Silent Crown

A short while after they left uptown, a fancy carriage stopped before them.

The stallion pulling the carriage was as tall as a man, and its flame-like mane blew in the wind. The carvings on the carriage were decorated with gold and silver, shimmering under the setting sun.

The carriage door opened. The person inside looked at them and smiled, “Good day, sirs. What a coincidence.”

Ye Qingxuan had thought that Edmund came to make trouble, but froze when he saw the person.

In the carriage was a youth, sitting on a sheepskin rug. His silver scepter was tossed casually onto the ground, the ruby at the top shining with a lonely glow. His golden locks fell to his waist and he looked like a girl, but not many girls were as pretty as him, nor did they have that heart-stopping handsomeness.

Before, Ye Qingxuan thought that Charles was attractive, but he was different from this face before him now. While Charles looked like a good-for-nothing guy, this man’s aura was like the eerie coldness from an ancient well or an icehouse, and refused to be overlooked. Plus, he had such an opulent carriage and fancy attire. Ye Qingxuan only knew one person like this in Avalon.

“Boss?” He stared at the man in shock, having never expected to meet him here.

Sir Hermes, the clock shop’s mysterious boss, and namesake of the famous artist from a few hundred years ago, smiled smugly when he heard the shock in Ye Qingxuan’s voice.

“Long time no see since you entered the Academy, Little Yezi!” He waved his hand affectionately. “Come closer, a bit closer, that’s right. Is this your friend? He looks like a handsome youth. I’m happy that you have new friends.” Seeing two dazed faces, he smiled. “Would you like to come and drink some coffee? The shop is going to reopen soon after its recent reconstruction. It’ll bring some liveliness if I have two guests. I just brought home some goods from Burgundy. You won’t find my coffee anywhere else in Avalon.”

—

—

Half an hour later in the newly reconstructed clock shop, Ye Qingxuan and Charles sat at the table with coffee mugs in their hands like obedient children.

“Oh? That’s what happened? You’re doing well.” Hermes nodded after learning of the situation. “Your professor is Mr. Abraham? I’ve heard of him. I think he’s retired from the army, right? It’s rare to see a musician with a military background. Yezi, don’t take this chance for granted.”

Ye Qingxuan could only nod. He always felt that he did not have enough brain power for this mysterious and weird boss. But after getting used to his strange thought process, he seemed like a good person.

For once in his lifetime, Charles was well-behaved. He just sat there, drooling at the antique clocks in the store.

Ye Qingxuan coughed awkwardly, and lowered his head to drink the coffee. For some reason, the coffee tasted weird to him. It tasted like cat. Was this how high grade coffee tasted? It did not seem right.

“I thought you wouldn’t be able to make it,” Hermes said casually. He sat in his big chair and propped his feet on the table, finding the most comfortable posture without a care for manners.

“The last time an Easterner entered the Royal Academy of Music was twenty years ago. But he was different from you. He was invited over to be a professor. It’s so interesting that a mysterious Easterner would come to the most prestigious music school in the heart of the Anglo Empire to become the vice principal…”

“Vice principal?!” Ye Qingxuan exclaimed, stunned.

“That’s right. But I left for a few years and when I came back, he had gone missing.” Hermes shook his head and sighed, “Such a pity. I even missed his wedding. I heard that he quit right after his marriage to enjoy his two-person world. So envious, so envious!”

“Boss, do you still remember his name?” Ye Qingxuan asked carefully.

“Why should I remember a man’s name?” Hermes rolled his eyes. “Worker one, don’t look down on your boss!”

“Uh, Boss, that would be a weird reason for you to be looked down upon.”

Hermes muttered something, then said, “Well anyway, I think that Easterner caused some chaos in the end. Don’t be like him, Yezi.”

Ye Qingxuan sighed and asked, “Do you have any details?”

“You’ll have to check your school’s records. Doesn’t the library have archives of most staff?”

The youth shook his head. “The school’s library isn’t for students.”

“Actually, there’s a way if you really want to see,” Charles said from the side. “If you’re the concertmaster of the grade, you can choose any one day to enter the library and read material with a secrecy level of four or lower. This includes beginner music scores from any School, notes and material under Resonance level. Of course, if you’re crazy enough to want to read people’s profiles, it’s okay too.”

Ye Qingxuan froze. “Concertmaster? How do you do that?”

“See who’s most attractive. Just kidding.” Charles shrugged. “Of course you win the title by fighting. If you beat everyone, then you’re the concertmaster!”

“Are there any rules?” Ye Qingxuan asked.

Charles rolled his eyes. “You put down a flag in public if you want to challenge them. You must win ten rounds. Note that it’s ten continuous rounds. You have to fight as a musician. Yezi, don’t even think about it. You have no chance now, right? You should wait at least half a year!”

Ye Qingxuan thought for a long time and finally said softly, “It doesn’t sound that hard. I can get rid of Edmund and his friends too.”

“…My friend, you’re so confident!” Charles did not know if Ye Qingxuan was dreaming or thought too highly of himself.

“Would they not fight me if I don’t challenge them?”

Charles was silent.

“Oh, it’s good for young people to have such a fighting spirit.” Hermes clapped. His eyes paused when they swept past Ye Qingxuan’s chest. Suddenly, he rose from the chair and somehow stood atop the table. Ye Qingxuan thought that he was hallucinating, but Hermes really was standing on the table. He stepped forward and swept a hand across Ye Qingxuan’s chest, his pinky hooking onto the pocket watch’s chain, and lifted it from the pocket. It was no wonder he was the boss. He was as elegant as an elite lady picking flowers, even as he stood on a table and took an object from someone else’s pocket…

Hermes studied the pocket watch and his expression changed. “I miss this thing… Where did you get it from?”

