I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Old Bigger clearly didn't want to dwell on this topic for too long.

He took the tin cup off his lap and burped.

That burp abruptly lifted the already heavy atmosphere in the room.

"Alright, alright, we've gone too far." He patted his thigh and stood up.

"For a newcomer like you to worry about things beyond the level of a master is like a toddler worrying about the change of prime ministers—it's just a waste of your time."

Richard's face twitched; he was speechless.

"Just focus on doing your job well."

"You've passed the inspiration test, which means you have a foundation in clairvoyance. Next, it's time for formal lessons."

Old Big stood up from his chair, patted the wrinkles on his trousers, and went around behind the table.

He crouched down and rummaged through the canvas tool bag, pulling out a few items from inside.

The first item was a palm-sized copper dish with several concentric circles engraved on its surface, and a small piece of murky crystal embedded in the center of each circle.

The second item was a wax stick about the thickness of a thumb, with a grayish color.

The third item was a cloth bag, inside which something was jingling and clanging.

Old Big laid out three things on the table:

"Now I'm going to teach you two basic lessons: a formal introduction to clairvoyance and basic divination."

He picked up the bronze dish first.

"You've already started working on your spiritual vision; the perception test you just did was the prototype of it."

You push the ether out and feel its feedback after it hits something.

"But that's just the most basic stage, like reaching out and touching furniture in a dark room with your eyes closed."

You can feel where the table and chair are, but you can't tell what kind of wood the table is made of or whether anyone is sitting in the chair.

He handed over the copper dish.

"The formal introduction to clairvoyance requires you to learn one thing: 'fixed vision'."

The pushed-out ether doesn't just retract after a brief touch; you need to keep it stationary on the target surface, maintaining stable contact and continuously receiving feedback signals.

"What's the difference between a bump and a solid?" Richard asked.

"A bump is like a spring; it bounces out, hits something, and bounces back. The information you get is instantaneous and rough, only enough to determine 'whether it exists'."

"It is a palm, and once it is placed on, it will not let go."

You can slowly feel the texture, temperature, material, shape... the amount of information is on a completely different level.

Old Big placed the copper dish in the center of the table; the crystal pieces on the dish gleamed with a hazy gray light under the lamp.

"This disc is a teaching tool for training clairvoyance. The concentric circles on the disc are rulers to help you calibrate the distance and direction of pushing ether."

The crystal piece is the bullseye. When you practice, fix your gaze on the crystal piece and maintain contact for as long as possible.

"At first you may only be able to hold it for three to five seconds before the ether slides off the target surface. If it slides off, just start over. There's no rush."

"Once you can hold a position stably for more than 20 seconds, you've mastered the basics."

Once you get the hang of it, the way you see things will be completely different from ordinary people.

He patted the edge of the bronze dish:

"When an ordinary person looks at a strange object, they see its shape, material, weight, and age."

If you use your spiritual vision to examine a wondrous object, you can see the deep structure of the inscriptions, the flow and density distribution of ether, and the integrity of the seal.

"These things are invisible to the naked eye and cannot be detected by instruments; only those with spiritual vision can see them."

Richard picked up the bronze dish, flipped it over, and carefully examined the back.

The back is smooth and has no inscription, except for a very small line of text engraved on the edge: MVB.

Abbreviation for the creator.

MVB—he racked his brains but couldn't find the corresponding name.

"That was made by my teacher," old Biggs said casually.

"She made a training disc for each student, one for each person, and she won't take them back. I don't need it anymore, so you can keep it."

Old Big picked up the gray wax stick again.

"Next is a basic divination."

He scratched a mark on the surface of the wax stick with his fingernail:

"There are many methods of divination. The one passed down in our lineage is the most basic one, called 'reading wax.' It doesn't even have a formal name; my teacher just calls it 'wax talk.'"

He broke the wax strip in two and placed one of the pieces upright on the crystal in the center of the copper dish.

"Simply put, it involves lighting a wax stick and letting the wax drip naturally onto a copper dish, then reading the information based on the shape of the solidified wax."

"What information should we read?"

"It depends on what question you ask."

Old Big took a match out of his pocket, struck one, and lit the candle.

The flame of the gray candlestick is different from the orange-yellow of a regular candle; it is a cool, bluish-white.

The flame was small and burned steadily in the almost windless room without flickering.

The wax began to slowly slide down the side of the wax strip, and after flowing onto the copper plate, it quickly solidified, forming irregular white bumps.

"Stare at the wax," Old Big's voice softened.

"At the same time, ask yourself a simple question. Don't ask anything too complicated, like 'How long will I live?'"

"That's a question that wax can't answer, and even if it did, you wouldn't understand."

"What type?"

"Start with the simplest thing: think of a question you already know the answer to, and then see what shape the wax takes."

Use known answers to calibrate your ability to interpret the shape of wax.

Richard stared at the solidifying wax on the copper dish and silently asked himself a question.

After the wax solidifies, it takes the shape of a crooked Y.

"Y-shaped." Old Big glanced at it:

"In the wax divination method, this usually means 'branching' or 'choice.' What are you asking about?"

"I'm thinking about what I should do first tonight."

"Looks like you have two things to do tonight." Old Big nodded:

"The wax oil read the 'fork in the road' in your heart."

He scraped off the wax from the plate with his fingernail, and the plate was clean again.

"The core of the wax reading method does not lie in the shape of the wax itself."

Shape is merely a medium; what truly matters is the brief resonance between your ether and the minute amount of ether in the wax during those few seconds you gaze upon it.

He tapped the gray wax strip.

"These wax sticks are made with a special formula that includes powdered gray clover, and contain trace amounts of ether."

Once ignited, the ether in the wax is activated, resonating with the crystal pieces on the disc as it drips.

"Your etheric perception also gets involved at that moment; the questions you're thinking about will affect how the wax solidifies."

"So, in essence, reading the wax talisman isn't about reading the 'future,' but rather about reading 'oneself'?"

Old Big blinked.

"When I asked my teacher the same question back then, she gave me the same answer:"