, if you run into anything you’re not sure about, you can trust Isabella."

"I’ll remember that."

Margaret nodded. Without saying more, she reached out and straightened his crooked shirt collar.

"Get some sleep."

"You should get some rest too, Mom. Don’t push yourself if you’re not feeling well."

His mother paused for a moment, then patted her son’s head. "Since when did you learn to be so considerate?"

"Just recently."

"Well, keep it up."

* * *

Richard turned, pushed open the door to his room, and locked it from the inside.

He first set the gargoyle on his desk, then sat on the edge of the bed and placed the wooden box flat on his lap.

Lifting the lid, he saw the inside was lined with velvet and divided into three compartments.

The first compartment held folded banknotes and a few gold coins.

He checked the denomination of the banknotes one by one—two five-pound notes.

The gold coins were two Sovereigns, of excellent quality, their milled edges sharp and clear.

Together with the banknotes, it was about twelve pounds.

Twelve pounds. The number automatically translated into the cost of living in Brighton in his mind:

Enough for several months of rent for the whole family, enough to buy his mother’s medicine for several years, or to ensure Evelyn’s shoe rack never lacked a pair of well-fitting shoes for any season.

He placed the banknotes and gold coins back as they were and moved his gaze to the second compartment.

In the second compartment was a sealed letter of introduction, the wax seal stamped with the Ashford family crest.

The envelope bore no recipient’s name, only a single line of text: "Present this letter at No. 7 Huayue Street."

Huayue Street. The newspaper page from the train surfaced in his mind.

Spirit Medium Lady Mary, the mimeographed portrait, and the hushed discussion between the two men in felt hats.

On the surface, Huayue Street was a gray area of the Imperial Capital, a mix of spirit mediums and secret brothels.

But behind the walls—if there was a "behind the walls"—it was likely another world entirely.

He carefully turned the envelope over. The wax seal was intact, with no signs of having been opened.

The third compartment was empty, except for a small slip of paper lying at the bottom. A few lines were written on it:

"The legal channels for circulating Marvels in the Imperial Capital are limited.

No. 7 Huayue Street deals in the appraisal and consignment of antiquities. The proprietor is named Donal, and he has had dealings with the Ashford Family for many years.

If you need to purchase or consign related items, you may go there with this letter."

Beneath it was another line in smaller script: "Act within your means."

Richard moved the wooden box from his nightstand to under his pillow, tucking it between the bedding and the mattress.

Leaving the gargoyle on the desk, he pulled up a chair and sat before it.

He placed his palm on the stone surface again. The numbers on the panel were slowly creeping upward.

He turned the gargoyle over and held its base under the gas lamp, carefully trying to make out the first set of inscriptions.

The ancient inscription system of the Western Continent—he had seen its basic framework in *From the Sanctuary to the Pulpit*, the book Mr. Hutton had given him.

But that book focused on the origins and evolution of language used in religious rituals, which overlapped with this kind of cryptographic inscription but didn’t completely match.

He could recognize the first few characters, but then unfamiliar symbols began to appear.

’No rush today. I’ll copy all the inscriptions first and decipher them later when I have time.’

He took a notebook from his satchel, turned to a blank page, and began to trace the inscriptions on the first side of the base by the lamplight, stroke by stroke.

After about ten minutes of tracing, he put down his pen, set the gargoyle upright, and covered it with his palm again for a while.

The Points were still rising, just a tiny bit faster than before.

’Probably because there’s more surface contact with my palm, and it’s a tighter fit.’

As he touched the gargoyle, his mind was racing.

The amount of information from the conversation in the study was immense and needed to be broken down piece by piece.

First, the matter of the pendant.

Gerald had personally admitted that he had instructed Vincent to give him the Copper Pendant for the purpose of testing whether he had a latent circuit.

A Marvel, even a common-quality one meant for testing, was still quite valuable.

His grandfather’s willingness to bear this cost showed that, in his eyes, the value of the test result was far greater than that of a single Marvel.

But this raised a question.

At the last family gathering, he wasn’t the only member of the younger generation present.

Evelyn was there, as were probably other cousins from collateral branches of the family.

Why test only him?

Given Gerald’s personality, it was impossible he hadn’t considered other candidates.

The true purpose of that gathering, he feared, was never just about catching up.

Richard tried to sift through the fragments of his memory from that day.

At the gathering, his grandfather sat at the head of the table, speaking to the younger relatives one by one.

At the time, he hadn’t paid any mind, assuming it was just the usual concern from an elder.

But thinking back now, his grandfather’s conversations with each young person were brief, moving on to the next after only a sentence or two.

’At his Tier, detecting a latent circuit in someone’s body is probably as intuitive as seeing a mole on their face.’

’The result for most of them must have been clean. No trace of a latent circuit in their bodies, impenetrable like a sheet of iron—not a single drop of Ether could seep in.’

Evelyn most likely fell into this category.

If she had a latent circuit, his grandfather would never have sent a testing pendant only to him.

’And what about me?’

Richard looked down at his own palm.

’Mother must have a circuit... Although she didn’t say it outright, judging from Grandfather’s attitude and all the signs, it’s almost certain.’

It was possible for a mother’s circuit to be passed down to her offspring through her bloodline.

When his grandfather had glanced over him at that gathering, he might have already detected an anomaly, but he wasn’t entirely sure.

That’s why the Marvel was used as a means of verification. The only miscalculation was his own poor health.

Thinking deeper, even this gargoyle and the wooden box in his possession were part of the calculation.

It was just enough to get him started for a while, but not so much that he’d feel he could just rest on his laurels.

Every word his grandfather said to him tonight, every single thing he gave him.

It was all perfectly calibrated to the mark of "enough to give you a push, but not to do the Walking for you."

This was a man who had maximized resource efficiency etched into his very bones.

But for that very reason, the support he offered was relatively reliable.

’What does an investor fear most? That the stock they’ve invested in will go bust.’

Therefore, as long as he continued to produce value, Gerald would continue to invest in him.

Richard saw this logic with perfect clarity.