“Uh, a friend.” Feeling a bit awkward, Ye Qingxuan took off the pocket watch and let the man look at it freely. Hermes ran a finger over the carvings and smiled happily. “Little Yezi, I can give you some pocket watches if you like them so much.”

With that, he pointed at the display rack behind the counter. It contained a row of extremely valuable antique watches. “Think of it as a late meeting gift. Choose whatever you like.”

Charles was ecstatic. “Thank you!”

A cane whacked him on the head. He wailed and promptly shut up. Hermes grinned at him. “This is an employee benefit. You don’t count.”

“So how about it? Did you choose yet?” Hermes pointed at his collection. “This is all good stuff.”

“I don’t need it.” Ye Qingxuan awkwardly waved a hand. “They all look expensive and I haven’t done much.”

“Tsk.” Hermes pursed his lips and went back to his seat.

With the chain caught between two fingers, he gazed as the watch spun around his fingertip. He murmured, “There is no way to take it back. Such terrible work should be destroyed like dark history.”

“What?” Ye Qingxuan asked.

“Nothing!” Hermes squeezed out a smile. “Since we met coincidentally, and I’m in a good mood, I’ll fix it for you.”

Without waiting for Ye Qingxuan’s reply, he tossed the timepiece into the air.

Ye Qingxuan opened his mouth to speak, but Hermes snapped his fingers.

Low murmurs and chants came from the empty air, instantly going from thin to brilliant sounds. Countless instruments accompanied the singing, turning into thunder and flashing past one’s ears like lightning! Amongst the countless chanting voices was the voice of an old man. “Time, please pause, because you are so beautiful…” And so, everything stopped.

Everything froze in the air, as if a drop of amber from the sky had embalmed the entire shop. All change was forced to stop, and the river of time froze as well. Catastrophe level music score—Movement four of “Faust” had begun!

“Dearest friends, all theory is gray. Only the Tree of Life is forever green.” Transformed into the music score’s demon, Mephistopheles, Hermes smiled as he reached out and lightly touched the watch in the air. The outer layer fell off instantly, from the shell to the complex watch core…

—

As if he had taken a nap, Ye Qingxuan blinked and saw the pocket watch fall back into Hermes’s hand.

“Here you go.” Hermes smiled as if his prank had succeeded. “It was just a joke. Don’t take it too seriously.”

“…Can I say that I’m used to it?” Ye Qingxuan muttered.

“Oh right, I almost forgot something.” Hermes pushed himself up with his cane, and rifled through one cabinet after another, leaving a trail of destruction. Ye Qingxuan watched dumbly as he kept looking for something. Finally, he kicked down a heavy leather suitcase from the loft.

The case seemed to have gone through wear and tear and was covered in dust. Ye Qingxuan had always put his mattress on it when he used to live here. He had never thought to open the heavy thing and see what was inside.

Now, the leather suitcase fell onto the floor. The old leather cracked open, emitting the moldy smell of old books.

“Here. Don’t say that I didn’t help you.” Hermes knocked against the suitcase with his cane. “You can choose some from this pile of trash.”

“What is it?”

Hermes chuckled. “Guess.”

—

Ten minutes later, the burly Seton pushed open the door and was met with a mess, as if a tornado had swept through the room. Hermes sat in the mess, casually drinking coffee. “Hey, Seton. You’re back?”

Seton grimaced even more. “You brought more weird stuff out?”

“Of course not. I just thought of the weird stuff I had collected before and took them out to organize and toss them.”

Hearing Hermes’s careless tone, Seton pursed his lips. He picked up a practically rotted book from the ground and tried to read the title.

“‘Music…Equal Temperament…Record.’ What is this?”

“Oh, old teaching material eliminated over time,” Hermes lamented. “They’re just books that should be buried under heaps of paper, or are records that some think are ‘worth nothing.’ It’s really bad to be a hoarder. Why did I collect so many things like a squirrel?”

“Speak more clearly!”

“Okay, okay,” Hermes sighed. “You know, all modern schools of music are built on the theory of Equal Temperament, right? Compared to previous rules, Equal Temperament created a new free body. Uh, it was a hundred times easier to learn and practice. With this as the base, we created the Nine Levels of Musicians that we know now, and other rankings. But the problem is, what did the musicians, or wizards, do before the Equal Temperament?”

“With this?” Seton looked at the moldy thing in his hands.

“That’s right.” Hermes nodded. “Basic musician theory had not yet been refined in the late Dark Ages. The seven major schools hadn’t been created yet. It was still the Classic Era. The theory of aether sensing didn’t exist yet.

“The main theory at that time was the Chaos Theory. It was the principle that aether could not be measured. Since you couldn’t measure aether, then you could only keep trying. And so the wizards believed that the more records they collected, the more accurate their calculations would be. This created a problem—a surplus of resources created without standardization. Imagine an amateur musician who wants to learn the rune for fire. He would have to try thousands of different spells. So the School of Classics quickly died out after Equal Temperament appeared. What you have in your hands right now is one the useless, helpful things they left behind.” As he finished, a familiar look appeared on Hermes’s face. It was the innocent smile of a child whose prank had succeeded. There was a bit of pride, a bit of secret joy, and uncontrollable happiness!

“Haha, I can’t wait.” Hermes looked out the window and murmured, “Twenty-six runes and more than 4800 spells. To memorize so many syllables, I think someone’s brain is going to burst.”