There were three rooms on the second floor of 13 Milford Street.
Siles rented the easternmost room.
His memories contained little information about his second-floor neighbors. He only knew that a man in his thirties lived in the western room, while the middle room housed a young couple who left early and returned late, rarely making any noise.
The person he had now encountered by chance was the man from the western room.
Since becoming Siles two nights ago, he hadn’t seen this neighbor yet. Now, at first glance, he found this man quite striking.
He wore an orange-red cloak full of exotic flair, with a beautiful, multicolored feather pinned at the collar. He had on an extremely exaggerated tall hat and pointed boots on his feet.
A belt made of fangs, rings, feathers, and bones hung around his waist. Beneath the cloak, each ornament on the belt clinked crisply with every movement.
His face was painted with oils, especially around the eyes, decorated to such an exaggerated degree that he could head straight to a masquerade ball. Red, orange, white, and purple paints made this man look like a child who had knocked over a palette.
Siles couldn’t help but pause, then politely nodded in greeting.
This oddly dressed neighbor instinctively coughed, then said as if nothing was amiss: “I’m not going to do anything bad.”
Siles remained silent.
The man immediately became more awkward.
Finally, he stammered an explanation for his appearance: “I’m a folklorist! You know, with the development of the Ashless Lands, the Duchy of Constance has established stable communication channels with more and more countries.
“Those countries have customs and practices quite different from the Duchy of Constance. I’m attending an exchange meeting later, so I’m dressing this way to follow local customs.
“Strange enough, isn’t it? That’s how people from those places are.”
Through the man’s explanation, Siles finally understood why he was dressed this way.
Folklore studies… Siles nodded thoughtfully.
In this world’s history, the current era was called the “Age of Mist.” The “mist” in this name did indeed shroud vast lands across the Fisher world, and these places were called the “Ashless Lands.”
The Ashless Lands were desolate territories covered by layers upon layers of dark gray fog. The fog also severed communication channels between nations in this world.
Countless countries, tribes, and villages could only exist in isolation. Until a few hundred years ago, the fog over the Ashless Lands began to gradually recede, so the development of the Ashless Lands and communication with other nations were put on the agenda.
Now, many lands in the Ashless Lands were no longer covered by mist. These lands were called the Withered Plains, because they truly were endless, desolate yellow plains.
In the process of developing the Ashless Lands, fields like folklore studies naturally emerged to research domestic and foreign cultures.
Siles believed the man’s explanation but still felt some doubt.
The man seemed completely unaware, only introducing himself: “My name is Alfonso Carel. We’ve been neighbors for some time now, yet we still don’t know each other’s names.”
Siles nodded and said, “Siles Noel.”
This gaudily dressed folklorist nodded at him, then said he was in a hurry and quickly left.
Siles watched his departing figure, then calmly withdrew his gaze and returned to his own room.
He placed the umbrella by the door, put the manuscript on the desk, then took out his wallet, dice, pocket watch, paper and pen from his coat, removed his outer garment, and sat silently on the sofa for a while.
The matter of the Revelator truly exceeded his expectations. He hadn’t imagined he would encounter this world’s extraordinary powers in such a short time.
Coincidence?
His gaze lingered on the dice on the desk.
After a moment, he stood up and went to the washroom for a hot bath. Rain was still pattering outside, making Siles feel content to return to the warm, dry interior.
He was quite hungry, eating bread while drying his hair. He really wanted some hot soup at this moment, but had no ingredients now. He privately decided to go to Logan Market tomorrow to buy some fresh ingredients.
The apartment room didn’t have a kitchen, but the first floor of 13 Milford Street was Mrs. Fenn’s family residence. When Mrs. Fenn wasn’t using the kitchen, tenants could go cook there themselves, though they had to clean the kitchen afterward.
Soon, Siles finished the bread and his hair was mostly dry. He changed into simple pajamas, feeling the sticky rainwater finally leave his body.
But this couldn’t be helped. The weather in Lafami City at the end of July every year was like this—not only lacking summer warmth but appearing gloomy, damp, and cold instead. Come August, it would be another extreme, with sunshine so bright and brilliant it seemed ready to burn a hole in the earth.
By the end of October, the weather would become damp and rainy again. However, there would also be a holiday lasting over two weeks then.
People called it winter break, because after this holiday, Lafami would welcome a long winter. However, some also called this holiday rain break, because the rainfall at that time was truly too abundant.
This day was July 24th, Monday.
Lafami University would begin its fall semester on the first Monday of August, which happened to be August 1st this year.
This world’s calendar system wasn’t much different from Earth’s—a year had twelve months, each month had thirty days, and a week had seven days. However, when it came to festivals and holidays, the differences from Earth were extreme.
