Chapter 339: Guinea Pigs

On the last day of the Harvest Holiday, Richard took the first train from Briston back to the Imperial Capital.

He carried only an old leather suitcase and a canvas shoulder bag.

The suitcase was packed with Evelyn's pastries.

Before he left, his younger sister had told him, "I packed it full, two layers deep. Remember to leave some for our aunt and grandfather. Don't eat them all yourself!"

Pressed at the bottom of his canvas bag were two shirts and a pair of socks his mother had mended for him.

The station platform in Briston had been cold enough to turn a person's lips purple.

The train still towed several military cars with boarded-up windows, visibly crammed with crates.

The butler was waiting beneath the portico of the Ashford Residence when he arrived.

"Young Master Richard."

"The master is upstairs in the study. Please, this way."

Richard handed his suitcase to a maid and headed up the spiral staircase.

A portrait of Gerard hung on the staircase landing. In it, he wore a formal coat, his hair not yet white and his gaze piercingly sharp.

Richard slowed his steps as he passed the painting.

Nearly forty years separated the man in the painting from the man outside it.

He knocked twice on the study door.

"Come in."

Upon entering, Richard's eyes immediately fell on his grandfather.

The changes in his ether field were even more obvious now.

"Grandfather." Richard sat down in the guest chair opposite him.

"Mm." Gerard set his teacup on the round table.

The old man looked his grandson over, his expression unreadable.

"How is Briston?"

"Everything is fine. Mom and Dad are well, and Evelyn made some pastries for you. They're downstairs in my suitcase."

At the mention of his granddaughter, Gerard's eyes softened a fraction.

"Have everyone try them later at dinner."

"How is Cousin Vincent doing?" Richard asked.

"His shoulder blade is almost entirely healed. He's in the backyard."

"He hates sitting idle while recovering, so he insists on doing half a set of basic exercises every morning. I've scolded him twice for it, but he refuses to change."

They exchanged a few more idle words.

The butler knocked and brought in a freshly brewed pot of black tea.

Once the butler left, Richard picked up his teacup but didn't drink, letting it warm his palms for a moment.

"Grandfather."

"Yes?"

"I have a Spell Formula."

Gerard didn't speak. His gaze shifted from his teacup to his grandson's face.

Richard spoke the lines he had prepared well in advance.

"The Spell Formula can temporarily refresh and activate an ether circuit, diffusing instantly within the target's body.

I've tested it on myself and two others. The effect is stable with no complications."

The study fell quiet for a long moment.

Gerard raised an eyebrow.

"Did the people you tested it on experience any side effects?"

Richard gave a brief rundown of his test subjects' conditions.

Gerard rested both hands on the armrests of his chair.

"Why are you only mentioning this now?"

"I didn't have enough experimental data..."

Gerard's white eyebrows twitched.

"In that case, let Vincent try it first."

...

In the backyard of the Ashford Residence.

Three high walls surrounded a gravel-paved clearing. A training pillar stood right in the center, its surface pitted and scarred.

Vincent was striking it with his left hand. Every slap left another white mark on the wood.

"Vincent," Gerard said, walking over from the back porch.

Vincent stopped and turned around.

"Grandfather."

He spotted the person following behind Gerard.

"Richard? When did you get back?"

"I arrived this afternoon."

Vincent walked over and swatted him on the shoulder.

The force of the strike made Richard's shoulder dip.

"You're much more solidly built than before," Vincent said with a grin.

Vincent himself, however, had lost a significant amount of weight. His chin was covered in uneven stubble he hadn't bothered to shave.

Gerard sat down on a stone bench on the back porch.

"Vincent, help your cousin with an experiment. It will be good for you."

Just as he spoke, another test subject slowly approached.

Baldwin walked into the backyard and gave Richard a nod.

"Roll up your sleeve," Gerard told Vincent.

Vincent pushed his right sleeve up, baring his forearm.

Because of his shoulder blade injury, a patch of dark, stagnant bruising stretched upward from the crook of his elbow.

Richard took a long box of Silver Needles from his canvas bag.

"After this needle goes in, you're going to feel like that section of your circuit is being pressure-washed."

Richard took out a needle.

"It will last about two minutes, followed by a period of weakness of equal length."

"During that weak period, your fingers will feel limp and your grip strength will drop. You'll fully recover after four minutes."

Vincent looked at the needle.

"Moon Nail?"

"Yes. It's been improved."

Richard skipped over the details.

Vincent looked back at Gerard.

