I loaded the Mysticism panel.

The last test today is collaborative combat.

Richard left his shadow in the material world, letting it stand behind him to his left as a "shadow guard".

The target is a bronze target on the east wall of the training room.

The copper target is a standard training tool, with a central circle surrounded by three concentric circles.

The surface is coated with a mixture of coarse salt and refined silver, making it able to withstand professional-grade ether shocks without damage.

Richard fired a Moon Nail himself, and the resulting ball of needles trailed an extremely thin white line in the air before landing firmly in the center of the bronze plate.

This is the benchmark.

Then he tried to control the shadows to attack at the same time.

"You shoot the target on the right, I'll shoot the one on the left."

The thought was passed on, and the shadow raised its right arm.

Richard raised his left hand at the same time, and the two men focused their needles on their respective targets.

Richard made the first move.

His needle pierced the center of the copper plate, just like when he was doing it alone earlier.

But there was a problem with the needle in the shadow's hand.

The needle-like mass formed by the shadow veered off course, grazing the edge of the copper plate and striking the wall, leaving a burn mark.

Richard frowned.

Shadow's hit rate in solo shooting has always been quite high; in the unnamed benchmark test just now, he was able to hit the second lap more than 90% of the time.

There's only one reason why it's so far off.

At the moment he made his move, he focused his attention on his left hand.

Once your attention is diverted, the thought of handing it to the shadow fades away.

When thoughts are few, the precision of the shadow's movements decreases.

Even if someone could write with their left hand and draw a circle with their right, the quality of both sides would be compromised.

Richard tried a few more rounds.

When he focused most of his attention on manipulating the shadows, their accuracy returned.

But he himself couldn't do it.

His moon nail was off by more than half an inch, barely fitting on the second ring line.

A distance from which you could normally hit with your eyes closed was completely disrupted by distraction, dropping the skill level significantly.

Conversely, when he focused all his attention back on himself, the shadow immediately relaxed.

This is a choice where you can't have it both ways.

He spent another half hour in the training room, repeatedly testing different proportions of attention allocation.

He eventually found a barely usable balance: about 70% of his attention was devoted to himself, and 30% to his shadow.

He then practiced several combinations.

The shadow attacked from the side, but he attacked head-on.

The shadow, shielded by armor, drew attention in front of him, while he circled around to attack from behind.

The shadow spreads along the ground, transforming into a "curtain" shape to disguise itself as an ordinary ground projection.

The moment the enemy walked past, he suddenly solidified and grabbed the enemy's ankle, emptying his magazine from a distance.

Every combination has its uses, but every combination also has its obvious weaknesses.

The flaw was revealed in the moment he lost focus.

As long as he is distracted by manipulating the shadows, his side will be exposed.

If you're facing a fast enough opponent, that one momentary opening can be fatal.

Richard wrote these tactics down in his notebook.

"When using the shadow alone to perform high-precision tasks, the main body retreats into cover."

"When the shadow carries out rough harassment, the main body maintains more than 70% of its autonomous combat power."

Attention allocation can be practiced.

………………

The streets of the college district were plastered with all sorts of posters.

Richard passes at least three notice boards on his way from his dormitory to the Petrie Building every day.

The largest section is located at the intersection of the main road in the college district and the town center.

What used to be lecture announcements and book lists are now covered with layers upon layers of posters, making them look like a mess.

The top one is a recruitment poster.

In the picture, a young man in a brand-new military uniform stands tall and proud under the flag.

His right hand pointed in the direction of the onlookers, with a line of bold text below: "Your country needs you."

The young man in the painting is always so young, always so energetic, and the smile on his face is just right, both resolute and warm.

He didn't know what a trench tasted like.

These posters are everywhere: at the entrance of post offices, on the sides of public telephone booths, on pillars in train station waiting halls, and even behind the doors of public toilets.

In the bottom right corner of the poster, there is a line of very small text: "Triumphant return before Christmas".

Richard would linger over this line of text for a couple of seconds every time he passed by.

It's ironic that the war has been going on for almost four months.

He had read all the reports from the editorial team: Mons, Ypres, Marne...

The front-line trenches stretched all the way to the other side of the sea, and barbed wire was stretched from one coastline to another.

The phrase "triumphant return before Christmas" is still posted on the wall. I don't know whose idea it was; that person probably doesn't even believe it themselves anymore.

Next to the recruitment poster was a notice urging people to save food.

"For the boys on the front lines, please eat one less bite at each meal."

Below the notice was a picture of a bowl, which was only half full of soup.

As Richard passed by, he saw a middle-aged woman in a black dress standing in front of the notice, lost in thought.

She was carrying a cloth bag, with half a cabbage stalk sticking out of the bag's opening.

The half-cut cabbage stalk was very thin, and the leaves drooped listlessly.

Further down the path, there were posters promoting the inevitable victory in the war, urging people to buy war bonds, and calling on women to enter factories and replace male workers.

One wall was covered with seven or eight layers of plaster, new covering old, with the edges of the old ones curling up to reveal even older ones.

Richard stood by the wall for a while.

He noticed that the bottom layer was covered by several new posters, depicting the performance at the Imperial Opera House in September.

Mozart's The Magic Flute.

At that time, the war had only just begun for about a month, and the capital was still lining up to commemorate Mozart.

