I loaded the Mysticism panel.

[Knowledge Level 4, Progress 100%]

He put two dots in.

[Knowledge level 4 → 5.]

Available points: 1.61.

The change came quietly. He looked down at the stack of palm leaves again, and the remaining sixteen symbols fell into their positions one by one.

He wasn't just guessing, but those symbols he'd never seen before were guided to their rightful place by the thousands of knowledge points he already had in his library.

[Academic Knowledge & General Knowledge]

[The speed at which one can decipher and learn previously unseen languages, codes, and inscriptions is increased, the extent of which depends on one's existing knowledge base.]

The last half of the sentence is the key.

[Extensive Knowledge] Solve existing problems; remember everything you read.

[General Knowledge] To address incremental issues, for those you haven't read, use what you have read to extrapolate.

Whether something can be pushed forward or not, whether it can be pushed forward quickly or slowly, depends entirely on the capacity of its knowledge base.

From the twenty-six books on the third floor of Greenwood, to the thirty-six books on my aunt's list in the Imperial University Library, to the drafts that others had finished writing and thrown away in Mortimer's office, and to every antique he had wiped in Donald's back room.

Those things that were read once and then forgotten, seemingly useless, have now become the fuel for pushing out thousands of copies.

Richard re-strung the palm leaves with hemp rope and got up to walk towards the seventh row.

The two easternmost shelves in the rare book section are labeled "Celestial Phenomena and Calendar (Uncategorized)".

He came once last year, flipped through two books, and left when he couldn't flip through any more.

He walked over and pulled out the top book.

The section on the third page discusses how to deduce a location that has never been recorded before using the difference between two observations.

In the second chapter of the handwritten copy of the Mirror Condensation Technique that my aunt gave me.

That chapter discussed the transition from other breathing techniques to the gaze method, and there was a small note at the bottom from the scribe, which he couldn't understand at the time:

"The difference between two observations is the point that can be deduced."

Last winter in room 314, my aunt talked about the changes in tradition, in three directions—reflection, observation, and replacement.

The one that was reflected became a mirror, and the one that was observed became a star map.

At the time, Richard only listened to it as an old story to broaden his knowledge. Now, holding knowledge from both sides at the same time, he discovered that after hundreds of years, the two methods still have the same origin.

:

The star chart is viewed through a tube, and the mirror reflects it.

Both are doing the same thing from beginning to end: inferring what has not yet been seen from what has already been seen.

Richard closed the book and put it back, then saw Curator Weatherby not far away using a dry cloth to dab the wet stains.

Many of the books here are rare or unique. The curator doesn't trust outsiders to clean them, so he personally does most of the cleaning and maintenance work.

Richard offered to help: "Let me help you."

The white-bearded curator waved his hand, indicating that it wasn't necessary.

"I just want to find something to do; spending too much time reading in the study will make my body rust."

Newsboys were calling out in the rain at the bottom of the museum entrance steps.

Richard handed over a penny, and the newspaper was limp in his hand.

The front page featured a battle report from a section south of Ypres:

"The lowlands are muddy, and the offensive has been temporarily halted. According to our frontline communications personnel, our drainage operations are progressing smoothly."

The following paragraph was deleted, leaving a small blank space.

The typewriter filled in the blank with a phrase: "Medicine for rheumatism, three shillings a bottle."

Richard tucked the newspaper under his arm and walked toward the bus stop.

The fifth draft of the paper is scheduled for August 24th.

That afternoon, McFaye and Mortimer were both at the Petrie Building.

The office on the third floor has developed a new problem this year: the wall near the window is blistering and leaking water.

Mortimer had a school worker bring him an enamel basin to collect the water, which he poured out twice a day.

Richard entered the room and found that the basin was already half full of water.

The old professor sat in that old armchair, wrestling with scissors and paper.

"professor."

"Don't come any closer, this one is already ruined."

Richard got closer and saw clearly: the paper was soft like cloth when it absorbed moisture, wrinkled when pressed with scissors, and the cut edges were all fuzzy.

"...Your collection of jokes."

"I can't continue this year." The old professor put the scissors on his lap.

:

"In previous years, I could cut two hundred strips a year, but this year it takes me three minutes to cut one strip, and after I finish cutting it, I have to press it in a book overnight."

McFaye sat opposite him, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Old Mo, you haven't gone fishing for the past two weeks."

"The river has risen."

"You went even when the floodwaters rose in previous years."

"..." Mortimer pushed his reading glasses up his nose: "The old man who sells fish doesn't set up his stall anymore."

