Chapter 332: Dual Form

The Golden-Winged Twin Serpents glinted with a bronze sheen under the dim lights of the training room.

The shadow stood before him.

Previous experiments had proven that once the wisp of spirit was embedded within, the shadow could wear the mask.

Yet the mask's costs—attracting the dead, turning the surrounding veil translucent, the traveler's restlessness—remained attached to it all the same.

"Material realm first."

He had the shadow take the mask and press it to its face.

The moment the mask went on, the shadow's outline shifted.

That patch of black grew denser, its edges no longer fraying into loose bristles.

Ether consumption immediately began to spike.

Richard closed his eyes, sensing what was shared from the shadow's end.

The boost from the mask was definitely there.

Speed, deciphering efficiency, verbal transmission—every domain under Hermes's purview saw an enhancement.

Because the wisp of spirit from Astral Projection acted as a bridge inside the shadow, there was almost no loss in the shared effect.

Yet the boost itself was mediocre.

As for the costs... the sealing runes on the training room's four walls kept the attraction of the dead safely outside.

The translucent veil around its body wasn't particularly noticeable in the material realm either. The shadow was separated from the veil by a layer in the material realm to begin with, so there wasn't much transparency to speak of.

The traveler's restlessness, on the other hand, manifested as a distinct urge within the shadow to dash out the door the second it put on the mask.

Richard pressed down with a thought, suppressing it.

Yet the instant he suppressed it, his ether took another sharp drop.

His final assessment was simple: wearing the mask in the material realm was safe but weak, and it burned through ether mercilessly.

Richard signaled the shadow to remove the mask.

"Go behind the veil."

The shadow sank into the floor, slid across the training room tiles, and vanished into the other side of the veil.

Richard sat on the stone floor, tracing the shadow's path with his Inspiration.

On the Shallows, the shadow rose to its feet once more.

He sent a thought over—put on the mask.

The moment the mask went on, the transformation was overwhelming.

The shadow's density multiplied several times over.

That patch of black transformed into a figure with a distinct human shape, wrapped in a flowing layer of deep, dark light.

Most importantly, the ether consumption was truly zero!

The shadow consumed none of Richard's ether behind the veil.

The mask consumed nothing behind the veil either. Two zeros added together still equaled zero.

Richard recalled an encrypted rune assigned as class homework.

Through the boost relayed by the shadow, his speed was two to three times faster than without the mask.

That trace of Hermes's "Boundary Crosser" enhancement was brought out to its absolute limit behind the veil.

The shadow's range of motion expanded at least tenfold compared to usual.

However, the cost escalated right along with it.

Before the shadow had worn the mask for even half a minute, Richard's Inspiration warning blared.

Deep within the Shallows, something was looking over in their direction.

The mask made the veil around the shadow exceptionally translucent, equivalent to turning on a full-powered searchlight in a pitch-black ocean.

Everything swimming in the depths—things whose gazes normally never swept across the Shallows—saw that light.

Richard ordered the shadow to strip off the mask immediately.

The moment the mask was removed, the feeling of being watched receded significantly.

He waited several more seconds before the Inspiration warning completely faded.

The entire Imperial Capital University campus was built atop an active ether zone. Over hundreds of years, the Major Adepts had laid down sealing arrays that extended from the material realm into the Shallows behind the veil.

The entities drawn in by the searchlight stopped at the boundary of Imperial Capital University's seals, not daring to press any further.

Richard let out a sigh of relief. This was precisely why he had conducted the mask experiment on campus.

Had he done this near a weak point earlier... he didn't dare push the deduction any further.

Richard leaned against the wall of the training room, the back of his head resting against the cool, rune-inscribed stone surface.

Two modes lay before him.

Wearing the mask in the material realm was safe but weak, and it burned ether.

Wearing the mask behind the veil was terrifyingly strong, but its cost was equally terrifying.

If he had to choose one or the other, this mask would become a useless artifact only fit for safe zones.

Outside a safe zone, it was too weak to bother with in the material realm, and too dangerous to dare use behind the veil.

However, he possessed another ability right now—Naming.

Richard sorted out his thoughts and stood up from the floor.

He commanded the shadow to return to the material realm, stand in the exact center of the training room, and put the mask back on.

Ether consumption spiked just as before.

Richard carefully deliberated on the name, then pushed it forward.

"Messenger."

Messenger—Hermes's core authority.

As the name and the mask twisted together, Richard felt the flow of ether inside the shadow shift.

Previously, when the mask poured divine concepts into the shadow, the path was convoluted and caused massive drain.

Once the name "Messenger" was applied, the pathway was smoothed out. The power flowed smoothly, and the drain plummeted.

The ether consumption dropped by roughly thirty percent.

