Chapter 221: Grading "Homework"

During the first week of March, the snow melted away, leaving only a few stubborn icicles hanging beneath the eaves.

Mr. Hutton had returned.

Richard noticed it first on the history class schedule.

The slot for "Hutton," blank for over half a month, had been filled in again by the Academic Affairs Office. The ink was fresher than the surrounding lines.

He had been gone for a long time—so long that even the principal, Dr. Fletcher, had vaguely mentioned in a post-morning prayer announcement that "Mr. Hutton is temporarily away on official business."

Now that his business was finished, his classes were back on the schedule.

Between classes, a note summoned Richard to the third floor.

He headed upstairs the moment the dismissal bell rang.

The office door was ajar. Richard raised his hand to knock, but his fist froze in midair.

A swath of ether had been quietly siphoned from the center of the room, collapsing inward toward a single point.

Richard pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Mr. Hutton stood by the window, his posture more stooped than usual, his hands folded respectfully in front of him.

In the old armchair in the center of the room sat another, much older man.

The old man was severely hunched over. A cane rested against the armrest, its handle worn dark and smooth.

He wore an incredibly old-fashioned black wool suit.

Richard recognized the style from an old portrait hanging on the wall of the Classical Society North District Office.

The society's old president from sixty years ago had worn this exact outfit in the painting. Even the most conservative tailors no longer accepted orders for a stand-up collar cut like that.

Mr. Hutton bowed slightly toward the old man.

"Professor, this is the student I mentioned to you, Richard Williams."

The old man didn't look at Richard.

He kept his head bowed, staring at the rippling tea in his cup, and spoke to Hutton in a slow drawl.

"Little Hutton."

"Yes."

"You've brewed this tea too strong."

"I'll fetch you a weaker cup right away."

"Wait." The old man stopped him. "How many years has this tea been sitting around?"

Mr. Hutton couldn't quite grasp his meaning.

"This tin is from last year's spring harvest. It's been stored for less than a year."

"Then it makes sense," the old man said slowly.

"At my age, this tea is a hundred years younger than I am.

No matter how strong it's brewed, it could never brew strong enough to outlast these old bones."

Mr. Hutton tried to understand what he meant.

"Professor, would you like hot water instead?"

"I'm saying..." The old man handed the teacup over.

"Living to my age, just give me something warm to drink.

Save the tea leaves for yourself. Leave them for those who still have decades ahead to endure."

Holding the chipped teacup, Mr. Hutton froze in place.

Richard stood at the door, unsure whether to stay or leave.

"I'll get you a cup of warm water right now, Professor," Mr. Hutton finally said.

"Mhm." Only then did the old man lift his gaze and turn to Richard.

Those cloudy eyes lingered on him for less than half a second.

Yet in that fraction of a second...

Richard felt entirely seen through, gripped by the naked exposure of having nowhere to hide.

"The fire is newly lit."

He turned to Mr. Hutton and offered his critique:

"It's still very small, but it burns cleanly enough... cleaner than your furnace back in the day.

When you first lit yours, it filled half the room with smoke before anything else."

Mr. Hutton looked a bit embarrassed. He took the empty teacup and went to refill it.

The old man sipped his fresh warm water and raised a hand.

"Young man, take a seat. It tires me out just watching you stand."

Richard obediently sat down.

"Richard," Mr. Hutton introduced formally, "this is Professor Silas Mortimer, a Major Adept Scholar."

"...He was my mentor's mentor."

Richard's breath caught slightly.

He quickly did the math in his head.

Mr. Hutton was nearing sixty. His mentor, as he had once mentioned, had passed away many years ago.

In that case, his mentor's mentor...

"When I was as young as you..." Professor Mortimer glanced at him and continued on his own.

"Traveling from Briston to the Imperial Capital took a four-day ride in a mail coach. The railways were laid north inch by inch much later.

"The first time I rode a train, I was already a Practitioner.

Sitting inside the carriage, I still felt that the iron shell ran too fast, that a man's soul would be thrown right out of his body."

The old professor took a sip of warm water.

"Later, it proved that half of my worry was correct."

"...Your soul was thrown out?"

"No." Professor Mortimer shook his head in amusement.

"My soul wasn't thrown out, but one of my teeth was jolted loose.

Ever since that tooth was knocked out, I've held a lifelong grudge against the railway."

"I've lived this long, and my teeth were all replaced one by one later on. But that specific one, I've left it empty."

The old man opened his mouth and pointed to a dark, blackened tooth root in his lower left jaw.

"You see? Empty to this day."

Richard didn't know what to say for a moment, so he silently calculated in his head.

Albion's first steam railway opened for traffic in the New Calendar's 1820s.

He remembered this era clearly. When Mr. Hutton taught the "Rationalization Process of Mysticism" in history class, he had used industry and the railway as the backdrop for an entire lesson.

