"You like Aeneas?" Richard asked.
Philips thought for a moment.
"’Like’ is too mild a word to describe the ancestor of the Romans."
He flipped to a page near the end of the book.
"At the end of Book Twelve, Aeneas kills Turnus."
"Turnus is already on the ground, begging for mercy, his hand outstretched for forgiveness.
Aeneas hesitates... Virgil makes it very clear that he hesitates."
"But in the end, he drives his sword home anyway."
Philips closed the book.
"This is the final scene of the entire epic. Virgil ends it there."
"There are no cheers of victory, no glory of founding a city, and certainly no ’sparing the vanquished’."
"The final image is of a hero consumed by rage, plunging his sword into the chest of a man kneeling and begging for his life."
In a calm voice, he delivered a far from tranquil judgment:
"Virgil probably felt that this is what it means to be truly human."
Philips tucked the book under his arm, picked up his teacup from the windowsill, and finished his tea.
"You’ve been copying things all day."
"And judging by how much you’re sweating and the dust on your cuffs, you’ve probably been here since the doors opened."
"More or less," Richard replied casually.
Philips glanced at him.
"You’re just like Aeneas, rowing through a storm, fighting your way to your destination."
He gave a self-deprecating laugh. "I, on the other hand, am more like Dido, sitting in my city, sipping tea and enjoying the view, waiting to see who washes ashore."
’A noble youth with a privileged background and a bright future, comparing himself to a queen ruined because she loved the wrong person.’
’If it were purely a joke, he wouldn’t have used that tone. If it were a serious self-analysis, he wouldn’t have said it with a smile.’
"Philips, you said it’s easy to go down, but hard to come back up."
Richard pulled his hands from his pockets. "But you’re overlooking one question."
Philips raised an eyebrow. "Which is?"
"If you don’t go down, how can you come up?"
At that exact moment, one of the two old men playing chess outside the window placed a piece on the board.
"Sibyl said the gates of the Netherworld are open day and night," Richard said. "But she never said that not going down means you can stay where you are."
Choosing not to descend doesn’t mean you’re safe.
It only means you’ve handed the choice to someone else.
To time, to fate, to those unseen conduits that are always at work.
"There are two types of people who can’t come back up."
"One type rushes into the depths without preparation. They get swallowed up, and have no one to blame."
"But the second type is actually more common."
"Which type?"
"Those who pace back and forth at the entrance, hesitating, wanting to enter but too afraid."
Richard touched the notebook in his breast pocket.
"By the time you finally decide to walk away, you’ll look back and see there’s no road behind you either."
"Ahead is the Abyss, behind is a sheer cliff, and the small patch of ground you’re standing on is still cracking apart."
"At that point, you won’t even have the right to choose anymore."
Philips frowned and said no more, turning to walk down the stairs.
"Williams."
"Hm?"
"If you really plan on going down there, good luck."
His voice, carrying an echo, drifted up from the bend in the staircase, sounding much more distant than he really was.
Richard stood on the second-floor gallery, watching Philips’s back disappear around the corner of the stairs.
’From our brief conversation today, he seems like an interesting guy. Much more so than Montague, at least.’
He stood by the gallery railing for a while, summarizing the day’s gains in his mind.
The notebook was two-thirds full, its dense handwriting covering dozens of pages.
His mind also held memory archives, which could be retrieved at any time using page numbers and keyword Anchors.
The information was all stored in an encrypted state in the notebook and his brain, waiting for him to pry it open bit by bit after he returned to Brighton.
There were enough clues already; he just needed time, a lot of time.
He walked down from the second floor and returned his pass at the exit.
The old lady took the pass without even looking up. "Young man, will you be coming back?"
"Of course."
"Mm... well, I wish you success in your studies."
"Thank you."
Walking out the library doors, he patted the bulging notebook and stuffed it into his satchel.
It was filled with undeciphered raw material.
For him, it was like a cart of raw ore hauled out of a mine; he wouldn’t know its value until he got back and smelted it.
But the location of the vein was now marked on his map.
Next time he came, he would bring better tools for the job.
The bus back was much more crowded than it had been in the morning.
Richard found a corner seat, hugged his satchel to his chest, and closed his eyes, leaning against the window.
The Quadruple Breathing activated automatically, his body entering a state of half-cultivation, half-rest.
In his mind, he filed and organized the information he had acquired today.
After returning to Brighton, the first order of business was to use the prize money from the Cicero Cup to buy the Sphinx Oil Lamp from the Clement Antiques Store.
The second was to use the dismantling methods he learned today to try and open the Oil Lamp’s Seal.
The third was to completely absorb the residual Ether sealed within the Oil Lamp, accumulating enough Points to light up [Walking] and unlock [Spirit].
As for what was actually hidden within [Spirit], he still couldn’t guess.
But by logical deduction, the [Spirit] attribute was locked behind the condition "all Four Elements of the Body activated," so its importance was self-evident.
When the bus passed the boundary marker of the Imperial Capital’s administrative district, the elm trees outside the window were already dyed orange by the gas streetlights.
He opened his eyes for a glance at the street scene, then closed them again.
The notebook in his coat pressed against his chest, heavy and substantial.
That evening, when he returned to Ashford Mansion, the butler greeted him at the door.
"Young Master Richard, dinner is ready. Your family is waiting in the dining room."
"Thank you."
Richard took off his coat and handed it to the butler, then walked down the hallway toward the dining room.
As he passed the living room, Vincent jumped up from the sofa. "Hey, where’d you run off to today? I waited for you all day!"
"The library."
"The library?"
Vincent’s expression was like a kid’s who had just been told his birthday present was a book of practice problems.
"You come to the Imperial Capital... just to go to the library?"
"The Imperial University’s library has a very good collection."
"However good the university library’s collection is, can it possibly be better than a steakhouse?
A new one just opened on Grosvenor Street. They sprinkle the lamb chops with rosemary and sea salt, and they’re grilled crispy on the outside and tender on the inside..."
Vincent started gesturing with his hands to show the size of the lamb chops, his gestures growing more and more exaggerated.
"Next time." Richard patted his cousin’s shoulder. "Next time I’m in the Imperial Capital, you’ll have to treat me until I’ve had my fill."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
"Then you’d better hurry up and get into a university here in the Imperial Capital. Otherwise, that place might be out of business by the time you’re back."
"...The possibility of it going out of business is not something I’m concerned with."
Vincent was left speechless for a moment, then sulked away.

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