Chapter 168 - 153: Exoteric Division and Esoteric Division

At dinner, the long table in the inn was laden with a more sumptuous spread than the past few meals.

The veterans’ table and the Newcomers’ table were not separate tonight.

All eight of them sat around the same long table.

Richard took a sip of ginger tea.

The spice of the ginger slid down his throat, warming his stomach.

The proprietress came out from the kitchen with another platter.

"My daughter made an apple pie. Everyone, have a taste."

The apple pie was drizzled with a brandy sauce and dotted with raisins, almonds, and dried cherries. There was supposedly a lucky coin inside, too.

"Same as always, everyone gets a piece."

The pie was cut into eight slices. Richard’s piece didn’t have a coin in it.

Edmund took his second bite and with a CRUNCH, spat a coin out of his mouth.

"It’s me?" The young man seemed a bit dazed.

"You’ll have good luck this year." Mrs. MacNeil smiled. "Hold on to it."

Edmund thought back to yesterday’s events and glanced around at the others. They all looked like they had expected this.

"Thank you, everyone." He quietly wiped the coin clean and put it in his pocket.

After dinner, Richard went upstairs.

The progress for [Perception] Level 1 had advanced significantly over the last two days.

The two incursions near the shore and the use of Spiritual Vision during combat had each deepened the precision of his Perception.

Richard checked his status panel.

[Perception Lv. 1] Progress: 77%.

He was still a ways from Level 2, but his progress in the past two days exceeded that of the entire previous week.

His proficiency with the [Moon Nail] Technique had also greatly improved.

The formation time had been reduced from two seconds to one and a half, and he could now form it with two fingers.

Once the formation time was under one second and he could do it with a single finger, he would have mastered the Technique.

After mastering the Technique, [Shadow Reversal] could be activated. He was rather curious what the reversal of [Moon Nail] would be.

’A normal Moon Nail is for nailing others, so a reversed Moon Nail is for nailing myself?’

’But what’s the use of nailing myself?’

As Richard pondered this, he completed his nightly nurturing. The Sphinx Lamp was getting hotter and hotter to the touch.

Spread across his desk was a simple map he had drawn a few days ago, marking the relative positions of Whitcomb and the surrounding main roads.

He folded up the map and took out a larger, more up-to-date leaflet of the national railway network from his drawer.

It was a leaflet he had grabbed at the station on the day he set out.

Richard used a pencil to find Whitcombe Station on the map, then traced the branch line back, section by section.

He jabbed the pencil tip into the square for the transfer station.

Osborne. A small city with a population of less than one hundred thousand, a distribution center for textiles and timber.

The station was a hub; branch lines heading north, south, and west all departed from there.

Walking Lv.3 Unlock Condition: A multi-day trek through a dangerous area, with no means of transport used for the entire journey.

Sleep Lv.3 Unlock Condition: Achieve one full, deep sleep in an unfamiliar and adverse location.

In truth, the wilderness around Whitcomb could fulfill both of these conditions.

But he couldn’t just tell the veterans he was going out to pick mushrooms, let alone spend the night in the wilderness behind everyone’s back.

Even if he could somehow manage to sneak out without alerting anyone, the area around Whitcomb was simply not a suitable place for camping.

The Seal was still weakening, and the puddle on top of that rock was like a half-open eye.

Osborne, however, was a different story.

To its northwest was a state-owned forest, and further west lay low-lying mountain ridges.

The ridges had several shepherd’s paths dating back to the eighteenth century. Every summer and autumn, hiking enthusiasts would come from the city for a day or two of trekking.

Mr. Hutton had shown him the "Annual Report of Weak Points in the Empire," and Osborne’s page had only one minor marking.

The place wasn’t too cold, was reasonably populated, had no significant weak points in the Curtain, and the area outside the city was genuine wilderness.

He drew a circle next to Osborne.

The next question was, should he go alone?

The answer, of course, was no.

Before coming to this world, he had seen plenty of short videos about the Ao-Tai Traverse.

Getting lost, spraining an ankle, hypothermia, slipping on snowy mountain paths, or oversleeping alone in the cold wilderness and never waking up... any one of these could turn his camping trip into a headache for the search and rescue team.

The unlock conditions for the two traits didn’t specify that he had to complete them alone.

The safest method was to join a club and hire a guide to lead the way.

This was where Osborne’s advantage as a city came in.

The city had local hiking clubs. For a one-time activity fee, he could even rent camping gear.

A guide would lead the way, with a dozen or so people following a familiar route.

Before setting off, he could cast the Talisman Stones once and ask, ’Will this journey be safe? What will the road conditions and climate be for the next thirty-six hours?’

Right before entering the mountains, he could ask again, ’Will anyone in my group become a source of trouble?’

Doing a few extra Divinations could even increase his [Perception] progress bar. Why not?

With his plan made, he blew out the Oil Lamp with peace of mind and closed his eyes.

......

The next day’s breakfast table was much plainer than the previous two days.

The proprietress placed a porcelain bowl in front of everyone. Inside was a thick oatmeal porridge with a skin of milk floating on top.

Next to the porridge was a small dish of butter and a spoonful of amber-colored honey. Two dried mint leaves rested at the bottom of the honey pot.

"Starting today, meals will follow the rules for Sealing Masters."

The proprietress set down the last bowl.

"Nothing greasy, strong, alcoholic, or spicy will be served."

"Why?" Theodore asked, holding up his spoon.

"Those who perform repairs must have a clean tongue."

Mrs. MacNeil took a sip of porridge and answered matter-of-factly, "Lingering spices in the mouth can distort the pronunciation of Curse Spells."

"I thought it was because they were afraid we’d get diarrhea," Theodore grumbled. Maggie shot him a glare, and he quickly schooled his expression.

