Chapter 264: Greatly Lacking in Virtue

Richard guided the leaking ether along the way, quietly absorbing it.

[Available Points: 0.73... 0.81... 0.94...]

It wasn't fast, but the increase was extremely steady.

He didn't dare siphon off too much.

There were other eyes watching in the Storeroom besides that ball of smoke.

Curator Wetherby was a Scholar approaching Major Adept, and Pritchard was a Minor Adept of the Secret path.

If too much ether was drained and the seal weakened, they would notice immediately.

He only wanted to skim the ether "slick" stirred up by that ball of smoke—the excess that would have uselessly seeped away.

By skimming just this layer, no one could pin the loss on him.

Richard's Inspiration moved along the current toward the next display case.

It was a row of Canopic Jars.

A set of four, their lids shaped like the heads of a human, a baboon, a jackal, and a hawk.

He had explained these four jars to the Crane family during the day, telling them how they sealed the internal organs of the dead.

Standing before the genuine artifacts now, he could feel that what was preserved inside these jars was far more than just the organs of the ancient dead.

The ether preserved over a vast span of time, along with layers of faith in those guardian deities, had been sealed into the clay.

[Available Points]: 0.94... 1.26... 1.54.

The increase was much sharper than from the mask just now.

That ball of smoke pulsed again.

With this pulse, the supernatural items throughout the entire Storeroom leaked even more fiercely.

Richard could feel the stirred-up ether all around him surging outward in waves.

His ether current wandered through the Storeroom, skimming past one display case after another.

Green-glazed figurines, inscribed stone steles, Painted Wooden Coffins... from every piece, he ruthlessly extracted the agitated ether.

Since it would just dissipate uselessly into the air, he might as well benefit from it.

[Available Points]: 1.54... 2.31... 2.78.

This was a massive harvest.

As the numbers climbed, Richard kept his attention on another matter.

[Perception] Lv.2, Progress 97%.

The overwhelmingly thick ether field down here, combined with the frenzies occasionally whipped up by the smoke's pulses, was violently driving his [Perception] forward.

97%... 98%... 99%.

As Richard continuously absorbed points, Curator Wetherby turned to face the sealing array.

"Take your positions. We are about to begin."

The old man stroked his beard.

"Tonight, I am using this item to teach you a lesson.

A lesson that cannot be found or clearly explained in books."

He jutted his chin toward the ball of smoke.

"It cannot move right now. Before the seal is formally triggered, it is just a peeled specimen pinned to a chopping block.

You can observe it, read it, and take it apart over and over as you please. It does not even have the strength to groan."

Pritchard stood on the other side of the sealing array, his fingertips resting lightly above a silver thread. Hearing this, he added, "Provided no one touches its innermost layer."

"Before we start," Wetherby said, taking a couple of steps with his hands behind his back, "let me ask you a question."

"Where did this mass come from?"

No one answered.

These were exactly the kind of questions the seminar's associate professors loved to ask, and they were always the hardest to answer.

Wetherby did not wait for a reply, continuing on his own.

"It came from the Black Soil River."

"To be precise, it is a sliver forcefully torn from a Virtuoso over at the Black Soil River."

The moment the word "Virtuoso" left his lips, the Storeroom grew so quiet one could hear the low thrumming of the silver threads.

"I imagine you are all harboring some doubts," Wetherby said unhurriedly.

"Why would a Black Soil River Virtuoso abandon his homeland, cross half the sea, and come to the Imperial Capital? What was he after?

And how did he end up with a piece of himself torn off and pinned inside this sealing array?"

He extended a withered finger and traced a circle toward the rows of glass display cases lining the walls of the Storeroom.

"He was after exactly these."

"The gilded masks, the green-glazed figurines, the stone steles carved with birds and beasts, and that Sacred Ibis Scepter... they were all unearthed from the temples and tombs of his homeland."

Wade Bourne blurted out from the crowd, "Then... if a Virtuoso is so powerful, why were their things taken away by the Empire?"

This question hit the nail on the head, and the seminar students all pricked up their ears.

Wetherby chuckled, his white beard trembling.

"The ones calling the shots over at the Black Soil River haven't been locals for a long time."

It was impossible to tell if the old man's tone was mocking or something else entirely.

"Decades ago, the Empire's ironclads sailed into their estuary.

In name, the region still flies the banner of the old Sultan; in reality, our Empire is the one 'watching over' things for them."

"We built canals, laid railways, and also... dug up their ancestral tombs for them, one by one.

The people from the Antiquities Clearance Office fly the banner of scholarship, but they are effectively movers... Anything valuable, anything with stabilizing power, is sealed, archived, boxed up, and shipped across the sea to the Imperial Capital."

"Have you all seen the new obelisk erected on the riverbank of the Imperial Capital two years ago?"

Several students nodded.

