Seal Recognition

Hugh had just picked up his pencil when Mr. Holland walked into the classroom.

He was carrying a paper tray, and sitting conspicuously on it were two fried chicken legs.

Their golden, crispy skin glistened with oil, and the savory smell of toasted breadcrumbs drifted from the doorway all the way to the front row.

The bathroom and cafeteria were in opposite directions. He had probably gone out specifically to buy the chicken legs, not to use the bathroom at all.

Hugh stared at them, his eyes lighting up at once.

Mr. Holland set the paper tray on the desk where the two students were sitting:

"I smelled them as I was passing the cafeteria, so I picked some up."

He had picked up two chicken legs, and neither of them was for him.

He nudged the tray toward the students, then sat down in the second row and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the oil from his fingers.

"You've been practicing all afternoon. You won't get far without something to eat."

Hugh had already forgotten about being polite. He grabbed one of the chicken legs with both hands and took a big bite.

The crust was crisp, crackling as he bit down, and the juices burst between his teeth.

After chewing twice, his face took on an almost reverent look of satisfaction.

Compared with the chicken leg he had drawn earlier, the real thing was clearly more convincing.

Richard picked up the other one and took a bite.

The three of them gathered around the front-row desk: two students gnawing on chicken legs, and one teacher sitting behind them wiping his hands.

The school motto plaque hanging above the lectern—"Lux Rationis Semper Vincit"—looked down on the scene.

It probably hadn't expected that, beneath the light of reason, a teacher and his students would turn the place into a picnic spot.

Mr. Holland leaned back in his chair and glanced at Hugh.

"Fenton, you look awful."

With his mouth full of chicken, Hugh mumbled, "Didn't sleep well last night."

"Catching up on your studies?"

"Not schoolwork..." Hugh chewed a couple of times and swallowed. A little embarrassed, he added, "I was listening to the match on the radio."

"Which one?"

"Stanfield's away game."

Mr. Holland's handkerchief stopped between his fingers.

"The two-all match?"

Hugh looked up, breadcrumbs still clinging to the corner of his mouth.

"You listened too, sir?"

"I didn't hear the broadcast. I read the paper this morning."

Mr. Holland folded the handkerchief and tucked it back into his pocket. His triple chin bunched at his collar.

"That shot in stoppage time that hit the post and bounced out—was it McKinney who took it?"

"Yes! That was him!" Hugh's eyes lit up.

There was an understanding between fans of a city team that crossed generations. It was usually built on shared disappointment:

Year after year, they hoped. Year after year, at the crucial moment, the goalpost, a rebound, or fate itself sent them home.

But when the radio crackled to life the next day, they still gathered around it.

Richard gnawed on his chicken leg, watching the two of them with a faintly dazed expression.

A little over ten minutes ago, Mr. Holland had been the stern teacher who dragged chairs around to make noise and corrected their pronunciation with a stony face.

Now he was sitting beside his student with one leg crossed over the other, chatting about the left goalpost and a header off the rebound. His triple chin trembled with the rhythm of his words.

"Sir," Hugh suddenly said.

"Hmm?"

"Next Wednesday, Stanfield's playing Bolton at home. Kickoff's at seven thirty."

He took the pencil from behind his ear and spun it between his fingers.

"Would you like to... listen to the broadcast together?"

Mr. Holland looked surprised.

"Are you inviting your teacher to stay up late listening to a match?"

"You said you'd watched three seasons in a row without missing a game..."

"That was when I was younger. These days, I'm a middle-aged man who has to get up early to teach."

As he passed Hugh, he took the handkerchief out of his pocket. "Wipe your mouth. You've got oil all over the corner."

Hugh quickly wiped his mouth with it, then stood up and folded it, ready to hand it back.

"Keep it. It's dirty now anyway."

Mr. Holland tucked his lesson notes under his arm.

"Same time tomorrow. Keep preparing, and have two versions of the second speech excerpt ready."

He opened the door and walked out, then turned back after a couple of steps.

"Fenton."

"Yes, sir!"

