I loaded the Mysticism panel.

"Probably."

"I drew 'On Friendship,' thank goodness."

He let out a sigh of relief and put the card back in his pocket: "What's your name?"

Richard Williams, Briston Greenwood School.

"Simon Haynes, King Edward Bloom School".

He extended his hand, shaking it with a light but sincere grip: "I'm also from out of town; it took me two and a half hours by train."

"I sat for more than three hours."

"Then you're worse off than me," Simon asked tentatively. "What class of seat?"

Third-class seats.

"Me too." After confirming, he seemed to relax immediately.

"I just saw Montagu's carriage; the carriage alone is probably worth more than my house."

"Very likely."

"The world is so unfair," Simon said, then quickly adjusted his mindset.

"But whether it's fair or not, everyone reads the same thing once they're on stage."

He took out the cue cards again: "I'll go over them two more times. Good luck."

"The same to you."

Richard neither looked at the shorthand notebook again nor closed his eyes to recite.

He closed his eyes and adjusted his breathing rhythm.

Inhale for four counts, hold your breath for four counts, exhale for four counts, hold your breath for four counts.

The murals sealed and suppressed the etheric field, but the rhythm of the fourfold breath itself does not depend on the ether.

It is rhythm, it is framework, it is the anchor that allows him to return to his best state in any environment.

………………

The first round started promptly at 9:30.

The host was a very tall old man with white hair.

He was dressed in the formal attire of the Classical Society, with a gold laurel brooch pinned to his chest.

The old man stood on the podium and read out the competition rules: contestants would come up on stage in the order of their assigned numbers, each with a five-minute time limit, and points would be deducted for exceeding the time limit.

The judges' panel was set up directly opposite the podium, with six people sitting behind a long row of tables.

The three were professors from the Classical Society; two had white hair, and one was bald.

This gave Richard a brief sense of familiarity, as he had already accumulated considerable experience in observing the bald population.

The two are the principals of well-known middle schools in the capital, and a lady is sitting in the far right position.

Her dark brown hair was neatly styled, and she wore a dark blue suit.

She looked to be around thirty years old, appearing remarkably young amidst her graying hair and bald head.

A nameplate was placed in front of the judges' panel; her nameplate read: Isabella Ashford, Department of Classics, Imperial College.

This must be the aunt my maternal grandfather and mother were talking about.

Richard glanced at it and then looked away, his expression remaining unchanged.

My maternal grandfather said she would be there, and that she would be working in two systems at the same time.

Today, she's acting as a judge for the Classical Society, so she's just doing her job and doesn't have much to think about.

Contestants went on stage in the order of their assigned numbers.

The first one to go up was a short boy from a local grammar school in Beijing.

He drew a passage from "On Duty," a fairly straightforward piece.

But when he took the stage, he was probably stunned by the size of the chapel and the number of people there. His voice trembled violently during the first two sentences, and he mispronounced one of the phrasings.

The balding professor on the judging panel frowned and traced a line on the score sheet with his pen.

The boy only regained his composure by the third sentence. His performance in the second half was acceptable, but the mistake at the beginning had already set the tone.

When he stepped off the stage, he didn't even dare to look at the next contestant's face as he passed by.

The following few had varying levels of skill.

A girl from the central region performed well; her voice was clear and her breath control was natural.

However, the rhetorical emphasis occasionally went astray, turning a rhetorical question into a statement.

This kind of mistake might not be noticeable to laymen, but the judges certainly would.

Montagu was the seventh to come to power.

The passage he drew was a section from "On Old Age".

The text is relatively gentle with a slow pace, making it suitable for showcasing recitation skills and a good sense of language.

The blond boy stood on the podium without looking at any of the materials.

He stood at a distance of just half an arm's length from the edge of the podium; too far and he would appear timid, too close and he would appear cramped—his position was both dignified and appropriate.

The boy's voice was rich and deep, not at all like that of a sixteen or seventeen-year-old.

"Quam ob rem, si sapientiam meam admirari soletis..."

(Therefore, if you are accustomed to praising my wisdom, I hope it is worthy of your evaluation and the title I bear...)

Each long vowel ending is drawn out perfectly, seamlessly matching the emotional fluctuations in the preceding and following text.

The chapel was very quiet, and the stone walls amplified the sound, creating a natural amplification effect.

Montagu was clearly already familiar with this sound field environment.

His volume was never too high or too low, and every word he spoke was perfectly suited to the reverberation of the chapel.

The five-minute speech proceeded without a single unnecessary pause or loss of rhythm.

Having been trained one-on-one from a young age to this level is beyond what can be explained by mere hard work.

This is a foundation forged by both environment and talent, a destiny born into the Roman Senate.

Among the more than 500 people in the audience, many exchanged glances after Montagu's performance.

The champion has probably already been decided.

Simon, standing nearby, muttered under his breath, "This guy is outrageous!"

Richard didn't respond, but silently noted down several of Montagu's technical features in his mind.

The sound field control is excellent, the vowel resonance is skillfully used, and the timing of pauses is precise.

These three skills are hard-earned through years of training and cannot be caught up with in a short period of time.

But Montagu’s speeches have a subtle characteristic: every emotional fluctuation is just right.

He was performing a show that had been polished thousands of times on stage.

Perfect, but lacking in humanity.

Catherine Blackwood was the twelfth.

The red-haired girl walked onto the podium in a completely different way from Montagu.

Without pausing to look around with any composure, she stood still as soon as she stepped up.

Both hands hung at his sides, fingers slightly clenched, heels together.

Like an infantryman ready to charge at any moment.

She drew the famous opening passage from the first chapter of "Anti-Catiline".

His very first words made the people in the first three rows sit up straight.

"Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?"

(Katilin, how long are you going to abuse our patience?)

He spoke at least 20% faster than Montagu, but his pronunciation was extremely clear.

Each consonant is cleanly and crisply cut off by the teeth and the tip of the tongue, without any sticking or ambiguity.

In the Senate, Cicero questions the schemers, and she restores the sharpness of this questioning to a chilling degree.

"Quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?"

(To what extent do you intend to indulge in your unbridled arrogance?)

Her Latin pronunciation had a slight Highland accent, which was a drawback in terms of accuracy.

However, when placed in the emotional intensity of this interrogation, this roughness actually adds a genuine sense of anger to the voice.

When the girl finished speaking the last sentence, her fingers were already clenched into a fist.

After a moment of silence, the audience erupted in applause.

On the judges' panel, the balding professor wrote much faster than when he listened to Montagu.

Isabella, sitting on the far right, rested her pen on her lower lip, looking somewhat bored.