Facing Barry's glare, Richard remained calm.
After watching him silently for several seconds, he said slowly, "Do you know? What you're doing right now has a specific name in one place—it's called impotent rage. The angrier you act, the more incapable you truly are. The person you're angry at isn't anyone else. It's only yourself."
"I..." Barry forcefully blinked after hearing Richard's words, as though they had struck a nerve. It was like his deepest wound had been ripped open and heavily sprinkled with sea salt. His expression twisted, and his body began to tremble.
A few seconds later, his knees bent, and he slowly crouched down, clutching his head with both hands. In a somewhat dejected voice, he said, "My talent is poor. What can I do? I'm simply no match for that bastard Noan. Tell me, how can I beat Noan?"
Richard gave a slight shrug. "I might have an idea, but you're not family. Why should I tell you?"
Barry: "..."
"Alright, the twenty minutes I gave you are almost up. Hurry and answer one more question for me."
"What?"
"You said earlier that your Ancestral Spirit Society has a 'Blood Codex' that records the results of the Ancestral Spirit Society's research into Blood Spells over the past several hundred years, correct?"
"Correct."
"Then I want to confirm something. How many research results are recorded in the Blood Codex, exactly? What do they include?"
"There are analyses of more than a hundred Blood Spells, roughly speaking. More than thirty of them can currently be used normally—before, the Magic Puppet I used for the sneak attack was an application of the analysis of a spell called Flesh Puppet.
"Besides that, the remaining seventy or so are analyses of relatively obscure Blood Spells. Their requirements are somewhat harsh, and