I Loaded the Mysticism Panel

At two o’clock on Sunday afternoon, Richard arrived at the Branch Office as usual.

A new person was behind the duty desk today, looking to be in their early thirties and busy copying a form.

Seeing Richard walk in, the person didn’t even look up, just held out a hand.

Richard handed over his commission papers.

The newcomer glanced at the seal and handed the papers back.

"Old Big is on the third floor."

"Thanks."

As he climbed the stairs, Richard mentally reviewed the results of his week’s practice.

He had used the Copper Disc and the Gray Wax Stick every night before bed.

In his Fixed Gaze practice, he’d gone from holding it for only three seconds to a full twelve.

Any longer than that and he would start to lose his grip; the Ether would slip from the crystal’s surface like a water droplet that couldn’t cohere, sliding off the moment his concentration wavered.

For his Wax Words Divination, he dripped a small piece of a Wax Stick each day.

At first, the shapes the wax formed were completely random, with no discernible pattern.

But after his [Perception] was awakened, he slowly began to notice certain shapes appearing repeatedly.

One was a slanted "S" shape, another a forked "Y" shape, and a third was an oval like a water droplet.

He sketched these shapes in his notebook, putting a checkmark next to them each time they appeared.

By Saturday night, the "S" shape had appeared seven times, the "Y" shape five times, and the "water droplet" four times.

There were a dozen or so other scattered shapes, but they all appeared infrequently.

According to Old Big, this was his personal Wax Language beginning to form.

When he reached the third floor, the office door was already open.

Old Big was squatting in a corner, organizing a wooden chest filled with all sorts of odd objects.

"You’re here?" Old Big asked without looking up.

"Yeah."

"Pour yourself some tea. Clear your head a bit."

Richard sat down in a chair, placing his bookbag by his feet.

The teapot was on the table, and Richard poured himself half a cup.

Old Big finished with the wooden chest and pushed it into the corner.

"Have you been doing your practice every day this week?"

"Yes, I’ve practiced every day."

"Then let’s start with a test."

Richard sat in the chair. Twenty items were laid out on the table before him.

This time, the inspiration test was more difficult.

Now that he had learned Fixed Gaze, it was completely different from when he had to rely solely on his basic inspiration.

Twenty items: ten ordinary, ten treated with Ether. They were mixed up, and he was required to distinguish and sort them within five minutes.

Richard started with the first item, his right hand hovering about two inches above it, passing over it slowly.

First item, a copper button. Ordinary.

Second item, a glass marble. Positive.

Third item, a belt buckle. Ordinary.

Fourth item... His hand paused over it.

It was an old coin with the Queen’s head on it, its edges heavily worn.

Previously, with a heavily worn coin like this, he would have had to feel it several times to determine if there was any residual Ether.

The wear and tear damaged an object’s surface structure, making the residual Ether thin and diffuse, easily mistaken for background noise.

Today, he confirmed it in a single pass.

There was something. Faint, but definitely there.

It was like a pinch of salt dissolved in a basin of water. The naked eye couldn’t see a change in color, but the tongue could taste it.

He continued down the line.

He was much faster than before.

"Done."

Old Big stood up from his rocking chair in the corner and walked over to the table.

He picked up the answer sheet Richard had filled out and checked it against the key he held in his hand.

As he compared them, the old man’s eyebrows twitched twice.

The first time was for the fourth item, the heavily worn old coin.

The second time was for the seventeenth item, a small pencil stub less than two inches long, the paint completely stripped from its wooden barrel.

"Twenty questions. An eighty percent accuracy rate."

Old Big set the answer sheet on the table and glanced at Richard.

"And the sorting?"

"The sorting is also correct."

The old man flipped over the answer key. The correct order for the ten Ether Items, from the highest amount of residual Ether to the lowest, was written on the back.

He put both sheets down, resting his folded hands on the edge of the table.

"Two weeks. You haven’t regressed. You’ve been constantly improving, and at a relatively steady pace."

He paused.

"Do you know what that means?"

Richard shook his head.

’Of course he knew what it meant, but in front of Old Big, a little humility was safer than honesty.’

"It means your inspiration’s growth curve is likely linear," Old Big said.

"Most apprentices have a logarithmic growth curve for their inspiration.

They do alright in the early stages, but then they get slower and slower, eventually hitting a bottleneck where they get stuck no matter how much they practice."

"A very small number of highly talented apprentices have an exponential curve. They’re decent at first, then get even faster later on. Once they break through a critical point, they experience explosive growth."

"Linear is the rarest."

The man scrutinized the innocent-faced youth before him.

"Linear means that the scope of your improvement is roughly the same each time—not huge, but not small either.

You won’t have sudden bursts, but you won’t suddenly stagnate, either."

"Always moving, always forward, at a constant speed."

He pulled a pocket watch from his vest pocket, glanced at it, and put it back.

"In my five years as an apprentice, I knew a total of thirty-one apprentices, including members of other folk Guilds outside our own.

Of those apprentices, twenty-nine were logarithmic, one was exponential, and one was linear."

"That linear apprentice... was my senior."

Richard’s interest was piqued.

"When my senior, MacNeil, first started, her aptitude was average. Her inspiration test scores were even a little lower than yours."

Old Big said nostalgically.

"When our master took her in, none of the other apprentices thought much of her. They figured her talent wasn’t enough and that sooner or later, she’d be sent away, just like me."