Chapter 261: Opening Day

By early morning, the sky over the Imperial Capital had cleared.

Beneath the row of Aegean columns at the Albion Museum, broad stone steps cascaded all the way down to the street.

But even those sweeping stairs weren't enough to hold the crowd. A massive line of people spilled past the bottom step, trailing far along the railings.

The sky was barely light, yet the tail end of the queue had already wrapped around the corner of the next street.

Gentlemen in top hats, ladies carrying food baskets, and children rubbing sleep from their eyes as their parents pulled them along... They pressed tightly together, all gazing toward the heavy bronze doors that had yet to open.

The newspapers had been hyping this up for a solid month.

"Largest Shipment of Antiquities from the Black Soil River Basin Arrives in the Imperial Capital."

The headline had dominated the front pages of almost every morning paper.

Mummies from the age of the pharaohs, a Priest's Scepter unearthed from a thousand-year-old tomb, gilded and painted burial masks...

To an industrial Empire nourished entirely on coal smoke and steam whistles, words like these felt as fresh as a wind blowing straight out of the desert.

By the time Richard slipped in through the side doors, police officers were letting the massive line move forward section by section.

That side door was reserved strictly for museum staff and their group of twenty temporary docents.

The twenty seminar students arrived one after another, gathering to wait in a temporary lounge.

Montagu arrived neither early nor late, carrying that same effortless composure he wore everywhere.

Catherine stood by the window with her arms crossed, watching the line outside.

Edith shrank into the deepest corner of the room, clutching her inseparable book to her chest as usual.

Pendleton was the one in charge of them.

He cleared his throat. Beside him stood a museum official with a strictly businesslike expression.

"Everyone," Pendleton began.

"The museum has already briefed you on your duties for today, but I need to repeat a few things."

"During the day, you are temporary docents for this museum."

"From the doors opening at nine o'clock until closing at five, every man, woman, and child who walks in will have spent their money and waited in line.

You will guide them. The museum will have people watching how much effort you put in and whether you treat the guests well. Everything will go on your record."

At the mention of a record, a few of the slacking aristocratic students straightened their backs.

This record would go straight into the Department of Classics' files right alongside their names.

Their seminar grades were already fixed, but when it came time for a Mentor to select students or for the academy to assign tasks, no one could say when these little notes might be pulled out and reviewed.

"As for the real artifacts."

Pendleton shot a glance at the museum official.

The official took over seamlessly.

"All the items you will be presenting during the day,"

he said, lifting his chin toward the exhibition halls behind him, "are replicas."

A quiet ripple of surprise ran through the lounge.

"They are exact one-to-one copies of the originals," the official said flatly.

"Even the dirt from the excavation, the pressure cracks formed over thousands of years, the jagged edges of peeling paint... Everything was replicated without the slightest error.

When you present them, simply speak as though they are the real artifacts. You don't have to worry about any discrepancies."

"And the authentic ones?" someone asked.

"Locked in the sealed Storeroom below," the official replied.

"Only after the museum closes and the crowds have completely dispersed will you be allowed down to see the real artifacts."

"That will be your true practical exercise for today," Pendleton added. "The daytime is just a warm-up. Tonight is the main course."

Listening to this, Richard understood the arrangement.

The museum had assigned this job to the Department of Classics' students to achieve the best of both worlds.

The Black Soil River exhibition had caused a massive stir. They were expecting thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of visitors over the weekend. The museum's handful of veteran docents couldn't possibly handle that kind of volume alone.

Pulling in twenty students from the Empire's highest institution filled that gap perfectly, and it served as a prestigious selling point to the public.

In exchange for the students sweating it out during the day, the museum would let them into the Storeroom at night to examine the real antiquities.

Everyone got what they wanted.

When the stations were handed out, Richard was assigned to the main hall showcasing the Black Soil River artifacts.

The main hall was the centerpiece of the exhibition, guaranteeing it would have the heaviest foot traffic.

Putting him in the main hall showed they valued him to some extent.

Before the doors opened, Richard took a lap around his designated section.

The main hall was massive, its domed ceiling so high that one would need a ladder just to dust it.

Right in the center of the entrance squatted a sphinx over two men tall.

Carved from gray-black stone and missing half its nose, its crouching posture exerted a pressure that made one afraid to speak too loudly.

Rows of chest-high glass display cases ran along the bases of the walls on both sides.

There were gilded, painted masks, small green-glazed figurines, stone tablets heavily inscribed with birds, beasts, bugs, and fish, and Painted Wooden Coffins left half-open...

At the very back of the hall, a raised platform surrounded by a guardrail had been set apart from the rest.

Resting on a slanted stand on the platform was a Priest's Scepter, its head shaped like a sacred ibis.

