touchnovel Chapter 1 The Secret of the Night's Watch
Chapter 1 The Secret of the Night's Watch
It was late at night, and the gaslights illuminated the room at 13 Baker Street.
The young man struggled to his feet, looked around, and was momentarily speechless at the unfamiliar surroundings.
"who I am?"
"Where am I?"
"What happened?"
The time traveler posed his classic three questions in succession, which were steadily caught by the memories flooding into his mind.
Lucius Anderson, a native of Hull, Yorkshire, Horn Kingdom, West Continent, is a third-year student at East York University, graduating from the History Department.
The parents were dock engineers who drowned during a ship repair operation when the dock flooded.
He survived his school years on the compensation he received under the Industrial and Commercial Compensation Law and some small savings.
However, the money was just enough for tuition and basic food and lodging, with no surplus.
He remembered that for three months he ate only black bread and eggs provided by the church, which is how he met the always smiling old bishop of St. Audrey's Church.
Currently, all you need to do is complete a short thesis to get a Bachelor of Arts degree and then find a decent job.
A short paper? Lucius frowned slightly at this thought, looking at the densely written draft of runes on the table in front of him.
This is the language of discovery, a language inherited by ancient humans of the Third Age from a long-extinct race.
It took the original owner nearly a year to master its basic vocabulary and grammar, and then another week to painstakingly translate the pile of stuff in front of him.
"The Gentlemen's Jokes Collection?"
Lucius read aloud the translated title from the draft, his expression somewhat strange.
He casually flipped through a few pages of the translation, which were full of clumsy puns and tasteless satire.
In my previous life, this kind of academic garbage wouldn't even qualify as a table corner.
"Those professors will definitely criticize it fiercely: this paper has no originality whatsoever!" Lucius muttered to himself, a smile involuntarily creeping onto his lips.
He could almost picture the professors' ashen faces at the defense.
"I wonder why Professor Marcus applied for this project," he continued to mutter, his fingers unconsciously tapping the table.
In my memory, my research group's mentor, Marcus Lean, was a middle-aged scholar in his early forties with a thin build.
Two months ago, he unexpectedly acquired a batch of artifacts from the Third Age at an archaeological exchange meeting, including the original text of the Nascent Soul.
He assigned the task of translating the documents to Lucius alone, requiring him to complete it before the end of the semester.
After reading through the entire translation draft, as expected, the whole book, "Gentlemen's Jokes," was indeed just a satirical comedy and had nothing to do with historical knowledge.
"Is Professor Marcus playing a trick on me?" Lucius placed the translation draft on the desk, leaned back in his chair, and began to think seriously:
"I'll submit the translation draft tomorrow morning. I hope he can come up with a solution, at least a different topic for me..."
What he didn't notice was that as the translation draft left his hand, the originally intricate anagrams began to move!
The black symbols seemed to come alive; first, their edges trembled slightly, and then the entire symbols began to writhe.
They grew facial features, if those twisted depressions and protrusions can be called facial features.
They communicated with each other in a language of discovery, uttering gentlemanly jokes that were inaudible to human ears.
One by one, they stood up from the draft paper, forming a crooked line, and crawled up the table toward Lucius's hand resting on the edge of the table.
Lucius was still pondering how to finish his short paper when the tingling sensation in his palm made him look down.
In an instant, his pupils contracted sharply, his brain seemed to freeze, and his whole body stood still, completely motionless.
His mouth gaped open, and what should have been a deafening roar sounded distorted by the unknown fear.
"Damn it! What is this thing? This monster has never appeared in the original owner's memories!"
Lucius frantically waved the cryptic message on his palm, but then quickly stopped.
The monsters melted into the flesh of my hand as soon as they touched my skin, and disappeared a few seconds later. Only the blank translation draft on the table proved that they had indeed existed.
"Are you alright?" Lucius looked at his hands in confusion.
Suddenly, without any warning, he collapsed to the ground, an unprecedented drowsiness surging up from the depths of his body.
In the final moments before his consciousness fell into a deep sleep, Lucius remembered something—the cause of the original owner's death that wasn't recorded in his memory.
At that time, he was just like me, after reading "Gentlemen's Jokes", thinking about how to complete a short essay, then being invaded by these monsters, and finally falling into a deep sleep.
"Am I going to die?" Lucius thought resentfully, his consciousness fading away at an irreversible rate.
"I'm probably the fastest transmigrator to die, right? Only... uh, maybe ten minutes have passed since I transmigrated?"
"Isn't there some kind of cheat code to save the day or something?"
The thought had barely formed in his mind, with only a second left—perhaps even less—when something unfolded at the edge of his consciousness.
It was a diary.
The leather-bound notebook slowly opened before his eyes, and line after line of text appeared:
[On June 27, 1855, during the Fifth Age, I read "Gentlemen's Jokes" and gained knowledge of the occult, "The Night Watchman's Secret."]
[Complying with the code of conduct "Seeking Knowledge" earns +1 Mysticism Point]
【The Night's Watchman's Secret (lv0, 0%)】
【Sexual characteristics: lamp (1), knowledge required (1)】
[Effect: Entering a dream state]
[Introduction: Gods each have their own color, but color only exists where there is light.]
[Hint: You are currently in a state of Knowledge Infiltration. Do you wish to use Mysticism Points to increase the Night's Watch's Secret Knowledge level? Once you reach level 1, you can exit this state and acquire the related abilities.]
"Then what else is there to say?"
Lucius's dilated pupils narrowed slightly, and he used the last of his strength to speak:
"Diary! Add some points for me!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he finally succumbed to sleepiness and his eyelids closed heavily.
In the bright light, only the words on the notebook appeared one after another:
[Consumes 1 Mystic Point, The Night's Watch Secret (lv0→lv1, 0%)]
[Gained Ability: Enter Dreams]
Current Mysticism Points: 0
Perhaps a minute or ten minutes passed, but in his dream, Lucius only felt that he was surrounded by scattered points of light.
He stretched out his hand, and the points of light spun at his fingertips, flashing and revealing images.
The original owner's speaking habits, how the tongue presses against the roof of the mouth to produce the distinctive rolled "r" sound of the Yorkshire accent in the Kingdom of Horn.
His posture and movements include habitually clenching his fists with both hands when sitting down, with his right index finger hooking his left thumb.
Facial expression management, such as the angle of lowered eyelids when being reprimanded by a professor.
……
These are all the details of the original owner's life accumulated over the past twenty-two years, which are now being extracted in the dream.
Lucius raised his hand, holding a point of light in his palm, and said, "I..."
Yes, the tone, opening manner, and ending sound of this word are exactly the same as the original owner's.
Not only the words, but even the slight raising of the eyebrows when the original owner used this interjection naturally appeared on his face.
He understood; this was the power of "The Night Watchman's Secret": entering dreams.
Using this power, Lucius instantly attracted and merged all the points of light in the dream.
The next moment, in his room on Baker Street, he opened his eyes again.
[The Night's Watch's Secret, Proficiency +1%]
The diary alert sounded, and Lucius first walked around the room a couple of times, then turned his body and found that the previous sluggish and twisted feeling was gone.