Chapter 86: The Poor and the Rich

The number under [Available Points] in the upper right corner of the Panel remained perfectly still.

Richard turned it over several times with a ruler, then hovered his right hand less than half an inch above the Clay Token, waiting for a full minute.

The number still did not change.

No matter how tightly an object was sealed, there was always some leakage, allowing the Panel to absorb a trace amount of points.

But this Clay Token yielded nothing. It was just a recently manufactured handicraft.

Richard stroked his chin. The sender had not left the item directly in his home, which made him slightly less guarded.

From a purely rational perspective, however, they likely knew the invitees all possessed complicated backgrounds.

Many of those families would have high-level seals and protection in place.

Therefore, they had deliberately chosen locations with weak defenses where their targets appeared on a regular schedule.

This organization was highly mature, at least on a tactical level.

Richard gently wrapped the Clay Token in oil paper, careful not to touch it directly.

He stood by a window in the second-floor corridor for a while, watching the junior students run laps on the field outside.

Soon, he headed to the school's public telephone booth.

The phone rang three times before the butler answered.

"Ashford Residence."

"This is Richard Williams." He lowered his voice. "Please connect me to my grandfather. It's urgent."

"Please wait a moment, Young Master."

Through the receiver, he heard the butler jog away, followed quickly by the sound of another set of footsteps approaching.

"What is it?"

Gerard's voice was exactly as it had been during their previous two calls—no preamble, no pleasantries.

Richard recounted everything that had just happened in the storage room.

He detailed how the moth appeared out of thin air, how it disintegrated, the symbol embossed on the Clay Token, the contents of the letter, the Latin maxim at the end, and all of his preliminary deductions.

He omitted no details.

When Richard finished, the other end of the line went silent for about ten seconds.

"Where is the Clay Token now?"

"Still in the storage room. I haven't touched it; I handled it with a ruler and oil paper the entire time."

"Good," Gerard praised. "You are calmer than I expected."

Richard did not reply to that.

"Grandfather, there's a deduction I want to confirm with you."

"Speak."

"I don't think they only targeted me. The recipients likely fit a specific sample profile—Cicero Cup winners, or youths who have displayed their talent in public settings over the past few months."

"They are filtering resumes. They want to see the recipient's capability, and perhaps the reaction of the family behind them as well."

The line went quiet again for a moment.

"Richard."

"Yes."

"You've made the right deduction."

"Your analysis of this matter is fundamentally correct. They are filtering resumes, and they are testing the backing."

Gerard's pace was slightly slower than usual.

"But I must tell you something first, so you don't make the wrong judgment on your next step."

"What is it?"

"The power Ashford House can provide you in this matter is smaller than you think."

Under the dim yellow light, Richard frowned.

"How small?"

"So small that even after receiving your call here in the Imperial Capital, the first thing I can do is not send someone down."

Gerard said, "Based on the distance, it will take at least until tomorrow for our family to dispatch a Minor Adept of the Secret path from the Imperial Capital to Briston."

"Tomorrow?" Richard found that far from ideal.

Gerard continued.

"I know you might think the Ashford Residence looks quite glamorous from the outside. During our family's most glorious period, our ancestors genuinely had three Major Adepts alive at the same time, and even the branch families started at the Minor Adept level."

"But that was before your great-grandfather's time."

Once he began explaining, he held nothing back.

"Our decline began with my father's generation. The family suffered several accidents, and my younger brother died young because of them. By your mother's generation, there were only one and a half of us left to hold the front, myself included. That other half is your Aunt Isabella; she walks the Scholar path and rarely does field work."

As Richard listened, a cold draft blew through the telephone booth.

"I don't mean to air our grievances to you," Gerard said.

"I am simply telling you that there is a limit to the protection Ashford House can provide right now."

"Since they used a Spirit Realm Messenger to deliver the token into your daily activity space, it means you might be under constant observation. Locking up the Clay Token isn't enough; you need someone powerful guarding you at all times."

"That is something Ashford House cannot do."

The old man spoke very slowly, and Richard could sense the underlying apology in his words.

"Among the upper-class nobility in the Imperial Capital, families with ties to the royal family like the Montagus and Greyshams each have their own independent seal array, exclusive Secret advisors, and Minor Adept combatants they can deploy at a moment's notice."

Gerard continued to explain:

"If their children encounter something like this outside, they just ring a bell, and someone will be on the scene within half an hour."

"Those families have produced Virtuosos in their ancestry, and every generation guarantees several living Major Adepts. They are deeply intertwined with the royal family and the official system, leveraging each other's strength."

"We are not."

"For the past few decades, Ashford House has been relying solely on me to hold it together."

Hearing this, Richard swallowed slightly, but made no sound.

"So..." Gerard did not delay giving his conclusion.