Which meant that in the year Professor Mortimer imprinted his Signature, this country didn't have a single inch of rail.

A person who had lived from an era when this land still delivered mail by horse-drawn coach, all the way to the present day.

The old man lacked any obvious aura of "power."

He just sat there; the ether collapsed toward him, yet the water's surface remained perfectly still.

When Richard left the office, Mr. Hutton chatted with him privately for a moment.

"How did it feel when the Professor looked at you today?"

"...Like I was flipped inside out and thoroughly examined."

"Correct." Mr. Hutton nodded. "In his eyes, everything can be an article.

"With just a glance, he breaks your entire being down—from skin to bone—into words and sentences that can be read, altered, or erased."

"The Professor's visit to Briston this time is because the Imperial Capital transferred him to wrap up this incident with the Unresponsive Pit."

"He is here to clear the net and seal the Pit."

...

The clearance was scheduled for the next day in the courtyard of the Branch Office.

A wooden table was placed in the center of the courtyard.

On the table sat a basin of clear water and an unrolled, full map of Briston.

The map was massive, marking all the city's streets, canals, and bridges. Several spots were circled in red ink, their significance understood only by those in their profession.

Supported by his student, Professor Mortimer sat down in the high-backed chair that had been brought out to the wooden table.

First, he asked for a cup of tea.

Mr. Hutton had learned his lesson this time. He brewed it exceptionally weak; only two tea leaves floated in a cup of warm water.

The old man held the cup and took a sip, only then slowly reaching his hand toward the basin of clear water.

Richard stood in the innermost circle of the courtyard and quietly deployed his [Concealed Spirit Vision].

He had received the old professor's permission to do this—this was the entire purpose of observing.

The professor tapped his fingertip into the basin, sending a ripple across the water's surface.

A Spell Formula Richard had never seen before spread outward from that basin of clear water.

It flowed along the wooden table, the floor tiles, and the walls of the Branch Office, silently extending toward the entire city.

Richard rapidly deconstructed what the professor was doing in his mind.

Those who had been modified by the Echo Society and implanted with "external interfaces" were all connected to the same place on that side of the veil.

The professor hadn't sent anyone to hunt down the dozens of heavily concealed individuals in Briston.

He stood on this side of the veil, like a fisherman pulling in his net, and gathered all those threads into his hands.

Gathering the net took about ten minutes.

The professor finished his first cup of warm water, and Mr. Hutton poured him another.

Only then did the old man begin "grading."

Richard could only think of that word.

Within his Spirit Vision, the dozens of netted threads surfaced one by one, arranged in neat order.

The professor reached out with his trembling hand, his fingertip tapping toward the first thread.

The thread flashed with light.

Professor Mortimer let out an "Mhm," as if he had just read a passable piece of homework.

Then, following the thread's path, he gently hooked it from the root.

The thread snapped.

Richard vaguely saw the silhouette of a person.

After the thread snapped, that silhouette silently ceased breathing.

The professor's fingertip moved to the second thread.

"This one..." the old man said slowly, "hasn't been connected for long. What a pity. If discovered two months earlier, it could still be corrected."

He hooked his fingertip, and the second thread snapped.

Richard remembered what Mr. Hutton had said yesterday.

In his eyes, you are merely an article.

If you read an article with a mistake, would you judge it?

No. You would simply take a red pen and cross out the typo.

"Professor," Mr. Hutton suddenly spoke.

Richard looked over at the sound.

Professor Mortimer's Spell Formula had currently netted an exceptionally thin, faint thread.

Tracing that thread, Richard caught the person's silhouette.

It was very small and thin—a young girl.

Her age... was about the same as Pony's from the night at the Unresponsive Pit. She was at most two years older than Richard himself.

Mr. Hutton bowed his body even lower:

"This one... I can see her connection is shallow, and it hasn't been attached for long. She might have been deceived."

His mentor was pleading for her.

Richard's heart rose in his throat.

Professor Mortimer stared at the two tea leaves floating in his cup. After a long while, he finally spoke slowly.

"Little Hutton."

"Yes."

"Back when you studied under me, I handled a similar case. Do you remember?"

Mr. Hutton let out a sigh.

"Of course I remember."

"Whether she was deceived or not," the old professor's voice was dry and raspy, "is a matter between her and whoever deceived her."

His fingertip rested on that thin, faint thread.

"I have never read the person herself."

"What I read is the line of text written upon her."

"Once the words are written, they cannot be changed back."

With a flick of his fingertip, the thin thread snapped.

Somewhere in the city's Western Suburbs, the skinny young girl silently went limp.

In the courtyard, it was so quiet that one could hear the sound of the melted snow dripping from the eaves.

The professor picked up his cup of tea and took another sip.

Mr. Hutton straightened up. He truly felt it was a pity.