I loaded the Mysticism panel.

"You like Aeneas?" Richard asked.

Phillips thought for a moment.

"To describe this ancestor of the Romans as someone who was liked is too mild a word."

He turned to a page at the back of the book.

"At the end of Book Twelve, Aeneas kills Thurnus."

"Turnus has fallen to the ground, begging for mercy, stretching out his hands to ask for forgiveness."

Aeneas hesitated… Virgil wrote very clearly that he hesitated.

"But in the end, he still stabbed her with his sword."

Phillips closed the book.

"This is the last scene of the entire epic, and Virgil made it stop here."

There were no cheers of victory, no glory of building a city, and no 'forgiveness for the surrendered'.

The final scene shows the hero, consumed by rage, plunging his sword into the chest of the kneeling, begging man.

He made a rather unsettling judgment in a very calm tone:

Virgil probably felt that this was the real person.

Phillips tucked the book under his arm, picked up the teacup from the windowsill, and finished his tea.

"You've been copying things all day."

"And judging from how much you're sweating and the dust on your cuffs, you've probably been here since the museum opened."

"More or less," Richard replied casually.

Phillips glanced at him.

"You are like Aeneas in the book, rowing in a storm, desperately moving towards your destination."

He chuckled self-deprecatingly:

"I'm more like Dido, sitting in the city drinking tea and enjoying the scenery, waiting to see who will drift in from the sea."

A privileged young nobleman, with a bright future, likens himself to a queen who is destroyed because she loved the wrong person.

He wouldn't use that tone if it were just a joke.

If it were a serious self-analysis, he wouldn't say it with a smile.

"Phillips, it's easy for you to say, but hard to say back."

Richard pulled his hand out of his pocket: "But you missed a problem."

Phillips raised an eyebrow: "What?"

"If you don't go down, how will you get back up?"

Just then, the two old men playing chess outside the window made their move.

"Sybil said the gates of Hades are open day and night," Richard said. "But she never said that if you can't go on, you can stay where you are."

Not going down doesn't mean it's safe.

It simply means that you've handed over the choice to someone else.

It was entrusted to time, to fate, and to those unseen but ever-functioning pipelines.

There are two types of people who can't get up.

"One type rushed into the deep water without preparation, and they got swallowed up; they have no one to blame but themselves."

"But actually, the second type is more common."

Which one?

"A person pacing back and forth at the entrance of the cave, wanting to go in but not wanting to go in."

Richard touched the notebook in his pocket.

"When you finally decide to leave, you look back and find there's no way forward either."

"Ahead lies an abyss, behind is a precipice, and the small patch of ground where we stand continues to crack."

"By then, you won't even have a choice anymore."

Phillips frowned, said nothing more, and turned to walk down the stairs.

"Williams".

"Um?"

"If you really intend to go down there, good luck."

His voice drifted up from the corner of the stairs, echoing and sounding much farther away than it actually was.

Richard stood in the second-floor corridor, watching Phillips's figure disappear around the corner of the stairs.

Based on our brief conversation today, this guy is quite an interesting person, at least much more interesting than that Montagu.

He stood by the corridor railing for a while, mentally summarizing what he had learned that day.

The notebook was two-thirds full, with dense handwriting covering dozens of pages from front to back.

There are also some memory archives in my mind, which can be retrieved at any time by page numbers and keyword anchors.

The information was stored in encrypted form in his notebook and in his mind, waiting for him to pry it open little by little after he returned to Bristol.

We have enough clues, but it takes time, a lot of time.

He came down from the second floor and returned the pass at the exit.

The old woman carefully put away the pass without even looking up: "Young man, will you come again in the future?"

"certainly."

"Well... I wish you all the best in your studies."

"Thanks."

As he walked out of the library, he patted his bulging notebook and stuffed it into his bag.

It was filled with undeciphered raw materials.

For him, it was just a truckload of raw ore being transported out of the mine; whether it was valuable or not would only be known after it was smelted back at the mine.

But the location of the mineral vein has already been marked on the map.

Next time he comes, he will bring more suitable tools.

The bus on the way back was much more crowded than in the morning.

Richard found a corner to sit down, hugged his backpack to his chest, leaned against the window, and closed his eyes.

The fourfold breathing system operates automatically, and the body enters a state of semi-cultivation and semi-rest.

Organize and archive the information you acquired today in your mind.

Upon returning to Bristol, the first thing I did was use the prize money from the Cicero Cup to buy the Sphinx Lamp from Clement Antique Shop.

The second thing is to use the disassembly methods learned today to try to open the seal on the oil lamp.

The third thing is to absorb all the remaining ether sealed in the oil lamp, accumulate enough points to light up [Walking], and unlock [Spirit].

As for what exactly is hidden inside the [Spirit], he still can't guess.

Logically speaking, the importance of the "Spirit" item, which is locked after "all four aspects of the body are activated," is self-evident.

As the car passed the boundary marker of the capital's administrative district, the elm trees outside the window had already been tinged orange by the gas streetlights.

He opened his eyes, glanced at the street scene, and then closed them again.

The notebook felt heavy against my chest, nestled in my arms.

………………

When he returned to Ashford House that evening, the butler greeted him at the door.

"Young Master Richard, dinner is ready. Your family is waiting in the dining room."

"Thanks."

Richard took off his coat and handed it to the butler before walking down the corridor toward the restaurant.

As Vincent passed through the living room, he jumped up from the sofa:

"Hey, where have you been all day? I've been waiting for you!"

"library."

"library?"

Vincent's expression at that moment was similar to that of a child who had been told his birthday present was a workbook:

"You come to the capital...and you go to the library?"

"The library at Teito University has an excellent collection."

"No matter how good the collection of a university library is, it can't be as good as a barbecue restaurant."

A new place opened on Grosvenor Street; their lamb chops are sprinkled with rosemary and sea salt, and they're crispy on the outside and tender on the inside after roasting...

Vincent began gesturing with his hands to show the size of the lamb chops, exaggerating the more he gestured.

"Next time," Richard patted his cousin on the shoulder. "Next time you come to the capital, you have to treat me to a meal and let me eat my fill."

"You said that?"

"I said it."

"Then you'd better hurry up and get into a university in the capital, otherwise that barbecue restaurant might be closed down by the time you come next time."

"...The possibility of bankruptcy is not within my consideration."

Vincent was taken aback and walked away dejectedly.