"Get to bed early tonight. Don't listen to the broadcast. If you doze off in class again, I won't go easy on you."

The door closed.

Hugh stood where he was and looked down at the handkerchief.

It was linen, with an elegant embroidered "H" in the corner. The stitches were fine, and although it had been washed many times, it hadn't started to fray.

It was an expensive handkerchief, and its owner had taken good care of it.

"He's a really nice person," Hugh said softly.

"Of course he is." Richard tossed his chicken bone into the trash can.

"I always thought Mr. Holland was a really strict teacher."

"He isn't strict by nature. You've been called on too many times in Latin class and drawn a blank, so you've developed a bit of a psychological scar."

"Fair point." Hugh chuckled.

He carefully folded the handkerchief, slipped it into his pocket, and patted it to make sure it was secure.

"I'll wash it properly when I get home. You just soak oil stains in cold water, then rub them with soap. My mom taught me."

As they picked up their schoolbags and headed for the door, Hugh's steps seemed much lighter.

"Richard."

"Hmm?"

"Doesn't it hurt to stand for so long? Didn't you used to get dizzy after ten minutes?"

"I've been exercising lately."

"You've changed a lot recently," Hugh sighed.

"Your grades have gone up, your reflexes are faster, and now you can stand for forty minutes without getting dizzy... You haven't been taking some kind of miracle drug, have you?"

"I have. It's called 'eating properly and getting enough sleep.'"

"Then why doesn't it work for me? I do that every day."

"You don't get enough sleep."

"Fair point." He admitted it readily.

As they reached the classroom door, Hugh suddenly spoke.

"When you go to the Imperial Capital for the competition, I won't be much help... but I'll treat you to your first meal when you get back."

"You'll treat me?"

"I've been saving my allowance for two weeks." He grinned, his bangs swaying across his forehead.

"That's enough to buy you a bowl of tomato oxtail soup."

"Deal. You'll treat me to the first meal, and I'll treat you to the second."

"You've got it all planned out."

By the final week, Richard had also finished going through all the remaining books on the third-floor shelves.

He screened them one by one and deciphered passage after passage. His notes on sheets of white paper grew into an ever-taller stack.

Most of the hidden contents overlapped with material from the earlier books.

The same terminology, the same classification framework—just different phrasing and emphasis, with the occasional extra detail not mentioned before.

The real new information was concentrated in two books.

A thin booklet had hand-drawn diagrams concealed within the layers of its text, depicting several common types of lower-grade seal structures.

Silver-Base Seals, Copper-Base Seals, Stone-Carved Seals, and Wooden Seals: each medium had its own suitable applications.

Silver was the most stable, making it suitable for passive seals intended to last a long time;

copper conducted Aether most efficiently, making it suitable for active seals that needed frequent activation;

stone had the greatest capacity, but was difficult to inscribe, so it was mostly used for large permanent seals;

wood was the lightest and most fragile, making it suitable only for temporary emergencies.

The basic grammar of inscription symbols was covered as well.

Angular strokes represented restraint; curved lines represented guidance.

Seal inscriptions were, in essence, a way of using geometric language to issue commands to the Aether Field: lock away whatever was inside a designated area, allowing nothing in or out.

The hidden passages in another book were more detailed. They included diagrams of three basic seal structures, along with the types of Evil Beings suited to each structure and their maintenance intervals.

Richard compared this information with the seal on the base of the Sphinx Oil Lamp.

A circle enclosing a triangle, with short lines extending from the triangle's three sides.

The circle meant "define the boundary," the triangle meant "anchor the contents," and the short lines were "safety valves for releasing excess Aether."

A standard structure, a textbook example of a proper seal.

The designer had been a professional. Every symbol was in exactly the right place.

He could even tell roughly when the seal had been set and which school of thought its creator belonged to.

The direction of the curved short lines matched the writing habits found in the Priest Inscriptions of the middle reaches of the Black Soil River. It had probably been made not long after the oil lamp was cast.

His theoretical analysis had reached this point, and the next question naturally arose: How could he open it?