Lafami University’s academic system had three semesters per year. The first semester ran from August to the end of October, followed by two weeks of winter break; if the rainy season was prolonged, winter break would be extended accordingly.
The second semester was from early November to February of the following year, with a one-month spring break at the end of February. Like winter break, spring break appeared to welcome the arrival of spring.
The third semester was from the end of March to early July. Generally, the academic year examinations were held in the first week of July, followed by a three-week holiday called summer break—or rather, the July rain break.
Each year’s graduates would get their holiday earlier, having ample time to search for jobs.
When Siles was still a student at Lafami University, he was already quite familiar with this academic calendar. But now that he had become a professor, things had become much more complicated.
He now had to worry about his lesson plans in the last week of July.
The college required him to offer two public elective courses and two major elective courses—the former spanning the first and second semesters, while the latter consisted of one course in the first two semesters and one in the third semester.
The major elective in the third semester was manageable, but the two public electives and one major elective were imminent matters he would have to face students with in just one week.
Siles gave an almost imperceptible sigh.
He quickly calculated his schedule for the coming week—Wednesday and Saturday afternoons he had to go to the Historical Society; Sunday, he had to move and organize his office. That meant he still had complete Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Additionally, he probably needed to research textbooks and reading lists for students, and mentally prepare to deal with an apprentice whose specific identity and research topic he still didn’t know.
…Quite rushed indeed.
He lowered his eyes and wrote down his course names on scratch paper: “Literary Survey from the Age of Divine Birth to the Age of Mist,” “Age of Silence Literature Appreciation,” “Age of Silence Literature and Its Theoretical Evolution—Using Three Famous Authors of the Age of Silence as Examples.”
The first two were public electives; the last one was a major elective for the first two semesters.
Overall, it was still a consistent, progressively deeper curriculum. For these three courses, he could prepare them all together.
Finally, he underlined three terms: Age of Divine Birth, Age of Silence, Age of Mist.
The Age of Divine Birth was the first recorded era in this world’s history. Legend had it that this was the era when gods were born.
After the gods’ birth came humanity’s birth. People believed in and worshiped the existence of gods, so the second era was called the Age of Faith.
Human civilization gradually flourished, establishing empires and developing productive forces. Several empires fought and warred with each other, while gods remained behind the scenes, protecting their believers. The third era was called the Age of Empires. This was a long and glorious era.
The fourth era was a mysterious one. Not many records survived to the present, and most were vague and evasive. Based on some archival and manuscript records, people called it the Age of Shadows. It truly was an era hidden behind shadows.
After the Age of Shadows, humans and gods seemed to enter a period of extreme decline. In the fifth era, gods fell one after another, the continent was covered by mist, the empire territories fragmented, and people became isolated. This was the Age of Silence, a period full of chaos and deathly stillness.
After the fifth era, humanity recovered and rebuilt in the sixth era. The God of Past and History appeared, and people once again lived and developed under divine protection, extending their sphere of influence back into the Ashless Lands.
The dividing point between the Age of Silence and the Age of Mist was precisely the appearance of Antinam.
This currently sole remaining deity was also considered humanity’s guardian god. They did indeed exist and did indeed protect humanity in some way.
Thinking of the eye pattern and symbol on that door, Siles couldn’t help wondering—was this God of Past and History the source of the Revelator’s power? Or rather, did They actively bestow power upon the Revelator?
After pondering for a moment, Siles shook his head. There were still too few clues.
He simply stopped thinking about it and looked again at the course names he’d written on the scratch paper. After some thought, he opened the materials he’d taken from Professor Cabel’s office.
Part of it was already organized, belonging to the course lesson plans section. Siles was fortunate to find among them a complete teaching outline and lesson plan for “Literary Survey from the Age of Divine Birth to the Age of Mist.”
He immediately set it neatly aside, planning to examine it carefully later.
He continued browsing through these materials and found some scattered resources and lesson plans. However, he still realized with a headache that he would probably have to integrate materials and reading lists himself, then prepare lessons for those two Age of Silence-related courses.
Fortunately, that was at least within Siles’s area of expertise.
He set aside the useful parts, planning to look for his notes from when he was a student tomorrow and comprehensively organize a general framework for these two courses.
He remembered he had once taken Professor Cabel’s major elective course. But he couldn’t possibly completely copy Professor Cabel’s original classroom content—that would be too improper.
While thinking this, Siles casually pulled out a manuscript page.
He glanced down at it, then suddenly froze, because he discovered this manuscript’s content seemed to have no great relationship with Professor Cabel’s classroom content.
This seemed to be something Professor Cabel had casually scribbled down, and scanning it broadly, one could see words like “madness” and “shadow.”
Associating it with the mysterious fourth era, the Age of Shadows, Siles became somewhat interested in this manuscript’s content.
