"What the authorities need isn’t one or two geniuses; they need an army."
"Even if each soldier is only at the Practitioner level, a force of several hundred to a thousand Practitioners is more than enough to handle the vast majority of abnormal incidents."
The minute hand on the living room clock jumped forward a space with a click.
Richard processed what his Mother was saying, searching his mind for analogous concepts.
He could understand the logic.
’To use a concept from my past life, Scholars and Secretive Ones are like artisan workshops. Their products are exquisite, but their output is limited. Once the master is gone, the craft dies with them.’
’Hunter Clans are the factories. Their products aren’t as refined, but they can guarantee a stable supply, with the assembly line running generation after generation.’
’The authorities’ system needs factories like that.’
"The Ashford Family is a cog in this Gear System."
Mother’s voice became softer.
"In terms of scale, we don’t even rank in the top twenty. The Adams Family and the Montague family... their pools are like deep wells; you can draw a single bucket and have more than enough to drink."
"The Ashford Family’s pool is a shallow pond."
"In your grandfather’s generation, he himself was a Grand Mastery.
Among his generation, there were seven or eight Practitioners, two with Minor Mastery, and several normal people who were found to have no circuit after testing."
"When it came to my generation... your uncle is a Hunter, but he stopped before reaching Minor Mastery."
"Your aunt Isabella took the Scholar path and teaches at the Imperial University’s Classics Department.
She only recently advanced to Minor Mastery in the last few years, which is why she could become an associate professor in her early thirties."
"As for me... I was ruined."
"As for the remaining cousins, one was disabled on a mission and had to withdraw, while the others are merely at the Practitioner level, not even having glimpsed the ’Path’."
"And many more who didn’t even have a circuit were sent away to live as ordinary people."
At some point, a light rain had begun to fall outside, the patter of drops against the glass barely audible.
"If a Hunter Clan goes three consecutive generations without anyone breaking through to Grand Mastery, it will begin to be marginalized in the Imperial Capital."
"Resources will no longer be funneled your way, because it’s better to invest in families with superior bloodlines."
"In the circles of the Imperial Capital, there’s a name for such a family—’a declining lampstand’."
"The lampstand is still there, the wick is still lit, but the flame is getting smaller and smaller. Everyone can see it’s about to go out."
"The Ashford Family is approaching that line now."
Margaret placed her hands flat on her knees, palms down.
"As far as your grandfather was concerned, how to handle me was simple: I was a sunk cost, and he wouldn’t invest any more in me."
"But even if I was a sunk cost, the debt couldn’t just be written off."
"The ten years of resources invested in me were allocated from the entire family’s pool.
Your grandfather manages those accounts. He couldn’t just tell the other elders, ’The money we invested was a total loss, so let’s just forget about it’."
"So he needed a way to settle the account."
Richard began to understand.
"Your grandfather had only one condition at the time: You could leave, but you had to leave a line back to the family."
Mother’s fingers tightened.
"The agreement was simple. I could leave the Imperial Capital, I could marry Rogers, I could live the life of an ordinary person.
The Ashford Family wouldn’t interfere with my life, they wouldn’t have me followed, nor would they exert any influence over my marriage."
"There was only one condition."
She raised her head and looked directly at Richard.
"If any of my descendants carried a potential circuit, I was obligated to cooperate with the family’s screening at the appropriate time."
"The testing method is standard, an old method the Ashford Family has used for decades.
I was also tested before my initiation, using a copper ring.
I ran a fever for two days, it broke on the third day, and the circuit activated. The whole process was smooth and safe."
"So you didn’t stop them," Richard said.
"So I didn’t stop them," Mother repeated.
"When I saw you having a rejection reaction, the first thing I did was take the pendant from your neck."
She was recalling the sequence of every step.
"Once the Marvel is no longer in contact, the Ether permeation stops immediately.
I put the pendant on your nightstand, separated by a layer of towel."
Having confirmed the status of his circuit and explained the history behind it, Margaret changed the subject:
"You now know there are things behind the Curtain."
Her gaze was not on him, but on the landscape painting that had hung on the living room wall for years.
"The things written about in books—the Deathly Wails, Evil Beings, and wandering souls—they’re all just the most superficial layer."
"The things on the surface are terrifying, but they are not conscious.
A rock rolling down a mountain doesn’t choose who to hit. If you get hit, you’re unlucky. If you don’t, you’re fine."
"But my Guide once told me something: In front of the Curtain, strength is a shield; behind the Curtain, strength is bait."
"The stronger you are, the bigger the things your scent will attract."
The embers in the fireplace finally fell silent.
The only sounds in the living room were the faint hum of the floor lamp’s filament and the clopping of a late-returning carriage’s hooves.
Mother waited until the sound of the carriage had completely disappeared before speaking again.
"I can tell you probably don’t want to stop at the Practitioner stage.
Since you want to go deeper into this line of work, every advancement will come with a price."
"At the Low Tier, the price is time and effort, which you can afford."
"But the higher you go, the less foreseeable the price becomes."
"The truly terrible price is that you yourself change, and you won’t even realize you’re changing."
"You’ll become calmer, more rational, more patient."
She looked at Richard. "They all sound like virtues, don’t they?"
Richard didn’t respond, waiting for her to continue.
"But if one day, your sister falls down..."
Mother’s hand clenched on her knee.
"Your first instinct isn’t to help her up, but to assess whether her injury is worth you stopping for."
"From that moment on, you will have already paid a price you didn’t even know you were paying."
The living room was quiet for a long time.
The sound of Evelyn turning over upstairs came through the floorboards. The bed frame gave a soft creak, and then it was silent again.
"I’ve seen people like that."
Her voice dropped very low.
"They made the right move every time, every decision was impeccable, and in the end they became very, very powerful people."
"But they had no one left beside them."
"They either died, or they drifted away."
When Mother finished, her shoulders slumped, as if she had finally set down a heavy burden she’d been carrying for a long time.
"Since your circuit is complete, I’m not capable of stopping you, and your dad can’t stop you either.
He doesn’t know about these things, and I don’t plan on telling him."
Her gaze returned to Richard’s face. "But you must remember one thing."
"I chose to leave that world back then because I wanted to truly live."
"Living itself is good. Being able to breathe, to eat, to watch you and Evelyn grow up."
Her fingers lightly touched her chest, the location of her residual circuit.
"The value of these things is greater than anything behind the Curtain."
"If one day you feel you can’t go on, just come back."
"Come home. Come back to Brighton. The air here may not be good, but it’s home."
Richard took his mother’s cold hand.
"I understand."
Mother patted the back of his hand, not forcefully, much like when she would soothe him to sleep as a child.
"Go get some sleep. You have to tutor someone tomorrow."
Richard got up and walked to the door, his hand resting on the doorknob.
"Richard."
"Yes?"
Mother sat on the sofa, not turning to look at him.
"You are much stronger than I was back then."
"That reassures me, and it also worries me."

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