The boost was also noticeably stronger than when unnamed; the increase in deciphering speed and verbal transmission showed visible improvement.

Richard committed this detail to memory.

The material realm plan was set: "Mask plus Naming."

The name and mask shared the same alignment, amplifying one another.

Next was that deadly issue behind the veil—excessive translucency.

Richard sent the shadow back behind the veil and had it wear the mask.

Imperial Capital University's seals were still holding the perimeter, giving him a brief window of opportunity.

Within this window, he bestowed a name upon the shadow.

"The Silent One."

The name aligned with the shadow's intrinsic nature of being "soundless and formless."

The shadow was already a soundless, formless patch of black.

Giving it a silent name added another layer of reinforcement to its most fundamental trait.

Once the name settled, the translucency the mask had stretched open around the shadow receded.

Richard had the shadow move around the Shallows while wearing the mask.

One minute, no warning.

Three minutes, no warning.

Five minutes, his Inspiration began to feel slightly muffled.

Eight minutes, the muffled feeling turned into a vague discomfort.

Ten minutes, the discomfort escalated into a clear warning.

Richard hurriedly made the shadow take off the mask, and the warning receded.

It had gone from less than half a minute to eight to ten minutes.

Though there was still a time limit, the gap between completely unusable and usable for short durations was a massive chasm.

Richard lay on his side on the training room floor, pressing his forehead against the cold stone tiles to cool off.

The circuit kept burning through ether, running hot.

He flipped over and stared up at the runes embedded in the ceiling crevices.

"Mask plus Naming: correcting the boost in the material realm, and correcting the cost behind the veil."

Now the shadow possessed dual-form functionality when using the mask.

Then again, if he sent the shadow to exert its full strength behind the veil, he would have no shadow in the material realm.

A person standing under a bright sun with nothing beneath their feet... that was far too eye-catching.

In the Compilation Group or in classrooms, people were busy with their own matters and wouldn't necessarily notice his feet.

However, during field operations or in public places, even an ordinary person would spot the abnormality immediately.

Richard extended his Inspiration behind the veil.

The shadow stood on the Shallows, the wisp of spirit turning steadily within its body.

He stared at that wisp of spirit for a moment.

In the past, the shadow had been hollow, its every action entirely directed by Richard like a marionette—loosen the string, and it collapsed.

Once the spirit was embedded, the shadow gained an independent core capable of operating on its own.

Richard tentatively sent a thought over.

He didn't use a specific command, passing only a vague intention.

"Can you spare a tiny bit to stay behind in the material realm and cover for me?"

Without any delay, the shadow separated the thinnest sliver from its edge.

That scrap floating on the Shallows seemed slightly unadapted to the environment behind the veil; it turned, drifting back toward the material realm.

Richard opened his eyes and looked down at his feet.

A shadow lay flat on the training room floor once more.

It stretched in the direction of his body, slanting across the gaps in the stone tiles.

Its head pointed toward the light, its tail toward the base of the wall, looking no different from the shadows cast by every piece of equipment in the room.

He moved his foot, and the shadow followed.

He took a step to the left, and the shadow shifted one unit to the left.

Yet when he switched to Spirit Vision, that gray shadow appeared extremely thin.

Its ether content was nearly zero, entirely empty inside.

An ordinary person looking with the naked eye couldn't fault it.

The sun shone on you, and a shadow lay at your feet—it was only natural.

However, if anyone above his Rank swept their Inspiration across his feet, they would discover that the shadow was so paper-thin it held no substance.

Still, who would stare intensely at the shadow beneath someone's feet on a regular day?

Even looking at someone with Spirit Vision was considered offensive, let alone scanning their shadow.

Richard felt greatly relieved; the biggest problem troubling him had been solved in one go. From now on, the shadow could truly stay behind the veil twenty-four hours a day.

This disguise shadow was sufficient. Even if someone insisted on getting to the bottom of it, at worst he could say he was practicing a shadow-related Spell Formula.

This was the true value of the spirit.

Acting as a core inside the shadow, it turned the shadow from a marionette into a semi-independent entity.

Without the spirit embedded inside to serve as a skeleton, he couldn't have accomplished a single thing he set out to do.

Richard performed a set of Tide-Shifting Breathing.

Between breaths, his excited mood gradually settled down.

Useful as the mask was, and effective as Naming was at patching its flaws...

In the end, this thing had been given by Hecate.

Richard recalled his [Shadow Inversion].

The prompt at the time had read:

[This item does not meet the inversion conditions. Reason: Spell Formula unmastered.]

The prerequisite for [Shadow Inversion] was that he had already thoroughly grasped and mastered the Spell Formula.

He didn't actually need to dismantle the mask to see what was inside; he only needed to use it proficiently.

