Read Treasure of the Mayan King (2012) for Free Online Page B

fluent in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, English, and two different Mayan dialects. The brain is a powerful tool, Chauncy, but first I must teach you how to unlock its potential. Now let us get some rest, for tomorrow will come quickly.”
    A sudden realization hit Chauncy. “Wait a minute! Just one minute! You…you knew that the shaft of Temple #22 would be filled with debris, didn’t you? And you knew it would take a few weeks to clear out all the rubble before Mack and I were even needed to look at the skeleton of the king! And now by having me here early, you were hoping I would be convinced to join you! And now Mack is going to be out there in Palenque examining his hands and scratching his nose while you teach me how to read Mayan hieroglyphs. Am I right?”
    Dr. Sova chuckled, his eyes twinkling. “Ah, yes! Now do you see why I chose you? You are - how do you say it in America? Oh yes: you are ‘one smart cookie’.”
    The following morning, bright and early, the first day of class began in earnest.
    Dr. Sova was sitting in his study when Chauncy arrived; there was a new item on the wall that Chauncy had not noticed before. It was a large poster of the human brain was on the wall behind the doctor, various regions clearly marked. Dr. Sova instructed Chauncy to sit down in a chair that was opposite him, and then stared into his student’s eyes.
    Dr. Sova was in good spirits, but when he spoke his voice betrayed none of his own eagerness. Instead, he spoke slowly and methodically. “Before I begin teaching you the Mayan dialects, I shall reveal to you the secrets of how I learned so many languages. Years ago, while attending a university, in France, I would routinely visit a nearby morgue for experimentation. Despite my particular science, I was fascinated with the human brain, and I performed many an experiment on a corpse’s brain, most of them extremely esoteric and unusual. I wanted to understand exactly how the brain was responsible for human speech and language comprehension. As you can observe from the poster behind me, scientists have already mapped where the brain handles speech, but that did not satisfy me. I wanted to answer the question of ‘how?’”
    The doctor paused, exhaled slowly as he crossed his legs and then continued his story. “If I could solve the mystery, then I would be able to concentrate my energies and stimulate just those particular brain cells in my own head, thereby wasting as little time and energy as possible. As you may know, the brain is composed of approximately ten billion neurons, and each neuron has over one thousand synapses that act like bridges between the cells. Studies other than my own have shown that when the neurons are regularly hyper-stimulated, a phenomenon occurs in which the synapses actually become stronger, allowing more information to travel in an easier manner. The challenge for me, then, was to spend all of my energies hyper-stimulating the brain cells related to language. If I could accomplish this, the learning of languages would be expedited.”
    Chauncy was puzzled. “But what use would dead brain cells have to your research? Unless the dead can talk, that is.”
    Dr. Sova chuckled. “That is a good question, and one I asked myself! I could slice and photograph and dissect a thousand dead brains and it would still get me nowhere. What I needed, then, was a live human to experiment on, one into which I could inject a radioactive solution and observe the dendrites, axons, neurons and synapses at work. One day I went to visit a good friend of mine who was studying to be a surgeon. I casually mentioned the problem I was having concerning the human brain. Despite the risks and the questionable legality, he allowed me to perform my experiment on him by injecting a small bit of solution into his neck and then taking pictures via my X-ray camera while he read various paragraphs I had prepared for him. The results were exactly what I hoped