Chapter 443: [Perception Lv.5]

A new face sat behind the training room's office window.

The old clerk had been pulled away to help at the Quartermaster Department, replaced by a veteran with a bad leg.

"Room 3, two hours." The man drew a line on the wall's duty roster.

"Gas is rationed by the hour this month. Lights only go halfway."

"Half is enough."

Richard did not argue. He took the tag and headed underground.

He navigated the familiar path to Room 3 at the very end of the hall.

Once he bolted the iron door from the inside, the wall inscriptions swallowed what little foot traffic remained in the corridor.

He turned the light to its lowest setting and sat in the center of the room.

The interface glowed.

[Perception Lv.4, Progress 100%.]

[Available Points: 3.17.]

As for the unlock condition, he had already evaded a Virtuoso's prying eyes.

It was a pity the system offered no bonus rewards for exceeding requirements. Richard felt a twinge of regret.

[Perception - Reflection: When stationary, the user becomes harder to counter-probe, and incoming probes can be reflected unchanged.]

A Hunter was a blade, a Secret practitioner a net, and a Scholar a lamp behind the veil.

The answer to how a lamp-bearer survived out there lay in today's upgrade.

He invested two points.

[Perception Lv.4 → Lv.5.]

[Available Points: 1.17.]

No sudden surge of power rushed through him—only a shift in direction.

Silent Observation acted like a one-way mirror. People outside could not see in, but he could still look out.

Now, the back of this glass was coated with mercury.

Richard sat motionless, summoning his shadow up from behind the veil.

"Probe me."

He passed the thought over. The mass of black hesitated, unsure of what to do.

Not until he equipped the shadow with Sentinel did its perception, condensed into a single line, reach out and point straight at his chest.

The moment the line touched him, it snapped back.

The shadow's silhouette instantly froze, reeling backward.

Through the wisp of spirit embedded in its body, Richard could feel that the probe had read a complete blank.

Pure, clean ether background noise, indistinguishable from an empty room.

Richard frowned.

This was the default value provided by the advanced trait: a blank reflection.

That was precisely the problem.

If a room's windows were all pasted over with black paper, passersby would not think the room was empty; they would assume something was going on inside.

A living person standing here registering as a complete blank to a probe—that was more dangerous than actually reading something.

He studied the description again: reflected unchanged.

Unchanged from what original state?

The pool of water was his. Whatever reflected on its surface should be his to decide.

Richard closed his eyes, pushed his Mirror breathing method down to its most stable line, and began to write on the water's surface.

He was writing a dossier.

Almost eighteen years old, a Practitioner who had attained Signature a year ago.

His ether circuit was passed down from his family. With average aptitude, it was only enough to sustain five or six ordinary Spell Formulas.

Capable of casting Stone Armor, though not very thick, and a Moon Nail with average accuracy.

His breathing method had only just switched from the tide-changing method this year, leaving his Micro-circulation uneven.

A low-tier supernatural item hung on his chest, its ether so shallow you could see to the bottom at a glance.

Finally, he deliberately left a few rough edges:

The ether flow around his ribs caught slightly; one branch circuit suffered from a chronic lack of supply, its tips dim... If it was too clean, no one would believe it.

"Probe again."

This time, the shadow read a stranger.

A seventeen- or eighteen-year-old prep student from the Department of Classics who had only recently gained his Signature, possessed a mediocre foundation, and hadn't slept well the past two days.

The shadow circled him twice, extending and retracting its tentacles. Its core churned in confusion for a long moment before finally recognizing him as its own main body again.

Richard silently apologized to it, fished out a small scrap of material from a hidden compartment, and tossed it over.

The shadow caught it in its mouth and drifted away, throwing a glance back at him as it left.

The next thing to test was the ether layer.

What Spirit Vision could see could be faked; what Inspiration could feel could also be faked.

Only the ether layer was exceedingly difficult to forge. Anyone trying to probe him would trust it the most.

Richard took out the Rubbing Machine Clara had given him from his canvas bag.

He pulled out the roll of special grid paper and had the shadow probe him once more.

As he turned the crank, Condensate seeped along the silver wires into the back of the paper.

The first sheet was the result of his previous empty water surface.

There was nothing on the paper; it was spotlessly white.

And yet, this machine could press words out even when taking rubbings from two-thousand-year-old steles.

The second sheet was from after he had finished writing his profile. The paper produced the following rubbing:

The flow through several branch veins of the circuit caught awkwardly, with the end segment appearing dim;

A small, faintly visible cluster of marks in the corner was the low-tier supernatural item.

Richard placed the two sheets side by side under the lamp and could find no faults.

With this advanced Reflection trait, his initial thought had actually been to bounce back the prying gazes of others and make them suffer a bit.

But he quickly realized the idea was foolish, especially at a mid-to-low Rank.