Next was Gluck, then Wagner... but because all of these people were composers from enemy countries, they were crossed off the entire program.

He had other things to do today and didn't have time to think about it too much.

Upon arriving in the southern part of the capital, Richard turned two corners in the alley and found a coffee shop.

The coffee shop has a narrow storefront, with a tailor shop squeezed to the left and a tobacco shop to the right.

Mrs. McNeil was already seated inside.

A cup of black coffee sat in front of her, and she wore a gray coat and a plain scarf, looking much like the woman selling chestnuts at the alley entrance.

"You're late." She picked up her coffee and took a sip.

"I circled that road sign at the alley entrance a couple more times."

Richard sat down opposite him and placed his backpack next to the chair leg.

"The direction indicated by that road sign is off-center from the actual direction."

"It's just off-center." Mrs. McNeil smiled and put the cup back on the saucer.

"The shop owner deliberately twisted that road sign crooked because he thought there were too many people passing by and it was too noisy."

Richard took the paper out of his bag.

The entire contents of the first automatic book were bound into a booklet with thin string in the order he later organized them.

The outermost sheet of paper was numbered in pencil, from one to seventeen.

Mrs. McNeil took it and flipped through it quickly, some pages lasting less than three seconds before she turned the page.

She stopped when she turned to the fourth page.

"These fragments of funeral ballads can be sold."

She pulled out pages four and five.

"Traditional guilds collect these kinds of items specifically for use in the final resting ceremony."

She turned a few more pages.

"You're saying this string of numbers represents the latitude and longitude of the sea where a drowned sailor last saw himself sink?"

"Yeah, when inspiration strikes, it has an extremely salty taste, and a stuffy feeling like water filling your lungs."

Mrs. McNeil pulled out that page and ran her fingernail under the latitude numbers.

"The fact that this person still remembers where he sank means that his lingering resentment hasn't dissipated, and he's still hanging on that stretch of sea."

Parishs in coastal ports occasionally pay people to help get rid of this lingering resentment, especially in fishing towns.

Before setting sail, fishermen would go to church and ask a pastor to read aloud. If the pastor happened to have some mismatched coordinates that matched the latitude and longitude, the sea would be clean after he left, reducing the risk of the fishing boats getting anchored when they passed by again.

She set aside the few useful ones, and pushed the remaining messy, garbled text and broken, repetitive sentences back to Richard.

"These are worthless. You can keep them to look at, or you can throw them away without any problem."

Finally, she turned to the large half-page that read "Don't let me die" and the last sentence, "The archers are right above your heads."

"This is outdated and useless."

This is completely consistent with the conclusion Richard reached after discussing with his aunt in room 314.

All sources point to the same conclusion regarding the Mons Angel incident:

Someone planted a seed, and tens of thousands of people prayed and watered it until it grew. Then, the person in a high position uprooted the plant that had grown.

Final settlement: Two fragments of the funeral ballad were cashed for £1.60, latitude and longitude coordinates and related melancholy information were cashed for £2, and other miscellaneous items totaled about £1, for a total of about £4.

Four pounds was a lot for him.

Moreover, the cost of this money is zero; he only needs to sit there and let his hand write it himself.

Inspiration goes out for a stroll and comes back without even breaking a sweat.

Of course, Mrs. Mary also takes a cut.

He was able to sell these for a good price based on the other party's reputation, and after deducting the fees, he only received three pounds.

"Next is the second order."

Mrs. McNeil took out a cloth bag.

Inside the box were gray clover, poppy husks, bay leaves, and moss, exactly the same as the first recipe.

"Do it now?" Richard glanced out the window.

The sky had darkened, and the gas lamp in the alley swayed in the wind.

The shadows of the mannequins in the shop window stretched out, sometimes long and sometimes short, reminding him of some unpleasant memories.

"Yes." Mrs. McNeil pushed her coffee cup aside. "Make it here."

"The boss is an industry insider; look at the wall over there."

Richard looked in the direction she was pointing.

Behind the velvet curtain, on the wall, after he spread out his spiritual vision, silver lines faintly peeked through the lacquered surface.

"The boss used to be involved in guilds when he was young."

"Later, he retired from the limelight and opened this coffee shop. He carved the seal himself."

Mrs. McNeil took an old silver pocket watch from her bosom.

"I'll keep an eye on you while you're inside. If you're more than thirty minutes in, I'll drag you out."

Richard nodded.

Compared to the first time, he now knew where he was going and what the way back would look like.

He put the gray stamen in his mouth, and it was so bitter he wanted to spit it out.

The poppy shells are so sweet they make your teeth ache.

Bay leaf, its pungent aroma pierces deep into the nasal cavity.

Finally, there's the Spirit Moss, which still has that fresh, earthy scent when you first taste it.

Richard held the pen in his hand and closed his eyes.

Before closing his eyes, he let his shadow sink to the shallows behind the curtain.

The shadow, named "Sentinel," stood on the shallows, facing the direction of the spirit world.

The spirit is embedded in the shadow as its core, and the shadow itself can judge the situation.

If something deep within is crawling along with inspiration, it will sense the movement.

The room inscription is the outer layer of protection, Mrs. McNeil is the middle layer, and the shadow is the innermost checkpoint.