Chapter 226: [Inner Awakening]

On the third try, the fourth... by the seventh, a hairline crack split open at the transition point of the temporary seal.

Richard steadied the intensity of his ether projection, keeping the crack exactly a hair's breadth wide.

[Available Points] began to climb. The ether bleeding out was incredibly faint.

Richard stood before the desk, suppressing his breathing to a bare minimum. He held a steel pipe in one hand to maintain the vacuum and hovered the other over the box to sustain the stress field.

Once his own ether was tapped out, he started drawing from the stockpile in his [Spiritual Capacity].

Twenty minutes passed.

[Available Points] crept up to 1.05. The first phase of his goal was complete.

Furthermore, the ether reserves inside the box still looked plentiful. All that agonizing effort hadn't been in vain.

Richard halted the ether projection and began patching the seal.

He wasn't stupid enough to drain himself entirely before remembering to close the breach.

Once the seal was whole again, he tilted the steel pipe aside, allowing the vacuum zone around the box to slowly dissipate.

His Inspiration flared back to life, and the candle flame surged to its original height.

Slumping against the back of his chair, Richard took two deep, greedy gulps of air.

His [Spiritual Capacity] had dropped from 10 to 6. Plenty to spare.

[Available Points] locked in at 1.1.

As he rested against the chair, he let his Micro-circulation flow along the roots of the inverted tree of the Seat of the Sun, slowly gathering at the base of his lungs.

Once his Breathing settled into its usual effortless rhythm, he closed his eyes and summoned the Panel.

[Perception] Lv.2 Progress 62%

[Speculation] Lv.1 Progress 77%

Scraping together a full point opened up a lot more options.

Richard's gaze swept down the Panel, finally settling on the row for [Speculation].

This attribute had been unlocked for the shortest amount of time, but its progress was fairly rapid.

Those twelve sets of probatio texts, the stack of books Aunt Isabella sent from the Imperial Capital, Madam Marie's handwritten manuscript with "a detective is not a prophet" scribbled repeatedly in the margins... every single piece fed into it.

[Speculation] was a side lamp he had personally ignited within his own mind.

With the light on, all the things he previously thought he understood suddenly revealed their sharp, hidden edges.

Richard focused his consciousness on that attribute.

Previewing it didn't cost any points, so there was no harm in taking a look.

Two lines of small text surfaced on the Panel:

"This attribute is active. Further advancement requires the following:

Level reach Lv.1 Progress 100%;

Available Points 1;

Re-examine a judgment you once firmly believed in, discover its flaw, and correct it."

"Unlockable Effect Preview — Speculation: Inner Awakening:

Original speculation effects enhanced. When thinking, it becomes easier to detect one's own shortcomings. Resistance to external words and suggestion is significantly increased."

Richard read those two lines of text twice.

"Once firmly believed in" was the crucial part.

To unlock this tier, he had to force himself to turn back and interrogate his own mind.

[Perception] required him to step behind the veil and stare down a hostile target of a higher tier;

[Speculation] didn't let him look outward; instead, it demanded he dig inward.

Looking outward, he could borrow the eye of [Perception];

But digging inward... the thinnest part of any suit of armor was always the inner lining.

He exhaled a long breath.

As for the trait itself.

Richard stared at the text describing [Speculation: Inner Awakening], and a realization slowly surfaced in his mind.

When he later reviewed the words Hecate had spoken at that anonymous round table, he could pick out the hooks she had dropped in every single sentence.

When she said, "We are not born for ourselves alone," his Micro-circulation would gently lean in that direction;

When she said, "Your seat here proves you are worthy," for half a breath, a thought would echo in his own mind: I really am worthy.

He could see all of this clearly in hindsight.

But what he needed was a light that would let him see it clearly in the moment.

And [Speculation: Inner Awakening] offered precisely that light.

Since it required confronting something long unnoticed, he wouldn't be able to achieve a breakthrough just by sitting at his desk and brooding over it.

It had to be jarred loose in some casual, unexpected moment by something completely unrelated.

All he could do was keep his mind open and wait for that collision.

Outside the window, the sky had already gone dark.

Richard carefully gathered the Multi-Eyed Black Moss and fogbell scraps from the oiled paper and returned them to their sealed jars.

Once used, the scent of these two herbs changed, so they had to be stored separately from the fresh batch.

The charred layer of herbs at the end of the steel pipe had to be cleaned out and replaced with fresh ones.

Before leaving, he completely wiped down the right half of his desk, leaving not a single trace behind.

...

When the cold snap arrived, it was always the poor who died first.

Richard had just finished his business with the box and returned from school. As he reached the eastern end of Slag Alley, he saw several neighbors gathered in a huddle.

