I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Mr. Holland's tutoring has continued ever since the Cicero Cup, and it has gone far beyond the scope of secondary school.

Mr. Holland used to tell Richard stories of Cicero, Tacitus, and Suetonius.

When he first learned to recite Catiline's speech from memory, the bald middle-aged man would slam his fist on the table twice.

We're not filming anymore.

Mr. Holland is now telling him Plautus's comedy.

The slang, puns, and stage rhythms hidden in Plautus's comedies... these are things that are only introduced in undergraduate courses at many universities.

After Richard listened, Mr. Holland asked him to write a dialogue using Plautus's rhythm.

After finishing writing it, he marked three places on the dialogue, all in the lines that Richard was most proud of.

His head was bald, reflecting the yellow light of the office lamp.

He took a small copper kettle from the drawer and poured himself a glass of water.

Richard.

"Yes."

"Last year when you returned from the capital, I had a private conversation with your father, Mr. Rogers."

"I told him that if he could maintain this momentum, he should be able to get into a good university in the capital."

"What did my father say back then?" Richard asked, somewhat curiously.

"He asked me back then if I could go to God's University."

"I said 'there is hope,' but that's all there is to it."

Mr. Holland took a sip of water.

"Beijing University selects students from all over the country every year, with tens of thousands of students each year. And these are the top students who have already been screened once."

"Let alone Briston, there are so many high schools in the entire Northern Industrial Region, but only a few students can get in each year."

"You didn't have a strong foundation back then, so getting second place in the Cicero Cup was already a pleasant surprise."

"But the Cicero Cup is just the Cicero Cup."

"Yes, my aunt also said that it was just the first hurdle." Richard himself understood.

"The preparatory course for the Department of Classical Studies at Teito University only admits a few dozen students each year, so at that time I could only say 'there is hope'."

Mr. Holland put the glass of water back on the table.

"But after the past six months, I can now speak more confidently."

"...Sir, you have so much confidence in me."

Richard was certainly confident in himself, but he felt a little embarrassed by the teacher's praise.

"If I say you can go up, then you can go up."

There was not an exaggeration in Mr. Holland's tone.

"The Plautus I'm going to tell you about now is from the second year of the preparatory course at Imperial University."

"I will talk to you about undergraduate content before the summer training program begins in the summer."

He pushed the copy of the dialogue, which had been marked in two places, back to him.

"Go back and fix these two places."

"Yes."

………………

Wentworth called quickly, and there was news in less than two weeks.

After school, Richard went to the branch office; the door on the third floor was ajar.

The inspection team leader pushed a pine box to the edge of the table and placed another palm-sized velvet box next to it.

"It contains the items you ordered and the materials you submitted."

"Manchester has been very busy lately, so the craftsman overcharged you by five pounds for the work. I'll have the accountant hold the rest for now."

Richard first opened the pine box, and three needles lay in the folds of the mat.

The enamel on that section of the tooth was polished, revealing the underlying bone and jade.

The handle is made into a flat triangular shape, which fits perfectly between the fingers and prevents it from slipping when threading the needle.

A silver wire is inlaid near the base of the tooth, running in two loops along the guide inscription.

The craftsmen didn't cut corners on the guiding inscriptions.

Richard picked up one of the handles, but didn't touch the teeth.

Even if the Soul-Devouring Beast's front canines are detached from its main body, the intention to "bite" at the ethereal level will still seep in.

If you squeeze it with your bare hand, the skin won't show a wound immediately, but after half a month, that hand will feel cold for no reason, and after another six months, it won't be able to straighten.

He opened the second compartment, where a pocket watch lay quietly, no different from the others.

Richard didn't see the trick at first.

He used his spiritual vision to attach it to the shell and read it layer by layer from the outside.

The silver shell has two Shadow Eater scales embedded in its inner wall, cut into petal shapes with the convex side facing outwards, and an etheric medium is added in the middle as a catalytic material.

"Give it a try," Wentworth said, pointing.

Richard pressed the button, and it clicked.

Light shone from the concentric circles of the watch, carrying a slightly cold blue hue, casting particularly sharp edges on the shadows cast on the table.

Wentworth offered a brief explanation:

"The scales themselves don't emit light; they need the tiny bit of ether you input as a fuse to emit light."

The head of the inspection team looked serious as he spoke.

"Because it's a special period recently, a few days ago an internal notice was issued saying that all private orders made by non-staff personnel through organizational channels need to be investigated."

Richard's heart sank; this special period must refer to a state of war preparedness.

"Were there any problems with my attempts?"

"Yours is fine. All the materials are registered in the public account, and all payments are made through private subsidies."

Wentworth folded up the internal memo and stuffed it into the drawer.

"But next time you want to do something, I'll have to ask you more questions from up there."

Richard wrote this down and nodded solemnly.

Before heading home, he also stopped by Clement Antiques.

The old man, wearing a monocle, was wiping a tin-copper alloy candlestick in front of a glass cabinet.

