I loaded the Mysticism panel.

After eating the condensate for more than a week, Richard went to the academic affairs office to sign the training room borrowing form.

The iron door to the underground training room was locked from the inside, and he summoned his shadow from behind the curtain into the material world.

The shadow has solidified compared to a week ago; the feeding wasn't in vain.

He let the shadows return behind the curtain and began to formally test the various possibilities under the blessing of the name.

He thought about the first name for a long time before finally deciding on it.

"sentinel."

Ether flowed from the Sun Throne and fell onto the shadow along the conduction path.

The plasticity of the name and the shadow meshes extremely smoothly.

The shadow is the observer on the other side of the curtain; "sentinel" is a name given to the characteristic of the side it observes.

The changes were immediate; the range of the shadow's perception expanded.

Richard closed his eyes and tried to experience the "vision" of the shadow through the bridge of that spirit.

It can detect changes in ether concentration further away on the shallows, and even distinguish the "direction of origin" of the changes in concentration.

The fluctuations drifting in from the southeast and surging from the northwest were automatically labeled with different color temperatures in its perception.

This information was transmitted back to Richard's brain in real time via the psychic system.

It's as if he's sitting still in the material world, while an owl patrols the shallows behind the curtain, keeping watch for him.

After twelve minutes, the name began to fade.

Pure ether without a spirit form, daily ether is maintained for about ten minutes.

Richard pondered over the second name he wanted to test for a long time.

The Shadow Guard was the final choice.

The guardian of shadows, and also the protector in the form of shadows.

After the name was written, the core oscillation frequency of the shadow dropped to the lowest value Richard had ever seen.

Unlike other names that passively accept external forces, the name Shadow Guard elicited a near-"acceptance" response from the core.

Richard had Shadow try to apply the Stone Armor.

The armor plates spread out almost twice as fast as when it was unnamed, and the shell thickness also increased by about 20%.

The Moon-Changing Nail, with silver needles flicked from the shadow's fingertips, was much stronger than the normal state, as it was formed from pure ether without the need for a toothed needle as a medium.

The switching between armor plating and moon spikes is also much smoother, with the interval reduced to almost the blink of an eye.

But all of this was still within Richard's expectations.

What truly made him sit up straight was something he hadn't expected that appeared after the naming.

The shadow began to "move toward him".

At the etheric level, after being named Shadowguard, the shadow exhibited a faint tendency.

It will actively adjust its position in the direction of Richard, placing itself in a position that is closest to the main body and can cover the most incoming routes.

The name instilled in it a kind of nature, and it consciously protected itself.

These two alone are far from enough; Richard has already prepared a list of names he wants to try.

First is the "ferryman".

The shadow was originally a product of his signature ability "Ferryman," so naming it "Ferryman" is almost a natural fit in logic.

The moment the ether was pushed out, the name landed on the shadow, with an extremely high match.

The outline of the shadow didn't change much, but the "boundary" between it and the curtain became thinner.

Previously, the shadow sank from the material world to the shallows behind the curtain, with a vague transitional phase in between, like the part where a person dives from the surface to the bottom.

That transition has now been almost completely erased.

The shadow sank much faster, and rose just as quickly.

This form can be used in the future as an assassin to raid enemies in the material world.

After recording the data, Richard tried the second one.

The next name piqued his curiosity even more.

"screen."

Once the name is chosen, subtle changes occur.

The shadow neither thickened nor thinned, but its edges began to blur.

After being named "Curtain," his shadow and the boundaries between all the projection booths in the training room disappeared.

The shadows spread out in all directions along the patterns of light and shadow, merging with the shadows all over the ground.

If someone were to push the door open at this moment, they would see that the shadows on the ground are nothing unusual.

In reality, his shadow permeated the entire area of ​​the ground, silently and omnipresent.

Richard felt the "tactile sensation" of the blanket through the Spirit Thread.

The outline of everything in the training room was in his perception.

"This is the true form of a shadow," he thought to himself.

The essence of a shadow is a complete absence of light.

But there's a problem with this name too.

Once the "curtain" is drawn, all of the shadow's combat abilities as an independent entity are lost.

It's only suitable for hiding and reconnaissance at this time, not for fighting.

However, this is only for now. He feels that in the future, it may be possible to gradually upgrade from "screen" to "domain", "country", and "border".

At that time, I might be able to recreate the Shadow Kingdom of that Black Earth River Master, and even surpass it.

Richard wrote it down and removed the word "curtain".

The shadows coalesced from the darkness of the ground back into human form and returned behind the curtain.

"anchor."

The name makes the shadow very heavy.

The shadow remained rooted to the spot, refusing to move no matter how he tried to convey his thoughts.

Even the tidal ripples of the shallows behind the curtain couldn't move it.

It became a steel pile driven into the foundation, incredibly stable.

The effect is easy to understand: if you need the shadow to stay firmly in a certain position, just name it "anchor".

But it can't do anything else.

An anchor doesn't walk; an anchor is just an anchor.

Richard pondered an anchor standing in some corner deep within the curtain, wondering what its purpose was.