"For what comes next, I suggest you handle it like this."

"Hand the Clay Token and the letter over to your guide. He has taught at Greenwood for decades, holds an official staff position, and has an established local network. The forces he can mobilize locally within a few hours will arrive much faster than anyone I can dispatch from the Imperial Capital."

The old man spoke very frankly.

Standing before the phone, for a split second, Richard did not know how to reply.

He had heard his grandfather be concise, stern, and cold, but he had never heard him directly admit his own limitations.

"I understand," Richard said.

"Don't let this give you other thoughts about the family," Gerard added.

"The promises Ashford House made to you still stand; they will not change because of what happened tonight."

"I know."

"Hang up."

"Hanging up."

Richard placed the receiver back on the hook first.

The light inside the telephone booth flickered; the current seemed a little unstable.

...

In the western district of the Imperial Capital, inside a senior exclusive study room at Harrow School.

Phillips was one of the regular users of this space.

Harrow School allowed students with excellent grades, upon an approved application, to rent a small, private study cubicle to prepare for their entrance exams and study independently.

Phillips's cubicle was on the east side of the third floor, its window facing the school's rugby field.

Every afternoon at four o'clock sharp, he came here for two hours. He habitually placed his teacup in the exact same spot, slightly left of the desk's center, with a variance of no more than half an inch.

The desktop in this spot was a shade darker than the surrounding wood, darkened by the heat of his cup over the years.

When he pushed the door open on Monday afternoon, a moth appeared out of thin air and dissipated, leaving a Clay Token and a letter right in his teacup's spot.

Holding the black tea he had just brewed, he did not even set the cup down.

Looking at the two items, Phillips hesitated for less than ten seconds before backing out of the cubicle the way he came, teacup still in hand, without so much as glancing at the letter.

He locked the door again, went straight downstairs to the Harrow School main gatehouse, and borrowed the porter's internal telephone.

He dialed the direct line to his father's office.

An unfamiliar male voice answered.

"I'm looking for the Chief Inspector," Phillips said, stating his name and identity.

He stood in the booth for less than a minute before his father's voice rang out on the other end.

Bartholomew did not ask, "What happened?"

If his son was specifically calling his office, the matter could not be trivial.

Phillips described what he had just seen in three sentences, then waited for a reply.

The line fell silent for about five seconds.

"Do not go back to the study cubicle," Bartholomew said.

"Understood."

"Wait for me at the school gatehouse. I'll have a Secret practitioner I know head over there."

"Okay."

"Did you touch it?"

"No."

"Good."

The call ended.

Westwick was an occultist of the Secret path at the Minor Adept level. Upon arriving at Harrow School, he followed Phillips into the cubicle.

The man stood before the Clay Token for about a minute, placed his leather suitcase on the floor, and squatted to open it.

The inside of the suitcase was neatly divided into over a dozen small compartments, each holding various casting mediums.

Westwick took out a porcelain bottle and sprinkled a pinch of gray powder around the Clay Token.

That done, the man began to chant.

The moment he finished the final syllable, the Clay Token inside the circle of powder burst into flames.

Unlike something ignited by an accelerant, the Clay Token burned entirely on its own, from the inside out.

Quickly, it reduced to a small pile of powder resting quietly on the desk.

Westwick took out a small copper spoon from his suitcase.

He carefully scooped the powder into a small glass vial, sealed it, and placed it into a lockbox.

Cleanup finished, he spoke his first words: "The physical token itself has been dealt with."

"The delivery traces have also been scrubbed."

His gaze swept back and forth across the cubicle.

"The delivery location was chosen very meticulously."

"They didn't target your house. Your home has Major Adept-level seal protection; the directional Spell Formula of a Spirit Realm Messenger cannot penetrate that shielding. Therefore, they chose the location in your daily routine with the weakest defenses, yet one where you appear regularly."

"The study cubicle," Phillips said.

"Yes." Westwick nodded. "This space has no mystical protection, but you spend two hours here every day. To break through Harrow's outer shielding and accurately deliver the token right onto your teacup's spot, the sender must be at least a Minor Adept, if not higher."

Phillips looked at the desktop, feeling deeply unsettled.

He had never imagined that such an ordinary-looking private space would one day become a breach for someone else to reach through.

...

At the Department of Classics in the Royal Academy, Montagu had an exclusive research locker in the library.

The Royal Academy permitted certain pre-college students with outstanding performance to enter the departmental library early to use its research spaces.

Montagu had held this qualification since he was fourteen.

The research lockers were a shared facility for students across the Department of Classics, but each was assigned to a specific user, and the key was only issued to that individual.

When Montagu opened his locker door, he discovered the Clay Token and the letter.

The Montagu Family were all Practitioners of the Solar Tradition. The current head of the house was Montagu's grandfather, Count Salisbury.

