He thought for a moment, then added:
"This isn’t an invitation to go on an adventure. I’ll handle reinforcing the Seal myself. You just need to watch from the side."
"The reason I’m bringing this up..." He tucked the pocket watch back into his pocket. "Is mainly to remind you not to stay too late at school these days."
"What does that have to do with this?"
"Your current state is rather special." The old man folded his hands on his knees.
"When ordinary people encounter the Deathly Drone, at most they’ll have a headache for a few days and some nightmares after they get home.
Perkins got a good scare, but he was fine after two weeks of rest.
To them, interference from the Deathly Drone is like a mosquito bite—itchy, but not fatal. It goes away on its own after a while."
"But you’re different."
He looked Richard seriously in the eyes.
"You’ve already begun to develop a certain degree of Ether Affinity and Spiritual Perception.
Your Breathing Technique practice has established the rudiments of an Ether Micro-Cycle in your body. It’s still extremely weak, but it means Ether will interfere with you much more strongly than with an ordinary person."
"To use an analogy, an ordinary person is like a rock to a Deathly Drone. The Drone can’t see the rock, nor does it bother with it. But you..."
Mr. Hutton’s expression grew grim.
"You are a candle in the dark. The flame is small, but in total darkness, even the tiniest bit of light is exceptionally conspicuous."
"The Deathly Drone is anchored to its place of death and cannot move.
But if a living person with Ether Affinity enters its perception range, the Deathly Drone will use that faint bit of Ether in you to sustain itself."
"You can think of it like a leech. A leech doesn’t produce its own blood; it has to suck yours to live."
"If it latches on, can it be removed?"
"Yes, but it’s very troublesome." Mr. Hutton shook his head.
"Once it’s attached to you, you definitely won’t be able to handle it yourself. You’d have to find a professional to clean it off."
"So are you telling me not to come, or to come?"
The old man chuckled, the smile carving deep lines at the corners of his eyes.
"I was originally trying to scare you."
"The last time I tested Lillian with the same words, she shook her head like a rattle and said ’no’ eight times."
"Well, I’m not her. I want to go see."
Mr. Hutton’s smile froze.
"You’re serious?"
"I’m serious."
"...Why?"
"Two reasons." Richard took his bookbag strap off his shoulder and set the bag on the desk, his body relaxing a little.
"First, it’s only a matter of time before I run into a similar situation.
If I don’t even dare to take a look when I have you here to protect me, I’ll be even more helpless when I encounter it alone in the future."
Mr. Hutton didn’t respond, waiting for him to state his second point.
"Second..."
He hesitated for a moment, but said it anyway.
"I want to observe the Seal’s structure and what’s sealed inside it up close. Reading about it in a book and seeing it with my own eyes are two different things."
"You remind me of someone." The old man sighed.
"This was many years ago. That person wasn’t afraid of anything either and wanted to see everything with their own eyes."
He put his pipe into his coat pocket.
"Later, he became a very powerful person. And then... he died on the New Continent."
Richard didn’t reply.
Mr. Hutton straightened up, picked up his folder, and his expression returned to its usual casualness.
"Friday, ten at night, at the school’s back gate. Wear dark clothes."
He took two steps, then turned his head and added.
"Don’t bring any copper ornaments. Copper interferes with the Ether Field.
The interference is minimal, but it’s best not to bring any. If your belt buckle is copper, change into sweatpants."
"Understood."
"And remember to eat a full meal before you come. Doing this kind of thing on an empty stomach can lead to problems."
He pushed open the door and left.
Friday, nine o’clock at night, Richard slipped out the back door of his house.
He was wearing a dark gray old coat—a hand-me-down from his father that had been altered to fit him. It was inconspicuous in the dark.
He checked himself over twice, making sure he had no copper coins or other copper items.
His parents were already asleep before he left. There was no light from under his sister’s door, so she was probably asleep too.
The streets were sparsely populated. In the distance, factory smokestacks stood against the night sky like a row of black teeth, occasionally spewing columns of smoke laced with sparks.
Brighton’s night air was a bit cleaner than during the day. There were fewer night shifts at the factories, so coal smoke emissions were significantly lower.
It was about a forty-minute walk from his home to the school.
He walked at a steady pace, his breathing maintaining the rhythm of his practice.
When he arrived at the school’s back gate, Mr. Hutton was already waiting for him.
"You’re here?"
"I’m here."
The old man took a key from his leather bag and unlocked the back gate.
The two of them walked onto the campus.
All the windows of the academic building were dark. The old man in the guardhouse had also gone off duty after nine.
Mr. Hutton didn’t head toward the academic building. Instead, he led Richard east along a small path inside the perimeter wall.
"The Seal isn’t in the basement," he explained as they walked.
"The basement was just collateral damage. The Seal’s actual location is deep in the foundations on the east side of the gymnasium, where the old textile mill’s boiler room used to be."
"The entrance is in the electrical room next to the gym."
The electrical room was a small brick hut with an iron sign on the door that read: "Electrical Hazard, Keep Out."
Mr. Hutton opened the lock on the door. He walked to the electrical box at the very back, crouched down, and lifted an iron plate from the floor beneath it.
’They really hid this deep,’ Richard marveled inwardly.
Beneath the iron plate was a set of brick steps, extending downward and disappearing into the darkness.
The steps were barely wide enough for one person to pass, and the walls were coated in a layer of salt frost.
A wave of sinister cold air surged up from the opening.
Richard’s chest tightened slightly. The small bit of warmth accumulated in his Throne of the Sun was gently prodded.
He subconsciously glanced at his panel.
[Available Points: 0.15]
It didn’t budge.
The air was clearly permeated with something not of the normal world. His inspiration was already reacting, which meant the Ether concentration was far higher than on the surface, but the Available Points on his panel hadn’t increased at all.
"Feeling it?" Mr. Hutton asked, looking back at him.
"Yeah." Richard nodded, pushing his other thoughts to the back of his mind.
"That’s right." The old man steadied his leather bag.
"You’ll get more and more used to this in the future. Let’s go. Stay close to me, and don’t touch the walls."
He took a lantern from his bag, its light flickering in the narrow passage.
The deeper they went, the colder and damper it became.
The tightness in his chest intensified, but the Available Points on his panel still hadn’t moved.
’What does this mean?’
’Even if the concentration of ambient Ether in the air is high, it can’t be converted into Points.’
’His ability doesn’t absorb "loose" Ether.’
At the bottom was a horizontal corridor. Round silver discs were embedded in the walls on both sides, at intervals of about ten paces.
"These are markers," Mr. Hutton said without turning his head.
"The Seal is a system. The more complete the network, the more stable the Seal.
If one of these silver discs has a problem, the shielding in the corresponding area will weaken.
The equipment moving in the supply room, the abnormality Perkins felt in the hallway—those correspond to a weak link appearing in the outer nodes."
At the end of the corridor was an iron door.
Mr. Hutton hung the oil lamp on an iron hook on the nearby wall, then crouched down and opened his leather bag.
Inside the bag were several items:
A sealed glass bottle filled with a clear liquid, which Richard guessed was probably Holy Water;
A small silver ingot, an extremely fine Engraving Knife, a jar of grayish-white wax, and a few silver coins.
"From this point on, do not speak," Mr. Hutton warned. "If you understand, blink once."
Richard blinked once.
Mr. Hutton nodded, snapped his fingers, and the iron door slid open on its own.

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