I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Chapter 118 Selection of Curious Items

As winter sets in in Bristol, the days grow increasingly stingy with the weather.

When history class ended, it had already started to snow lightly outside.

Mr. Hutton closed his lesson plan and patted the chalk dust off his face.

Several students in the front row were packing their bags when the old man gave Richard a wink and quickly left the classroom.

Richard understood immediately.

He waited until most of his classmates had left before stuffing his textbooks into his bag and walking down the corridor toward the corner.

As usual, the door to Mr. Hutton's private office was ajar.

The old man sat behind the table and took a document out of the drawer.

"Your etheric microcirculation has been established for almost three months."

This time, he skipped the small talk and went straight to the point.

"Yes."

"At the normal pace, the microcirculation should reach the stability required for authorship in about six months."

The old man pressed down on the glasses frame with his thumb.

"Before that, there is one thing that needs to be prepared in advance."

"A signed artifact?" Richard replied.

Mr. Hutton nodded slightly: "Yes, that's why I came to see you today."

He pushed the file to the center of the desktop.

"The artifacts used for signing need time to be broken in. The compatibility between a newcomer and the artifact cannot be achieved simply by signing a name; it requires daily nurturing."

The sooner you determine this, the more time you'll have to establish a connection with the artifact.

"I previously submitted an application to see if we could allocate a rare item from the inventory that would be suitable for a newcomer to the scholar path."

"What's up there?"

"You don't need to know too much about the investors behind Bristol and many schools throughout the Northern Region; you'll get a formal introduction once you become a professional."

Mr. Hutton tapped the cover of the document with his finger.

"Your application has been approved. We will provide you with two optional artifacts, the specifications of which meet the needs of newcomers to the Scholar path."

"But it's not free."

Richard awaits the next installment.

"It's the same logic as student loans." Mr. Hutton's wording was very straightforward:

"Once the artifact is allocated to you, you will need to repay it in installments once you complete the registration process, become a professional, and start to have a stable income."

Richard hesitated for a moment, but then spoke:

"Before you give your formal reply, could you please take a look at what I already have?"

The old man raised his eyelids: "What's that in your hand?"

"Um."

Mr. Hutton wasn't surprised: "Then bring the item over tomorrow, and I'll check it out for you."

"OK."

The old gentleman picked up his teacup and took a sip.

"By the way, you don't need to bring the silver coin I gave you before."

"Which one is unsuitable as a carrier for signatures?"

"The ether content is too low, and it's not that old." Mr. Hutton put the teacup back on the saucer.

"Signing your name is about engraving your life's journey onto an object, and the object itself must be able to bear the weight."

Three hundred years is nothing; any random item in the basement of the Imperial Museum is older than that silver coin.

"It's more than enough to aid in cultivation, but as for signing one's name..." The old man shook his head.

Richard nodded silently.

"Let's get back to what you have in your hands," Mr. Hutton said, pointing to the documents that had been pushed aside.

"If you have suitable stock on hand, you naturally don't need to use the above inventory."

If what you have isn't enough, the two rare items in your inventory can serve as a safety net; you won't lose out either way.

Richard stood up and pushed the chair back into place.

"I'll bring my things over after school tomorrow."

"Um."

When I walked out of the office, the corridor was already empty.

The fine snow outside the window turned into snow pellets, which pattered against the glass.

Richard adjusted his backpack straps to his shoulders and headed towards the school bus stop.

………………

The next day, after the school bell rang, Richard reorganized the contents of his schoolbag.

Textbooks and notebooks were placed on the top shelf, and below them were two cloth bags containing six strange objects.

The openings of the cloth bags were all tied shut with thin ropes, and the bags were separated from each other with old handkerchiefs to prevent them from bumping against each other inside the schoolbag.

Richard knocked twice on the doorframe as he walked into the private office.

"Come in."

The old gentleman cleaned the table ahead of time today.

The lesson plans, correction notebooks, pen holders, and paperweights were all moved to one side of the table against the wall, leaving a long empty space in the center of the tabletop.

"Did you bring everything?"

"I brought it."

Richard put his backpack on the chair and started taking things out.

The first item is a Sphinx lamp.

After most of the contents of the seal were absorbed, the Sphinx's human face relief became much clearer.

The second item is a gargoyle.

He took the crouching stone sculpture out of his bag and placed it next to the oil lamp.

Two strange beast-shaped objects were placed side by side, one squatting silently, the other baring its teeth, creating an amusing contrast.

The next four items are an incense burner, an ancient Roman bronze coin, the earliest bronze pendant, and a recently acquired sun seal.

The six items are arranged in a row on the table, from largest to smallest, laid out in order.

Mr. Hutton sat up straight in his chair.

"Richard, I remember since you started learning..." He mentally calculated:

"From the end of September to now, in such a short time, I have actually accumulated six strange items."

Richard didn't explain anything.

Mr. Hutton didn't press further; he could roughly guess the source.

Richard's mother came from the Ashford family, so he probably used the family's resources.

"Okay, I'll show you each item one by one."

Mr. Hutton reached out and picked up the sun stamp at the very end.

"Things from colonial areas."

"It dates back no more than two hundred years, so there shouldn't be much ether in it."

"Yes."

"Like the silver coin I gave you, this thing is good enough as an auxiliary tool, but not good as a signature carrier."

Mr. Hutton placed the stamp on the right side of the table, marking out a separate area for veto.