He was a relatively rare Solar Tradition Hunter within the Empire.

Although the five major traditions had their own distinct inclinations, the three main paths could actually be freely combined.

Sometimes, certain unique combinations—such as choosing the Moon Hunting Tradition for the Secret path, the Web Weaving Tradition for the Scholar path, or the Solar Tradition for the Hunter path—produced fascinating alchemical synergies.

Montagu calmly closed the locker door again, walked briskly to the first-floor office, and borrowed a phone to dial his grandfather's private number directly.

After listening to the description, the old count only asked one question.

"Did you touch it?"

"No, Grandfather."

"Good."

The old count told him to leave the library immediately, make no stops on the way home, and suspend all external communication once he arrived.

The old count personally led his own people to the Royal Academy.

After he met with the department head, the entire departmental library was temporarily closed for the evening, with the publicly announced reason being a "plumbing malfunction."

The old count stood before Montagu's locker for about five minutes, then decided that his grandson would not participate in any public activities for the next three months.

Montagu was not present; the order was relayed to him afterward.

"Why?"

"They dropped a hook. Our family does not need to bite. Three months is enough for their attention to shift elsewhere."

The old count called upon a friend of his, a Major Adept-level Secret practitioner of the Solar Tradition.

His handling method was far more "direct." He didn't chant an incantation; he merely hovered his right hand, palm down, over the Clay Token and gently pressed down three inches.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

After the violent explosions, he lifted his hand. Not even ashes of the Clay Token remained.

Throughout the entire disposal process, the old count stood by the library window, looking at the central lawn outside.

"Very cunning," he remarked to his friend.

"Oh?"

"They didn't go to his bedroom, didn't go to the family residence, but came to his research locker."

"Our generation's protection of our children has always been concentrated entirely 'at home.'"

He turned around. "We'll need to change our way of thinking."

...

Catherine Blackwood discovered the Clay Token at a small branch library in the Imperial Capital.

The main campus of Cheltenham Ladies' College was in Gloucestershire, but they maintained a small branch in the Imperial Capital, reserved specifically for returning graduates and senior students conducting research.

Catherine had been granted special permission to use a small reading room in the branch library. It contained a narrow desk, a lamp, and a wall-mounted bookshelf.

That evening, as she pushed open the door to the reading room, a pale-gray moth rested on the desk.

Under her gaze, the moth slowly disintegrated. Its scales transformed into trails of cyan-gray smoke that slipped out through the cracks in the window frame.

In the exact spot where the moth had rested, two new items now sat.

Embossed on the face of the Clay Token was a bow and a crescent moon—the crest of Artemis.

Catherine kept her right hand on the doorknob, her left hand still holding her purse.

She maintained this posture and stared at the Clay Token for about twenty seconds before gently pulling the door shut and locking it.

She walked around the desk to stand before the Clay Token, but she did not reach out to touch it.

Catherine had no direct elders at the Major Adept level to ask for help.

Her father had died in an "accident" five years ago. He was merely a Practitioner and had not left behind much of an inheritance.

If someone had used some method to scan her, the most obvious signal they would pick up was likely the residual imprint of the Moon Hunting Tradition lingering in her bloodline.

Ether characteristics could be passed down through bloodlines to descendants; she had heard this from her eldest uncle.

Although her family had been in decline for the past few generations, she had several Major Adept-level Hunters in her ancestry.

Even though she had never undertaken any Hunter-related cultivation, those faint traces still flowed in her blood.

The sender had detected those traces and assigned Artemis to her.

The Goddess of the Hunt, directly corresponding with the Moon Hunting Tradition.

It made logical sense.

But Catherine recognized the problem almost immediately.

She had never walked the path of a Hunter.

Catherine studied Classics at Cheltenham, holding a scholarship in Latin and rhetoric.

Her performance at the Cicero Cup was in speech and debate, not swinging a blade to hack down monsters.

If they truly understood her, Nemesis would be far more fitting than Artemis.

That was the incarnation of vengeance; the flames of a reckoning burned deep in her bones.

Catherine turned the Clay Token over and over, her chin tilted slightly upward.

Their understanding was very shallow.

So shallow that they could only label people based on ether-level probing, entirely skipping even the most basic intelligence gathering.

Catherine placed the Clay Token back into a small rigid box and closed the lid.

She did not call her eldest uncle.

Her eldest uncle was a Minor Adept-level Hunter with limited capabilities.

The advice he would likely give was, "Don't touch it, I'll pass it on to my superiors to handle."

But Catherine did not want to hand the power of choice over to people she did not know.

Besides the four from the Cicero Cup, there were more than a dozen of these scattered tokens in total.

However, the majority of the recipients couldn't even meet the minimum activation standard. The Spirit Realm Messengers merely took a look from afar and left on their own.