Chapter 308: [Astral Projection]

Isabella wasn't as drunk this time as she had been the last.

That night at the Royal Grand Hotel, it had taken two people to carry her out.

Today she could still walk on her own, though her steps were unsteady and half her weight rested on her nephew's arm.

Price and the others showed no mercy with their teasing, getting one last jab in before they parted ways.

"When the mentor wakes up tomorrow morning, she's definitely going to pretend nothing happened," Price whispered in Richard's ear.

"She does this every time," Clara chimed in.

On the ride to take his aunt home, the carriage swayed along the cobblestone streets toward the West District.

Isabella leaned against the carriage wall, slurring something under her breath.

Richard listened closely for a while. It sounded something like, "Greek third declension... Attic dialect... urgh..."

Sophia sat opposite them, cupping his aunt's head in both hands to keep it from bouncing around with every jolt of the carriage.

She lowered her voice and spoke to Richard.

"One time, after drinking, the mentor insisted on reciting an entire monologue from a Plautus comedy. She even did all the voices, playing three characters all by herself."

"...Which three?"

"The husband, the wife, and the lover hiding in the wardrobe."

Richard rubbed his forehead.

Sophia added one more thing.

"Right, Clara asked me to pass a message to you... Her uncle, the Minor Adept artisan, has been in an even worse mood lately. His backlog of commissions stretches all the way to next spring."

"That far out?"

"Apparently, it's a mandatory order from the higher-ups."

Sophia shifted their mentor's head onto the softer part of her thigh.

"The front lines need Enchanted Bullets, and they need sealing mediums recast. All the alchemy artisans have been drafted for the war effort, so private commissions are piling up into a massive bottleneck."

"Clara said that if you have anything you want her uncle to work on, she needs to put the word in early. Any later and there's no telling how long the wait will be."

Richard made a mental note of it but didn't say anything back.

The carriage turned onto Sycamore Street, where the Ashford Residence was located.

The wheels crunched over fallen leaves with a dry, rustling sound.

The butler was already waiting under the porch.

The maids were well-practiced at taking Isabella off his hands, moving with crisp efficiency.

"There is no need for you to trouble yourself further," the butler said, bowing slightly to Richard.

"My lady will be perfectly fine once she sleeps until noon tomorrow."

Sophia helped hand his aunt over to the maids, then waved goodbye to Richard.

"Get back and go to bed early. We still have classes tomorrow."

Richard watched the two maids carry his aunt through the doors before he turned and headed toward his own guest room.

The night breeze drifted through the sycamore leaves.

The October wind was already turning cold, carrying a faint bite of frost.

Once Richard was back in his room, the panel floated into his vision.

The progress bars for his three Intellect attributes had already crossed the threshold amidst the applause at the Royal Grand Hotel table.

[Learning], [Speculation], and [Perception] were all at Lv.3.

His four Body attributes had been maxed out long ago.

With all seven attributes finally in place, the Spirit column lit up.

Richard focused his thoughts on it.

[Spirit] Category:

Four Body attributes and three Intellect attributes have all reached Lv.3. New function unlocked.

[Astral Projection: Can peel away a wisp of "Spirit" and attach it to an external object or a living creature. The attached vessel becomes an independently controlled extension, and the main consciousness is not dragged along by it.]

[Currently separable: One wisp (Extremely Weak).]

[Warning: If the attached Spirit is destroyed, the main body will suffer severe trauma.]

Richard stared at that line of text, comparing it in his mind to the shadow at his feet.

His shadow was a projection cast onto the other side of the veil. In the end, it was still an extension of his own body.

Ferrying that shadow was essentially "extending" a piece of himself outward.

Astral Projection was completely different. This meant forcefully breaking off a fragment of his own Spirit and placing it outside.

One stretched a person out; the other snapped a person apart.

As for that warning, it reminded him of what his aunt had told him before:

At the Minor Adept stage, a practitioner transferred a wisp of their Spirit into a signature artifact. Because of this, if the signature artifact was damaged, the lightest consequence for the main body was falling into a vegetative state.