Next up are the bronze ornaments.

The old man held the hanging cord with two fingers, raised the ornament under the light, and twirled it around.

The copper surface of the ornament looks dirty, probably from the sweat of several generations of hands.

Mr. Hutton quickly came to the following conclusion:

"These old items from the Eastern Continent, were they also given to you by the Ashford family?"

"Um."

"This year is good, but it's not suitable either."

Mr. Hutton placed the ornament flat in his palm.

"Artifacts from the Eastern Continent, when used within Albion, will experience a slight repulsion with the local ether."

"Rejection?"

"The two continents in the East and West are different, but the differences are minor and do not affect daily use."

The old gentleman also put the ornament in the veto area.

"But the attribution is a lifelong commitment, and any slight incompatibility will be magnified over the years."

"The problems may not be apparent in a few years, but when you move up the ranks in ten or twenty years, the incompatibility at the lower levels will become a fatal hidden danger."

"Understood."

Next is the bronze incense burner.

Mr. Hutton picked up the incense burner, examined it briefly, and came to the same conclusion as Richard had.

"This thing has been modified; it's secondhand, so we can reject it outright."

"Yes." Richard smiled. "That's how I negotiated the price with the boss back then."

The incense burner was pushed to the veto area, placed alongside the seals and ornaments.

On the table are a bronze lamp, a gargoyle, and ancient Roman bronze coins.

Mr. Hutton first reached out and picked up the ancient Roman bronze coin from the time of Diocletian.

"This copper coin is not bad. It seems I don't need to apply for a rare item for you."

"How so?" Richard asked, a little curious.

"Coins from the time of Diocletian," the old man explained. "They're over 1,600 years old."

He flipped the coin over to the back and then back to the front.

"Although it is not a product of ritual, it is ancient enough."

"Moreover, copper coins are small in size and easy to carry."

Mr. Hutton added, "The medium on which you sign your name will stay with you for life. Something that can be stuffed into your pocket is much more convenient than something that you have to move around."

He placed the copper coin in the center of the table.

"If you don't have a better option, copper coins are my top recommendation."

Then the old man reached out and picked up the gargoyle.

He raised an eyebrow when he saw the inscriptions on all four sides: "This one is not bad either."

"It is not as old as copper coins, but it is a product of a proper ceremony."

The inscription system is complete, making it a vessel of extremely high esoteric value in itself.

"If you use a gargoyle as your signature, you may gain a certain spell bonus."

After commenting on the gargoyles, the old man reached out and touched the last sphinx lamp.

His movements stopped abruptly.

He lingered for a while at the spot where Richard had pried open the door.

Richard had already sealed the transfer point back with wax, a technique he learned from the sealing maintenance manual on the third floor of the library.

On the surface, it appears to be completely integrated with the original seal.

Richard's heart was beating a little fast. He hoped no one would notice anything amiss.

But the old gentleman did not comment on that turning point.

He placed the oil lamp in the center of the table, where the copper coins originally belonged.

He quietly moved the copper coin aside.

"With this lamp, there's nothing else to consider. It possesses both sufficient antiquity and high esoteric value..."

The old man twitched his white eyebrows, looking somewhat puzzled.

"And for some reason, there's a slight compatibility between it and you."

"Compatibility?"

"You can tell by looking at the direction of the ether flow; this is a skill for practitioners."

The old man extended his right index finger and drew a line in the air.

"Under normal circumstances, the etheric seepage of the strange object is omnidirectional."

Even when a wondrous object is sealed and locked away, the trace amounts of ether that seep out spread evenly in all directions; the ripples on the water's surface do not move in only one direction.

"But the ether leakage from this lamp is slightly biased."

Mr. Hutton withdrew his finger.

"It will automatically gravitate towards your direction."

The old gentleman's tone shifted from professional assessment to serious discussion.

"Resonance requires at least one of three conditions to be met."

"Close contact for a sufficiently long time, etheric compatibility high enough, or... a causal connection deep enough."

Richard knew the reason.

That night in Nail Alley, he personally pried open the seal on the lamp and extracted more than 95% of its ether reserves.

One part was converted into points, and the other part was extracted into seeds by the panel.

Finally, the seed sprouted and grew into "Shadow Reversal".

Most of the lamp's soul had flowed into his body.

But he couldn't bring himself to explain it.

"It's probably... the one I've been playing with the longest."

Richard gave a vague answer.

Mr. Hutton did not ask any further questions.

His mentor once taught him: "As long as a student's secrets do not harm others or themselves, let them remain in the student's own hands."

"What you need to do is give him directions, not search his pockets."

He nodded: "Okay."

"This Sphinx lamp... possesses all three qualities: age, mystical value, and existing resonance."

"For you, there is no more suitable medium for signing your name."

Richard looked at the bronze lamp in the center of the table.

The Sphinx, with its eyes half-closed, indifferently observes everyone who approaches it.

It has already guarded his door once, and now it will guard it for the rest of its life.

Mr. Hutton's fingers left the brass lamp.

"Now that it's settled, I'll teach you how to nurture it."

"Nurturing?"

"From the day the object is identified until it is officially signed, it needs to be nurtured day by day."

Mr. Hutton took a thin booklet out of the drawer, turned to a page in the middle, and pulled out a folded piece of paper tucked inside.

A simple diagram was drawn on the piece of paper.