The next day after school, Richard came to the office again.
"Let’s continue where we left off yesterday." Mr. Hutton poured some hot water into his cup.
"The final section, the ’Blood Contract Water Answer,’ should be the simplest part of the whole process."
Richard sat down and turned to a new page in his notebook.
The beginning of the Blood Contract Water Answer section was quite clear.
"The living sacrifice is a sheep."
After deciphering the first few sentences, Richard lifted his pen.
"The sheep must be a ewe born that spring, unbred, with a coat of pure white."
"On the day of the ritual, the sheep is led into the fog, where the High Priest himself makes the kill."
"The blood is caught in a black earthenware bowl."
"As the blood is being collected, another Assistant Priest holding a white earthenware bowl scoops a bowlful of water from a designated Holy Spring near the ritual site."
"The High Priest uses a wooden spoon to stir the blood and water together."
"The speed, direction, and rhythm of the stirring are all very specific," Mr. Hutton said, drawing a spiral on his scratch paper.
Richard’s deciphering went more and more smoothly.
"Seven times clockwise, three times counter-clockwise, and then one more time clockwise."
"Eleven times in total?"
"In the Celtic numeral system, eleven means ’turning point.’"
Mr. Hutton added from the side.
"After the stirring is complete, symbols will appear on the surface of the liquid in the bowl."
Richard’s pen stopped.
"Symbols?"
"The ’response’ from the entity being sacrificed to."
Mr. Hutton drew another diagram on the scratch paper.
"The content of the response will determine the tribe’s fate for the entire coming year."
"If the response is a favorable pattern, the tribe will have a year of good weather and fortune;
if the response is a strange pattern, the tribe must be wary of disaster in the year to come;
and if no pattern appears at all, it means the entity has rejected the contract for that year."
"And if they’re rejected?"
"The entire tribe must burn the sheep along with that oak tree, bury the ashes at the forest’s edge, and never retrieve them."
"Furthermore, the next year they must choose a new oak, a new sheep, and perform the sacrifice all over again."
"A tribe that is rejected for three consecutive years is considered ’unblessed,’ and neighboring tribes have the right to expel them."
As Richard finished copying this section into his notebook, his fingers felt a little cold.
He put down his pen and flipped back through his notes from the past few days.
"The Celts turned death into a language," he said softly.
"Mm."
"A structured language that can be ’understood’ by the Curtain."
Mr. Hutton looked up at him.
"You’ve already figured it out."
"They traded death for efficiency; we trade terminology and mediums for efficiency."
"Fundamentally, neither is superior."
"The only difference is that what they did, people today would find barbaric."
"And the things we do today," Mr. Hutton said, setting down his fountain pen, "people a few hundred years from now might also find barbaric."
"Alright, what you need to do now is organize everything you’ve learned these past few days. You can use it as supplementary material for your empirical text analysis later."
The old gentleman spoke as he drank his tea, waiting patiently for him.
After he finished writing, Richard pushed the draft over.
Mr. Hutton took it and read it over once.
"Acceptable."
Richard breathed a sigh of relief.
"This draft," Mr. Hutton said, placing the papers back on the desk. "You should keep it for yourself, but don’t show it around."
"Can I show it to my aunt?"
"You can show it to Isabella. She has read similar materials."
"But don’t show it to anyone else, including those classmates of yours, or even colleagues who are also on the edge of the Curtain."
"Is there some kind of danger?"
Richard knew, of course, that this kind of material couldn’t be leaked, but he wasn’t entirely clear on the consequences of it being leaked.
Mr. Hutton reached out and drew a small circle on the scratch paper.
"This Curse Spell is what the Celtic Priests used to summon the entity they sacrificed to.
We’ve only deciphered its structure, not its true name."
"Without the true name, a structure alone won’t actually trigger a summoning."
"But," the old man said, drawing a short horizontal line next to the circle,
"if someone had this structural draft in their possession, and then happened to accidentally come across that true name somewhere..."
Richard understood.
"The two parts would combine to form a complete summoning Curse Spell."
"A true name cannot be spoken aloud, but it can be read unintentionally, or it can be re-spelled."
Mr. Hutton sealed the draft in an envelope.
"So from this day forward, this draft must not be shown around carelessly."
"It would be best for you to store that notebook of yours separately as well."
Richard placed the restored draft into a salt-sealed wooden box, put his notebook in as well, and then closed the lid.
The old man watched him perform this whole series of actions and nodded with satisfaction.
"Alright, that’s all for today."
"Would you like some more tea?"
Mr. Hutton nodded.
Richard walked to the corner of the office and set a metal kettle on the gas stove.
While the water was boiling, he glanced back at the desk.