Following the panel's detailed prompts, Richard gently "snapped" something from the inverted tree of light right behind his sternum.

The leaves of the radiant tree trembled, and an incredibly fine strand of something separated from its trunk.

It didn't hurt, but it felt hollow—an indescribable emptiness, as if a chunk of his chest had been scooped out.

That wisp of Spirit floated in front of him, so weak he could barely hold onto it.

Richard tried attaching it to the Copper Dish on the desk.

The moment the Spirit made contact, he gained an extra point of "sensation."

On the Copper Dish's end, something akin to a pair of eyes manifested out of thin air.

Richard closed his own eyes, yet he could still "see" the surface of the desk.

Looking up from the angle of the Copper Dish, he saw himself sitting in the chair, eyes closed, with his fountain pen resting by his hand.

He tried to will the Copper Dish to move, but it didn't budge an inch.

An inanimate object only gave him a remote sensory point.

He could see, he could hear, and he could vaguely feel the density of the surrounding ether.

But it was just a suspended eye. It couldn't be moved at all.

He tried "listening" next.

Down in the first-floor hallway, the old clock's pendulum swung back and forth.

Richard withdrew that wisp of Spirit.

As soon as the Spirit left the Copper Dish, the hollowness in his chest slowly filled back up, and the leaves of the radiant tree settled into a steady rhythm once more.

Sitting in his chair, he experimented with this wisp of Spirit over and over.

Attaching it to a lifeless object merely added a sensory point: he could see and hear, but he couldn't touch or move anything.

What about a living creature?

If he attached it to a living creature, it probably wouldn't just be a suspended eye anymore.

If the Spirit possessed a pigeon or a stray cat, he should be able to roughly command it to take a few steps.

This reminded him of Madam Marie's cat avatar and that Bone Bracelet.

However, both the cat avatar and the Spirit inside the bracelet were capable of wielding Madam Marie's power.

According to the detailed notes on the panel, living creatures had their own temperaments and wouldn't just obediently follow orders.

Once the Spirit attached to them, it had to suppress them first.

If suppressed for too long, this wisp of Spirit would suffer wear and tear of its own.

He had no living creatures in his room to test it on, and since it was late at night, he didn't plan on going outside to catch something.

Inanimate objects offered a remote eye; living creatures offered rudimentary control.

As for the third tier... Richard flipped through the progression path for Astral Projection.

His gaze shifted down, and another prompt floated up from the bottom:

"Projected Spirit can be upgraded by consuming points.

One wisp to two wisps: Requires 1 point.

Two wisps to three wisps: Requires 2 points.

Three wisps to five wisps: Requires 3 points.

Five wisps -> ?: Requires meeting additional conditions (Locked)."

Just like when he expanded his Spiritual Capacity, the highest tier was once again gated behind a threshold he currently couldn't see through.

Richard set the matter aside for now. Right now, he could only peel off a single wisp, and it was pitifully weak.

Attaching it to a lifeless object was like looking through a pane of glass, and attaching it to a living creature wouldn't last long.

But one wisp was enough.

He looked at the shadow at his feet, the idea in his mind growing clearer by the second.

Richard willed the shadow to peel away from the wall and stand before the desk.

The shadow stood in the material realm. Its mass of darkness was much more solid than it had been originally; his recent training had been highly effective.

He had previously tried making the shadow wear the Mask of Hermes, but the shadow hadn't been able to withstand it.

Now, he had [Astral Projection] in his arsenal.

If he peeled off a wisp of Spirit and stuffed it into the shadow, wouldn't that Spirit serve as a "core"?

Richard snapped off another wisp from the radiant tree.

He sank this wisp down into the shadow at his feet.

The moment the Spirit sank in, Richard's breathing slowed.

That mass of hollow darkness finally contained "something," giving him the tangible sensation of absolute control.

Before, the shadow would only move when Richard sent a thought to it; if a thought didn't reach it, it would just stand there like a statue.

