Chapter 137 | I Transmigrated into Cultist Simulator

Ryan pulled open his drawer and fished out several authoritative reference books he had brought into the academy—《An Examination of Ancient Levantine Symbols》, 《The Imperial Navy Secret Key Comparison Table》, and 《The Translation of Holy Bone Script from St. George's Cathedral》.

He began to attempt the most basic deciphering.

Consulting the dictionaries: failure. He could not find a single matching root word in any of his reference books.

Deconstructing the grammar: failure. These symbols lacked any linear arrangement of subject, verb, and object.

Attempting frequency analysis using substitution ciphers: still failure.

For two consecutive hours, the only sounds in the room were the howling of the wind and snow, and the meaningless scratching of his dip pen across the scratch paper.

A thick stack of scratch paper piled up on the desk, filled with mathematical models and probability formulas Ryan had derived, yet not a single one was logically self-consistent.

The pale yellow lamplight was reflected in Ryan's eyes. His pupils contracted slightly as he continuously channeled 【Lantern】 into his left eye.

It wasn't enough, still not enough. It was only when his left eye turned into a small orb of light and he looked at the page again that the symbols before him... changed.

No, they had not changed. What had changed was Ryan's "perspective."

Under the illumination of the 【Lantern】, those cold, rigid lines that had originally seemed in complete disarray suddenly became "three-dimensional" on the paper. They were no longer "words," but a logical structure! Every symbol was a logical node representing some causal relationship; every angle of a jagged line was a parametric condition for some deduction; and this entire page of drawings was actually using a logic that transcended language to depict the underlying rules of the world's operation!

Ryan's body tensed. He picked up his dip pen once more, his hand writing frantically on the scratch paper:

“Humans see the result. The Lantern sees the cause.”

“Ordinary people see an apple fall and attribute it to a deity or gravity; the Lantern sees all the initial conditions that caused the apple to fall—wind speed, the decay of the branch, the loss of moisture, and the passage of time.”

“What the world calls 'accidents' and 'coincidences' are merely the desperate groans of the ignorant in the face of an overly complex chain of causality.”

“The world is not composed of matter, but of 'relationships' and 'networks'.”

“To know all relationships is to precisely predict the result.”

“To modify key relationships is to thoroughly modify the result.”

“Great Arts: Causality.”

As the final word settled on the scratch paper, Ryan looked at the translation before him, an unprecedented tempest raging in his heart.

This was not some superstitious occult incantation, nor was it an ignorant religious delusion.

This was a divine power that reigned supreme over the secular world.

Just then, Ryan's gaze fell upon the shadow at the very bottom of the kraft paper page.

At the exact moment the translation was completed, a line of tiny text, which had previously been absolutely impossible to detect with the naked eye, slowly seeped out from the originally blank corner of the paper:

“If you have understood this page.”

“Please return to the library with the booklet tomorrow night at eleven o'clock.”

Ryan sat before his black oak desk, not moving for a long time.

The wick of the kerosene lamp in the room made a soft crackling sound. He finally realized deeply that the book Professor Adrian had given him was by no means an academic lecture note meant for secular scholars to study.

This was a top-secret title page that only an "aspected one"—chosen by the 【Lantern】 Principle and possessing a logical thinking capacity far transcending that of ordinary mortals—was qualified to open.

He carefully folded the translation, placed it in the innermost pocket of his coat, and then slowly closed the blackened booklet.

Outside the window, the first sliver of lead-gray morning light broke through the snow-white sky.

The next day, St. Blaise Royal Academy welcomed the first day of the new term amidst the heavy tolling of the morning bell.

At eight o'clock sharp, inside the main building's grand Gothic lecture hall.

Ryan sat in the second-to-last row, by the window.

The morning class was 《Classical Latin and Diplomatic Documents》. The old professor teaching it was a former minister to France, whose mouth was filled with sleep-inducing eighteenth-century court grammar.

At midday was 《Logic and Induction》, where scholastic dogma forcibly crammed Aristotelian theory into the framework of imperial law.

The afternoon brought the incredibly intricate 《Imperial Etiquette and Heraldry》.

The entire day of campus life was fulfilling yet rigid. Ryan was like a dry sponge, frantically absorbing these knowledge and skills essential for the ruling class.

Until eleven o'clock at night arrived once more.

The wind and snow died down slightly, and the academy returned to a deathly silence once more.

Ryan put on his coat and arrived at the library doors right on time.

This time, Professor Adrian was not in the underground archive. Wearing a black academic gown, he stood quietly beside the massive black marble statue in the first-floor lobby.

“Follow me.” Adrian wasted no words, turning around and walking toward the depths of the general reading area.

Passing row after row of towering oak bookshelves, Adrian stopped before a mahogany archway locked with heavy black iron chains. He retrieved the dark purple bone key from his coat, inserted it into the keyhole, and turned it gently.

The chains clattered heavily, and the archway slid inward.

Behind the door was a downward-sloping, unlit spiral stone staircase. This was the library's internal restricted area—the Second Floor.

Unlike the scholastic texts borrowed by secular students upstairs, the bookshelves here were entirely constructed of moisture-proof blue lead. The air was thick with the scent of ancient parchment, oxalic acid, and some indescribable, musty spice.

Looking around, the shelves were filled with various ancient maps drawn on animal hides, bloody manuscripts left behind by early colonial expedition teams, documents in lost languages already declared obsolete by official imperial decree, and secret archives sealed with lead.

Adrian stopped before a sorting table made of a single piece of black rubber. He turned around, his amber eyes gleaming coldly in the darkness.

“The translation.”

Ryan handed over the scratch paper covered in formal roundhand script.

Adrian took the scratch paper. He did not even look at the neat handwriting, merely running his withered fingertips over the page to feel the residual rhythm of the 【Lantern】 upon it.

With a simple wave of his hand, the paper turned to ash.

He turned around and retrieved a dossier sealed in heavy kraft paper from the deepest part of the blue lead bookshelf behind him.

It was not a book, but an extremely detailed expedition investigation file.

It bore the black stamps of the Royal Geographical Society and the Home Office, and the edges of the dossier had been stained a dark brown by dried blood.

“Your understanding of the first page means you have earned the qualification to stand in this room.”

Adrian slid the dossier in front of Ryan.

“This is the file of an expedition team organized by the Royal Society thirty years ago that went deep into a 'nameless ruin' in the Scottish Highlands. Seven scholars went in, and only one crawled out alive.”