The next morning, Richard was dropped off at the gates of Imperial University.
Last year, he had come to browse the library, but only circled the perimeter, not daring to venture deep inside.
This year was different. He could walk into the buildings openly and justifiably.
The Imperial University campus was a world apart from Greenwood in Brighton.
Greenwood was a middle school in an industrial city. Its red-brick buildings and sports fields radiated a practical spirit.
Imperial University was a centuries-old institution, with gray-white stone buildings, walls covered in Evergreen Ivy, a bell tower, cloisters, and fountains.
Walking through the campus, Richard quietly activated his Hidden Spiritual Vision.
The concentration of Ether on campus was extremely high.
He had vaguely sensed it when he visited the library last year. There were small nodes everywhere, far more than on Huayue Street, but he couldn’t see them clearly back then.
Now that he had unlocked [Perception], raised it to Lv. 2, and learned Spiritual Vision, he could see much more clearly.
These nodes were scattered all over—some under the foundations of old buildings, some within the watercourses of fountains, and others coiled around the roots of a certain century-old tree.
The entire campus was built on an Ethereal Active Area.
For centuries, generation after generation of Scholars had studied, learned, and conducted research here.
A Tier Transition required an "Announcement," a declaration to what lay behind the Curtain in a place with active Ether.
This location, Imperial University, was itself the best place for Scholars to make their "Announcements."
Following the address his aunt had given him, Richard found the Petrie Building.
A stone tablet at the building’s entrance explained the origin of its name.
Richard leaned in for a look.
"Petrie Building, constructed in memory of Professor William Petrie."
A line of smaller text below summarized Professor Petrie’s life.
William Petrie had been a tenured professor in the Royal Academy’s history department.
He had dedicated his life to studying the ancient civilizations of the Black Earth River Basin and was one of the founders of the Imperial field of "Black Earth River Studies." He spent his years conducting archaeology there.
He pushed open the door and entered the building.
A row of oil portraits hung on the wall, with the last few being photographs.
They were all distinguished professors from the history of the Classics Department, most of them wearing stern expressions.
In the innermost photograph, he found the wrinkled old face of Professor Mortimer.
Old Mo wasn’t scowling, though. He was looking at the camera with his eyes half-open, as if he hadn’t fully woken up.
Richard walked down the corridor, passing several offices whose doors were mostly ajar.
He glanced inside; every single one was piled high with books and documents.
On desks, chairs, and windowsills, open files and annotated manuscripts were everywhere.
In one office, two middle-aged men in glasses were arguing, their faces red with agitation.
Richard quickened his pace and walked past.
’A Scholar’s daily life isn’t quite what I imagined.’
’When they argue, it’s more chaotic than a bustling marketplace.’
Soon, he found Room 314. The nameplate read: "Associate Professor Isabella Ashford."
He knocked on the door.
"Come in," came a familiar young woman’s voice from inside.
Richard pushed the door open and saw a tall, fair-haired young woman organizing files.
"Richard!" A smile blossomed on Sofia’s face the moment she saw him.
"You’re finally here! Our Mentor has been talking about you for days. Come on in, she’s in the inner office."
The inner office was even messier than the outer one.
Isabella was sitting behind her desk, head bowed over a manuscript. The documents on her desk were piled even higher than those in the offices down the hall.
"You’re here." She put down the manuscript. "Was the trip smooth?"
"It was."
"Sit."
The chair was also piled with books, but Sofia deftly scooped them up, clearing a spot.
"Where’s Clara?" Isabella asked.
"In the archives," Sofia replied. "She said the manuscript copy from the Alexandrian School arrived, so she went to get it."
Richard surveyed his aunt’s office.
Besides the mountain of documents, several academic journals were spread out on the desk.
The margins of the journals were filled with his aunt’s dense annotations.
The one on top was open to a page in the middle.
Richard’s gaze swept over it. A line had been heavily circled by his aunt with a red pen, with a note beside it: "This person is moving the goalposts again."
’Looks like my aunt’s academic temper is the same as those arguing Scholars in the hallway.’
Isabella noticed her nephew’s gaze.
She closed the journal and tucked another item from the corner of her desk into a drawer.
Out of the corner of his eye, Richard caught the header on the document.
It was an internal notice, stamped with the emblem of the Classics Department.
She put it away too quickly. He only glimpsed a few words: "Classics Department... Divinity School... Black Earth River... material ownership..."
The drawer slid shut.
"What are you looking at?"
"Nothing," Richard said, retracting his gaze. "There’s just a lot on your desk, Auntie."
Isabella glanced at him.
"Some things are best not seen, especially those with the department emblem."
"...Yes."
She was silent for a moment, then spoke again, likely figuring Richard would find out sooner or later.
"The department has been fighting with the Divinity School over some materials recently."
"What kind of materials?"
"The artifacts brought back from the Black Earth River Basin."
Richard’s heart tightened. ’Those artifacts again.’
"The museum is holding a major exhibition next month. You probably heard about it on your way here."
Isabella explained,
"The items on display are for the public. The truly important ones aren’t being shown.
There’s a batch of artifacts engraved with Priest’s Inscriptions from the Black Earth River Basin, and no one has been able to fully decipher those Inscriptions yet.
The Classics Department wants the research rights, on the grounds that it falls under the purview of classics;
The Divinity School also wants them, claiming that the Priest system of the Black Earth River Basin involves religious rituals."
Richard understood.
’On the surface, it’s two academic departments fighting over the ownership of research materials.’
’But on a deeper level, those artifacts engraved with Priest’s Inscriptions are all Marvels.’
’Whoever gets the research rights gets the right to use these Marvels.’
"Auntie," Richard asked tentatively.