McFaye laughed heartily, and the chair creaked as he squeezed it.

"So where did those two things you mentioned last week come from?"

The old professor was honest: "The shop on Central Avenue has them, but they've gone up to sixpence a pack."

"Only four pence at the riverbank."

The only official website address for this novel is: ".". The website owner has only this one website, and other websites may be discontinued at any time.

Richard sat down behind the table by the window, spread out the manuscript, and held back his laughter.

McFee also shared his experiences as a field seal patrolman.

"The stones on the north side are also wet. The wax applied to them looks fine, but after one night, it starts to drip down on its own."

We tried several times but it didn't work. In the end, I sent the two graduate students to bed and stayed up all night by myself.

Why are you making them sleep?

"Because one of them yawned while chanting the incantation."

The white-haired giant shrugged.

"If the person reading the verdict yawns, it has to be started all over again."

Mortimer wiped his reading glasses.

"It's wet in the north for eight months of the year, aren't you used to it?"

McFee said, "In previous years it was wet, but this year it's different, it's soaked."

The room fell silent for a moment, then a soft clatter came from the enamel basin.

"...Alright."

McFee stretched out his large hand to Richard: "Give it to me, Old Mo and I will show it to you together."

:

The two professors each took a copy and flipped through it for about twenty minutes.

After finishing the translation, McFaye spoke first.

"Old Mo, do you think Richard's approach could work on other people?"

Mortimer hummed in agreement but didn't say anything.

McFee turned his head: "Kid, have you thought about this yourself?"

"I've thought about it."

"explain."

"cannot."

"Why not?"

Richard had already prepared his speech in his mind.

"My technique is a specialized improvement on your Broken Branch technique. To read the reflection, you need to be at least at the second stage of the traditional mirror breathing method."

McFee's eyebrows twitched.

"Furthermore, you should be able to bring back any parts that you can't finish reading on-site so you can read them at your leisure."

"I now have several methods of recording. After writing them down, I can read them on the table for three days until I can draw the starting and ending points even with my eyes closed."

"Where is Catherine?"

Richard shook his head.

"She hunts under the moon, and she knows the broken branches much better than I do."

But when I taught her how to cut glass, all she did was scratch it.

McFee waved, not too disappointed.

"...Fine, I don't need it myself. If I want to kill someone, I can just wipe them away. Why bother going around to the mirror?"

"Old Mike, you're wrong."

Mortimer immediately saw the key point: "The point of reading reflections isn't speed; he can hide first and then make his move."

"You told me about that night at Grey Weir, from the moment Richard entered that shed, the evil thing never turned its head toward him again."

"That's because he's wearing a lot of clothing covering him up."

"Concealment is concealment, and action is action." Mortimer pointed to Richard's hand.

:

"The moment his blade struck, the evil creature immediately turned around, but it was too late."

"When that thing rushed over, it first covered those few dozen meters."

"Once this kid gets skilled and his rank rises, it will definitely be more than just a few dozen meters."

Richard stood by the window without saying a word.

Mortimer succinctly pointed out the biggest advantage that he had thought about for a long time.

"Alright." Mortimer closed the manuscript and placed it on the corner of the table.

"What?"

"Depending on the final rating, it usually means access to the archives, or a batch of spellcasting media... If you're lucky, you can exchange it for a decent item, or a field mission led by a master."

McFee added from the side, "With your skills, the goods won't escape, but you might have to wait for the quota."

Richard did the math in his head and didn't agree.

"Professor, I won't submit this one for now."

Why?

"Because this is one of the few methods I can currently use."

Richard did not hide his thoughts.

"Once the data is submitted, it will be filed and made available for others to access. I want to keep it under wraps first."

"So when do you plan to submit it?"

"Once I've mastered it, I'll submit the original version. By then, I'll definitely have figured out something else."

Mortimer held the chipped teacup and smiled.

"...You're a smart kid."

As Richard came down from the third floor, he bumped into Fisher at the corner on the second floor.

By the end of August, students were gradually returning to school.

The guy was holding a stack of papers in his arms, the corners of which were all wavy.

"Williams!"

"Your stack is wet."

:

"I know!" Fisher flipped the paper upside down. "My sheet music is all smudged."

"But I got something new for summer vacation, do you want to hear about it?"

"...I won't listen." Richard waved his hand and walked quickly forward.

"I haven't even said what it is yet!"

I don't want to hear anything you say.

"This time it's called 'Rain'."

Richard stopped on the stairs.

