Chapter 300: The Angel of Mons

Lately, Richard had been taking every free moment to practice the Silence Spell.

He had finally passed the first hurdle.

After continuous practice, he could not only project a vacuum through the steel pipe, but also control its intensity.

Light or heavy, he could adjust it at will.

The next step was to ditch the pipe.

The pipe was a medium, a crutch for beginners.

Once proficient, he wouldn't need to draw the vacuum using the herbs inside the pipe; he would emit it directly from his own ether.

Only when the medium was removed could the spell be considered truly mastered.

Going a step further... that meant casting without a medium and from a distance, collapsing the vacuum into a single point.

Collapsed to the absolute limit, channeling ten times the force into one solitary spot.

This was "Locking."

From simple usage, to controlling the intensity, to discarding the medium, and finally to ranged Locking.

Richard's goal was to reach the level of medium-less casting before his supply of Silent Fern ran out.

As it stood, he had more than enough time.

Through the still water spread by [Silent Observation], he could acutely sense every fluctuation in his ether flow the moment he emitted the vacuum.

He could clearly see where the flow extended a fraction too far, or where it retracted a beat too late.

[Speculation Lv.2] was ticking up notch by notch.

Breaking down the structure of the three-page Locking technique, he completely understood which stroke bore the weight, which was redundant, and in which direction the vacuum in each specific area should collapse.

Combining the two made his practice much less strenuous.

However, with his heavy coursework, he could only squeeze in practice sessions in his spare time.

Speaking of which, Silence was a proper spell, meaning it could be affected by [Shadow Reversal].

The essence of Silence was emitting a vacuum outward to drain and strip away the ether surrounding a target.

Drawing outward, stripping away—if reversed... would it be pouring inward? Filling up?

Richard couldn't quite picture it yet.

He needed to reach medium-less casting before he could even talk about mastering and reversing it.

Richard pushed the thought aside.

It was a long road ahead, and he had to take things one step at a time.

After finishing his practice, he did one last set of Tide-Shifting Breathing.

Having practiced all night, his stomach was completely empty.

Richard stood up and grabbed the Royal Grand Hotel Glass Jar off his desk.

Only two pieces of Evelyn's freshly baked almond cookies remained.

He unscrewed the lid and popped them into his mouth.

Down went one piece, then the other.

As for Professor Rabbit with its little frosted wings, he simply couldn't bear to eat it.

...

Over two weeks had passed since the start of the term, yet that "crash-course" schedule had still not been finalized.

The department, however, was growing busier by the day.

This afternoon, just as the Inscriptiology class ended, Associate Professor Croft asked a few people to stay behind.

Richard, Montagu, Catherine, and Fischer.

They weren't the only ones held back from the special class.

Richard followed Croft toward the windowless classroom on the east side, and more people joined them along the way.

There were many unfamiliar faces wearing undergraduate badges on their chests;

There were also some older students in their mid-twenties, most with dark circles under their eyes, who looked like graduates.

Preparatory, undergraduate, and graduate students—quite a few people were pulled from every level.

The door clicked shut behind them.

Croft reached back and pressed the doorframe. The areas on the four walls carved with inscriptions flared briefly before dimming.

Three people were already seated at the front of the classroom.

Richard recognized the man in the middle; it was Associate Professor Greer from the School of Engineering, the one with the full beard.

During the training period, he had taught the students a class on industrial accidents.

The man on the left, mostly gray-haired and slightly hunched, was Hollis, a veteran associate professor in the Department of Classics who had taught seal science for decades.

Richard had never seen the person sitting furthest in, but the field of ether surrounding him was clearly a tier above the three associate professors.

"This is Professor Wyndham," Croft introduced briefly.

A full professor. Richard understood.

The group around the table covered every academic level, from a full professor down to preparatory students.

Croft didn't beat around the bush and began handing out the task lists.

"The higher-ups want us to compile an Emergency Field Sealing Manual."

His gaze swept over everyone in the room.

"Professor Wyndham is spearheading this manual, with Associate Professors Hollis and Greer managing their respective sections.

They have the final say on which categories of seals make it into the book and how the format will be structured."

"As for you all." Croft looked toward the students.

"The professors have been busy lately. Numerous request forms are piling up, and they still have to coordinate with the various front lines.

Deconstructing the sealing diagrams one by one, extracting the critical sections to make clean copies, verifying them, and categorizing them...

This foundational work requires manpower, which is why we've brought you in to help."

To put it bluntly, the professors sat on high, only responsible for steering the direction and giving the nod of approval.

The minute, tedious grunt work fell entirely to this room full of students.

Professor Wyndham set his notes down on the desk and spoke.

"Once this manual is compiled, the names of the primary authors will be listed at the front."

"Following academic convention, everyone who participates in the sorting and proofreading will be included in the acknowledgments at the back of the book."

There was actually an acknowledgment appendix. Richard was genuinely a little surprised; he had assumed the department would just exploit the students for free labor.

