He flipped through it, and found that it was all books on geology, which made Ryan Bennett lose interest. He opened another box, and inside were bundles of letters and stacks of notebooks. In one corner of the box, there were actually four or five pitch-black, fist-sized stones.

“No wonder the box is so heavy. Why did mother put a few stones in here!” Ryan Bennett thought in astonishment, complaining inwardly.

He casually picked up a letter and opened it. At a glance, Ryan Bennett was immediately stunned, because the entire letter was written with a brush, and the signature at the end was actually the three characters “Scott Thompson.” Ryan Bennett hurriedly read it carefully. The letter wasn’t long; it should be a reply from this respected scientist to his grandfather. The letter gave a detailed introduction to the geological features of Yunnan, Guizhou, Myanmar, and other places, using very technical terms. Ryan Bennett couldn’t understand many of the words and phrases, but he was already certain that this was indeed a handwritten letter from Scott Thompson.

He hadn’t expected that his grandfather actually knew this great scientist whom he had admired since childhood. This greatly increased Ryan Bennett’s interest, so he began to organize his grandfather’s letters. Those pitch-black stones, being in the way, were taken out and tossed directly under the bed. If it weren’t for the trouble, Ryan Bennett would have thrown them into the downstairs garbage pile.

After roughly flipping through these letters, most of them were professional correspondence between his grandfather and some classmates or teachers. He had only read a small portion, and there was still a thick layer left in the box, but Ryan Bennett was already getting impatient, because some of the technical terms inside were really difficult for him to read.

Putting down the letter he was reading, Ryan Bennett suddenly thought, if he used spiritual energy, he might not even need to open the envelopes to read them! Thinking of this, Ryan Bennett focused his attention on the bottom of the box. A flash of green light passed, and the spiritual energy in his eyes was released.

“Huh!”

Ryan Bennett suddenly exclaimed in surprise, because as his eyes penetrated a stack of letters and saw the bottom of the box, two scrolls came into view. What surprised him was that after the spiritual energy passed through the scrolls, it seemed that a certain aura inside the scrolls merged into the spiritual energy in his eyes. Then, the spiritual energy automatically returned to his eyes, and Ryan Bennett could clearly feel that the originally thin layer of spiritual energy had become much denser.

At this moment, Ryan Bennett felt as if his eyes had just been treated with eye drops—cool and slightly sore. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, the whole room seemed much brighter.

Chapter 0009: United Sages

Ryan Bennett, a bit impatient and even somewhat rough, pushed the letters and notebooks in the box aside, revealing the two scrolls about fifty centimeters long at the bottom. Without looking closely, Ryan Bennett impatiently took out the scrolls, though he was still careful. At this moment, these two scrolls were undoubtedly the most important things in his mind.

You know, ever since that spiritual energy appeared in his eyes, Ryan Bennett had been trying every possible way to increase its amount. After two uses, the spiritual energy had become very thin, and there was no way to replenish it. Although he could now control whether to release the spiritual energy, these past few days, whenever Ryan Bennett interacted with people, his gaze was always evasive, afraid of accidentally releasing the energy. If he really used up all the spiritual energy in his eyes, he would be left with nothing but regret.

He hadn’t felt this way in a long time. Holding the two scrolls in his hands, even though Ryan Bennett didn’t know whether they were paintings or calligraphy, he could feel his heart pounding, as if it was about to leap out of his throat.

Not bothering to wipe the dust off the scrolls, Ryan Bennett carefully placed them on his bed, then went to the bathroom and washed his face with cold tap water, finally calming himself down.

Back in his room, Ryan Bennett didn’t open the scrolls right away. Instead, he sat on the bed, placed the scrolls on his lap, and focused his gaze on them. A flash of green light passed, and the spiritual energy left his eyes, shining onto the scrolls. But the result disappointed Ryan Bennett, because the amount of spiritual energy returning to his eyes did not increase again. The experiment just now was the same as when he looked through ordinary books before—he could only see through the scrolls to the objects underneath.

“So where did it go wrong?”

Ryan Bennett was a little disappointed, but he could accept this result. After all, the amount of spiritual energy had indeed increased earlier. What he needed now was to find the correct way to increase the spiritual energy in his eyes. He hadn’t expected to be able to repeatedly absorb spiritual energy from these two scrolls.

Ryan Bennett got up, found a clean towel, wiped the dust off the outside of the two scrolls, and then opened them, laying them flat on his bed.

After opening the scrolls, Ryan Bennett found that they were two pieces of calligraphy. One read: “How do you know the phoenix is not my equal?” The other read: “Just eat clams and rest, then ask the heavens.” The inscription on them was: “Dafang,” and below the inscription was a red seal with four characters: “Dafang’s script.”

The calligraphy on these two pieces was vigorous and fresh, bold and unrestrained, with a sense of spontaneity. Although Ryan Bennett didn’t understand calligraphy, he could tell that the author had a solid foundation. The paper of these two pieces had already turned slightly yellow, and the ends of the wooden scrolls were a bit faded. Since they were his grandfather’s collection, they were at least works from before the founding of the country.