I loaded the Mysticism panel.

It was past eleven o'clock when I got back to the dormitory.

Richard locked the door from the inside and drew the curtains tightly before taking the object from his arms and placing it on the table.

The tip of a deer antler is about the length of a palm.

A rein, as thin as a strand of hair, was wrapped around the base of the horn.

Richard squeezed it and it felt warm when he rubbed it on his fingertips.

Available points: 1.11...1.43...1.71...

Available points: 2.03

At 2 o'clock, Richard quickly stopped absorbing points, just enough to light up level 5 [Breathing].

He just absorbed about half of it.

Richard sat in the chair for a while.

This thing is a token, and its value doesn't lie in the tiny bit of ether inside.

If too much ether is lost, will the hunter still acknowledge it?

He didn't know and couldn't verify it, and there was no second horn he could use to try.

The shadow beneath my feet moved at that moment.

Richard lowered his head.

The black mass had somehow floated to the side of the table leg, with seven or eight extremely thin tentacles extending from its edge, one on top of the other, all pointing towards that corner.

The very first one had already reached the edge of the table.

"...Don't worry about that."

Richard reached out and moved the corner half a foot towards himself.

The whiskers moved half a foot.

"You can't eat this."

The whiskers floated in the air for a moment before reluctantly retracting.

The core oscillation frequency dropped from "hunger" back to "standby," at a much slower rate than usual.

Richard rubbed his temples.

He pulled a piece of low-concentration material from the hidden compartment and threw it on the floor.

"Eat this."

The shadow's tentacles climbed up and barely managed to gnaw at it.

After the shadow finished digesting the fragments and sank back into the curtain, Richard finally pulled up the Mirror Condensation Technique.

Holding your breath and pressing down, the etheric fluctuations descend layer by layer.

Once you reach that line, the still water spreads out.

That corner was reflected in the sunlight.

The outermost layer is still warm; it's for tonight.

It was the moment he bent down to look at that dog's head.

Further in, one layer upon another, each layer lasting all night.

The second layer contains snow, which is kicked up by tens of thousands of hooves, rising into a white mist.

In the third layer, there was a field of harvested wheat stubble, with an overturned cart lying across it, its wheels still turning.

The fourth floor is the seaside, where a row of things are neatly arranged at low tide.

He didn't understand the fifth floor; he only saw someone turn around.

The person only completed half of their turn around; the rest was gone.

The sixth floor, the seventh floor...

Richard counted to the seventh floor, and his inspiration began to sting, so he quickly withdrew the still water.

He opened his eyes, a thin layer of sweat on the back of his neck.

For hundreds of years, there has been a harvest every year.

This corner represents the ledger that hangs beside the saddle, recording each transaction as it is collected, accumulating hundreds of entries.

Even if it's not a high-level rare item, it's not much different.

That makes sense. Although the two professors were not satisfied with this, it was at least considered by the scales to be barely balanced, and there was still a lot of value to be explored further.

The following afternoon, Richard signed the borrowing form for the training room.

The iron gate was bolted shut from the inside, and he held the antlers in his hand.

The breathing technique was activated, and three complete cycles were completed.

Then he tried to push the ether from the Sun's position along the inside of his right arm to his palm, and then into the corner.

He had done this step hundreds of times.

The silver needles and the Soul-Devouring Beast Tooth Needles all travel in this way.

The moment the ether was pushed in, Richard felt as if he had poured a cup of water into a river.

The ether was swept away by the river, and as it rolled, it turned into the color of the river.

It solidified on the tip of the corner.

The moon nail should be the size of a grain of rice, white with a bluish tinge, but this one is gray.

Richard raised his hand and threw it at the bronze target on the east wall.

The antlers were stuck on the second circle line, slightly off-center.

Then the copper plate began to fade.

From the point of impact, the coating made of coarse salt and refined silver gradually turned grayish-white outwards in concentric rings.

He waited another seven or eight seconds before the color faded and stopped on its own.

Richard walked over and rubbed the grayish-white area with his fingertip; the bite he had taken could never be undone.

The Wild Hunt never cleaves you in two with a single blow; it follows up and bites relentlessly.

This horn infused this quality into its spell, and Moon Nail was rewritten as "Gnawing".

Richard wrote in his notebook:

"Horns as casting mediums: extremely corrosive, the nature of the spell is distorted by the medium; "

It continues to extend for about seven to eight seconds after being released; do not test on a person.

In the final test, Richard pushed the horn inward a bit of ether, truly "activating" the trace of aura left inside by the Hunter Lord.

The entire training room fell silent.

The etheric field bowed down to the ground, lying flat and docile, not daring to move an inch.

On the other side of the curtain, the shadow froze on the shallows.

Richard withdrew the ethereal energy, and the aura retreated into the corner, while the ethereal field slowly returned to the training room.

Anything below the level of a high-ranking evil being will be intimidated by this scent; this is the suppressive power of a high-ranking being.

The same applies to practitioners and those with only minor expertise.

If a junior expert smells the presence of a master on the battlefield, their first reaction will be to stop and determine who it is, what it is doing, and whether they should run.

That pause, lasting one to two seconds, was enough for him to fire six enchanted bullets.