"...Your previous song followed the same approach."

"It's different!" Fisher stepped in front of him and unfolded the stack of wavy paper.

"The Silent Williams is a single note held to the end, imitating your walking without making a sound. This song is a single note held for eight minutes."

What's the difference?

"The difference is that it lasts longer."

Richard looked at him and thought the man's way of thinking was quite unique.

"Fischer, have you ever considered that if you only play one note every eight minutes, the audience will fall asleep?"

Fisher tucked the paper into his coat and stood up straight.

"That's my topic."

Richard was taken aback for a moment.

"This rain has been falling for over ten days, can you still hear it now?"

Richard turned his head to the side. The rain had been pouring down ever since he came upstairs, but he had gotten used to it.

"...I didn't expect you to actually have an artistic side."

Fisher simply took the "artistic germ" as a compliment and pulled a pencil out of his pocket.

"Then you write the title for me! My handwriting is terrible!"

………………

On Saturday, Richard took a day off for dinner.

He arrived early and sat at the table by the window.

:

Richard flipped through the menu and then closed it.

Two roasted chicken legs.

"Sir, just chicken legs?"

"Bring these two first, we'll order the others when the others arrive."

The chicken drumsticks were still steaming hot when they were served, and the skin was bubbly from the roasting.

Richard placed the two plates on either side of him, one in front of him and the other opposite him.

After a while, the curtain was lifted.

"Richard!"

Hugh stood at the door, dripping wet.

He didn't bring an umbrella, his hair was plastered to his forehead, and water was still clinging to his eyelashes.

But the cardboard roll in his arms was dry, wrapped in two layers of oilcloth, and then wrapped in his own coat.

"...Where's your umbrella?"

Richard quickly got up and told the waiter to bring a dry towel.

"The umbrella got hit by the roller."

Xiu said it was only natural: "Later I realized the rain was falling at an angle, so the umbrella was useless and I just stuffed it into my bag."

The waiter brought a towel, and Xiu wiped his face twice. He didn't hesitate to touch the plates on the table.

He grabbed a chicken leg, took a big bite, and mumbled with his cheeks puffed out, "...You still remember?"

"Of course, you never asked me to redeem the chicken leg voucher I gave you for Christmas, so I had to treat you myself." (See Chapter 143)

Xiu chuckled sheepishly; he truly didn't want to use it.

Richard picked up his chicken leg as well.

The two of them gnawed on a chicken leg for a while without saying a word.

"Do you remember lunch from back then?" Hugh suddenly asked.

"remember."

"The cheapest kind of black bread costs two pence for a big piece."

Hugh gestured with his hand to indicate thickness: "The soup is free, but it's not really soup."

:

"That's just hot water, they don't even add enough salt," Richard thought, full of complaints.

Hugh put the chicken leg down: "One day you pushed the salt shaker towards me and said something, do you remember it?"

Richard certainly remembered.

He told Hugh: "Sprinkle salt, close your eyes, and pretend it's soup."

"Hugh, I have money now."

"Um."

"This meal is on me."

"I know."

"From now on, I'll treat you to every meal."

Xiu looked up, her eyes a little red, but she was still smiling.

"Then I'll have something expensive."

After we finished eating, the waiter cleared away the plates, leaving a space on the table.

Hugh took out the scroll; Richard had sent the manuscript along with the letter.

"Richard, I recently did some part-time designing soaps for a factory all summer long."

They wanted the foam to be white and soft, and to have light.

When I first started drawing, I told them that the foam in the sample drawing was too dense and looked fake.

"What did they say?"

They said: "Young master, this is an artistic consideration."

Richard actually laughed out loud this time.

"So I read your undersecretary's..." Hugh shrugged.

"When I read about him, I thought, 'So there are people like him all over the empire.'"

Richard took the painting and looked at it for a long time, but he was a little confused.

"...You drew the minister as our school's dean of academic affairs."

Xiu scratched his head:

"I don't know how I ended up drawing it like that. When I read your manuscript, the first person that popped into my head was that person on the podium at our school."

:

"And what about this vice-minister?"

"...I drew the vice principal."

The second version featured two fat men, while the third version featured one fat man and one thin man.

Richard shook his head as he turned to the fourth page.

"This version of the vice minister has a very sharp eye."

"Is the poison bad?"

"If you poison someone, you become a bad person." Richard pushed the card back.

"He's not a bad person. He's lived like this for 27 years. He feels like he's covering for this country."

"Actually, you can't draw a portrait of anyone."