His mother, Margaret, stood on the steps, her hands tucked into a muff as she spoke in low tones with a neighbor.

"...It was Mr. Burns?"

Richard stopped in his tracks.

"Mrs. Sybil found him this morning. She lives next door to Mr. Burns, and they were quite close."

The neighbor woman rambled on.

"Burns didn't go out last night. When she went over to bring him a kettle of hot water this morning, his door was open."

"...He went very quietly. He was just leaning against the stove. The fire had died a long time ago."

Richard's breathing softened.

His mother patted his shoulder, gesturing for him to head inside first.

At the dinner table, his father, Rogers, brought it up again.

"In the past, whenever a late spring cold snap hit, a few of the old folks down by the docks would always drop," his father said absently, cutting the turnips on his plate.

The neighbors were planning to pool some money to pay for Burns's burial.

"Burns was different."

"How so?"

"He'd been coughing up blood for a long time. He knew he was going to die.

I talked to him once last winter. He said he wasn't afraid of dying; he was afraid that when he died, no one would arrange his funeral."

"...Then who's handling the funeral?"

"He saved up a little money himself and left it with the priest at Elizabeth Church.

It was short a few shillings, so us neighbors and his coworkers chipped in the rest."

Evelyn listened silently, not saying a word.

Richard glanced at his younger sister.

Evelyn didn't know Mr. Burns well, but she had grown up in Slag Alley. She knew the name of every family on the street, which house they lived in, and how many people were in their household.

Whenever one of those households lost someone, she would be sad for the whole night.

After dinner, Richard went upstairs alone.

He dug out that copy of the Northern Literary Review from his drawer.

The editor-in-chief had added an epigraph to the header of his own article:

"No one remembers which day he started coughing, just as no one remembers which day he started hauling coal."

The real Burns was dead.

He was illiterate; he likely never even read this essay.

Those thousands of readers who felt a tightness in the back of their necks while reading the article had no idea that a real Burns lived at the eastern end of Slag Alley, huddled by his stove, trying to survive his final night.

Richard closed the magazine and went downstairs.

He spoke to his mother.

"I'm going over to Mr. Burns's place to take a look."

His mother looked at him, not asking a single question.

She retrieved a small cloth bag from the cupboard, stuffed with a shilling and a few pence.

"...Take this to Mrs. Sybil, to help cover the funeral."

"Okay."

"Don't go inside Mr. Burns's room, and don't look at his face. Leave him a little dignity," his mother reminded him.

Richard nodded, shoved the cloth bag into his pocket, and pushed the door open.

The cold in Slag Alley was deeper than he had imagined.

The smell of burning coal slag drifted through the air from the end of the alley.

He stopped in front of the door that Mrs. Sybil had temporarily propped up with wooden planks.

With the boost from [Perception], extending his Spirit Vision allowed him to read the entire space of this household.

The coal slag, the stove ash, the old chair Burns dragged around every day, and the old photograph hanging on the wall...

What had Burns left behind in this room after he passed?

Death Echoes required fear and agony. Burns had gone quietly; he had learned to calmly accept his death many years ago.

Therefore, all that remained was a kind of "exhaustion" born from long years of toil.

That bit of exhaustion was harmless on an etheric level, but it would sink.

Where did it sink to?

Richard's threads of Inspiration chased that "exhaustion" downward.

The "exhaustion" seeped through the cracks in the floorboards into the ground, and continued to sink deeper.

The direction it was heading... was west.

Richard stood before the door, his nose turning numb from the cold.

The deeper the comprehension, the further the mystery receded; at the absolute peak of understanding, the extraordinary simply faded.

But for every one thing he managed to understand, a hundred new things grew in the city.

The speed of his understanding could never keep up with the speed at which the city itself grew.

Mrs. Sybil walked over from the other end of the alley.

She was draped in a dusty, drab wool scarf and carried an earthen jar in her hands.

"Little Richard?"

"Mrs. Sybil." Richard handed the cloth bag over.

"My mother asked me to bring this over to help arrange Mr. Burns's funeral."

Mrs. Sybil took the cloth bag and stuffed it into her apron pocket without even counting it.

"Thank you."

She raised a hand to wipe her eyes.

"...He didn't look terrible when he went," Mrs. Sybil said.

"When I went to bring him hot water this morning, he was leaning against the stove, fully dressed, with his shoes on."

"He knew he was going today."

Richard gave a nod.

"Where is he being buried?"

"The public cemetery behind Elizabeth Church,"

Mrs. Sybil replied.

"The priest agreed to carve a small stone for him."

"Marcus Burns, 1851–1913, and nothing else."