"You mentioned on the phone before that there’s a practical assignment in the second half of the training?"
"Mm."
"The location..."
"It’s at the museum," Isabella answered crisply.
"Don’t get ahead of yourself. The training hasn’t even started.
As for the practical assignment, I’ll explain it clearly when we get to that point.
Right now, you only need to worry about one thing."
"What’s that?"
"Getting into the top twenty."
She pushed the manuscript on her desk toward him.
"Tutoring. It starts today."
The tutoring began with a real test paper in Ancient Greek Text.
Isabella first gave Richard a problem: translate a passage from Thucydides’ original work into the Albion Language.
Relying on his foundation from [Erudite] and [Scholarship], Richard translated at a decent pace.
Isabella took the translated draft and read it from beginning to end.
After finishing, she said nothing and gave him a second problem.
The second was on conjugation—a few extremely obscure irregular verbs.
Richard answered it fairly smoothly.
"You got two wrong," Isabella said, pointing them out with her red pen.
"For irregular conjugations in Ancient Greek, being clever isn’t enough. You have to memorize them."
"Yes."
"The foundation Greenwood gave you is decent.
You don’t need to worry too much about your Latin. Your Ancient Greek is comparatively average, so we’ll focus on improving that over the next few weeks."
Richard nodded.
They spent the whole morning tutoring, but Isabella’s attitude was unreadable.
She gave him a question, Richard answered, she graded it, then she gave him another.
Her face was cold, and she pointed out every single mistake without exception.
Richard felt a little uncertain. He had worked hard these past few months and thought he’d made considerable progress.
But he couldn’t read a hint of satisfaction or dissatisfaction on his aunt’s cold face.
At noon, Sofia went to the cafeteria and came back with four lunches.
Clara also returned from the archives.
Clara was the same as ever—a person of few words, and extremely polite.
"Richard, long time no see." She nodded at him.
"Clara."
The four of them ate lunch in the office.
Sofia chattered nonstop, vividly recounting all the gossip at Imperial University.
Which associate professor had a feud with whom, which graduate student’s thesis was rejected by their Mentor, how arrogant the Divinity School crowd had been lately.
Clara ate with her head down, occasionally chiming in with a word or two.
Isabella ate while looking over the drafts Richard had translated that morning.
After lunch, Isabella pushed her plate aside.
"Did you bring your empirical text?"
Richard took a manuscript from his bag and handed over his independent interpretation of the twelve sets of Boundary Stone Inscriptions.
Isabella took it and read very slowly.
Sofia perceptively stopped talking and began clearing the dishes with Clara. That was a graduate student’s job, after all.
Richard sat in his chair, watching his aunt turn the pages one by one.
Isabella reached the section on the twelfth set and her reading slowed even more.
The office was so quiet you could hear the TICK-TOCK of the wall clock.
Richard’s palms began to sweat.
After finishing the twelfth set, she flipped back and reread the seventh through eleventh sets.
Then she closed the manuscript and took a sip from the cup of cold tea on her desk.
"This interpretation of the ’return’—did you come up with it yourself?"
"Yes."
"No one gave you any pointers?"
"You gave me some direction on the phone, Auntie, but the thesis for this section is my own."
"Elder Hutton didn’t intervene?"
"Mr. Hutton said he doesn’t guide empirical texts. He only teaches me the fundamentals."
Isabella set down the teacup and looked at Richard.
Richard couldn’t discern any emotion on his aunt’s face. It was still cold.
Sofia returned from washing the dishes and winked at him.
Richard was a little confused.
Isabella was quiet for a long while before she finally spoke.
"...It’s passable."
"Approaching the ’return’ trigger from the angle of ’Curtain decay’ is a novel approach.
Traditional interpretations treat the ’return’ as a sealed door, with all research focused on ’how to seal it tighter.’
You took the opposite view, proposing ’instead of sealing it shut, why not use it up?’"
"The thesis is sound, and there are no major faults in the other areas," she concluded.
A weight lifted from Richard’s heart.
He could tell his aunt was praising him.
It was extremely restrained praise, delivered with a cold face, and she was as sparing with her words as ever.
Sofia was holding back a laugh beside them.
Clara also looked up and glanced at Richard.
Isabella looked at the snickering Sofia, then back at Richard.
She picked up the manuscript again and put it in her drawer.
"I’ll hold onto this manuscript for now. There are a few minor issues I’ll mark later for you to correct yourself."
She put her guard back up.
"A thesis alone isn’t enough. The argumentation process needs to be more solid. You skipped steps in a few places."
"...Yes."
Richard knew that this "skipping steps" was due to [Rationality].
’The deductive process of [Rationality] can’t be recorded.’
’What I can leap across in a single step in my mind, I have to build a staircase for the reader on paper.’
They had two more hours of tutoring in the afternoon.
When the sun began to set in the west, Isabella put down her pen.
"That’s all for today."
Richard stood up and packed his bag.
Isabella watched him pack, then suddenly spoke.
"Don’t be in a rush to head back. I’m taking you somewhere."
Sofia’s eyes lit up when she heard this.
"Mentor, are we going to *that* place?"
"Mm."
Richard looked at his aunt.
Isabella was already gathering her own things.
With her back to Richard, she stacked the journals on her desk.
"Your empirical text’s thesis passed. And I tested your foundational Scholarship this morning; you haven’t been slacking."
Her voice betrayed no emotion. "Consider it... a reward."
’My aunt wants to treat me to a meal as a reward for not slacking off recently.’
’But she just had to say it so stiffly, as if she were doing it reluctantly.’
Beside them, Sofia secretly mouthed some words.
"Our Mentor just talks tough."

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