The shadow had been a marionette in his hands—the moment the strings went slack, it would collapse.

Things were different now. With the Spirit sunk inside, the shadow had visibly become more agile.

Richard's gaze fell on the Ancient Bronze Mask resting on the desk once more.

Now that the shadow had a core, would it finally be able to wear this mask?

He made the shadow stand at the desk and gently pressed the mask against its face.

The mask stuck.

The shadow's featureless darkness supported the Ancient Bronze Mask, standing perfectly steady.

Richard's heart skipped a beat. It really could wear it.

He was on the verge of immediately having the shadow familiarize itself with Hermes's powers.

However, [Inner Awakening] slammed the brakes on his impulses right then.

The pair of eyes drawn back from the outside illuminated a series of feverish thoughts, and it also laid bare the hidden dangers.

The mask's greatest price was that it attracted the dead, turning the veil around the wearer more transparent.

Letting the shadow use this power was tantamount to pouring oil on a fire.

Richard took the mask off the shadow's face.

Once the mask was removed, the shadow remained steady and didn't disperse.

He packed the Ancient Bronze Mask away again.

Wearing it was only a matter of time, but that time wasn't now.

He would wait until his Rank advanced a little further, until he studied this mask more thoroughly, until that seed...

Richard sank the shadow back into the Shallows behind the veil.

That wisp of Spirit began to circulate inside the shadow.

Richard himself was using Tide-Shifting Breathing.

Astonishingly, on the other end in the Shallows, the shadow was inhaling and exhaling to that exact same rhythm.

Drawing out the inhale, cutting the exhale short, and holding its breath right in the gaps between the waves.

Behind the veil, the shadow now had breath.

Now that it had a core, it could operate according to the methods of Fourfold Breathing and Tide-Shifting Breathing, beginning to nurture its own incredibly fine Ether Micro-circulation.

More importantly, it could begin learning Spell Formulas.

Richard tried controlling the shadow to cast Stone Armor in the Shallows.

The shadow extended its pitch-black arm, pushing ether toward its surface along its own thread of circulation.

A thin shell crystallized over its forearm.

It was crooked and lopsided, the shell so thin it was almost invisible.

But it had undeniably followed Richard's method to cast Stone Armor.

Richard felt a deep sense of relief. This was the true utility of [Astral Projection].

He now had a practitioner behind the veil who could train endlessly, day and night.

Its training wouldn't drain his own energy during the day, yet everything it practiced was intimately connected to his main body.

Then again, the shadow contained a very real wisp of his Spirit.

In the past, he had treated the shadow as a consumable, tossing it into the Shallows and letting it grind its outline against the ether fragments.

Back then, if the shadow really met with an accident and was shattered, the price he paid would be steep but barely acceptable.

That wasn't the case anymore. The shadow had become his lifeblood.

If the shadow was shattered by something behind the veil now, it would be nowhere near as simple as "dispersing and reforming."

That wisp of Spirit would be destroyed along with it. At best, his vitality would take a severe hit; at worst... he wouldn't be able to get out of bed.

The boundary of safety was pulled tighter than ever before.

Having finished experimenting with the effects of [Astral Projection], he opened the panel once again.

That seed he had kept on hold could finally be planted.

[Seed has been planted]

[Core Nature: Seed]

[Seed Source: Arcane Embers]

[Trait Tags: Name, Mirror, Substitute]

"Germination Countdown: 10 days."

Seeing the countdown, Richard felt a little disappointed but not entirely surprised.

The Sphinx seed had taken a total of twenty-four hours from planting to germination.

This one was going to take a full ten days.

Richard stared at the three words: "Name," "Mirror," and "Substitute."

Referencing the various powers displayed by that Virtuoso...

Name, meaning to seize the opponent's lifeline; Mirror, meaning to reflect the opponent's mold; Substitute, meaning to swap himself into the opponent's position...

The more Richard thought about it, the more his curiosity burned.

But ten days was ten days. The panel wasn't going to cut him any slack.

Besides, there was still a major event happening right now—the October Debate Week.