I loaded the Mysticism panel.

The footsteps stopped in the aisle next to his desk.

After a moment of silence, something was gently placed on the table.

He caught a glimpse of a slender object out of the corner of his eye.

Richard raised his head.

Lillian stood in front of the table, holding a book in her hands.

Their eyes met briefly in the air.

Richard shifted his gaze to the upper right corner of the desktop.

It was a handmade bookmark made of thick watercolor paper, with laurel branches drawn on the paper.

The laurel has many layers of meaning in classical literature.

Peace, victory, wisdom... which level to choose depends on the context.

But the context of giving oneself such a laurel bookmark after the Cicero Cup is already quite clear.

She should have started making this bookmark after the Cicero Cup results were announced.

The ink lines on the paper were completely dry, and very faint watercolor washes could still be seen at the edges of the bay leaves.

This is something that took time and effort to make.

Richard looked up, ready to express his gratitude.

"It doesn't mean anything special."

Lillian spoke before he could, her words coming out very quickly.

"Well... you performed very well in the Cicero Cup, and I think someone should congratulate you."

The girl stood still, her long hair covering her slightly reddened earlobes.

Seeing the introductory ancient Greek textbook on the table, she changed the subject: "Are you learning ancient Greek?"

"Hmm." Richard carefully tucked the laurel bookmark into the title page. "It's just the beginning."

Lillian's fingertips unconsciously rubbed against the spine of the book.

"The pronunciation of this letter is incorrect in this book."

Richard was taken aback:

"This textbook teaches according to the Attica dialect (the Athens area) phonetic reconstruction method..."

She demonstrated silently with her lips:

"But everyone reads it the way it is now. If you read it the way it is in the book, it may not be good when you do oral recitation in the future."

Richard pulled out his pencil and quickly jotted it down in his notebook.

"I need it when I study." He didn't elaborate on why he wanted to learn it.

It appeared in the gargoyle's inscription; there's no way to avoid it.

Lillian hesitated for a moment, then pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket. Inside were two pages of densely written handwritten notes.

"Here you go, it might be of some use."

Richard nodded and slipped the paper into his notebook.

"Thank you, I'll return it to you after I've copied it."

"No rush," she said. "I don't need it anymore."

Richard didn't press the matter further; he figured if he asked one more question, the other person would close the shell.

He changed direction.

"So what are you reading now?" He gestured with his chin toward the book in Lillian's arms.

The girl glanced at her arms and realized that she was holding a book.

She turned the book around so that the cover faced Richard.

It is a book titled "Illustrated Guide to Medicinal Plants of the Albion Islands" (Third Supplement), with a hand-drawn foxglove plant on the cover.

"...You like plants?"

"Mmm." Her voice was a little lighter than before: "I draw too."

"Draw plants?"

"Anatomy diagram." Her fingertips traced the spine of the book again.

"Draw a plant layer by layer, from root to flower, and label each part with its Latin scientific name."

Richard raised an eyebrow.

Plant anatomy and drawing were not common hobbies for girls in this era.

Baking, watercolor painting, flower arranging, piano... these are the extracurricular activities that most middle schools design for girls.

Plant anatomy is scientific illustration, belonging to the field of early naturalists.

Why draw this?

"...They're beautiful." She thought for a moment, then added, "And they don't move."

"Would you like to show me your drawing sometime?"

"it is good."

They sat down at the table one after the other.

Lillian had originally planned to give a gift and leave, but she ended up sitting down anyway.

She sat diagonally opposite Richard, with the open textbook between them.

Richard, recalling Mr. Hutton's earlier instructions, deliberately chatted casually:

"Actually, I've been thinking about something lately."

"Hmm..." Lillian flipped through the botanical atlas in her hand, looking at him with a bit of confusion.

"These are the things."

Richard pointed to the textbook, then to his notebook:

"As you learn, sometimes a very strange feeling will pop up."

"How does it feel?" The girl closed the book in her hand.

"It seems that the world described by the authors of every classical text—Cicero, Virgil, Pindar—is separated from the world we live in now by something else."

As he said this, his eyes were fixed on the Parthenon illustration in the textbook, and he didn't look at Lillian.

"They wrote about the Age of Gods, about destiny, about exploring the world, and it doesn't look like what we write now at all."

It's as if they weren't making those things up; they were describing them, as if they had actually seen them.

"..." Lillian did not speak.

"Then you start to wonder if the things they saw are still there today, but our generation just doesn't know how to look at them."

After Richard finished speaking, he deliberately waited a moment.

The third floor of the library was very quiet.

The sky outside the window was overcast and gray. It wasn't raining, but there was a damp feeling that it might fall at any moment.

The girl's fingers remained on the edge of the page, without turning it.

She kept her head down, her gaze fixed on the cover of the plant encyclopedia, but she was clearly not looking at the foxglove.

"What do you think that layer you're talking about is?" Lillian asked in return.

This rhetorical question itself is a response.

If she has absolutely no idea about this topic, she should normally be confused, or politely agree with a couple of sentences and then change the subject.

But she was neither confused nor did she change the subject.

She pressed for an answer.