Hearing the bell ring, he looked up, saw who it was, and draped the rag over his shoulder.

"Things haven't been peaceful lately," old Clement said directly.

"The auction house business has been completely shut down, and the company mentioned 'downsizing' at a meeting this year."

"Downsizing?"

"The line indicating unsold lots in the second category has been completely removed."

The old man sighed: "You can hardly expect anything to roll out of my hands again in the future."

Richard was somewhat disappointed, but he didn't show it.

"It's alright, Mr. Clement."

"Could you write down the names, ages, and hobbies of your two grandsons for me?"

The old man was stunned for a moment.

What's going on here?

"When I actually come up with a way, I'll keep an eye out for it for you."

Clement took off his monocle and wiped it repeatedly on his apron.

He didn't say anything more, took out a piece of brown paper from the bottom of the drawer, wrote two lines, folded it, and handed it over.

Richard took it and put it in his inner pocket.

"Old man, I can help you one last time."

Clement picked up the rag again.

"With the tightening of regulations, some people within the auction house system are going to leave and open their own private shops."

In the North District, a whole bunch of them will pop up in a few months.

"They sell both genuine and fake items, and many of those genuine antiques are stolen goods that haven't been properly cleared out."

The old man polished the glass cabinet until it shone.

"Although there are mostly fakes, you've always had a good eye, so you're sure to make a profit if you go to those shops."

Richard's eyes lit up: "Then I'll go check it out when they open in a while."

Clement waved his hand:

"The auction house channels are no longer available, but I'll visit my old friends again in a while and call you if I get any news."

"Thank you very much." Richard waved goodbye to the old man.

When I got home from Clement's, my sister's gingerbread "Mr. Rabbit (Sixth Edition)" was already on the table.

The gingerbread rabbit had a round belly, and the sugar-painted eyes finally didn't slant behind its ears.

"Look! I reduced the sugar by half a spoonful this time!" Evelyn proudly showed off, "It didn't collapse!"

"There's even a hint of something in their eyes." Richard picked one up and put it in his mouth: "...a squint."

"It's not squinting! That's called gazing into the distance!"

After Richard finished eating the two members of Mr. Rabbit's family, he went upstairs to his room.

What he got today is enough for him to practice for several days.

He first put the pocket watch down and then spread the three toothed hands on the table.

He was already very skilled at practicing the Moon Nail technique.

But when you switch media, you need a period of familiarization.

For the first toothed needle, he used his usual procedure of receiving the needle, guiding the breath, and inserting the needle.

The needle was held firmly between his fingers, and the two silver threads on the toothed shaft were waiting for him to push the ether in.

Following his usual rhythm, he pushed the third cycle of the fourfold breath from the Sun constellation to his palm.

Ether entered the body with a clattering sound.

The tooth-like structure briefly "bit" the ether that flowed in, then released it following the guiding inscription.

The color of the solidified moon nails changed.

Previously, it was made by condensing silver needles, resulting in a white color with a bluish tinge.

This scepter, once formed, had a wisp of gray floating beneath its white light.

Richard held the crescent nail firmly on the tip of his teeth for three more breaths.

The condensed needle-like mass was almost twice the size of usual.

He raised his hand and stuck the dental needle into the spine of an old Latin textbook on the wall opposite the table.

There was no sound when the needle went in.

The old textbook was easily penetrated, and the paper around the spine trembled.

Richard went over and pulled out the needle, only to find that a small hole had been pierced through the wall, and the wind was blowing in from outside.

He compared this effect with the previous use of silver needles and found that the erosion efficiency had increased by nearly double.

This was still fighting inanimate objects without ether; now it's about to fall on an evil being...

He did the math and found that the [Moon Nail] fired with the Soul-Eating Beast Tooth was more effective than a single-ring enchanted bullet.

Richard sat back down at the table and put the toothed needle back between his fingers.

The standard casting of 【Moon Nail】 involves three actions: receiving the needle and inserting it.

Fingers joined together, breath pushed ether, needle launched.

The bottleneck of this process lies in the launch itself.

After the ether condenses into a ball of needles, it is necessary to throw the needles out by hand.

The speed at which it is thrown by hand is far slower than the speed at which the ether itself conducts.

Three fingers joined together become two fingers, and two fingers become one finger.

One finger eventually transforms into pure ether to support the tip of the tooth, allowing the tooth body to suspend slightly in the palm of the hand.

The action of "piercing" in "piercing the needle" is changed from a flick of the wrist to the "spitting" of ether.

The Book of Nails of Nemesis records an advanced form called "Probe of the Pure Perception Level".

Remove the physical medium of the Moon Nail completely, allowing only the ether itself to solidify into that nail, driving it into the wall to probe the other side.

In addition to these, there are also Moonblade Rain, Moon Chain, and so on.

To achieve these advancements, the basic requirement is to reach the "one-finger level".

Richard reached out and pressed his pocket watch.

"Clatter."

Light spilled out from the center of the concentric circles, instantly casting the shadow of the toothed needle on the table onto the wall.