As soon as he said that, Richard felt uneasy. How did he end up being the kind of difficult client he used to hate the most?

Fortunately, the person on the other side didn't mind, and just waited for him to continue with a puzzled look on their face.

Why?

"If you were to paint a portrait of our school's dean of academic affairs, the students would laugh as soon as they saw it."

"Isn't that great?"

"No, that would mean only people from Greenwood would want to read this magazine."

Hugh hissed, as if he had realized something.

Richard put the cup down.

"Hugh, don't paint anyone in your portrait, paint everyone in your portrait."

Hugh sat there, his hands resting on his knees.

"……I see."

"Understand what?"

"I've been drawing people, but what you want isn't people."

He collected the papers on the table one by one into the roll.

Give me two days.

"No rush."

:

"I'm in a hurry." Hugh picked up the roll and stood up. "I want to go back and draw right now."

It's still raining outside.

Xiu unbuttoned his coat and put the roll back in.

"It's alright, the painting won't get wet."

Two days turned into four days. On the evening of the fourth day, Xiu came to knock on Richard's dormitory door.

When Richard opened the door, he noticed that the other person had dark circles under their eyes and cracked lips, probably from staying up all night.

"This time I brought the eighteenth edition; I tore up the previous seventeen editions."

Xiu shoved the roller into his hand and leaned against the doorframe without saying a word.

Richard spread it out on the table; there were two in total.

On the left is a person with a protruding belly, chin raised, one hand stretched out, saying something pretty.

To his right was a person standing half a step behind him, with squinting eyes and his hands tucked into his sleeves.

Neither face has any specific facial features.

Richard held up the paper and looked at it for a long time.

He suddenly remembered the first time he had given his shadow a name last year.

A shadow has no facial features, and precisely because it has no facial features, you can call it a shield, and it is a shield; you can call it a nail, and it is a nail.

Now, both faces are the same on his table, and anyone can fill in the one they know.

"……stop."

"How is it?" Hugh asked, still leaning against the doorframe, his voice weak.

How much sleep have you had in the past five days?

"...You tell me how the painting is first."

Richard turned around.

"You draw very well, I must treat you to dinner again."

Hugh bounced off the door frame.

"real?"

"real."

:

"Then I want..."

"Don't order the chicken leg."

"...Why!"

"I'm tired of it."

When they arrived at the editor-in-chief's office of "Century Review," the editor-in-chief had originally only offered column fees, saying that illustrations were considered page decorations and that the editorial department would find someone to do them.

Richard began to use his silver tongue.

"Sir, once these two faces are shown, readers will definitely have an even stronger impression of them."

The editor-in-chief pushed his reading glasses up a little.

"Young man, I've been in this line of work for thirty years."

"Then you should know better than I do."

Richard retorted, "The last thing the entire empire remembered was a recruitment poster depicting a mother holding her child, without a single word on it."

The editor-in-chief argued with him for a long time, and the final agreement was: the payment would be based on a combination of text and illustration, and the illustrator would sign their name next to the illustration.

After leaving the editorial office, Richard spread the bill out on the dining table.

"Splitting it 30/70, you get 30%."

Hugh immediately put the plate down.

"No, you wrote this, and I drew it based on your content."

"This issue's payment is three pounds and two shillings."

Richard pushed the form forward.

Xiu stared at the number, his face slowly turning red.

"...Richard, this number would take me four months to draw soaps, GG."

"That's perfect, then you don't need to draw soap anymore."

Richard handed him the pen to sign: "If you don't want to take it, then I'll add my own illustrations for the next one."

"Can you draw?"

"I won't."

"and you……"

:

"I'll draw a stick figure," Richard said seriously.

Xiu couldn't help but laugh.

In the signature section, he wrote a single letter.

"h."

"Why not write the full name?"

"You didn't write it either."

As for "The Cautious Gentlemen," both the original work and the manga have been included in the next batch of magazine serialization lists.

Meanwhile, the sample booklet sent by Duckworth Printing House also arrived.

Richard opened the dorm room; Sophia and Clara were both there.

The two people were sent by Isabella to deliver the fall book list, and after they finished, they refused to leave.

The first volume of "Strange Tales Collection: Jointly Signed Edition".

It's much thicker than those penny booklets from before, and the paper has changed too.

"Dry," Clara said first.

She took the booklet and flipped through it: "Your printing factory owner is quite particular."

Sofia snatched it away and flipped to the copyright page.

"Wow."