That Sacred Ibis Scepter was the crown jewel of the exhibition, the one the newspapers had praised to the heavens.

It was just a shame that it was fake.

As Richard paced, he extended his Inspiration, sweeping it across the glass cases.

From the sphinx all the way to the Sacred Ibis Scepter, the entire main hall lacked even the faintest echo of ether.

It was completely clean. Entirely inert.

He secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

If these were all authentic, it would mean an entire hall full of high-tier supernatural items.

Standing in an ether field like that for an entire day would likely be crushing for someone like him, whose foundation had only just crossed the threshold of a Practitioner.

But since these were just replicas, he could simply do his job honestly during the day.

The real artifacts wouldn't come into play until the museum closed at five and they headed down to the Storeroom.

Dong.

The museum's great clock struck nine times.

The massive bronze doors were slowly pushed open.

Immediately after came the sound of footsteps.

It started as a sparse scattering, but in the blink of an eye, it swelled into a roaring tide.

The first wave of visitors flooded the foyer before following the signs and splitting off into the various exhibition halls.

The buzzing hum of human voices instantly filled the cavernous museum.

Standing beside the sphinx in the center of the main hall, Richard watched the room that had slept all morning spring to life in an instant.

The incoming crowd generally fell into two groups.

The first few were the most formally dressed.

Gentlemen in crisp tailcoats walked arm in arm with equally elegant wives, the women's crinolines so wide they practically swallowed up the aisles.

This type of guest took their time, maintaining a dignified air. They would occasionally point at a glass case and offer a few words of hushed critique.

Following behind them were the middle-class families.

Shop owners with their managers in tow, or office clerks leading their entire families.

Taking advantage of their Saturday off, they had happily parted with a shilling just to broaden their horizons.

These were the people who looked the most intently, their eyes wide.

They looked as if they wanted to carve every single artifact into their brains so they could go back and brag to their neighbors for half a month.

As for the true working class, they couldn't bear to waste a whole shilling just to gawk at some bizarre antiques.

A small circle of people quickly formed around Richard.

On the other side of the main hall, several other students were leading their own groups.

One of the aristocratic students, Wade Bourne, had been stationed right near the main entrance.

He was leading a group of visitors, putting on a highly affected air.

But his sheer impatience was visible from far away.

A plainly dressed woman timidly asked him what a certain jar was used for.

Without even lifting his eyes, he dryly muttered a name and immediately looked away.

Embarrassed by the snub, the woman blushed and pulled her child back out of the crowd.

Over on Edith's side...

The miller's sack-hauling daughter was usually squeezed out so badly by the aristocrats in the seminar that she hardly dared to speak.

But right now, she was crouching in front of a glass case, explaining its contents to a family.

It was more than likely this family's first time setting foot in a place so grand.

The husband didn't seem to know what to do with his hands, while the wife relentlessly reminded their child, "Don't touch anything."

Edith crouched right beside them, bringing herself low.

She met the two children at eye level, explaining everything slowly and in painstaking detail.

She told them about the green-glazed figurine, explaining how people long ago would place it in tombs, and as she spoke, the children's eyes went wide with wonder.

"Miss Docent," the railway worker couldn't help but interrupt. "Are you... are you really from the Imperial Capital University?"

Edith nodded.

The man clicked his tongue in awe and turned to his wife.

"You hear that? A big shot from the Imperial Capital University, willing to get down and teach things to our kids."

He turned back around and solemnly tipped his hat to Edith.

"Thank you kindly, miss. When we get home, I'm going to make sure these two little brats hit the books hard."

Edith flushed bright red.

Richard took the whole scene in.

The prestige of the Empire's highest academy was unmatched. Even the most unrefined, illiterate commoners couldn't help but marvel with deep respect when they crossed paths with the brilliant young scholars who had made it to the very top.

The crowd gathered around Richard grew another layer thicker.

He was in the middle of presenting the Sacred Ibis Scepter.

He explained that the ibis at the head of the staff represented Thoth, the god of wisdom, writing, and arithmetic in the Black Soil River Basin...

A mild commotion broke out at the outer edge of his crowd.

"Excuse me, excuse me. Coming through."

Pushing his way in was a sharply dressed middle-aged man.

He wore a navy-blue tailcoat and a perfectly straight top hat.

Arm in arm with him was an equally proper wife, and standing in front of her were a boy and a girl.

The moment the man spotted Richard standing in the center of the hall, he stopped dead in his tracks.

"Good heavens," he said, tipping his hat and turning to his wife. "Matilda, look... it's him!"

"Which him?" the woman asked, following her husband's gaze but failing to recognize anyone.