He uttered a shushing sound, and his shadow shifted from behind the curtain to beneath the other's feet.

Of course, he could pronounce those three honorific names, but he wasn't sure what the Hunter Lord's attitude was, and he wasn't prepared to try.

On February 13th, Richard lit the stove in his dormitory and glanced at the control panel first.

[Preserved Entity: Incomplete (one section has been extracted)]

[Extraction: All used up.]

When the panel first introduced the "single section" feature, he treated it as a limitation.

If your rank is too low, you are only allowed to move one section; the rest will be locked up for you.

Now he's looking at this restriction from the opposite perspective.

What if the panel allows him to reveal his full real name that day?

If the full real name is presented to the hunter, only two things will happen.

Either the hunter would take advantage of the man from the Black Soil River on the spot.

The things that have been accumulating behind the curtain for hundreds or thousands of years—the mysteries, the collections, and even the unfinished crown that may still exist—will all belong to the Hunter.

This is not the situation Richard wanted to see.

The Mirror Condensation Technique he is currently using, 【Shadow Reversal】, including the shadow beneath his feet, is inseparable from the tradition of change.

If I ever really end up in that situation, I should save it for myself.

Another possibility is that the hunter might not be willing to kill.

A master's life is in his own hands; keeping him around is like being a dog.

fehu — livestock and wealth.

At that time, behind the curtain, there was a hunter who was holding the hand of another expert.

It only gave up one section, which gave the hunter a great advantage, but it was not enough for the hunter to really devour it completely.

So now the Black Soil River experts have to use all their energy to hide, changing locations in every fold of the curtain they can find.

It cannot control the Ying Sheng Hui, nor can it control other hidden agents that are highly likely to exist.

The two experts were locked in a fierce battle behind the scenes, neither able to spare a second glance for this newly signed scholar.

This is the best period of development he can give himself.

Richard leaned back in his chair, looking at the glowing embers in the furnace.

Beat them, beat them as hard as possible, ideally beat their brains out.

………………

February 14th is Valentine's Day.

Richard went around to the public phone booth, intending to make a call to Briston.

Before he even stepped into the phone booth, the phone rang.

"Williams, you have a phone call!"

Richard's heart skipped a beat. He tucked the textbook under his arm and strode inside.

"Feed".

"...Richard, it's me."

It's Grey's voice.

Her voice was softer than usual, and carried a hint of awkwardness.

"What's wrong?"

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone.

"Nothing much," Gray said. "It's just... I remembered that today is the fourteenth."

What happened on February 14th?

Richard thought for a while before he realized what was going on.

"Oh." He didn't know what to say in response.

"Cunningham and the others," Grey explained, continuing to use her classmates as a pretext.

"This afternoon, I received gifts from others."

"Flowers, cards, and those little boxes of chocolates."

"They disassembled them one by one, and then compared them in the classroom."

Richard leaned against the wooden wall of the phone booth, the wind seeping in from behind his neck.

"Did you receive it?" he asked.

He regretted asking the question as soon as he finished; it was a rather strange question.

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone.

"...No," Gray said.

"Boys can't get into our all-girls school."

She paused, then spoke even softer.

Even if someone offered it to me, I wouldn't accept it.

Richard didn't say anything; he wasn't very good at handling these kinds of situations.

Only Grey's soft breathing could be heard through the telephone line.

"Um..." Grey seemed to have made up her mind. "I made something today."

"Did you make some desserts?"

"Hmm," Gray said. "Heart-shaped."

"There was more butter than usual, and cardamom was added."

"I was thinking..." her voice trailed off. "I was thinking of seeing if I could send it to you."

"But now, wartime express mail... will probably be broken by the time it reaches you."

"The thought is what counts," Richard said.

"real?"

"Really." He felt that this was too dry, so he added.

"Anyway, even if it melts or breaks, it will all end up in my stomach."

Grey chuckled softly, her slight awkwardness dissipating.

"I'll make an extra batch next time, and give it to you in person when we're both free."

"Okay," Richard said. "Give it to me in person, I'll finish it all in one go."

"Don't eat it all at once... It's heart-shaped, take a look at it first before you eat it."

Why?

"Because..." Grey seemed to have no idea what the reason was.

"Because you have to look at things that look good first!"

Richard smiled.

This reason is comparable to Evelyn's fallacy that "ugly is the only limited edition."

The two chatted idly for a few more minutes.

Grey said that everyone brought their own cakes for afternoon tea at their school, while Richard mentioned the margarine at the Imperial University cafeteria and the limited-edition roast beef that was so tough it was impossible to chew.

As they were talking, Richard remembered the important matter at hand.

"Grey." He lowered his voice.

"Um?"

"You'd better leave the capital with your family in the next couple of days."

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"Leave the capital? Where to?"

"The surrounding towns and villages," Richard said.

"The less crowded the place, the better."

Why?

Richard couldn't explain the reason clearly.

"In short," that was all he could say, "it's not safe to go to crowded places in the next couple of days."

"Trust me, take your family and hide away for a while, and come back after the mourning period."

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.

Then Grey spoke, her voice much more serious than before.

I believe you.

"Actually... my family has also received some reminders in the past few days."