He quickly compared the effects of all the names in his mind.

The core principle is clear: the closer the name is to a certain aspect of the shadow's essence, the greater the bonus.

Conversely, the further the name and the shadow deviate from each other in essence, the worse the effect will be; if they deviate to a certain extent, they will not be able to be attached.

What is the essence of a shadow?

Silent, lightless, weightless, formless, malleable.

All the names that extend from these essential lines can be grasped.

If you go too far beyond these lines, you'll start to slip.

For example, he tried a "flame".

The moment Ether was pushed out, it bounced back, making his wrist go numb.

Shadows are essentially the complete opposite of concepts like "light," "heat," and "burning."

Giving it a name that contradicts its own attributes disqualifies it from even being displayed.

Richard flicked his wrist.

The effects of "Ferryman" and "Messenger" partially overlap;

"Nail" and "Shadow Guard" have different combat buffs, but they can be substituted for each other;

"Curtain" is suitable for hiding but loses the ability to act; "anchor" is suitable for holding firm but loses all flexibility; "flame" is completely incompatible.

Each name merely amplifies one aspect of the shadow, while the other aspects shrink accordingly.

It cannot be a sentinel, an assassin, and a shield all at the same time.

Unless… Richard’s eyes lit up, and he put both names on the list.

He sat on the training room floor for a long time.

What if we named the shadow both "Sentinel" and "Shadowguard"?

How can it possess both the extended perception of long-range reconnaissance and the instinctive tendency for close-range protection?

The word-formation characteristic of the Indo-European language family is the use of roots and affixes, which can generate compound names through combination.

The moment an idea pops into my head, the "critical thinking and inner awakening" system flashes a red light.

A name requires an initial ether consumption to write, and then ether is continuously consumed every second to maintain it.

Behind the curtain, the shadow can absorb ambient ether.

But in the material world, can his ether reserves simultaneously sustain the continuous consumption of both names?

Even if it's enough, it doesn't mean it works well; the water pressure will drop if you turn on two faucets at the same time.

Maintaining two names simultaneously will reduce the effectiveness of each name.

As for the actual difficulty of implementation, that's another matter entirely.

He decided to give it a try.

Shadow stood in the very center of the training room.

Richard took a deep breath and brought his breathing to its most steady rhythm.

Then he simultaneously launched two streams of ether.

"Sentryman"

The two meanings each flowed directly onto the shadow along the transmission path.

There were no problems when the first one was hung up.

The moment the second name touched the surface of the shadow, Richard's chest sank.

Two streams of ether were simultaneously drawn from the Sun Throne, and a large gulp was also scooped out of the spirit's reservoir.

The outline of the shadow trembled violently, and the two names fought each other.

The "sentinel" wants to expand the perception of shadows outward, making the edges thinner and more sensitive;

"Shadow Guard" wanted the shape of the shadow to shrink inward, making the edges thicker and denser.

One force wanted to disperse, and the other wanted to gather; the two forces tore at the surface of the shadow for less than two seconds.

Richard's spirit fell from 20 o'clock to 3 o'clock, and the edges of his vision began to darken.

He quickly removed both names.

The trembling of the shadow stopped, and the outline returned to stability.

Richard held his knees and panted for a while, his back soaked with cold sweat.

He almost did. If he had held on for just two more seconds, his ethereal essence and spiritual form would have been completely drained.

Once in space, the microcirculation is disrupted, and he will need a long time to recover, even with the premise of "healing".

The compound naming failed for two reasons.

The first layer consumes ether, and when stacked, it far exceeds the consumption of a single name.

The second layer is even more fatal: a conflict of direction.

The Sentinels and Shadowguards operate in opposite directions on the etheric plane.

Richard sat against the wall for a long time, waiting for the ether to slowly replenish until it was at a level that no longer made him feel anxious.

As he recovered, he pondered: what if the two names were facing the same direction?

For example, the names "Messenger" and "Ferryman" have some overlapping effects, essentially both doing the same thing: crossing borders.

If abilities with the same direction are stacked together, will they stop fighting?

Theoretically, this is possible.

However, he has already exhausted his ether resources for today, making it unsuitable for high-consumption tests.

Richard's thinking went a step further: if the same-direction compound naming approach works, what about the next step?

Three names facing the same direction? Four?

Later, when one reaches minor or even major mastery, and expands the spiritual count to fifty, one hundred, or more, the ether reserves may be sufficient to power five or six names simultaneously.

If he finds five or six names that are completely consistent in direction and progressively build upon each other.

Layer upon layer, it's like sharpening a knife, then quenching it, wrapping it, and oiling it.

Each layer's name reinforces the same direction, and the effect might be amplified exponentially.

What will the shadow become when it reaches that point?

Richard closed his notebook.

Like the Shadow Reversal, the naming ability was a seed when he obtained it.

What kind of tree a seed can grow into depends on how much water and fertilizer it receives, and how many years it is given.

He put away his notebook and sat in the training room for a while longer, waiting for his microcirculation to stabilize.