I loaded the Mysticism panel.

"I've noticed you've been taking notes," Mr. Hutton said. "Tell me what you've written down."

Richard used to never speak up in class; he was the kind of nobody whose name the teacher could only remember by calling the roll.

But this Richard is different now.

He glanced down at his notebook.

"I'm thinking about that report." He stood up.

"The statement 'It is recommended that the investigation be stopped' is itself a contradiction."

Mr. Hutton raised his eyebrows slightly: "Continue."

"If the investigation concludes that 'no abnormalities are found,' the proper wording would be 'the investigation is complete, and no noteworthy phenomena were found.'"

"But they didn't write it that way; they wrote 'Stop the investigation'."

This statement assumes there was something worth investigating further, but they chose not to.

The classroom fell silent for a moment.

"Excellent analysis, Williams. Sit down."

When Richard sat down, he felt several pairs of eyes on him.

Warren in the back row was the most unexpected.

When did this usually quiet and sickly person become so talkative?

………………

Greenwood’s restaurant is a high-ceilinged hall.

The exhaust duct runs through the roof, supposedly for heat dissipation, but its effectiveness has always been limited.

Portraits of the school board members and sponsors hang on the wall.

The gentlemen in the painting look down at the students eating below, seemingly ready to comment on their dining etiquette at any moment.

Richard carried the tray and moved forward in the line.

Standing next to him was Hugh Fenton, his classmate and one of the few friends in the class.

The boy's hair was always messy. He pushed his bangs to the side with his hand, but they came back up two seconds later.

Hugh's situation at school was similar to Richard's; his father was a post office dispatcher, and his mother taught high school.

Their family also treated Greenwood's tuition fees as a major expense, and they always stayed in their designated areas within the restaurant.

"We have tomato oxtail soup today." Xiu leaned over:

"I can smell it. It must have been made today, not leftovers from yesterday."

"Hmm." Richard took a step forward. "How much is a bowl?"

Fivepence.

Richard reached into his pocket and counted the coins, then remained silent.

He pushed the tray forward, said "thank you" to the female window worker, took a cup of free hot tea, and then turned and left.

The unlimited free hot tea is perhaps the only remaining act of generosity Greenwood offers.

Hugh followed behind him, gave an awkward smile, and didn't pay for soup.

The two found a small table by the window and sat down.

A man named Barrett, who was also their classmate, was already sitting at the table, slowly chewing his food.

There was practically nothing on the bread except for a thin layer of peanut butter.

He saw Richard and Hugh approaching, moved aside slightly, and said nothing.

The three of them sat around the small table, each eating their own lunch.

The sounds in the restaurant are layered.

The middle area was the liveliest, and it was where the important and influential people were seated.

Bristol is a small city after all, with no real aristocracy; it's mostly comprised of second- or third-generation wealthy merchants or elite families.

Typically, the family business starts with the grandfather's generation, while the father's generation enters law firms or parliament.

By their generation, they naturally felt that they were separated from those dusty, dirty cattle and horses by a wall.

As Richard sipped his hot tea, his gaze inadvertently drifted across the hall.

In the corner by the window, a girl was sitting alone.

Lillian Hayward.

Richard recalled the name from his memory; she was a girl in the class who stood out both academically and in terms of appearance.

The girl had delicate eyebrows and eyes, a narrow and straight nose, and her whole appearance was as if she had been meticulously drawn with a pencil.

The plate in front of her was similar to Richard's: thin soup, bread, and no meat.

Seemingly noticing the gaze, the girl looked up.

She noticed something similar to her own on Richard's plate, and her eyes flickered.

"Brother, stop looking."

Evelyn slapped hard on the shoulder; she had walked over without her noticing.

She was clutching a paper package in her hand:

"Here, have some butter cookies I made in home economics class. I'm on a diet, could you help me with that?"

She shoved the paper package into Richard's hand and ran away without waiting for a response.

Richard opened the paper package; the cookies inside were baked to a golden brown with slightly charred edges.

He glanced at his sister's retreating figure, which seemed to disappear like a fawn.

Lose weight? I'm already as thin as a bamboo pole, what's the point of losing weight?

After breaking off a piece of cookie and handing it to two classmates around him, he also took a piece and put it in his mouth.

Crispy, sweet, and salty, the butter melts on the tip of the tongue.

Hugh held the half-cookie in his hand and whispered, "Your sister is so cute."

"Of course!" Richard took a sip of tea.

………………

After the bell rang for the last class, Richard packed his bag at his seat.

Several boys pushed and shoved each other toward the door, their laughter and chatter spreading outwards like water.

"Williams".

A tall, muscular young man stopped at his table, followed by a man and a woman.

The man's name was Mason, and he always stirred up trouble.

The woman is Grey. She has a quiet personality and comes from a good family, so she is also in their small circle.

"Your statement today," Warren said, resting one hand on the corner of the table, "was, to be honest, a bit unexpected."

"Just a casual remark." Richard stuffed the notebook into his bag.

"I'm not just saying that casually," Warren corrected him. "It's not easy for that old man Hutton to praise people in class."

"so?"

"So you might be interested in what I'm about to say," Warren said.

His tone was polite, but it implied that he was tacitly agreeing.

"What is it?" Richard picked up his backpack and turned to ask.

Warren pulled a cloth bag from his coat pocket and tossed it in his hand.

He smiled mysteriously:

"The Divine Summoning Disc was obtained from an old man who collects antiques. It's said to be an artifact that came from the Eastern Continent, and it's genuine."

Mason chimed in from the side, chuckling:

"It's one of those tricks where the table moves, you know, just for fun and to fool yourself."

Richard glanced at the cloth bag.

In his past life, this thing had a corresponding name: Ouija board, and its principle was the so-called "telekinesis".

The participants were all unconsciously exerting force in one direction, working together to move the object.

I was unaware of it and thought it was an external force, convincing myself that I had come into contact with something mysterious.

Scientific, rational, and explainable—that's the textbook version.

But then he remembered what Mr. Hutton had said that morning: the real danger is what comes out of those hats.

Thinking this, Richard was already on the verge of saying, "I won't today..."

Halfway through the conversation, I suddenly noticed something unusual on the panel.

The cloth bag was about an arm's length away from him, and Warren casually tossed it around.

Within this distance, the number at the edge of consciousness moved.

Available points: 0.1