Chapter 53: One Short

Richard turned off the faucet and dried his hands on a towel.

He sat down in his chair and sank all his attention into the Panel.

[Available Points: 2.22]

This was the largest sum he had managed to save up so far.

He first tried pushing a point into [Learning].

A gray prompt popped up on the Panel, formatted exactly like the one he had seen when trying to add a second point to [Breathing]:

"This item is already activated. To advance further, the following must be met:

"Lv.2 progress bar at 100%; Available Points: 1; Personally decipher a doubly-overwritten encrypted text."

A smaller line of text was attached below:

"Preview of unlockable effect—Learning: Erudition:

"Every tome that passes before your eyes shall leave its mark upon the brain. Retrieving them is like turning the pages of a book, and the rate of forgetting approaches zero."

Richard stared at that line of text for a long time.

Erudition.

If Lv.1 and Lv.2 brought learning acceleration—like upgrading from dial-up to broadband and then to fiber-optic—then Erudition was equivalent to installing a library inside his brain.

Every tome that passes before your eyes shall leave its mark upon the brain.

Retrieving them is like turning the pages of a book, and the rate of forgetting approaches zero.

This meant that every book he flipped through, every page, every line of cipher would be permanently stored deep in his consciousness, ready to be retrieved at any moment.

For someone walking the Scholar path, the value of this trait was almost limitless.

Deciphering an encrypted text required maintaining four simultaneous streams of information in his head: the original text, the cipher table, the etymological network, and the contextual environment.

Right now, he relied on his [Learning] buff and the aid of pen and paper, but pen and paper had a bottleneck.

A desk was only so big, and there was only so much blank paper.

If his brain itself became an instantly searchable archive, his deciphering efficiency would skyrocket exponentially.

For someone wanting to appraise supernatural items, the value of this trait was even more limitless.

A photographic memory meant that the inscriptions, seal structures, and corruption characteristics of every supernatural item he examined would be permanently stored in his mind.

After handling a hundred supernatural items, his head would hold complete dossiers on all one hundred of them;

After handling a thousand, he would be a living database of supernatural items.

At that point, with a single glance, inscription styles, era characteristics, seal types, corruption depth... all this information would automatically jump out from his memory bank and line up, waiting for his judgment.

Such a dimensional advantage would be a cheat-level asset in any market.

But one of the advancement conditions stumped him:

"Personally decipher a doubly-overwritten encrypted text."

Doubly-overwritten... he searched his mind for the term.

He had already flipped through all twenty-six books on the third-floor bookshelves at Greenwood.

Most of their encryption methods were single-layer substitutions, acrostics, or skipping-number footnotes.

A double-overwrite was completely different. He had seen a similar concept on the forums.

Some scribes in medieval monasteries would scrape off the original text on a piece of parchment and write new content over the very same sheet.

But the scraping could never be perfectly clean; the original ink would linger deep in the fibers.

Later scholars could use special light sources to make the covered original text resurface.

This kind of overwritten parchment was called a palimpsest, the Latin term being palimpsestus.

In a mystical context, a "double-overwrite" was probably something similar, but the level of encryption was a step higher.

It wouldn't just be a physical overwrite, but might also involve information superposition on the ether level.

Two layers of text would coexist on the same medium, interfering with and obscuring each other. Using conventional deciphering methods would only reveal the surface layer.

To peel back and extract the underlying original text, one would simultaneously need linguistic ability and precise manipulation of ether.

Richard tucked this clue away and re-examined the advancement conditions on the Panel.

The progress from Lv.1 to Lv.2 could naturally max out through experience points; the Panel would automatically complete the upgrade without consuming points.

But going from Lv.2 to Lv.3, advancement required spending additional points. This was a watershed.

And this was only Lv.3.

If the Panel's design followed a symmetry, there would be a qualitative change every few specific levels.

The further he went, the more likely a single advancement would require more than one point.

This wasn't even counting the unactivated [Spirit] category. His point deficit was still huge.

Richard reined in his thoughts, no longer dwelling on things too far in the future.

Since the [Learning] skill also required meeting certain conditions, he prepared to stick to his original plan and activate [eating] and [sleep].

The experience growth efficiency for [walking] was rather low in his daily life. Even if he activated it, he wouldn't reap much immediate benefit in the short term.

Eating addressed nutrient intake efficiency, and sleep addressed physical recovery efficiency; both could form a synergistic loop with the Breathing skill.

When paired with Breathing's foundational optimization, running all three "Body" skills simultaneously would improve his constitution at a visible rate.

Moreover, the unlock condition for the [Spirit] category was: "When the four Body skills are activated, this door shall open."

Now that Breathing was already upgraded, adding eating and sleep meant he was only missing walking to unlock "Spirit".

Once he saved up another point next time, he would fill in walking and unlock "Spirit" in one fell swoop.

Richard made his decision.

He focused his consciousness on [eating] and gave it a gentle push.

"Confirm?"

After pressing it, the gray faded away.

[Eating Lv.1] Progress: 0%

He rubbed his stomach. Aside from his digestive tract feeling a bit smoother, there were no obvious physical sensations for now.

Improvements to his digestive system wouldn't yield instant results; he would have to wait until after a meal to verify them.

Next was [sleep]. He locked his consciousness onto it and pushed.

"Confirm?"

The gray faded away.

[Sleeping Lv.1] Progress: 0%

The changes from this skill were much quieter than eating—so quiet that he initially thought nothing had happened.

But about half a minute later, he noticed his eyelids drooping, giving him the feeling that he could fall asleep anywhere, at any time.

He shook his head and forced the drowsiness back down. Now was not the time to sleep.

[Available Points: 0.22]

Three of the four "Body" skills were now activated, missing only walking.

Once the prize money from the Cicero Cup was in hand, he would head to Old Man Clement's place and buy the Sphinx Oil Lamp.

If he figured out a way to break the seal, the total amount of ether left in the oil lamp should be enough to save up one more point.

Then he would activate walking, and "Spirit" could finally be opened.

No rush. One step at a time.

He got off the bed, walked over to the washbasin, and splashed his face with cold water.

The person in the mirror had a much better complexion than over a month ago.

Although his cheekbones still jutted out a bit, the sickly pallor had completely faded from his face, and the dark circles under his eyes had lightened.

[Breathing] + [eating] + [sleep]. He was rather looking forward to seeing the results of running all three simultaneously.

Over the next few days, Richard dedicated all his time to preparing for the Cicero Cup.

The guest room arranged for him at the Ashford Residence had a large desk with excellent lighting, making it far more comfortable than the narrow table in his Briston bedroom.

His daily schedule was very regular.

After waking up in the morning, he ate breakfast—a proper meal prepared by the Ashford House kitchen: fried eggs, bacon, toast, butter, jam, and milk, with plenty of everything to go around.