"Furthermore," Professor Wyndham added.

"Everyone allowed in this room was handpicked as a promising talent.

This experience will go on your records and serve as academic credentials in the future."

"Work hard, and don't waste this opportunity to refine your skills."

What Richard actually cared about was the work itself.

This core seal science work was not something a preparatory student would ever get to touch on a normal day.

Now, he could get hands-on experience deconstructing hundreds of seals, offering him a glimpse into the deeper layers of academia.

More crucially... to compile the manual, one had to know what seals the front lines lacked.

And to know what the front lines lacked, one had to know what was being fought over and who was dying.

These were intelligence reports an ordinary preparatory student would never get near.

Having finished his formal remarks, Professor Wyndham leaned back.

"Croft will assign the work."

For the foreseeable future, these dozen or so students spent all their post-class hours cooped up in the windowless classroom.

Everyone received a stack of complete sealing diagrams, a charcoal pencil, and a pile of blank paper.

They deconstructed the seals one by one, picked out the essential components, and discarded the rest.

Professor Wyndham showed his face the least. Most of the time, he just flipped through the finished drafts, nitpicked a few formatting issues, and left.

Associate Professors Hollis and Greer, on the other hand, stayed to supervise quite often.

The graduate students were assigned the most critical and difficult seals.

The undergraduates came next, while the preparatory students mostly received basic, high-volume batches.

But Richard deconstructed them fast.

The Academy Style used by Imperial Capital University in its early years placed the load-bearing strokes beneath virtual verbs.

Being able to recognize the Academy Style made picking out the crucial components a breeze.

With [Speculation], he could analyze the position of every single stroke within the entire seal, and deduce which strokes were bearing the weight.

When a seal was spread out, while others were still verifying it stroke by stroke, he had already extracted its skeleton.

Not only was he fast, but he also remembered them flawlessly.

[Erudition] etched every clean copy exactly as it was into his mind.

Hollis once accidentally shuffled the verified drafts and couldn't find the original diagram for a certain composite seal.

"Williams." The old man adjusted his glasses.

"That tripartite seal from the Northern Highlands from the day before yesterday—where was the original diagram placed?"

"At the very bottom of the fourth stack," Richard answered without even raising his head.

"I marked the crucial components in the top right corner. The discarded parts were the two intertwined strokes in the middle; you even mentioned to keep an eye on that closure the day before yesterday."

Hollis flipped to that exact page and remained silent for a long time.

"...Good memory."

Thus, the main grunt work of categorizing fell onto Richard's shoulders, which played exactly into his hands.

Richard intentionally took those specific sheets and approached Greer.

"Associate Professor Greer," he said, handing over the request forms.

"I couldn't find these items in the archives."

Greer took them and gave them a quick glance.

"It's perfectly normal that you couldn't find them."

He slapped the request forms down on the desk.

"You folks from the Department of Classics open your mouths and all that comes out is Celtic this, Black Soil River that—relics from hundreds or thousands of years ago.

But not a single thing on the front lines crawled out of an ancient book."

He looked Richard up and down.

"You're Isabella's nephew, and right now you're handling a large chunk of the categorization.

Since I have time today, I'll explain it to you thoroughly, otherwise you'll be completely lost holding these request forms."

From underneath a stack of kraft paper, he pulled out another rolled-up document.

It was a Combat Briefing sealed with the wax stamp of the Department of Internal Affairs.

Greer unrolled it on the desk.

"The stuff printed in the newspapers is mostly watered down; the real truth is right here."

Richard looked at the Combat Briefing.

The first item: The Battle of Mons.

"The Albion Expeditionary Force crossed the sea, and their first large-scale engagement was at Mons."

Greer tapped on that section of the briefing.

"They were defending the northern bank of a canal, and the enemy opposite them outnumbered them three to one."

"They held it for a day before they couldn't hold out any longer, and retreated south."

He turned the page.

"Retreating isn't strange. If you can't win, you fall back; everyone knows that."

"But during this retreat, some bizarre things started happening."

Richard leaned in closer to look.

It detailed the expeditionary force's great retreat, abandoning armor and equipment all along the way.

Those who fell behind, the wounded, and those who simply couldn't walk anymore all collapsed on that dirt road heading south.

Attached beneath the briefing was a transcribed oral account from a drafted scholar embedded with the troops.

The embedded scholar claimed that on that night, a silhouette materialized out of thin air between the routed forces and the pursuing enemy.

Some said it was the shadowy figures of a line of archers drawing their bows, while others described it as an indescribable colored light stretching between the two armies.

When the pursuing enemy vanguard ran into that phenomenon, they were left completely bewildered.

It was only during this brief moment of utter confusion that the routed troops managed to successfully escape.

"The Angel of Mons," Greer read the term aloud from the briefing.

"Word has spread among the soldiers; they're saying God sent it down to protect them."