I loaded the Mysticism panel.

When I came out of the classroom after class, the corridor was almost empty.

Richard's usual spot was at the table by the window in the study room. He pushed open the door, and Catherine was already waiting.

The red-haired girl sat opposite him in her usual spot, a pencil twirling between her fingers.

Several sheets of paper were already laid out on the table.

"You're here quite early." Richard sat down in his seat.

Catherine wrote a line in her notebook.

"This time the workload is large, and collaboration is faster than doing it alone."

Richard divided the rubbings into four piles according to their origin.

Hercules' seven rubbings of battlefield churches are placed on the left;

The ancient Gaulish inscription is placed in the center;

The rubbing of the wax cylinder casing of Dionysus's phonograph is displayed separately;

The Alchemy Manuscript of Prometheus has an alarmingly high density of inscriptions.

"Let's do the first two piles together," Richard said, pointing to the left and the middle.

Catherine nodded and wrote a line: "What about the remaining two piles?"

"I need to go back and look up the information about the phonograph and the alchemy manuscript first."

"OK."

The two lowered their heads, and the study room fell silent.

The old sycamore tree outside the window was now bare, and the winter sunlight filtered through the branches, casting fragmented shadows on the table.

The main part is the section on ancient Gaul, which the two of them need to decipher together.

Richard mentally reviewed the "Knowledge Base" and found a note in Professor McFee's book, "Structure and Evolution of Gaelic Script".

The divergence between Highland Gael and Continental Gaul occurred in the Late Iron Age, and their common proto-language before the divergence contained a number of bidirectional roots.

The same root word has one meaning when written forward, and another meaning when written backward.

"Look at this." He pushed the paper in front of Catherine and pointed to the spot he had marked.

Catherine quickly scribbled a line in her notebook.

"Two-way word roots? I've seen something similar in the rubbings of the ancient battlefields of the Highlands that Professor McFee gave me."

Richard placed the two rubbings side by side on the table.

One is the Gaulish Triple Sacrifice Inscription, and the other is the Highland Gaelic Battlefield Inscription that Catherine obtained from Professor McFee.

The two passages are separated by two thousand years and a thousand miles.

But that root word is the same word in both inscriptions.

From the mainland to the archipelago, from Gallic priests to Highland warriors, this word root has lived for two thousand years.

"Then this part can be cross-validated." Catherine quickly jotted it down in her notebook.

The two of them worked for nearly two hours afterward.

The light from outside the study room window slowly moved from one end of the desk to the other, and dappled shadows climbed from the branches of the sycamore trees onto the wall.

Fisher peeked inside the study room as he passed by the door.

Seeing the two of them engrossed in their work, he wisely found a spot further away and didn't join them in studying as usual.

By around 4 p.m., the first two piles of rubbings were basically finished.

Catherine devoured five of Hercules' seven battlefield church rubbings.

The remaining two images, which pertain to the period before the Frankish era and may date back to the Roman province of Gaul, were marked "to be investigated" and set aside.

The ancient Gaulish triple sacrificial structure is now fully understood, including the complete restoration of those dialect variants.

The two proofread each other's work.

Catherine wrote a line in her notebook: "Results shared."

"Okay." Richard copied both drafts, keeping one for each person.

"We can work together regularly in the future. You have your channels, and I have my resources. It's faster to work together than to go it alone," Catherine wrote.

"Okay." Richard readily agreed, silently watching the progress on the panel.

[Reflection] The skill has reached 60% of level 3. This skill, which only reached level 3 in October, has progressed exceptionally fast due to the high-intensity inscription work over the past few months.

[Knowledge] has also reached 12% of level 4, so the rate of improvement is not slow.

Currently, the skill closest to level 4 is [Perception], which is already over 90%. It is expected to reach level 4 in the next automatic book review.

Catherine closed the notebook and tucked the pencil behind her ear.

"You helped me get business this time, so I owe you again."

She slung her backpack over her shoulder and left.

Fisher followed him, giving Richard a thumbs-up before leaving.

Richard tidied up his desk, filed the rubbings and the final drafts separately, and then got up and went to room 314.

Isabella was all alone in the office, with the draft questions for the final exam spread out on her desk.

My aunt finished marking a paragraph and put the red pen back in the pen slot.

"Speak, what do you want from me?"

"I'd like to ask about advanced breathing techniques."

Isabella raised her head.

"How far have you progressed in your 'tidal breathing' technique?"

"Basic breathing frequency conversion is now fully automated."

Isabella raised an eyebrow:

"Every advanced breathing method grows out of tradition. Once you choose a breathing method, it's like welding the path between a practitioner and a minor mastery off."

She walked to the bookshelf by the window, bent down and rummaged through it for a while, then pulled out an envelope.

Then, from the second-to-last shelf, a flat wooden box was pulled out, the lid of which was engraved with the Ashford family oak tree and standing lion.

"Some of the documents inside are my own, and my family also sent me a few copies."