The old man sat on the stone bench, holding the hot tea the butler had just brought, and gave him a slight nod.

"Let's do it." With Gerard's confirmation, Vincent held out his right arm.

Richard gripped Vincent's forearm with his left hand, spreading his Inspiration using [Perception: Calm Observation].

A Practitioner Hunter's ether circuit was twice as wide as Coleman's, and the ether clinging to the vessel walls was much thicker.

He set the injection point at the fullest section just downstream of the stagnation.

"One."

Vincent took a deep breath. Even with his grandfather's guarantee, he was still a little nervous.

"Two."

Richard channeled ether into the needle's grip, driving it down the central axis.

"Three."

Needle Piercing.

The moment the needle pierced his skin, Vincent's reaction was far more violent than Coleman's had been.

His fingers clenched into a tight fist, the muscles in his forearm snapping taut like iron cables.

"Hss..."

Large beads of sweat broke out on his forehead and rolled down his temples.

"How does it feel?" Gerard stood up abruptly.

Vincent gritted his teeth, his voice leaking out in broken fragments.

"...My whole arm..."

His right hand was shaking, trembling so badly he couldn't even maintain his fist.

"It's cold down to the bone."

Two seconds later...

"Now it's hot again."

Under Richard's Spirit Vision, the stagnant area on the inner side of Vincent's forearm was being scoured by Reflection.

The surge was incredibly fierce. The "gravel" blocking the ether circuit was forcibly blasted apart by the high-density ether.

Vincent slowly unclenched his fist.

"...It's done." He took a few deep breaths, smoothing out his ragged breathing.

"Is it over?"

"Reflection lasted for about two minutes," Richard said, placing the needle back into the box.

"Now your right hand will feel limp and your grip strength will drop. You'll return to normal in about four minutes."

Vincent tried opening his hand, loosely flexing his five fingers.

It truly was limp. He couldn't muster any strength to grip.

Then he tried rolling his right shoulder...

"Why are you rolling your shoulder?" Baldwin finally asked, having watched in silence this whole time.

Vincent ignored him, pressing down twice through his bandages.

"...It loosened up."

Baldwin dropped his arms from where they had been crossed over his chest.

"What loosened up?"

"Come over here and feel it, you'll see."

Skeptical, Baldwin walked over and prodded the area around Vincent's shoulder blade through the bandages.

He pressed two or three spots before finally stopping next to the healing fracture.

"This part used to be as hard as a rock," Baldwin said, his tone changing.

"But now..."

He pressed it two more times.

"It really has loosened up."

Gerard didn't speak. He reached out and felt Vincent's shoulder for himself.

Vincent grimaced as they crowded around to poke at him.

"Alright, alright, it's not your injury, stop poking at it."

Gerard stayed silent from beginning to end.

Only when Vincent started complaining about the pain did he speak.

"Next. The Minor Adept."

He looked at Baldwin. The burly man immediately took a step back.

He glanced back at Gerard, then at the Silver Needle box in Richard's hand, his face screaming reluctance.

"Uncle..."

"Vincent has already tried it. What are you afraid of?" Gerard said, his tone hardening.

Baldwin had no right to refuse Gerard.

Nominally, the head of the main house no longer had any binding authority over a junior who had branched off into a side family.

But the words of a Major Adept were never mere suggestions.

Baldwin tried his best to phrase his objections tactfully.

"Richard is exceptionally talented, but he hasn't even finished his first year at Imperial Capital University yet. Having him perform this on us, I just really..."

"I know," Gerard said, his stance unyielding.

"Just trust me."

Pushed to this point, Baldwin gritted his teeth, rolled up his sleeve, and held out his right forearm.

A Minor Adept's ether circuit was a completely different beast from a Practitioner's.

Richard sensed the difference the moment he pressed his Inspiration against it.

The vessel walls were thicker, the branches far more numerous, and every single tributary had its own regulating valve.

The ether flowing inside moved much faster as well.

"Uncle Baldwin, get ready." Richard took out a needle.

"Alright, cut the chatter." Baldwin shut his eyes.

On the count of three, the needle pierced his skin.

Baldwin's reaction was entirely different from Vincent's.

Vincent had been overwhelmed by the rush, his hand trembling and his brow sweating—all sorts of obvious, violent physical responses.

Baldwin only made a single movement.

His right hand clenched into a fist, held it for about two seconds, and then relaxed.

The entire process was dead quiet. He didn't even break a sweat.