Madam Marie had just said: if the other party took a look and found nothing interesting, they would just turn around and leave.

During that incident last month, the Black Earth River Master had casually illuminated him.

If he had bounced it back then, what could he have possibly bounced back?

If a Virtuoso was pricked by a Practitioner, their skin would itch a little at most.

After the itch, they would absolutely lower their head to see what had pricked them.

If it were a mosquito or a flea, they would casually squash it.

Before calling it a day, Richard considered that this forged dossier would have to grow alongside him.

Otherwise, if three years passed and observers found that he had not changed at all, it would be even more suspicious than reading a blank.

He added a line in the corner of the paper: Update once a quarter.

He laughed at himself after writing it.

Forging a dossier, and he still had to regularly go back and add page numbers.

Leaving the training room, Richard slung his canvas bag over his shoulder and headed up. At the landing, he nearly collided with Montagu coming down.

"Williams." The blond young man raised the roll of lecture notes in his hand.

He did not rudely scan Richard; he merely sensed that the other's ether fluctuations had changed again.

"...Has your Mirror breathing method improved again?"

"Just a little bit." Richard wasn't lying.

"It hasn't been that long." Montagu stared at him for a couple of seconds.

But Montagu was not one to pry; it was unbecoming.

The blond young man tucked the lecture notes under his arm and leaned against the handrail.

"Just as well. There's something I want to tell you."

"What is it?"

"About Phillips."

"Oh?" Richard raised an eyebrow.

"My uncle in the Department of Internal Affairs came over for dinner a couple of days ago.

He said that although the Chief Inspector position was filled by someone else, Phillips's eldest brother was also promoted a rank. He took over a portion of his father's work and is so busy every day his feet barely touch the ground."

"Phillips now spends three afternoons a week in his eldest brother's office."

Montagu smiled.

"He learns quickly. I heard he does the archiving even better than the other clerks now."

Richard didn't reply.

"There's one more thing, though I'm not too sure about it," Montagu said.

"Someone from the Royal Academy saw him on a theater poster, listed in the cast and crew."

"He became an actor?" Richard was genuinely surprised this time.

"I don't know." Montagu shook his head. "I don't much like going to the theater. It's just what others told me."

The stairwell fell silent.

"Williams," Montagu suddenly said.

"Yes."

"After my brother died, it took me a long time to accept it and go through the letters he'd sent back."

"But Phillips... he has the heart to go on stage this quickly."

After that, neither of them spoke again until they reached the bottom of their dormitory building.

The next evening, Richard received Phillips's reply at the mailroom.

There wasn't even an envelope, just a playbill folded in thirds and wedged into his box.

The paper was rough enough to shed flakes, its back filled with penciled writing.

The sprawling, flamboyant handwriting, however, was clearly of a piece with last year's gold-stamped invitation.

Richard held it to the light and squinted for quite a while before he could piece it together into human words.

"Don't come to my house. It's not very convenient at home right now.

Saturday at 3:00 PM, come to the Apollo Theatre at the entrance of St. Martin's Lane.

Go through the stage door and give my name; the porter knows it.

Remember to bring wine. I have glasses here."

At the very end was another line, written even more messily.

"Come see my performance while you're at it. You don't need to buy a ticket; I've arranged for you to sit in the third row.

That seat has the best line of sight. I saved it especially for you."

Saturday was a beautiful day, almost too beautiful.

As the carriage turned into St. Martin's Lane, the city's noise was instantly muffled by the enclosing walls.

The Apollo Theatre stood in the middle of the lane, its posters pasted between two pillars.

The top poster was a recruitment drive; beneath the recruitment poster was the one for today's play.

{Going Downstairs}

A one-act pantomime.

Playwright: Anonymous.

Starring: Actor F.

Seeing that letter, Richard remembered he had been preparing to adopt the pen name Mr. L.

Standing before this rough paper now, he suddenly felt that in this day and age, there were probably far more people wanting to hide behind a single letter than he had thought.

There was a line of print in the very bottom corner of the poster, the font so small he had to lean in close to see it clearly.

"This play contains no dialogue throughout; hence there is no script available for censorship review."

Richard laughed out loud.

The stage door opened into a side alley. Sitting at the entrance was an old porter missing half a thumb.

"I'm looking for Actor F."

The old man pointed inside with that half-thumb.

"Upstairs, second room on the right. He's painting his face in there. Be careful not to smudge his makeup."

Both sides of the backstage corridor were piled high with props. An unpainted wooden rocking horse leaned against the wall, a Christmas ribbon still dangling from its mouth.

The door to the second room on the right was left ajar.

Richard pushed it open a crack. The person inside was facing the mirror, smearing white paint over his face.

He recognized that face, yet didn't quite recognize it.

The eyebrows had been painted out, two lines were drawn under the eye sockets, and a stroke curved upwards at the corners of the mouth.