"The young gentleman from the train!"

The man gestured toward Richard, completely unable to hide the pride in his voice.

"The one I told you about last month, the boy heading to the Imperial Capital University entrance exams!"

Richard heard him and waved. "Sir, what a coincidence."

"A coincidence doesn't even cover it!" The man hurried forward, nearly dragging his wife into a stumble.

"You've probably forgotten all about me, young man.

The train, that ride last month... Crane. Horace Crane."

"Mr. Crane," Richard greeted smoothly. "Of course I remember you. You're the one who first told me about this exhibition."

Mr. Crane clapped his hands together and turned back to his wife.

"Did you hear that, Matilda?

Here he is, already a top student at the Imperial Capital University!

When has my eye for talent ever failed me?"

Mrs. Crane scoffed, but a look of shared pride couldn't help but creep onto her face.

And just like that, the Cranes slotted themselves smoothly into the very front of Richard's tour group.

The group continued down the row of display cases.

When they reached a row of chest-high painted pottery jars, Mr. Crane perked up again.

He leaned close to the glass, squinting as he studied them for a long moment.

"These jars here," he said, stroking his short beard.

"They look exactly like what you'd use for pickling goods or storing spices.

I run a grocery myself. Tea, sugar, spices—stocking them up and shipping them out. I know a storage jar when I see one."

"They're for holding people," Richard replied.

Mr. Crane froze. "Holding... people?"

"A person's internal organs."

Mrs. Crane gasped and quickly reached down to cover her daughter's ears.

Her son, however, got a glint in his eye and eagerly leaned in closer.

"The people of the Black Soil River Basin had their own beliefs..." Richard explained.

"When someone died, their body had to be preserved perfectly so that their soul could recognize it when it eventually returned.

But to keep a body from rotting for thousands of years, they first had to remove all the parts that spoiled easily."

"The liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines were carefully extracted, soaked in preservatives, and sealed inside these four jars.

And if you look at the lids..."

He pointed to the top of the four clay jars inside the display case.

"One has a human head, one a baboon's, one a jackal's, and the last, a falcon's.

Four guardian gods. Each god watched over a single organ, and they have been watching them for thousands of years."

The boy's eyes went wide. "Then... what about the heart?"

"The heart stayed inside the body," Richard explained.

"The people of the Black Soil River Basin considered the heart to be the most important part of a person.

To them, the brain was utterly useless. The moment someone died, it was scraped out through the nostrils and thrown away.

But the heart had to be kept to be weighed."

"Weighed?" Now Mr. Crane was truly hooked.

"When someone crossed over to the other side..."

Richard's tone slowed, and the surrounding noise of the hall seemed to fade away beneath the weight of his words.

"They had to pass a final test. The jackal-headed god would place the dead person's heart on one side of a scale.

On the other side, he placed a single feather—the feather from the head of the Goddess of Truth."

"Meanwhile, Thoth, the ibis-headed god, stood by with a pen to record the tally."

He gestured toward the raised platform at the back of the hall.

"That is the very god you saw atop the scepter earlier. A person's merits and sins were recorded by Him, stroke by stroke."

"If the heart was lighter than the feather—clean and unburdened by sin—the dead were allowed to pass on into the afterlife.

But if the heart was heavier than the feather, weighed down by a lifetime of sins...

Beneath the scales sat a monster, half-crocodile and half-lion. It would open its massive jaws and swallow the heart whole."

"And after it swallowed it?" the boy asked, holding his breath.

"Once swallowed..." Richard looked down at him. "That person could never come back. They were wiped from existence, completely and utterly dead."

A hush fell over the circle of onlookers.

Even Mr. Crane's chronically busy mouth hung slightly open.

After a long moment, he let out a heavy breath and turned a stern face toward his son.

"Did you hear that, Sidney?

You have to live an honest life!

If your heart ends up too heavy to pass that scale in the future, we'll see what you do then!"

"What about your heart, Dad?" Sidney rolled his eyes. "Last week you snuck into Mom's stash and drank more than half a bottle of her sherry..."

"Ahem!" Mr. Crane broke into a sudden fit of coughing.

Mrs. Crane let out an "oh?" and snapped her head toward him.

Desperate to change the subject, Mr. Crane forced an apologetic smile at Richard.

"Young man, your wealth of knowledge is... simply incredible."

But the commotion coming from Richard's group was simply too large to ignore.

One wave of astonished gasps after another began drawing in visitors from all across the main hall.

By the time Richard saw the Cranes off, a massive, densely packed crowd had gathered around him.

More people meant a wider variety of questions.

The guests were bursting with questions about everything they had just seen in the other halls.

