By the time he returned to St. Delan Square with the cat, it was already eight o'clock. Because it was back home, Mia paced around excitedly; it loved this place as much as Shade did.
Shade didn't rest either. Instead, he took out the learning materials for the occult art [Lagrai's Leap] that he had acquired last week and placed them on the study desk along with the bundle of Weather-vane Bluegrass he had brought from Coldwater Port. There were twelve stalks in total.
Although Weather-vane Bluegrass is a herbaceous plant, it looks more like a fern. For Shade's occult art, only about one-fifth of the plant was usable.
Using scissors, he simply processed two of the stalks, cutting away the useful parts and using a fine needle to carve a long string of ancient runes meaning "direction" into the surface of the plant.
The process was very straining on the eyes; the quality of the gas lamp's light was far inferior to the lighting of his hometown.
After finally finishing the plant processing—which felt like embroidery—he walked to the window and looked out at the rainy night sky. Once he confirmed there were no unusual celestial alignments tonight, he drew the curtains, shut the cat out of the room, and extinguished the gas lamp on the side wall of the study, leaving only the gas desk lamp lit.
Following the learning method provided by Professor Garcia, he first ground obsidian into stone dust and mixed it with the bone powder of a Hass Hound's leg. After grinding it finely, he moistened the powder with a mixture of his own blood and water.
He waited for the powder to change color from black to white, then placed the powder in a metal vessel and heated it from below with a match until the moisture had completely evaporated.
After completing these tedious steps, he ground the warm powder mixture once more. Once it had cooled to room temperature, he carefully covered the processed Weather-vane Bluegrass with it.
The key was to cover the letters pierced by the needle.
Shade took a deep breath and closed his eyes to steady his mind. Placing the tray on the corner of the desk, he first softly recited the runes he had just carved, then gave a sudden, sharp blow. As the powder dispersed within the enclosed study, the corroded remains of the bluegrass were revealed.
Biting the bullet, he ate the grass coated in powder. Before the dust in the air had completely settled, Shade took out another stalk of bluegrass. The casting of the occult art required a catalyst—specifically, a diluent of the Weather-vane Bluegrass extract.
He didn't have the tools to make an extract, so he could only use a simple pinching motion to squeeze out some sap, which he then dabbed onto the tip of his tongue.
To be honest, Shade found it hard to compare whether the powder from before or the plant sap now tasted stranger, but it was certainly better than the taste of the frog materials.
Looking at the somewhat empty study, he took a step forward with an excited heart. His figure vanished from beside the desk and reappeared in front of the tightly closed door.
The distance of the occult art was 10 feet (approximately 3.14 meters), but Shade could feel that his limit was definitely more than that. The influence of the "Divine Afterglow" state on this occult art was to increase the maximum distance of the spatial movement. The multiplier was roughly twofold, meaning Shade's maximum movement range should be around 10 meters.
However, a more accurate experiment would require waiting an hour. Professor Garcia had warned that this occult art could be used at most once per hour; otherwise, it would very easily attract strange things.
Of course, that was merely the professor's warning. If Shade didn't care about safety and had enough Spirit, he could absolutely use [Lagrai's Leap] as a means of walking. But a one-hour interval was indeed too long. If he could find a way to ensure the safety of spatial movement, he wouldn't have to worry—though if such a thing truly existed, Shade certainly couldn't afford it.
"Still, this occult art is simpler than I thought."
Turning to look behind him, the entire process just now was no different from a normal step.
It was just that at the moment his body abruptly appeared, there was a strange sensation of imbalance. But this feeling wouldn't affect combat; it would be fine after adapting a few more times.
【What difficulties did you think you would encounter?】
She asked softly in his ear.
"For example... because of lack of proficiency, only part of my body achieves the spatial leap, resulting in the separation of my body?" Shade guessed jokingly.
【If this occult art were that dangerous, the professors at St. Byron's would not have recommended you choose it.】
The casting material for the occult art [Lagrai's Leap] is a diluent of Weather-vane Bluegrass extract, but the material is not needed at the moment of use. Instead, after dabbing some standard-concentration diluent on the tip of the tongue, the occult art can be used at any time within twenty minutes.
This diluent cannot be made by simply adding water; it requires a Ring-Sorcerer specializing in potion configuration to create it, otherwise, a lot of material would be wasted.
Therefore, Shade only tried it a few times tonight and planned to ask Priest Augustus for help processing the grass tomorrow.
Incidentally, he could also have the priest help identify the other miscellaneous items he had brought back from Coldwater Port. As for the origin of these things, he could simply claim he met a Ring-Sorcerer in the black market who wanted to leave Tobesk soon, so he bought a pile of unknown items at a low price.
"Coldwater Port truly lives up to its reputation as the most important trade hub between the New World and the Old World; even rare materials like this can be found there."
As he opened the door to quiet the cat that was incessantly scratching, Shade sighed sincerely in his heart. However, he wouldn't be returning to Coldwater Port anytime soon. Although he hadn't left too many traces at the scene of Jason Delar's death, he still needed to lie low for a while.
"The most important thing is still breaking into the ruins three days from now."
He looked at the night view outside the window
"To prevent the worst-case scenario, I must make multiple preparations. I'll save Divine Power wherever possible; the gold pounds in my hand can probably still buy some good things."
Time was tight, so after waking up on Tuesday morning, the first thing he did was eat, and the second was to wash yesterday's clothes to ensure he had clean clothes to wear when going out.
Then he left the house and took a carriage to the Tobesk Post Office to send an urgent letter to Miss Galina, asking if he could visit her in the afternoon. Only then did he visit Priest Augustus to hand over the Weather-vane Bluegrass for processing.
"Where did you get these plants? In the local black market, the price of Weather-vane Bluegrass is at least 10 pounds per stalk, and it's normal to have no news for months after posting a buy order."
Because making the plant extract was not troublesome, the priest took Shade directly to the underground studio he had rented. The plants themselves were expensive, but once the extract was diluted, at least 100 drops of liquid could be obtained from each stalk.
This liquid was enough to support Shade's usage for an entire year—not because it was estimated that Shade would use the occult art frequently, but because both the diluent and the plants themselves would slowly deteriorate, which was an unavoidable fact.