That row of names basically included everyone I knew:

Mr. L (editor), Corbin (folklore recording), Croft (folklore consultant, not responsible for proofreading), Edith Carter (oral transcript), Charlotte Dawn (editor)

Below was a row of other names, and Sofia found her own and Clara's names on it.

Richard didn't dare put the name of the full professor on it.

Professor Mortimer said, "I won't sign it. If I do, it will become government-run, and nobody will believe government-run things."

Richard slowly traced the words over the row with his fingertip.

If only one person writes a booklet, then smashing it only requires smashing one person's hand.

Now, to smash it, start with a full professor's student, two associate professors, a newly appointed recommended student in the department, the Dawn family's paper mill, the Duckworth printing plant, and a bunch of other names in the appendix.

After smashing all this, there's one more question: Which sentence in this booklet is wrong?

:

Richard closed the booklet and got up to close the window.

It's still raining outside.

………………

On the first day of school, it rained all night in Beijing, but the morning was sunny and unreasonable.

On the notice board, there's a new one at the top:

"Notice on the merger of wartime courses: Due to teacher reassignment, the course 'Introduction to Inscription Literature and Sealing Structure' will be taught jointly by first-year undergraduate students and preparatory special classes this academic year."

Instructor: Silas Penrose, Lecturer.

Richard searched his memory for the name.

This Silas Penrose should be the champion of last debate week.

Senior Clara seemed to have mentioned that he had been promoted to Junior Proficiency and rehired by the school, but I didn't expect him to start classes so soon.

The large classroom on the east side was used for general classes for all preparatory students last year.

This year, the long table was rearranged, with the first four rows empty. Brass plaques were nailed to the backs of the chairs, reading "First Year Undergraduate".

Richard sat down in the second row by the window, and Fisher plopped down next to him, only realizing what was happening after he had sat down.

"...Is it proper for me to sit here?"

"Combining classes means combining classes."

"Then I won't be polite."

Montagu entered through the back door, nodded in this direction, and sat down diagonally behind him.

He appeared calm on the surface, but he actually received a lot of scolding at home this summer.

His family urged him to finish his preparatory course and start his undergraduate studies as soon as possible, but Montagu had his own unspoken grievances.

Edith sat in the seat closest to the window, clutching the illustrated book.

Catherine was the last to enter. As she walked down the aisle, she glanced at Richard but did not sit down next to him.

At eight o'clock sharp, the door opened.

The person who came in was younger than Richard had imagined.

He was twenty-five or twenty-six years old, with his light brown hair casually combed, and his dark gray suit looked a little loose on him.

He had no lecture notes in his hand, and simply greeted the students below with ether.

:

"Silas Penrose, this year's goal is mine."

The ether pressed down, and all the rustling sounds in the classroom stopped.

Richard sat in the second row, the water reflection on his chest clearly visible.

The ether of practitioners tends to seep outwards, leaving traces wherever they go.

Richard had looked at too many people that year: Montagu, Catherine, Fisher... Each one was seeping outwards, the only difference being how much they were seeping out.

Silas didn't.

I won't hand out the lecture notes.

The man untied the rubbing scroll in his hand.

"The study of epigraphy is harmful to people."

You copy down the conclusion, and it becomes your own, but you haven't actually gone through it.

"The first thing is to establish a dating system."

He arranged the rubbings in the front rows.

"Take one sheet at a time and look at it first, but don't flip it over. The answers are written on the back, and if you flip it over, you've come for nothing."

The one Richard received had an arc running from top to bottom, with a few sharp folds interspersed within the arc.

Fisher held his face up to his eyes, and his expression slowly fell.

"...What is this?"

"Guess?" Silas said, his back to him, writing something on the blackboard.

I guess the fourteenth century.

Why?

"Because half of the answers are from the fourteenth century."

Several people in the classroom laughed out loud, and Silas laughed too. After laughing, he turned around.

"The one you have in your hand, taken at the end of the 11th century and the beginning of the 12th century, was taken from the lintel of a Norman church cellar."

The person making the roll was a little shaky, so the left column was half a point lower than the right column.

Fisher turned the rubbing over, somewhat surprised.

"...Sir, you didn't even look at it just now."

:

"I saw it."

When did you watch it?

"When I give it to you."

Silas stepped down from the podium and walked down the aisle to the back.

He wasn't walking fast. By the time he passed the first row, the undergraduate student hadn't even properly held up the rubbing in his hand when he had already announced it:

"In the later period of the Alexandrian school, around 1430, the copyists were left-handed."

Second row: "Carolingian cursive script, mid-9th century, this is a rubbing from the base of a bronze statue."