"I'm not sure," Richard replied, leaving room for interpretation.

"Perhaps it's a kind of... barrier? Something that separates the world we can see from the world we can't see."

He used a very vague word.

The two discussed secrets in a room where a third party might be present, using only coded language and metaphors.

Lillian's fingertip lightly brushed the edge of the book page.

"Septum?"

"Um."

"Did you read anything related to that in the books on the third floor?"

When he said that, Richard's heart skipped a beat.

Mr. Hutton said that Lillian spent more time on those books than he did.

"I've read some of it." Richard nodded, not denying it.

Appendix C?

The word sounds light and airy, like asking if the cafeteria has tomato oxtail soup today.

"Yes," Richard said.

Lillian nodded, confirming something as well.

Two people who had been walking in the dark alley for a long time suddenly met at a corner and found that the other was also holding a candle.

"Where have you deciphered it to?" Richard asked.

"all."

Richard was somewhat surprised.

Mr. Hutton said that Lillian spent more than half a year on the books on the third floor, and she even meticulously studied some passages that she had skipped over.

In just over half a year, all twenty-six books were deciphered.

This progress is indeed much slower than his, but considering that she didn't have the [Knowledge] skill to boost her progress and relied entirely on her own efforts, this speed is already quite amazing.

"You've read all twenty-six books, and even deciphered Appendix C... but you've stopped there."

Lillian lowered her head even further.

Richard maintained a casual, conversational pace throughout.

"After reading those books, the next step should normally be to delve deeper."

"But you didn't move forward."

He looked at Lillian: "Why is that?"

The library window wasn't closed properly, and a cold draft seeped in through the cracks, ruffling the corners of the notebook pages on the desk.

Lillian's expression didn't change much.

But her posture changed; she leaned back against the chair, pulled her shoulders back, and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

This is a defensive stance.

"I think that's enough," she said.

"Is that enough?"

"I understand enough what the other side of this world is like."

She was very careful with her words.

"Understanding and participating are two different things."

"I can know there's something inside, but I don't need to go and see for myself."

Richard did not immediately refute.

He mentally compared Lillian's words with what Phillips had said in the Imperial University Library.

Phillips stood at the edge of the hole, glanced inside, and, judging the risk-reward ratio to be unfavorable, turned and walked away.

He has a privileged family background, a respectable future, and plenty of reasons to stay in a safe place.

His decision not to move forward is a deliberate choice.

But Lillian looks a little different.

Richard decided to test the waters one more time.

"You're right, understanding and participating are indeed two different things."

He first echoed her words, then abruptly changed the subject.

"I recently read some books where the author compared working in that industry to diving."

"The shallow water area is near the shore, where sunlight can reach the seabed. The water is transparent, and you can see what's under your feet."

Most divers spend their entire lives in shallow waters, where it's safe and fun enough.

"As you dive deeper, the water starts to darken and sunlight can't penetrate it anymore. You'll have to rely on your own headlamp."

"You can see as far as the light can shine. When the light goes out, you can't see anything."

"Next..."

That's enough.

Lillian interrupted him.

The girl took several deep breaths before regaining her composure.

"Feel sorry."

"I don't really like talking about these things with people anymore."

Richard nodded and didn't ask any further questions.

"It's getting late." Lillian glanced at the sky outside the window.

The clouds are lower than before; it looks like it's going to rain.

"I have to go now; I haven't finished one Latin translation assignment."

That's not a very good reason.

Given her Latin proficiency, the translation task shouldn't take long.

But Richard didn't expose her.

"it is good."

Lillian stood up and hugged the botanical atlas back to her arms.

She stood by the table and hesitated for a moment.

"That bookmark..."

"It's beautiful, I'll keep it safe."

"Um."

She turned and walked towards the stairwell.

Richard.

"What's wrong?"

"The analogy you just used, about diving."

"The shallow water area, or the deep water area?"

"right."

She stood in the aisle between the bookshelves, her profile obscured by the dim light of the day.

"Where do you plan to dive to?"

"I've only just started learning to swim, and I need to use a swimming ring even in shallow water."

Richard made a joke on purpose:

"I'll decide on these things when I no longer need a swimming ring."

"Pfft..." The girl was amused by this strange analogy: "Then good luck."

Lillian waved to him and quickly disappeared around the corner of the stairs.

Richard looked out the window; the clouds were pressing down overhead, but the rain hadn't started to fall.

………………

Over the next few days, he devoted all his daytime hours to ancient Greek and his daily studies, and his evenings to the Sphinx lamp.

The daytime progress went smoothly.

The basics of the ancient Greek alphabet system were memorized by the third day, and the noun declension began to be tackled on the fourth day.

Richard copied the even-number declension table separately into his notebook and circled several high-frequency word endings that had appeared in Mr. Hutton's new comparison table in red.

Working at night is more mentally taxing.

He had analyzed the seal on the oil lamp long ago.

A circle enclosing a triangle, with short lines extending from the three sides of the triangle, a seal of priestly inscriptions from the Black Soil River Basin.

The designer is very professional; every symbol is in the correct position, and the direction of the short lines' curves is consistent with the writing habits of the midstream priest inscriptions.