On the desk were two salt-sealed wooden boxes, one containing the Sheepskin Scroll and the other the Bronze Plate, separated by a full arm’s length.
Including the notebook box he had just put away, there were now three boxes on the desk, three separate, sealed spaces.
’My [Scholarship] Lv. 2 progress bar has quietly climbed to 92%.’
’The last 8% should be just about filled once I finish the practice materials my aunt sent me.’
This three-day-long deciphering of the Curse Spell had already pushed his own understanding of related rituals to a new height.
The water boiled, and he lifted the metal kettle.
Nearby, Mr. Hutton measured out the tea leaves and placed them in the pot.
"When you pour, keep the stream of water close to the leaves, so the water tumbles them."
Richard did as he was told and poured the water.
The tea leaves swirled a few times in the pot.
"When the Celts brewed herbal tea," Mr. Hutton said, watching the tumbling leaves in the pot, "they did it just like this."
"The stream of water tumbles the herbs, and only then will the herbs ’surrender’ their deepest flavors."
"They use the verb ’surrender’ for everything," Richard suddenly realized.
"Mm." Mr. Hutton glanced at him.
"They believed that everything—whether it was herbs, an oak tree, or the entity being sacrificed to—had to ’surrender’ a part of itself to complete a full exchange."
"There is no gain without a price."
Richard poured a cup for himself and one for Mr. Hutton.
"Sir, no one performs Celtic sacrifices anymore today, right?"
"No one does it openly," Mr. Hutton said, blowing on the steam rising from his cup. "As for whether anyone is doing it secretly in private, who can say?"
"If someone were to do it secretly today, would the efficiency be just as high?"
Mr. Hutton answered without a moment’s hesitation: "It would only be higher."
"Why higher?"
"Because in today’s ’forest,’ there is more death."
The hand Richard was using to hold his teacup froze.
"The city is the forest of the industrial age."
Mr. Hutton stared at the pool of tea in his cup.
Richard finished his tea, stood up, and gathered his things.
The old man remained seated, looking at the three salt-sealed wooden boxes on the desk.
"Sir, is there anything else?"
"No," Mr. Hutton said, raising his eyes. "I’m just going to sit for a bit and watch these boxes."
"Why?"
"A salt-sealed box needs to be watched by someone for at least fifteen minutes every day."
"...Why?"
"To prevent the things inside the boxes from ’waking up’ on their own."
Richard was instantly on high alert.
Mr. Hutton looked at his expression and suddenly chuckled.
"I’m joking. A salt-sealed box doesn’t need to be watched. It’s stable on its own."
"I just wanted to sit for a little longer."
By the time Richard walked out of the school gates, the sky had grown completely dark.
He planned to finish that essay tonight.
Charlotte had said to write about something real.
He pushed open the gate to his yard.
The moment Evelyn heard the gate from inside the kitchen, she immediately poked her head out.
"Brother! Do you want to try my new cocoa macarons?"
"Cocoa macarons?"
"Yep! I used the silver piping tip our aunt sent me. They’re as round as can be."
"How many are there?"
"Twelve. It took me all afternoon to pipe them."
"It took you a whole afternoon to make just twelve?"
"You have no idea how hard it is to pipe macarons," Evelyn said with her hands on her hips. "Besides, I smashed all the ones that weren’t round."
"Smashed them?"
"Smashed them."
"How many did you smash?"
"I’m not telling you."
Richard smiled.
He changed into his slippers and went inside.
In the kitchen, his Mother was chopping potatoes.
"Dinner will be ready soon."
"Okay."
"The materials from Isabella arrived," his Mother said, her gaze lifting from the potatoes. "They’re on your desk."
Richard was pleasantly surprised.
"They came today?"
"The mailman delivered them this afternoon. It’s a big package."
Richard grunted an "okay" and turned to go upstairs.
Evelyn chased after him. "Brother, aren’t you going to try the macarons?"
"I’ll try them after dinner."
"You promised! You have to try them!"
"I will."
In the middle of the desk in his room upstairs sat a large package wrapped in brown paper.
The handwriting on the packaging was Isabella’s; Richard recognized her beautiful fountain penmanship.
He opened the package. Inside was a thick stack of documents.
The one on top was titled *Double Overwrite Practice · Entry Level Set 1*.
Below that were: a copy of *Gaelic Ancient Language Structure and Transformation*;
two annotated Latin texts on Medieval Church rituals;
and a comparison table of late-period variations and extensions of the Alexandrian School.
At the very bottom, under a piece of stiff cardboard, was a separate, thin booklet.
Richard moved the entire stack of materials to the center of his desk.
Evelyn’s voice came from downstairs.
"Brother! Dinner’s ready!"

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