It was a landmark in the Imperial Capital; quite a few young people had taken photos beneath it.

"That was dismantled whole from the entrance of a temple in the Black Soil River Basin and transported here laid flat across a ship."

Wetherby shook his head. "It never fell to the wind for thousands of years, but it fell to our winches."

He added another sentence:

"In earlier years, the pharmacies in the Empire even sold a prescription called 'mummy powder.' They claimed it used the ground-up remains of millennia-old dried corpses as medicine, guaranteeing a cure for all illnesses.

Whose tea bowls those mummies ultimately ended up in, no one can say for sure."

In the Storeroom, some students felt their stomachs churn.

Wetherby returned to the main topic.

"As soon as that Virtuoso crossed the sea and arrived, there were already two local seniors waiting for him."

"He had lost his home-field advantage and was barging into someone else's territory alone.

Those two set a bait, lured him out from an unreachable depth, and pincered him from the left and right."

Wetherby swept his gaze across the circle of students.

"Remember this: tonight's lesson was fought for by those two seniors, and it is something the academy is willing to bring out for you to see. Weigh its value for yourselves."

Inside the Storeroom, all twenty seminar students fell silent.

Standing beneath a stone pillar, Richard felt a twinge of unease.

Digging up all of their burial goods and shipping them home; the Virtuoso risking his life to cross the sea and snatch them back, only to be pincered to death by two local Virtuosos guarding the door.

Digging up people's ancestral tombs, guarding one's own national borders, and then beating a man to a pulp just because he wanted to take back what was his...

Although Richard himself was just a small fry, he actually felt a bit of sympathy for that Virtuoso from the Black Soil River.

"Alright, enough idle chatter." Wetherby clapped his hands, pulling the lesson back on track.

"Since it comes from the Black Soil River, the 'grammar' surrounding it is naturally the grammar of the Black Soil River."

This sentence was the core theme of tonight's lesson.

"Do you understand?"

"Understood," the twenty voices replied in an uneven chorus.

"Then let's divide the labor." Wetherby clasped his hands behind his back and began assigning tasks.

"Those excelling in the subject of inscriptions, step forward."

With a rustle, five or six students stepped out.

Montagu was among them, and next to him stood a tall, skinny fellow wearing round glasses with his cuffs buttoned immaculately.

That was Fischer, the most meticulous student in the seminar class when it came to dating rubbings.

"A temporary shell was pressed onto its exterior," Wetherby said.

"You lot will peel this shell off for me. Trace it out clearly, stroke by stroke."

"Those excelling in history and folklore, step forward."

Another group stepped out.

Edith, hugging the book she never parted with, also shuffled to the front.

Richard followed suit, mixing in with this group.

Wade Bourne hesitated for a moment before squeezing in as well... His history grades were terrible, but this group was large, making it the perfect place to fish in troubled waters.

"Your group will read its origins for me."

Once the assignments were handed out, Wetherby began to direct them.

"Begin. Peel the shell first."

Montagu stepped forward, stopping an arm's length away from the ball of smoke.

He took a charcoal pencil and rubbing paper from Fischer, spread them out on a temporarily erected low table, and focused his mind before setting pen to paper.

"It's a technique from the Web Weaving Tradition," he said, his voice slow but extremely steady.

"The coiling strokes interlock loop by loop. Whoever suppressed it wanted to lock its 'form' dead."

His pencil flew across the page, tracing out the coiled sealing shell onto the rubbing paper stroke by stroke.

Watching from the side, Richard nodded.

Montagu's hand was truly steady.

With over ten years of foundational training under his belt, his reading of this most regular, most convoluted layer of the shell was flawless.

Fischer leaned in close, his eyes wide behind his round glasses, and suddenly reached out to stop him.

"Wait... Montagu, you drew the third knot half a stroke too early."

Montagu's pencil paused.

"Where this knot closes, there's a hook drawing backward," Fischer pointed at the rubbing paper.

"Off by this half-stroke, and the historical dating could be thrown off by two hundred years."

Montagu stayed quiet for a moment before correcting that half-stroke.

"...I was too hasty." He admitted his mistake, a rare occurrence.

Wetherby smiled.

"This boy Fischer is truly meticulous," the old man said, stroking his beard.

"But this line of work requires someone meticulous like him.

Being off by half a stroke is just a joke on any normal day, but behind the veil, half a stroke is fatal."

"The outer shell is mostly read." Wetherby nodded. "Catherine, you give it a try too."

The red-haired girl stepped forward.

She didn't look at the smoke's "form." Instead, she probed her Inspiration toward the "severed edge" that Montagu hadn't dared to touch.

Her brow instantly furrowed.

"This severed edge... it was torn viciously. When it was ripped off, it lost more than half of itself."

She continued her report: "What remains of it now is the shallowest segment of that thing's 'nature'."