Having caught a young gentleman who was not only willing to explain things but actually made them fascinating, they began pouring their questions out all at once.

"Sir, what about those red clay pots with the little figures painted on them in the next room? What were those used for?"

The question came from a bespectacled young clerk.

He was talking about the row of ancient urns in the Greek Hall.

"Those were used by the ancient Greeks for drinking."

Richard answered without missing a beat.

"Their people were incredibly particular about their banquets.

A few friends would gather around, drinking water-thinned wine while debating philosophy and chatting about the world... They called these gatherings a symposium."

"And what about the Persia room?" another guest chimed in.

"Those winged figures carved into the stone walls—what gods are those?"

"The Persians practiced fire worship."

The crowd didn't know it, but Richard had actually seen a Fire Worship Temple Pillar with his own eyes.

"The Persians believed the world was ruled by a radiant God of Goodness, who held dominion over order and truth.

But there was also a dark God of Evil, who ruled over lies and chaos.

These two gods battled one another for an eternity."

"Fire was the shadow the God of Goodness cast upon the mortal world."

"That is why every Persian temple housed a sacred flame that was never allowed to go out.

The priests would guard it for hundreds, even thousands of years... If that fire ever died, it heralded a great cataclysm."

"Those winged figures on the walls are symbols of the God of Goodness.

And the priests who guarded the sacred flames were called 'magi' in the Persian tongue."

He offered the guest a smile and threw in a bit of trivia tangentially related to the mystical world.

"The word 'magic'—the magic and tricks you hear about today—actually comes from the word 'magi.'

Back when the Greeks first encountered these Persian priests guarding their sacred flames and chanting their hymns, they thought it was some incredible miracle. So, they took the priests' title and turned it into the word for magic."

A low murmur of awe washed through the crowd.

The questions kept coming one after another, and Richard fielded every single one of them flawlessly.

The Aegean, Persia, the Mediterranean coast, the Spice Islands...

"If you truly wish to examine the artifacts in these halls closely, you could easily spend the entire day wandering through them."

First a single pair of hands began to clap, and within moments, the entire crowd erupted into a round of applause.

At some point, a figure had appeared beneath the archway connecting the main hall and the Greek Hall.

Montagu.

The blond young man stood in the shadows of the archway with his arms crossed. He had been listening in for quite some time.

A crowd had initially formed around him on his side as well.

His explanations had been excellent. He recited dates, origins, and historical allusions with flawless accuracy.

That innate, effortless composure of his had easily captivated the well-to-do guests.

Yet somehow, the crowd in the main hall had only grown.

Even his own audience had slowly trickled away, drifting toward this side.

And so, Montagu had wandered over.

At first, he assumed Richard was just good at telling stories and buttering up the crowd.

That kind of storytelling was a cheap trick, entirely unsuited for true academic halls.

But the more he listened, the heavier his expression became.

The funerary rites of the Black Soil River, the Greek symposiums and their painted urns, the fire worship of Persia, the serpent gods of the Spice Islands, the evil eye of the Mediterranean... Topic after topic flowed from him without a single stumble.

Montagu's brow remained tightly furrowed.

That kind of obscure information was scattered across dozens, maybe hundreds of different books.

Even he had only scratched the surface of it all.

But the way Richard spoke, it clearly wasn't something he had simply memorized by rote.

The applause gradually died down, and the visitors dispersed in twos and threes to wander the various halls.

Richard turned around, meeting Montagu's gaze right beneath the archway.

The two exchanged a look.

Montagu stepped out of the shadows and walked up to Richard.

"Williams."

"Montagu."

The blond young man studied him for a moment before speaking.

"At the Classical Society's tea party, I told you we would speak again during the seminar."

"Mm."

"I originally assumed that your talent lay entirely in your silver tongue.

Eloquence, quick wits... I admit I couldn't beat you there."

"But just now..." He threw a glance at the exhibition halls over his shoulder.

"The Black Soil River, Greece, Persia, the Spice Islands... There doesn't seem to be a single thing you don't know."

Montagu looked at the boy standing before him, his usual composure cracking to reveal undisguised astonishment for the very first time.

"Where on earth did you learn all of this?"

Richard smiled.

"I've read a lot," he answered lightly. "So I remember it."

Montagu stared at him for a long moment, but didn't push any further.

"...There are only two days left of this seminar." Montagu withdrew his gaze and gave him a nod.

"Once the museum closes, I'll see you down in the Storeroom."

He turned around and walked back to his own section of the exhibition hall.

Richard stood in the center of the main hall, watching the blond boy's back disappear into the crowd.

At some point, the great clock in the hall struck noon.

Outside, the massive line of people was still being let in, section by section.

A second wave of visitors flooded inside.