But what Richard saw through his Spirit Vision was far more complex.

The moment Reflection's shockwave entered Baldwin's circuit, it was instantly identified.

The circuit treated this mass of foreign ether as an invader. The shunt valves automatically switched, breaking the shockwave down into seven or eight thin streams and dispersing them into the various tributary branches.

Once the impact was effectively scattered, the Reflection that actually reached the target section only retained twenty to thirty percent of its original potency.

That remaining twenty to thirty percent did still have an effect, but from the initial surge to the return to baseline, the whole process took less than a minute.

Baldwin opened his eyes.

"A bit chilly."

He flexed his fingers.

"Is it over already?"

"It's over." Richard withdrew the needle.

Baldwin looked down at his forearm and flexed his hand twice more.

"That's it?"

His tone was hard to read.

Vincent scoffed from the sidelines. "Uncle Baldwin, aren't you going to thank him?"

"Thank him for what? A cool breeze blew past, and I couldn't even be bothered to shiver."

Baldwin rolled his sleeve back down.

He turned back to look at Gerard.

"Uncle, as far as I'm concerned, that needle was basically the same as nothing."

Gerard nodded. He had anticipated this result all along.

He looked at Richard.

"My turn."

The backyard fell silent for two seconds.

Vincent and Baldwin spoke up at the same time:

"Grandfather, are you sure..."

"Uncle, you don't need to..."

Gerard silenced them both before they could finish.

He leisurely rolled up his cuff, exposing a section of his forearm.

It was devoid of visible muscle and dotted with age spots.

He was finally going to see a Major Adept's ether circuit. A Scholar's curiosity sent Richard's heart pounding.

He pressed his Inspiration against it.

The sight inside left him marveling.

His grandfather's circuit consisted of dozens of crisscrossing main conduits, every single one terrifyingly thick.

The main conduits branched off into hundreds of tributaries, which in turn split into thousands of capillary tubes.

The ends of those capillaries vanished into a depth his Inspiration couldn't read, seamlessly merging with every tissue in his body.

Richard took out a needle, his palms sweating.

He searched for an injection point.

But Gerard's entire circuit was operating at high speed; he couldn't find a single weak point anywhere.

He had no choice but to aim for the widest section of a main conduit—theoretically the position of least interference.

"Grandfather."

"Go ahead."

Beside them, Vincent and Baldwin practically paced in circles with anxiety.

Gerard was the true pillar of Ashford House. If anything went wrong with him, they were all finished.

The needle tip couldn't pierce his skin, but with Gerard dropping his defenses, the ether Richard controlled seeped into the vessel wall.

The moment it entered, the majority of it was absorbed by the tissue lining the wall.

What little remained was swept away, swallowed up by the high-density ether roaring through the conduit.

The tiny wisp that actually reached the terminal circulation was like pouring a cup of water into a massive reservoir.

Gerard opened his eyes.

"Interesting."

He flexed his fingers.

"A few blockages at the extremities loosened slightly. It's roughly equivalent to what I could slowly clear out on my own in three days."

He rolled down his sleeve and looked up at Richard.

"But that's as far as it goes."

Richard wiped the Silver Needle clean and put it back into the box.

He had actually anticipated this. The disparity in Rank was simply too great.

"But the effect genuinely exists," Gerard added.

"The limit of the needle you just applied is capped by your current ether."

"But what if the person applying this needle was a Minor Adept?"

"To take it a step further, what if a Major Adept applied it?"

Richard understood what he meant.

"Mutual healing."

Gerard nodded.

"A Hunter getting injured is a daily occurrence. If this Spell Formula of yours can be spread..."

The conclusion was clear. There were no inherent flaws in the technique of the Moon Nail: Reflection Spell Formula.

Vincent, having stood to the side and listened to the whole thing, found his eyes growing brighter and brighter.

"Grandfather, are you saying... this Spell Formula should be taught to the trusted Hunters in the family?"

Gerard shot a glance at Richard.

"That depends on whether he is willing to share it."

The backyard grew quiet once more.

Baldwin stood to the side with his arms crossed, the reluctance on his face having faded away at some unknown point.

Richard snapped the Silver Needle box shut.

"I did these experiments to show that I am, of course, willing to share it with the family."

This had been his purpose for coming all along.

Gerard sat on the stone bench, silent for a long moment.

"My boy... On behalf of Ashford House, I thank you."

"That is not just empty courtesy." He stood up.

"Since you're willing to share this Spell Formula, we elders will not take your contribution for free."