Mr. Hutton, sitting at the other end of the table, had already finished half his porridge.

"After you’re finished eating..." Mrs. MacNeil put down her spoon and took a pencil stub from her apron pocket.

"...everyone gather at this table. I’ll go over the plan for the next few days."

The proprietress cleared the bowls, and the tabletop was wiped clean.

Mrs. MacNeil took a roll of something from her satchel and spread it out in the center of the table.

It was a survey map of Whitcombe Mill. The paper had several dark spots where tea had been spilled.

She then drew a thin wooden stick from a leather case and tapped it lightly on the map.

"Today is the third day. Before the Crossing Veil on the evening of the fifth day, we have three tasks."

The tip of the stick moved to the position of the mill’s outer wall.

"First, repair the protective Silver Belt Inscription on the mill’s outer wall and seal the obvious points of leakage."

"This is our ’baseline mission.’ No matter what happens later, we must at least reseal the surface-level Seal."

The tip of the stick moved inward.

"Second, survey the documents in the inner layer of the Seal."

"The mill was originally a medieval chapel. In the cellar beneath it, there are several Pre-Roman murals and a section of an Inscription."

She looked up and glanced at the Newcomers.

"The core mechanism of an Ancient Gaelic Seal is ’naming’."

"When the name is forgotten, the Seal weakens."

"The twenty-three workers in 1881 had their shadows eaten by ’She Who Eats Shadows’ from within before they died."

"But the fundamental reason the Seal began to weaken that year was that, starting with the great Dissolution under Henry VIII, the line of people who knew her true name gradually died out."

"Environmental damage from industrialization was not the root cause," Mr. Hutton added from the side.

"Does the True Name Stone need to be re-carved?" Edmund asked.

"It does." Mrs. MacNeil nodded.

"An original True Name Stone can still be found in the cellar, but its Inscription has been worn down to just a few scattered strokes."

"Our job is to restore the name as completely as possible from the murals and Inscription Fragments."

"What if we can’t restore it?" Richard asked.

"If we can’t, we’ll use a ’substitute name’."

Mrs. MacNeil’s stick tapped the edge of the map.

"A substitute name is a fallback in Sealing Art. When a true name is completely lost, a Sealing Master can use a sufficiently large set of ’descriptive phrases’ to replace it."

"The principle is that the entity is uniquely identified by this set of phrases, thus granting the phrases a ’naming right’ equivalent to the true name on the level of the Seal."

"Sounds like using a long string of synonyms to replace a proper name," Theodore said, scratching his head.

"That’s one way to understand it," Mr. Hutton explained carefully.

"The price is that a Seal using a substitute name is thirty to forty percent less effective than one with a true name. Moreover, the set of phrases must be replaced every few decades, as synonyms are also eroded by time."

"Back in 1881, when she got out..."

Maggie pulled her scarf down a bit from her chin. "Were they still using the true name, or a substitute name?"

"They were using a substitute name in 1881."

Mrs. MacNeil recalled.

"The true name was lost after the great Dissolution. By 1881, they had been piecing together substitute names for over three hundred years."

"The last few generations of Sealing Masters started having trouble coming up with suitable phrases. The vocabulary pool had been almost completely exhausted by their predecessors."

"The set of substitute names from 1881 was hastily cobbled together by the Church from within its religious orders. Its efficiency was extremely low."

"That’s why the workers were eaten."

The tip of the stick moved inward another inch.

"Third, and the most difficult task."

She looked up at the four Newcomers.

"The Boundary Stone Array. This layer is behind the Curtain."

"On this side, in the Material Realm, we lay the Silver Belt, burn Candles, and carve the True Name Stone. That is called the Exoteric Division."

Mr. Hutton took over the explanation. As he spoke, he used the bottom of his teacup to trace a circle on the tabletop, then drew another circle inside it, offset by about half an inch.

"The part that actually takes effect is the corresponding Esoteric Division, which is the projection of the Exoteric Division behind the Curtain."

He pointed to the outer circle. "This is the Exoteric Division, the Material Realm."

Then he pointed to the inner circle. "And this is the Esoteric Division, behind the Curtain."

"The two circles are supposed to be right up against each other, almost overlapping."

"But as a Seal ages, the inner circle drifts inward or to one side."

"Once it has drifted away, no matter how much you repair the outer circle, the inner circle can’t connect."

"That’s why we have to go down into the Esoteric Division."

The old man paused slightly, letting the four Newcomers digest the information.

"Since the incident in 1881, the Seal at Whitcomb has barely been maintained."

"For the past thirty years, the Silver Belt of the Exoteric Division has barely held on, while the Esoteric Division has already come loose for the most part."

"Therefore," Mrs. MacNeil continued, "this time, we must descend into the Esoteric Division and tie the knot back ourselves."

She retracted the wooden stick.

"Before that, we’ll repair the Exoteric Division first."

"If the Exoteric Division isn’t properly repaired, don’t expect to go in and come out clean."

"Understood," Edmund was the first to answer.

"Here is the specific division of labor for today."

Mrs. MacNeil returned the stick to its leather case.

"Edmund, Maggie, you’ll go with Mr. Hutton to the cellar to survey the documents."

"Edmund knows Church Ritual Language, and Maggie knows the Gaelic Language. Both language systems will be needed."

"Yes, ma’am," Edmund nodded.

"Richard, Theodore, you’re with me. We’ll be applying the Silver Belt to the outer wall."

"Alright."

"The two Hunters went on patrol this morning. After they complete a sweep and return, they’ll set up a patrol line around our work area."

Mrs. MacNeil closed the lid of the leather case.

"Let’s move out."