The third row, Edith's picture: "...Former Rome".

He stopped, and Edith raised the rubbing a little higher.

"This one is interesting," Silas said.

"The foundation is pre-Roman Celtic, it was Romanized once in the middle, and the third layer is medieval church Latin on top, the three layers spanning almost two thousand years."

"Sir, can you tell which part it is?"

"I can't tell."

His answer was straightforward.

"Dating a period and dating a place are two different things. The era is etched in the strokes of a brush, while the place is etched in the hand."

"I've never been to the highlands."

Edith put down the rubbing, her eyes lighting up.

When it was Richard's turn, Silas stood on the side of the aisle and glanced at him across half a table.

"Late 12th century, Frankish."

Richard nodded.

"Which year did you just stop at?"

"Late 12th century"

Silas's eyebrows twitched.

"How was it broken?"

"The curve ends with a hook that curves back," Richard pointed.

:

"The Romanized batch didn't mark it; those who marked it back were later people who copied it, and when they copied it, they brought their own pen and habits."

A murmur rippled through the classroom.

"...What's your name?"

Richard Williams.

"Oh," Silas said, "the one who graduated early."

He didn't ask any more questions and turned back to the podium.

In the latter half of that class, Silas wrote a sealing structure on the blackboard.

I wrote it in one go from the first stroke to the last, without pausing to compare or making a draft with chalk first.

After he finished writing, he put the chalk back in the trough and turned around.

"This recipe is on page 47 of your book."

Below the podium, there was a chorus of pages turning.

Then Silas didn't use any medium and directly constructed a three-dimensional model out of thin air using ether.

Moreover, the model didn't move at all until the bell rang, which is something most lecturers can't do.

Richard looked at the model. He had seen plenty of minor experts, but this young scholar seemed to be the first of his kind.

"Alright."

Silas subtly retracted his five fingers, and the model was activated.

That's all for today. In the next class, read Chapter 3 on your own. If you don't understand something, write it down and don't pretend you do.

About half a minute after the bell rang, the back door opened.

Associate Professor Hollis came in carrying a stack of old blueprints. He was a little hunched over and had to hold onto the edge of the table to walk.

Richard saw him several times in the editorial team last year. He was a veteran who had taught sealing studies in the Department of Classics for decades. Most of his hair had turned white, and he spoke so slowly that it could put people to sleep.

The old man walked to the front of the podium and put down the stack of drawings.

"Penrose".

"gentlemen."

"The finishing you mentioned earlier." Hollis pulled out the top pattern and pushed it over.

"I have an original drawing from 1869 here."

:

Silas glanced down.

"This one is correct."

"Yes." The old man nodded.

"From now on, you teach your course, and I'll teach mine. The students can then compare their own teaching methods."

After he finished speaking, he turned around to wipe the blackboard, and Silas took the eraser from his hand.

The two of them wiped the cloth and looked at it, neither of them saying anything more.

Richard walked out carrying a canvas bag.

As he reached the door, Fisher caught up from behind, put his mouth close to his ear, and whispered something.

"He even tried to take my tea when we were sitting in the preparation area of ​​the Iliad building last year."

"What kind of tea did you steal?" Richard asked casually.

"Darjeeling, it was the first afternoon of Debate Week, and there was only one pot left on the tea table."

Fisher became increasingly indignant as he spoke.

"I touched the handle of the kettle first, and then he said to me: 'Student, I have to go on stage later.'"

"and then?"

"Then I gave him the pot."

Richard laughed out loud.

"I thought to myself, well, they have to go on stage after all."

Fisher tucked the collation paper into his pocket.

"He won the championship after he took the stage, and he came back this year to be our lecturer."

………………

The windows in room 314 were all open today, and the mint on the windowsill had grown to the height of the window frame.

Isabella sat behind the writing desk, where there was no stack of papers that could never be finished grading.

There was only a piece of paper on it, with extremely fine silver lines and dark patterns at the four corners, and ethereal fluctuations.

"Sit across from me," my aunt said.

Richard sat down opposite him.

:

Sofia huddled in the chair by the window, hugging her knees, without saying a word.

Clara stood to the side of the writing desk, her back ramrod straight.

Isabella turned the paper around and pushed it to the center of the table.

Application Form for Promotion to Junior Expert Level

The bottom line in small print: pma jat · Teito University Department of Classics · For departmental meeting record filing

Richard's breathing slowed down. He glanced at Clara not far away and understood why his aunt had called him over today.

: