Chapter 345: Silence Inversion

The progress on the Silence Spell was faster than Richard had expected.

He knew exactly why: the shadow had done most of the heavy lifting.

The shadow had been practicing the Silence Spell behind the veil for several weeks now, wearing the Mask of Hermes.

The "Boundary Crosser" enhancement provided by the mask was an absolutely perfect match for the shadow to perform this task.

The essence of a vacuum was drawing a line between the inside and the outside, draining the ether completely from within that boundary, and sealing the edges tight so the external ether couldn't flow back in.

Hermes governed boundaries and crossings.

When the shadow wore the mask to sense where the line lay, the boundary practically surfaced on its own.

That perception fed continuously back into Richard's main body through the wisp of spirit from Astral Projection.

During the day, while he practiced in the material world with the steel pipe, his mind simultaneously received the shadow's feedback.

The experiences from both sides overlapped, verifying and completing each other.

Behind the veil, the shadow sensed where the "line" lay on the etheric level;

In the material world, Richard practiced how to physically "spit out" the vacuum.

One mapped the path, and the other walked it.

Once the path was memorized, the walking came naturally.

From late October to mid-November, he had focused on doing only one thing: throwing away his crutches.

The breakthrough came on a Monday.

Richard stood empty-handed in the dead center of the training room.

The steel pipe sat discarded on the equipment rack in the corner. He hadn't touched it.

Tide-Shifting Breathing activated, and the tide of ether within his chest automatically adjusted its frequency and began to rise.

His inhalation stretched into a long slope as the ether flooded upward.

It rose, kept rising, and finally hit the peak.

At the exact moment his breath was about to recede... he forcefully wrung a mass out from his own ether.

That mass of vacuum drifted out about two feet and hovered in the air for a second.

The dust on a specific patch of the training room floor was drawn by the vacuum and scattered outward.

Though it dissipated quickly.

The edges hadn't been sealed. Outside ether seeped back in from several directions at once, filling the vacuum in less than a second.

But there was no doubt he had taken the first step.

It didn't matter that it scattered. He had detached himself from the steel pipe.

His hands were entirely empty; there was nothing in his palms but sweat.

Richard crouched on the training room floor for a while, replaying the sensation from start to finish.

The reason for failure was obvious: the edges weren't sealed.

He had successfully expelled it, but he had only focused on the spitting, neglecting the stitching.

Madam Marie had taught him that Mr. Reeve's true mastery lay in the "locking."

After spitting out the dead water, he seamlessly stitched the edges shut, not missing a single thread.

The feel for it was there; he only lacked proficiency.

There was only one way forward for this kind of thing: practice.

For the next three days, he holed up in the training room the moment his afternoon classes ended.

On the fourth day, Richard stood in the center again for an entire afternoon.

The expelled vacuum hovered in the air for about ten seconds. The entire edge was completely sealed with an even density.

He extended his Inspiration to probe the mass of the vacuum. It was enough to throw a Practitioner Level Spell Formula's rhythm into disarray for a while.

It wasn't particularly strong, but it was sufficient.

This Spell Formula worked on the same principle as muscle training. There was no limit to strength, and no limit to precision.

What he needed right now was a passing grade. He had to cross that line before worrying about pushing higher.

When he withdrew his Inspiration, a line of text quietly popped up on his panel.

[Silence Spell, Mastered (No Medium).]

Richard stared at the words for two seconds and let out a long breath.

From picking up the Silence Shell that night in the Unresponsive Pit, to Madam Marie channeling spirits to strip down the complete three-page structural diagram, to trading for the Silence Fern, and receiving the cat incarnation's guidance...

The Silence Spell truly lived up to its origins as a mystery of the Black Earth River Master. It was ridiculously hard to learn.

"You can finally retire," he said, turning back to the steel pipe on a strange impulse.

The steel pipe, naturally, said nothing.

Richard dismissed the Spell Formula and sat down on the floor.

With Silence mastered, then...

He called up the selection box for Shadow Inversion.

A prompt popped up on the panel.

[Shadow Inversion: Silence Spell.]

[Inversion Result: Unsealing Formula (Resignatio Umbrae).]

[Effect: Compresses the target's internal space with high-density ether, forcing sealed, hidden, or suppressed information to permeate and leak outward.]

[Warning: If the sealed contents within the target exceed the caster's Rank, the leakage may cause a backlash against the caster.]

[Side Effect: The caster cannot use the Silence Spell while this formula is active.]

The side effect followed the same logic as Stone Armor and Shadow Armor. Using one meant he couldn't use the other; the two were mutually exclusive.

Richard walked over to the equipment rack and pulled an item from his bag.

It was the Silver-Handled Ritual Dagger that Captain Field had given him.

He had already drained most of the ether from it, leaving only a thin base layer.

The dagger was still wrapped in a simple seal made by Mr. Hutton, plastered on with silver powder and refined salt.

Richard placed the dagger in the dead center of the training room floor and took two steps back.

He had the shadow step out from behind the veil and stand directly above the dagger.

He passed a thought to the shadow: unseal.

The shadow's silhouette tightened.

A surge of ether pressed down from the shadow's palm, gathering against the surface of the dagger's seal.

It pressed tighter and tighter, growing denser and heavier.

The ether formed a microscopic high-pressure zone on the seal's surface, the exact opposite of the stagnant dead water zone created by Silence.

Silence hollowed out the ether; the Unsealing Formula pumped it full.

The seal's outer shell began to creak. Several hairline cracks appeared in the silver powder layer.

The thinnest part of the dagger's seal gave way first, and a wisp of ether seeped out from the crack.

Richard used his Inspiration to read that seeping wisp of ether. It was a residual sealed memory from inside the dagger.

On a certain winter night, the dagger was thrust into an old oak stump.

Several figures in dark robes sat around it, a fire burning in the center as someone chanted.

The image lasted for about two seconds before dispersing.

The cracks in the seal closed up again. Once the high pressure was removed, the elasticity returned.

The dagger remained intact, and the seal was undamaged.

Richard picked up the dagger and turned it over. The cracks on the silver powder layer were completely gone.

It was like squeezing a few drops of liquid out of a bottle through sheer external air pressure, without ever taking the cap off.

"It worked." He tucked the dagger back into his bag.

The effect on a seal was proven. The next step was testing it on a living creature.

Catching a cat on the Imperial Capital University campus shouldn't be hard; there were always strays prowling the bushes.

But Richard thought it over. Casting a Spell Formula of unknown origins on a cat in the middle of campus wouldn't look good if word got out.

Besides, he didn't want his hidden Spell Formula to be seen.

Richard decided to switch to a private place where he could feel secure. Ashford House would do nicely.

Rats frequently got into the tool shed in the manor's back garden. The butler had complained several times, saying the pests had gnawed through two pairs of pruning shears.

He was already planning to return to the manor this Saturday anyway. His grandfather had asked him to check in regularly on how Vincent's group was progressing with Moon Nail: Reflection.

On Saturday, after returning to Ashford House and guiding his cousin, he crouched in the tool shed for half an hour until a large gray rat appeared.

The rat poked half its body out from a hole at the base of the wall, its beady eyes darting around.

Richard had the shadow step out from behind the veil and hover three feet above the rat.

The shadow turned its palm down and cast the Unsealing Formula.

The ether pressed down, gathering around the rat to form a high-pressure zone.

The rat's reaction was far more violent than the seal's.

Its entire body stiffened, its four legs snapping straight as its tail whipped against the ground twice.

Then it did something very strange.

It squatted there and began repeatedly scrubbing its face with its front paws.

It scrubbed rapidly and forcefully, as if trying to rub something off its face.

Richard used his Inspiration to read it.

The rat had no ether circuit inside its body, nor did it have anything "sealed" within.

But it had instincts.

Enveloped by the high-pressure zone, the fear buried deep within its animal instincts had been squeezed out.

The rat was using the self-soothing behavior of face-washing to combat the sudden surge of terror.

About five seconds later, Richard dismissed the Spell Formula.

The rat froze for a moment, then spun around and darted back into the wall hole.

It moved so fast that its front paws had already vanished into the darkness while the tip of its tail was still outside.

This Spell Formula really did work on living creatures. Suppressed instincts and emotions would be forcibly pushed to the surface.

Richard sat down on an old wooden crate in the tool shed, spreading a notebook across his lap.

He scribbled down a few lines of the test results.

"On seals: Can force out fragments of the contents without damaging the seal itself."

"On living creatures: Can force out suppressed emotions/instincts/memories (currently limited to animal instincts; untested on the human body)."

He added a parenthetical note after the second line.

"(Speculation: Likely effective on the human body as well. Perhaps it could be developed into a method for combat interference or interrogation?)"

His pen tip paused on the paper.

But if he casually rummaged through someone else's box, what if it was a circus trunk? A lion might jump out.

That wasn't fearmongering.

The lesson from the Echo Society incident was still fresh in his mind.

Mrs. MacNeil had drawn a pupil-less eye from the cards.

The snip-snip of pruning shears drifted in from the garden outside the tool shed; the gardener was tending to the roses.

The rat was long gone.

The butler would probably complain again tonight about finding fresh rat droppings in the yard.

Richard stepped out of the tool shed and stood on the garden's stone path for a moment.

In mid-November, the sky over the Imperial Capital grew dark earlier and earlier.

He popped his coat collar up and headed toward the front hall.

His mind was spinning with various application scenarios for the Unsealing Formula.

Its effect on seals was practically tailor-made for his path as an appraiser.

Previously, when appraising an item of unknown origin, he had to either rely on his Spirit Vision to stare intensely from the outside, or ask Professor Mortimer to forcibly dismantle it layer by layer from the outside in.

Now, with the Unsealing Formula, he didn't need to break the seal or alter the structure. By simply applying external pressure, he could force out a few drops of the contents to get a taste first.

Once he had a taste, he could decide if it was worth dismantling further.

In the past, he had to rely on turning over Tarot cards one by one for this kind of work.

Combined with Silence, it could also form a combo in combat.

First, use Silence to shut down the opponent's Spell Formulas and sever their breathing method rhythm.

Then, seizing the opening when their self-defense system was paralyzed, follow up with the Unsealing Formula and press inward.

The two Spell Formulas were mutually exclusive and couldn't be cast simultaneously, but they could be used interchangeably. One forward and one reverse—it was a perfect combo technique.

Richard pushed open the door to the front hall and walked in.

The butler was standing beneath the window at the end of the corridor, saying something to a maid.

Seeing Richard return, the butler turned and bowed.

"Young Master, dinner will be ready in half an hour."

"Alright."

Richard went upstairs to his room and shut the door.

He first performed a set of Tide-Shifting Breathing to ease the fatigue accumulated over the past few days of high-intensity practice.

The Lv4 [Healing] gradually dissolved several minor blockages in his Micro-circulation caused by the excessive use of ether.

He sat with his eyes closed for about ten minutes.

Once his breathing had completely stabilized, he opened his eyes and manifested that bronze Mask of Hermes.

The mask hadn't been inverted by the shadow yet.

The condition was "having mastered the Spell Formula." He had certainly used the enhancement provided by the mask, but he was far from having "mastered" it.

There was no rush to invert the mask.

First, he needed to familiarize himself with the few new tools he now had at his disposal. He would take it one step at a time.