I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Richard turned to the first page.

The preface was written in a very standard style, with academic terminology in a steady and measured tone, footnotes numbered from 1 to 47, and citation formatted in a proper and orderly manner.

The content describes how agricultural communities in remote areas of the Western Continent organize their labor and sacrificial activities based on weather conditions.

Normal ethnographic research can be so academically rigorous that it can make you sleepy.

If it were my past self, I would probably categorize this book on the forum as:

"Serious academic literature, nothing sensational, you can skip it."

But when he got to the third page, his eyes were drawn to a line of small print.

The text contains a quote, with the source noted in parentheses:

"See Appendix C, presented in its original text without translation."

All other citations in the text are accompanied by translations or at least a summary.

This one, however, only provided a page number and no explanation whatsoever.

He turned to Appendix C, which contained three whole pages of Latin text.

The densely packed hand-typed lead type was printed, with the font size one size smaller than the main text.

The spacing between each line was very narrow, and a lot of content was crammed into three pages.

His brain began to work at high speed:

The learning acceleration provided by Knowledge Lv.1 allows him to see unfamiliar words, and the related word roots, etymologies, and derivatives will be retrieved and arranged from his memory bank.

There's also the intuition I accumulated from spending several years in folklore forums in my past life.

There's a classic post on the forum:

You think you can't understand it because you're not good at it? No, it's because those words aren't meant for you to read.

It talks about how religions and secret societies around the world use language itself as a tool for encryption.

There are coded messages in this book, and Appendix C is encrypted.

Richard closed the book and took the note Mr. Hutton had given him from the notebook, unfolding it.

The thin paper, once unfolded, is about the size of a palm.

The writing on it was dense and intricate, done with an extremely fine iron pen. The characters were neat and the pressure was very light, making it almost impossible to recognize the writing unless you looked closely.

At the top is a small line of Albionese:

"This is the only copy. Please keep it safe after reading, do not show it to others, and do not lose it."

Below is a comparison table.

The left column contains the common Latin vocabulary, while the right column corresponds to another set of vocabulary.

Some are obscure ancient Latin words, while others are proper nouns that only appear in religious texts.

There were a few that he had never seen before, and he could only guess their meaning from their root words.

Next to each pair, there are tiny handwritten notes explaining the alternative context and applicable rules.

It only covers a portion of the core vocabulary substitution rules; the rest still needs to be deduced by yourself.

Richard closed the book and looked around.

The third floor remained deserted, the light bulbs humming, the broken one flickering occasionally.

The nearest voices were coming from the second floor downstairs, with the sounds of turning pages and rubbing chair legs coming up through the floorboards.

He stuffed the book into his backpack, zipped it up, and got up to go downstairs.

As he passed the second floor, he slowed down and deliberately circled around the bookshelves, brushing past several students who were borrowing books.

He slung his backpack over his shoulder, just like any other student who came to borrow books during lunch break.

………………

After dinner, Richard helped his mother clear the table.

The father was reading the newspaper in the living room, while Evelyn was doing her homework at the dining table, the pen scratching on the paper.

"I'm going up."

"Have you finished your homework?" Mother poked her head out from the kitchen.

"That's about it, just a little more to do."

The mother hummed in response but didn't say anything more.

Halfway up the stairs, Evelyn called to him from below:

"Brother, you've been staying indoors all the time lately, not even going out on weekends. What have you been up to?"

"Do your homework."

"...You're lying."

"A lot of homework."

Evelyn muttered something, which he didn't catch, but it was probably something like "she's been acting strange lately."

Close the door and draw the curtains.

The desk lamp was turned on, and its orange light spread out in a circle on the desk.

Richard took the book out of his bag, spread it on the table, and flipped to Appendix C.

He unfolded the comparison chart and placed it next to the book, using a brass clasp to hold the corner of the paper in place to prevent it from turning over.

He tore a few sheets of white paper from his notebook, wrote "Original Word" on the left side of the top sheet and "Corresponding Word" on the right side, and began to analyze the words one by one.

Soon, it was completely dark outside the window, and the sound of my father flipping through the newspaper in the living room downstairs stopped, and the lights went out.

Richard rubbed his eyes and looked down at his notes.

The white paper was densely covered with control group notes, and the ink was smudged in a few places by hand.

The code on the first page has been largely deciphered.

He took out a clean sheet of paper and copied the restored Latin text, then translated it sentence by sentence into Albion.

The first paragraph translated:

"If you've read this far, it means you have at least a sufficient foundation in classical languages ​​and the intuition to identify steganographic text."

Richard paused for a moment.

"The intersection of these two abilities is extremely rare among ordinary people."

"The following content involves 'hidden disciplines'."

"If you don't know the meaning of this word, I suggest you close the book and put it back where it is, and forget that you ever read it."

"If you knew, or if you still choose to continue..."

"Well then, welcome."

He put down his pen and became completely absorbed in it:

"Here's the first fact beginners need to know: the world doesn't work the way you're taught in the classroom."

"Or rather, what we teach you in class is just the surface of the truth."

Richard stared at the last line of words he had copied onto the paper.

My fingers are terribly cold; I don't know if it's because the temperature dropped at night or for some other reason.

The light from the desk lamp shone on the paper in front of him; the pencil writing was fresh and the ink was shiny.

Hidden disciplines.

What Mr. Hutton mentioned in class—the priests of the Black Earth River Valley, the information network of temples on the Sea of ​​Aegeus, the conclusions that were blacked out in the New World colonial archives…

They're all going around in circles with one core idea, but they've never actually revealed that core idea.

Now someone has revealed that it was hidden in the appendix of a little-known academic monograph published decades ago, using Latin coded language.

Richard folded the translated paper twice, tucked it into his notebook, and locked it in the drawer.

The books were put in too, and then it was locked up.

There are still two pages of Appendix C that I haven't deciphered, but my brain is already tired today. If I force myself to continue, my efficiency will be very low and the error rate will increase.

Let's talk about it tomorrow.

He turned off the table lamp and sat in the dark for a while.

Breathing was steady, one inhale and one exhale, and the numbers on the edge of the panel jumped quietly.

[Breathing] Lv.1 Experience: 159/200

[Knowledge] Lv.1 Experience: 77/200

It'll be soon; he's really looking forward to what changes will come with his breathing level reaching lv2.

Richard lay on the bed, his mind still replaying the coded messages he had translated.