"What nature?" Wetherby pressed.

"Replacement," Catherine spat out a single word.

"What its main body did its entire life was take on the appearances of others and replace them.

This severed shadow carries that addiction to 'replacement'."

"How heavy is its addiction?"

Catherine's Inspiration probed a fraction deeper along the severed edge.

It was a hunger akin to looking in a mirror—the desire to swallow the person standing opposite and become them.

"It's hungry," Catherine said. "But it is weak right now."

"When it strikes, it won't force its way in.

It will wait. It will wait to see whose shadow is closest to it, whose shadow is the most 'unstable,' and then it will slip inside along that path without making a sound."

In the Storeroom, several seminar students instinctively glanced down at their feet.

"What are you looking at your feet for?" Wetherby was amused.

"Replacement..." He turned toward the history and folklore group.

Wetherby then shifted his gaze to Edith in the corner.

"Edith, you trace the roots of its innermost layer."

Edith crouched before the array.

She made herself as small as possible, just like when she explained things to the children during the day, and sent her Inspiration into the deepest part of the smoke.

"It utilizes elements of the funerary traditions from the Black Soil River Basin."

Edith reported, her voice slow and thin, but growing smoother as she read on. "It's related to... to the 'shadow'."

"Which one specifically?" Wetherby asked.

"They believe a person possesses several layers of souls."

Edith's fingertips traced across the pages of her book. "Ka, ba, akh... and shuyet."

Shuyet, Richard silently repeated in his mind.

The shadow, an independent layer of the soul.

After death, the shadow continued to exist in the Underworld, acting as a vessel for the deceased to move within the realm of the dead.

The ability he had obtained after reaching Signature was precisely the ferrying of shadows.

"It cannot solidify into a fixed form on the material plane."

Edith continued her analysis:

"Because it was never a 'thing' to begin with. It is a 'shadow'."

"It was originally walking in place of that Virtuoso."

As she spoke, a trace of fear crept into her voice.

"Later, it was torn away. Separated from its main body, it still remembers the work it is supposed to do..."

"So when it sees a sufficiently unstable shadow, it wants to burrow into it."

The Storeroom fell silent for a moment.

Wetherby stroked his white beard, saying nothing.

Richard's mind spun with countless thoughts.

The torn shadow possessed a certain degree of consciousness. Relying on the embers of that Virtuoso's arcane power, it was moving on its own according to its nature.

And that Virtuoso's nature was... replacement.

Several things flashed rapidly through Richard's mind.

Everyone took their turn, each receiving a few pointers from Wetherby.

The shell had been stripped clean, its nature fully grasped, and its origins traced back to the roots.

Wetherby smoothed out the stacks of rubbing paper on the low table and pressed his left hand upon them.

"You all read well." He swept his gaze over the circle of students.

"For tonight's lesson, I'll record a merit for each of you."

"I will handle the final layer myself."

"The people of the Black Soil River view a 'name' as more important than life itself."

Wetherby spoke slowly, both wrapping up the lesson and bracing himself.

"They believe that knowing something's true name is akin to grasping its lifeblood."

"There is an old tale." He stroked his beard.

"The Mother Goddess Isis wished to seize the authority of the Sun God Ra, so she created a venomous snake to bite him.

Ra was in excruciating pain, half-dead from the agony. Isis approached him and said she could cure his poison, but he had to tell her his true name."

"Ra stalled for as long as he could, but ultimately unable to endure it, he surrendered the true name that had been hidden in his heart and never spoken."

"From that moment on, even the Sun God fell into her clutches."

Wetherby raised his right hand, his left pressing firmly on the rubbings.

"Tonight, I am going to read its name."

In the Storeroom, everyone's eyes fell upon the white-bearded old man.

Richard watched Wetherby, seeing the ether on his body gather toward his palm, wisp by wisp.

"Richard." Wetherby didn't turn his head, yet his voice drifted toward Richard.

"Watch closely, and learn."

Curator Wetherby raised his right hand, his left pressing on the rubbings.

He took a deep breath, staking his entire reserve of ether on this single reading tonight.

What he chanted was a language from the Black Soil River Basin, ancient beyond measure.

"Iw-i rekh ren-ek."

(I know your name.)

The moment those words left his lips, the ether field in the entire Storeroom suddenly sank.

The ball of smoke in the center of the sealing array pulsed violently.

Nine silver threads lit up simultaneously. Pritchard let out a muffled groan, the ether he was channeling through his fingertips abruptly increasing by a third.

"It knows someone is trying to read its name."

Pritchard said in a deep voice, sweat beading on his forehead. "Curator, hurry."

Wetherby did not reply.

He pressed his entire mind onto that layer containing the traces of the true name.

The ancient prayers of the Black Soil River spilled from his mouth, line after line.

The deeper he read, the fiercer its reaction became.

The ball of smoke began to borrow strength.

