Chapter 66: Raw Ore

"Do you like Aeneas?" Richard asked.

Phillips thought for a moment.

"To say I 'like' the ancestor of the Romans would be putting it a bit too lightly."

He flipped toward the back of the book.

"At the end of Book Twelve, Aeneas killed Turnus.

"Turnus had already fallen, begging for mercy. He stretched out a hand in surrender.

"Aeneas hesitated... Virgil made that very clear. He hesitated.

"But in the end, he drove his sword in anyway."

Phillips closed the book.

"That is the final scene of the entire epic. Virgil ended it right there.

"There were no cheers of victory, no glory of founding a city, and certainly no 'sparing the vanquished.'

"The final image is the hero, consumed by wrath, driving his sword into the chest of a kneeling man who begged for his life."

He delivered a rather unsettling judgment in a perfectly calm tone.

"Virgil likely felt that this was a true human being."

Phillips tucked the book under his arm, picked his teacup off the windowsill, and drained it.

"You've been copying things down all day."

"And judging by the sweat and the dust on your cuffs, you've probably been here since the doors opened."

"More or less," Richard replied offhandedly.

Phillips glanced at him.

"You're just like Aeneas in the book—rowing through a storm, pushing desperately toward your destination."

He smiled self-deprecatingly.

"I'm much more like Dido, sitting in the city, drinking tea and admiring the view, waiting to see who washes in from the sea."

A young nobleman with a privileged background and a bright future had just compared himself to a queen whose misplaced love led to her ruin.

If it was just a joke, he wouldn't have used that tone.

If it was a serious self-analysis, he wouldn't have said it with a smile.

"Phillips, you said it's easy to go down, but hard to come back up."

Richard took his hands out of his pockets. "But you missed a question."

Phillips raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"If you never go down, can you ever come up?"

Outside the window, the two old men playing chess happened to place a piece on the board at that exact moment.

"The Sibyl said the gates of the underworld are open day and night," Richard said. "But she never said you could stay where you are just by refusing to enter."

Staying out didn't mean staying safe.

It only meant handing the power of choice to someone else.

Handing it to time, to fate, and to those invisible gears that never stopped turning behind the scenes.

"There are two kinds of people who never come back up.

"The first kind rushes into the depths unprepared. They get swallowed up, and they have no one to blame but themselves.

"But there are far more of the second kind."

"Which is?"

"The ones who pace back and forth at the edge, wanting to go in but holding back."

Richard patted the notebook inside his coat.

"By the time you finally decide to walk away and look over your shoulder, you'll find there's no path behind you either.

"Ahead is the abyss, behind is a cliff, and the tiny patch of ground you're standing on is already cracking apart.

"When that time comes, you won't even have the right to choose."

Phillips frowned in silence, then turned and walked down the stairs.

"Williams."

"Hm?"

"If you really do plan to go down there, good luck."

His voice drifted up from the stairwell, its echo making him sound much further away than he actually was.

Richard stood in the second-floor corridor, watching Phillips's back disappear around the landing.

Judging by their brief conversation today, the guy was genuinely interesting. At the very least, he was far more interesting than Montagu.

He lingered by the railing for a moment, tallying the day's harvest in his head.

His notebook was two-thirds full, densely packed handwriting covering dozens of pages.

He also had several saved memories stored in his mind, ready to be retrieved at any time via page numbers and keyword anchors.

All this information sat encrypted in his notebook and his brain, waiting for him to pry it open bit by bit once he returned to Briston.

He had enough clues now; he just needed time. A massive amount of time.

He went downstairs and handed his pass back at the exit.

The old woman filed the pass away without looking up. "Will you be coming back, young man?"

"Of course."

"Mhm... Then I wish you success in your studies."

"Thank you."

Stepping out of the library doors, he gave his bulging notebook a pat and shoved it into his bag.

It contained nothing but uncracked raw material.

To him, it was a cartload of raw ore hauled straight from a mine. He wouldn't know its actual value until he took it back and smelted it.

But the vein's location was already marked on his map.

Next time he came, he would bring better tools.

The bus ride back was much more crowded than the morning trip.

Richard found a corner seat, hugged his bag to his chest, and leaned against the window, closing his eyes.

Fourfold Breathing engaged automatically, slipping his body into a state of half-cultivation, half-rest.

In his mind, he sorted and archived the data he'd acquired today.

Once he returned to Briston, his first task was to use his Cicero Cup prize money to buy the Sphinx Oil Lamp from the Clement Antique Shop.

His second task was to apply the dismantling techniques he'd learned today to try and crack the oil lamp's seal.

His third task was to fully absorb the residual ether trapped inside it, gathering enough points to light up [walking] and unlock [Spirit].

As for what exactly [Spirit] held, he still had no idea.

But logically, since [Spirit] was locked behind "All Four Attributes of [Body] Awakened," its importance went without saying.

By the time the bus passed the boundary marker of the Imperial Capital's administrative district, the elm trees outside the window were already glowing orange under the gas lamps.

He opened his eyes to glance at the street before letting them drift shut again.

The notebook pressed heavy and solid against his chest.

...

When he returned to the Ashford Residence that evening, the butler met him at the door.

"Young Master Richard, dinner is ready. Your family is waiting in the dining room."

"Thank you."

Richard handed his coat to the butler and walked down the hall toward the dining room.

As he passed the parlor, Vincent jumped up from the sofa.

"Hey, where did you run off to today? I waited for you all day!"

"The library."

"The library?"

Vincent looked like a kid who'd just been told his birthday present was a math workbook.

"You came all the way to the Imperial Capital... just to visit a library?"

"Imperial Capital University has an excellent collection."

"No matter how good a university library's collection is, could it possibly beat a roast meat restaurant?

"A new place just opened on Grosvenor Street. They roast their lamb chops with rosemary and sea salt until they're crispy on the outside and perfectly tender inside..."

Vincent started outlining the size of the lamb chops with his hands, the imaginary cuts growing larger with every gesture.

"Next time," Richard said, patting his cousin's shoulder. "Next time we visit the Imperial Capital, you're treating, and I'm eating my fill."

"You mean that?"

"I mean it."

"Then you'd better hurry up and test into a university here. Otherwise, that roast meat place might go out of business before you come back."

"...The possibility of it closing down is not something I'm taking into consideration."

Vincent choked on his response, then sulked off.