Whether Hecate locked the deepest layer or not didn't affect the inversion.

The inversion condition merely required him to run the program proficiently, without requiring him to reconstruct or build it himself.

He just wondered what the inversion would turn out to be...

Now that the experiments were finished, it was time to head back.

He stood up from the training room floor, his knees popping with a crack.

Richard patted the dust off his trousers and turned off the lights.

As he opened the training room door from the inside, he spotted a somewhat unexpected person in the hallway.

Montagu leaned against the opposite wall.

The blonde youth held a lecture handout under his arm, his coat draped over his forearm.

His shirt sleeves were rolled up to mid-forearm, revealing a patch of skin with sweat that hadn't completely dried.

This was not the posture of a chance encounter.

"You're out." Montagu switched the handout to his other hand.

Richard closed the door, removed his nameplate, and turned to size him up.

Montagu's hair was messier than during class earlier today.

The usual neatly combed, perfectly disciplined hair was gone; a few strands of pale gold hung loose at his temples, matted by sweat.

"Were you waiting for me?" Richard asked.

Montagu pushed himself off the wall.

"I finished earlier than you. When I came out, I saw the light in your room was still on."

"Waited for a bit, caught my breath while I was at it."

"What were you practicing?" The blonde youth glanced at him. "You worked up quite a sweat."

Richard tugged at his shirt collar, covering the sweat marks on the back of his neck.

"Practicing Stone Armor."

Montagu's grayish-blue eyes lingered on him for two seconds.

He noticed the flush on Richard's face that hadn't fully faded from his excitement.

Working up a bright red face from practicing defensive Spell Formulas was somewhat unusual.

"Let's go." Montagu tucked the handout under his armpit. "Dormitories are closing soon."

The two walked along the underground passage toward the surface.

Their footsteps echoed one after the other in the vacant corridor, their rhythm slightly out of sync; Montagu took larger strides.

After a few steps, Montagu let out a yawn.

"Today's inscription lecture was enough to put anyone to sleep. I dozed off twice in the back row."

"Nobody noticed?" It was the first time Richard had seen him look so unguarded.

"They did. The guy next to me nudged my arm twice."

"What about you? What classes did you have scheduled today?"

"Two theory classes, one on field preparation," Richard replied casually.

"The field prep class actually covered something useful—how to determine tide direction at the Shallows boundary."

"What's the point of determining tide direction? The Shallows isn't a real ocean."

"The lecturer said it's an analogy. The surge of tides works on the same principle as changes in ether density.

Once you figure it out, you'll know when and where to hide."

Montagu nodded and didn't follow up, seemingly lost in thought.

After a few more steps, he suddenly spoke up. "My brother sent a letter back this week."

Richard glanced sideways at him. "From the front lines?"

"Yeah. The letter didn't say where exactly—probably passed censorship."

"Is he doing all right?"

"The letter was sent at the start of the month. He was fine when he wrote it."

Montagu's voice dropped slightly. "Whether he's fine now, nobody can say for sure."

Richard's pace slowed by half a beat, unsure how to respond.

"I'd actually like to trade places with him," Montagu said with a sudden chuckle.

"He's lying in a trench over there, and I'm back here memorizing inscription tables. Who has it better is hard to say."

"Are you speaking from the heart, or just being spiteful?"

"Half and half." Montagu shrugged.

"The family elders are staring at me, dying for me to hurry up and carry the reputation of our branch.

My brother wasn't born with the talent anyway, so he could only go to the front lines to carry a rifle."

The two walked another stretch through the passage, their footsteps blending together until it was impossible to tell who took the lead.

"Do you come to the training room every day?" Richard asked.

"Whenever I don't have afternoon classes."

"What do you practice?"

The blonde youth didn't lie. "My family's inherited Spell Formula."

Richard tactfully refrained from probing any further.

This likely referred to the arcana of that Solar Tradition Virtuoso.

According to lineage, his family's inherited Spell Formula was significantly stronger than Maggie's Azure-Green Ring.

In the eyes of the rest of the class, Montagu was the type born right next to the finish line.

He didn't need to run; his starting position was already far ahead of everyone else.

Yet Montagu himself didn't dare slack off in the slightest.

As a direct descendant of a high noble house, the elders above were watching whether he could cross the Major Adept threshold and uphold the entire family's prestige among his generation. Add to that his brother lying in a trench...

Piled together, those pressures were immense.

Under such heavy pressure, it was only natural to want to chat with an acquaintance upon running into them.

The two stepped out of the underground passage exit, the cold late-autumn wind drying the sweat on their faces.

The streetlights were noticeably dimmer than before.

A newly issued regulation stated it was to prevent airships in the night sky from spotting lights from above.