In Richard's Perception, the entire Storeroom came alive.

Inside the rows of glass display cases on both sides of the Storeroom, the gilded painted masks turned, facing the direction of the sealing array.

The green-glazed figurines, originally standing straight, now tilted their heads toward the center.

Beneath the half-open lids of the Painted Wooden Coffins, something was moving within the pitch-black cavities.

Deepest inside, the four Canopic Jars began to hum.

"The veil... it's reversing!" Pritchard yelled sharply.

Before his voice faded, a layer of color was drained from the entire Storeroom.

The stone walls, the pillars, the glass cases, and the physical outlines of everyone present all faded like an over-washed old photograph.

Richard looked up.

The vaulted ceiling of the room was gone.

Above their heads was an inverted, endless expanse of black water.

Reflected in the black water was a grand hall.

The judgment hall of the Underworld.

Richard had lectured the guests about this during the day.

The jackal-headed god placed the heart of the deceased on one side of a scale; on the other side rested a feather from the head of the Goddess of Truth; and the ibis-headed god Thoth stood nearby, holding a pen to record the tally.

If the heart was lighter than the feather, they passed into the afterlife. If the heart was heavier... crouching beneath the scale was a monster, half-crocodile and half-lion, its massive jaws wide open.

Drawing on the Storeroom full of supernatural items steeped in thousands of years of faith, the smoke had dragged the entire room into becoming the judgment hall of the Underworld.

Perhaps it was because of being read all night, annoyed by the more than twenty strands of Inspiration probing it.

It intended to enact its arcane mystery in this very hall.

"It's acting up!" The needle on Holloway's Copper Compass began spinning like crazy.

"Everyone, pull back your Inspiration!"

They were half a step too late.

Two spectral lights ignited within the empty eye sockets of a sphinx that was missing half its face.

A deep, hollow whimper echoed from the empty pipe inside its throat.

That whimper was a command, rippling through the room by means of the statue.

The humming of the Sacred Ibis Scepter on the high platform abruptly exploded into a roar.

The lids of the four earthen jars containing the internal organs popped open with a simultaneous crack, leaving a gap.

The things that had been soaking at the bottom of the jars for thousands of years all surged out.

But the deadliest thing of all was the ring of mirror-like glass display cases.

The students' reflections stood up in unison.

They peeled themselves away from the glass they were supposed to be clinging to, dropping to the floor and forming human silhouettes.

Every reflection wore the face of its original owner.

But on each of those faces, only the hollow expression of the dead flowed.

"That is my place..." a reflection spoke.

"Give it back... I am the real Wade Bourne..."

The reflection walked toward the real Wade Bourne, step by step.

Bourne slumped to the floor, his face drained of all color, stammering "I-I-I," unable to form a complete sentence.

Utter chaos erupted in the room.

Forced back by their own standing reflections, the students scrambled in a panic.

Some tried to shove them, but couldn't move them. Some shouted, but their words were thrown back by the reflections verbatim.

That fragment was going to "read" the entire room—along with the people reading it—right back, replacing them all.

The guard Hunter had long since thrown off the oiled cloth wrapping his sharp blade.

He slashed his sword at the reflection closest to him.

Where the blade passed, the reflection melted into a puddle of black water.

But as the black water hit the floor, it instantly stood back up from a nearby pane of glass.

"They can't be killed!" the Hunter roared in a muffled voice, swinging again. "These things can't be killed!"

The Secret practitioner used the still-operating sealing array to desperately lock the ball of smoke in place.

But the power it had scattered, channeled through the room full of genuine artifacts, simply couldn't be pinned down.

"Everyone, quiet down!"

Curator Wetherby let out a sharp shout, his white beard fluttering without any wind.

An invisible weight pressed down out of thin air onto the hall, forcing the standing reflections to slow their movements.

"It cannot be killed, and it cannot be held down." Curator Wetherby stood by the central stone platform.

Beneath his white beard, his voice was incredibly steady. "This thing can only be dealt with by reading it to the very end."

"Everyone, listen to me."

The old man's strand of Inspiration swept across the room, and the silver sealing threads lit up in unison.

The silver light receded, transforming into an endless expanse of yellow sand.

The vaulted ceiling remained vanished, replaced by the low-hanging, star-studded night sky of the Black Soil River Basin.

The stone platform beneath their feet turned into a set of scales.

The awakened artifacts all became props within this scene.

The sphinx crouched upon a sand dune, guarding the gates of a distant temple.

The Sacred Ibis Scepter stood beside the scales, the ibis on its head transforming into a bird-headed god holding a Reed Pen and a Writing Slate.

It was Thoth.

The four earthen jars stood at the four corners of the scales. Four guardian gods, each watching over a single jar.

And that torn sliver of a fragment was fished out by Curator Wetherby and placed on one side of the scale.