The entire face was bloodlessly white.

"Sit." Phillips glanced at him in the mirror, his hands never stopping.

"The play starts at five-thirty. We have forty minutes."

"I brought the wine."

"Put it there for now. I have to go on stage soon."

Richard set his cloth bag on the corner of the dressing table and leaned against the doorframe.

"Aren't you going to ask why I came looking for you out of the blue?"

"We haven't been in touch for so long. If you didn't come, that would be the strange part."

Phillips switched to a different brush.

"For all I know, if I died, you'd still pry my coffin open just to see if it was true."

Richard choked on his words at that.

"Alright." Phillips put the brush down and made a gesture to him in the mirror.

"Watch my play first. We can take our time catching up afterward."

"Why do you insist I watch it first?"

Only then did Phillips turn around.

That white-painted face stared at him, devoid of expression for a good while.

"Because I don't want to explain it myself."

The theater was quite full.

Non-commissioned officers on leave made up a fair portion of the crowd. A few still had their arms wrapped in bandages, their military caps resting on their knees.

In the front row, a few young girls huddled together peeling oranges.

One empty seat away to Richard's left sat an elderly lady.

She wore a plain black dress, a Black Jade Mourning Brooch pinned to her shoulder.

The orchestra pit held only a piano, a violin, and drums.

As the lights dimmed, Richard remembered an old tale.

Hamlet had once staged a wordless pantomime before his uncle to ask a question he couldn't voice out loud in front of the royal court.

The curtains parted. The set design was simple almost to the point of being sloppy.

A hat rested on the chair to the left, which otherwise sat empty.

Actor F walked out from the wings.

His top hat was a size too small, perched awkwardly atop his head;

His coat was two sizes too big, the cuffs drooping down past his knuckles;

He carried no walking cane, only a teapot in his hand.

The audience immediately burst into laughter.

Phillips began setting the cutlery. He set two places.

After setting them, he took two steps back to look, found them uneven, and went back to adjust them.

Adjusted them and backed away again. Still uneven.

The third time, he simply pulled a folding ruler from his pocket and leaned over the edge of the table to measure the distance between the knife and fork.

The crowd below laughed heartily at this bit: a man waiting for someone to come home for dinner, so bored out of his mind that he resorted to measuring the distance between his cutlery.

A wall clock ticked. The piano continued playing that brisk, cheerful tune. Only on the second, then the third loop did a knock sound from outside.

A telegram boy dashed onto the stage, handed over a card, saluted, and bolted off. He ran straight into the doorframe in the wings and tumbled head over heels.

The theater let out a breath of relief and laughed.

The little gentleman raised the card to his eyes.

The audience couldn't see what was written on it, but in truth, they didn't need to.

Finished reading, he folded the card in half and stuffed it into his breast pocket.

Then he walked over to the table and cleared away the set of cutlery on the left.

Cleared it completely away, even using his sleeve to smooth out the tablecloth where it had laid.

The meaning was crystal clear: that person wasn't coming back for dinner. Not today, not ever.

The elderly lady to Richard's left pressed a handkerchief tightly against her mouth.

The performance entered its second act. The wallpaper on the back wall suddenly lit up—someone was casting a light from behind the screen.

Two people walked onto the stage. Both dressed exactly the same:

The same black coats, bowler hats, and perfectly rolled umbrellas.

Similar height, similar gait.

Then, the silhouette of a "black dog" appeared on the back wall, sitting upright with its tail flush against the floor.

The "black dog" wavered on the wall, looking first at the man on the left, then at the man on the right.

It looked very slowly, so slowly that people in the audience began to cough uncomfortably.

Then the black dog got up and headed toward the right.

The man on the right followed it.

The man on the left stood in place for a moment, pulled out his Pocket Watch to check the time, and exited whistling stage left.

The entire theater fell silent.

The meaning was crystal clear: two identical men, one taken away, the other going home for dinner, with absolutely no reason separating them.

Phillips lunged forward, but he was blocked by a red velvet stanchion rope.

An usher in uniform stood there, having appeared out of nowhere. Both hands gripping the rope, his face was completely devoid of expression.

Phillips tried to duck under it, and the usher lowered the rope.

He tried to step over it, and the usher raised the rope.

He moved left, the rope moved left; he moved right, the rope moved right.

This routine played out for a full minute. The audience roared with laughter.

Richard didn't laugh.

The performance entered the third act. The set changed on stage, and the musicians played the piano to sound like the clacking of train wheels beneath a carriage.

Phillips walked up to a ticket counter and held up two fingers.

He pointed to the ground and then pointed up, gesturing back and forth twice.

The meaning was clear: he wanted a round-trip ticket.

The ticket agent shook his head and slid a single ticket out from the window.

Phillips held it up to look at it.

The stage light hit the cardboard ticket. Stamped across it were the words: ONE-WAY.