"First is the Sun Tradition." She pointed to the cover of the leftmost copy.

"Coronalis is based on the heartbeat rhythm, with a layer of light and heat visualization superimposed on the four-fold breathing framework."

Richard flipped through the outline.

"After mastering the Sun Tradition, the Sun Constellation itself will become a constant-temperature light source that continuously radiates outwards."

Therefore, the sun's traditional mastery of light, when walking behind the veil, inherently carries a field that dispels darkness; anything that dares to approach is first baked by the light.

Isabella took out another one:

"Next is the traditional hearth fire, ignis custodis (guardian fire), the core of which is the bellows rhythm."

With each exhale, the ether is propelled to a designated location by high pressure, causing its temperature to rise.

"Clara's cousin often touched the furnace without wearing heat-resistant gloves when he was doing processing."

"What a ruthless iron hand," Richard thought to himself.

The third copy features Ashford's family crest.

"Was this sent from your maternal grandfather?"

"Yes, the Ashford family has used the Moon Hunter system for generations of hunters."

Richard opened the cover. The advanced breathing technique of the Moon Hunting tradition is called the Hunting Method, which allows hunters to smell where their prey is just by breathing.

"The hunting method has extremely high physical requirements," Isabella explained from the side.

"Each sniff consumes the equivalent of sprinting at full speed for 50 yards. At the professional level, one can sniff three to four times per minute."

"Once you reach a certain level of proficiency, there is no upper limit. Your microcirculation has been transformed into an automatic sniffing mode, and your breathing itself is a form of tracking."

Richard recalled the scene of Vincent training in the backyard in the early morning, and the underlying logic of that training method now made perfect sense.

"There is also a branch of the lunar hunting tradition, lunae umbrae (the shadow of the moon), which is the path my father followed."

"Practitioners synchronize their breathing with the sounds of their surroundings, allowing their etheric characteristics to completely blend into the background noise."

"Has my cousin Vincent tried it?"

"My father had him try it for a while, and his bone density and nerve reflex speed were above the limit, but his inspiration accuracy was not high enough."

The Moon's True Image requires practitioners to be able to distinguish at least forty different environmental sound sources; Vincent's upper limit is approximately twenty-five.

"In the end, we returned to the orthodox hunting method."

The fourth weaving tradition is the breathing method textoris (weaving wheel).

"The core is rhythm weaving, breaking down breathing into different beats that operate simultaneously."

The main beat controls inhalation, the secondary beat controls exhalation, and one to three additional micro-beats control the etheric flow in the body's auxiliary channels.

"It's like one person playing several drums at the same time; it's somewhat similar to breathing in a damp environment."

Isabella explained.

"When the weaving tradition reaches a certain level of proficiency, one can maintain seven to nine independent etheric channels simultaneously, making one person do the work of several."

Richard recalled how Mrs. McNeil, during the ritual in Whitcomb, simultaneously controlled seven spirits and still had the energy to maintain the sealing ritual.

The fifth one is the Abyss tradition.

Richard glanced at his aunt's expression and wisely refrained from discussing it.

"I won't consider that."

Isabella nodded in satisfaction.

"You've already read about the Abyss's traditional Throat Technique in 'The Secrets of the Abyss'... It grows fast, gets stronger fast, and can't be stopped."

She pushed the copy of "Abyss" to the farthest corner of the table.

After discussing the five traditions, there are still several documents left on the table.

"What about these?" Richard pointed.

Isabella walked back to the table and sat down.

"The tradition of fierce winds, you've already witnessed it firsthand in the pit you shouldn't be in."

This one was also sent from Ashford's home.

"tempestatis (crack), a breathing technique developed by Celtic priests in the Highlands."

The core principle is to store ether deep within the lungs without releasing it, continuously pressurizing it to its limit before exhaling it in one breath, creating a powerful air pressure attack.

"The cost is that the lungs and trachea are subjected to tremendous pressure. People who follow the traditional high winds route almost completely ruin their voices, and the long-term compression deforms their vocal cords."

Richard recalled something.

It shouldn't be assumed that Lieutenant Colonel Odd barely spoke that night; perhaps that wasn't his natural personality.

Having completed all that, Isabella gathered all the hunter's directions into the wooden box.

"Just familiarize yourself with the hunter's guides." She closed the box.

Only the last two copies remained in the center of the table, placed side by side with the first copy of the traditional solar corona method.

"These two," Isabella pointed to the two portions, "are the ones I really want you to consider."

"lectio profunda (deep reading), an advanced breathing method based on classical texts, is what I follow."

"I've been studying in-depth reading for over a decade, and I've encountered every single pitfall, from the beginner level to everything outside the syllabus. If you choose this path..."

Her gaze was fixed on Richard.

"I can teach you step by step, including Clara and Sofia. All my graduate students have followed this path."

Richard glanced at it twice and then closed the thin piece of paper.

"Let me take a look at the last one first."