While the Tethered Bellhorn Steel blade was one of his trump cards, it was not the only one.

He had come up with two ideas when he finished his long research endeavor. These two were the most promising of ideas, and when it came down to it, he was unable to choose between them.

The second idea after the blade was something he had managed to dig up on another Shionel esoteric called Mercurite, a semi-solid esoteric substance known for its elasticity. He had stumbled upon an experiment surrounding the substance that involved subjecting it to high pressures and to high-temperature air in a gas chamber. Mercurite, known for its elasticity, would immediately grow rigid in these circumstances, developing a temporarily high tensile strength for the duration of the experiment and some a brief time even after being returned to standard pressures and temperatures.

The fact that this substance existed on the skin of the monsters after being secreted along with sweat made it something that Rui could use.

The question was how he could subject monsters to high-pressure and high-temperature air.

(‘The pressure is honestly manageable…’) Rui’s eyes narrowed his eyes.

If he could adapt the Tempestuous Ripple technique from when he was a Martial Apprentice, he could subject the skin of monsters to high-pressure air, but he wasn’t sure about pressure.

(‘Should I just purchase a bunch of hot air grenades or something,’) Rui laughed, before shaking his head. There were too many impracticalities even if he took the idea seriously, which he simply couldn’t as a Martial Artist.

Instead, what he had sought to procure was a device that could take in air, heat it rapidly and supply it to him if he needed it.

(‘I can inhale it and use the Squire-level version of the Tempestuous Ripple technique to blast it into the monsters at a high pressure, but…’) Rui narrowed his eyes. (‘It has limitations.’)

The first problem was that the hot air technique would lose heat very quickly. Rui had already conducted several experiments that revealed the projectile was useless outside of roughly seven meters. Which was a lot less than the maximum range before it lost all force.

Still, the ability to hamper the monsters within seven meters with ease was quite good.

At the end of the day, when it came down to choosing between one of them to form a technique, he ultimately decided to go with both.

(‘I can use the Mercurite on their skin to paralyze or hamper them when they enter within seven meters before slashing at them with the Tempered Bellhorn Steel blade,’) Rui had spent quite some time refining his strategy and tactics.

After nearly two weeks, he had come up with a model of solutions that allowed him to deal with a ridiculous number of monsters all by himself.

(‘If I’m not wrong… not even high-grade Martial Squires will be able to match the efficiency that Project Monster Repellant will give me when it comes to killing monsters in the Shionel Dungeon,’)

The only thing he couldn’t be certain about was grade-ten Martial Squires. He already knew that the Squire Realm was a wide plane, thus he couldn’t really figure out what grade-ten Martial Squires was capable of.

He had once been told that even a squadron of grade-five Martial Squires would get annihilated by a grade-ten Martial Squire, thus he couldn’t be sure that he was more effective than those powerful Martial Artists who stood at the precipice of a higher Realm of power.

“Ah, Squire Quarrier, welcome back!” An employee of a large store greeted him the moment he walked in. “The product you commissioned is ready just like we informed you!”

“That’s great to hear,” Rui smiled in response. “I’d like to see it as soon as possible.”

“Of course, please come this way, just one moment,”

Soon enough, she fetched a small box, bringing it over to Rui, before opening it up.

Inside was a smoking pipe that looked to be made up of wood with a relatively ordinary design that wouldn’t really raise an eyebrow.

In reality, it was the device that Rui had brought to heat air to extremely high temperatures and supply it to Rui on the inhaling end.

Rui would simply need to suck in hot air and employ it in his technique. Anyone who saw Rui would only think he was being irresponsible by smoking on the job. No one would think that this was an instrument that would allow him to deal with the Shionel monsters with a level of efficiency that one simply could not fathom coming from a grade-six nineteen-year-old Martial Squire like him.

This way, he could keep his abnormal success more inscrutable even if people started getting suspicious.

Of course, he also intended to hide under the grade-ten Mind Mask he had created such that his success would not be too odd. He had already fooled an entire island of Martial Artists that he was a grade-ten Martial Squire, he was pretty confident that he could pull it off yet again.

He quickly paid for the pipe before leaving with it for home.

He wondered what the Orphanage would say if they saw it. He could already imagine the various funny and amusing reactions that would follow.

Still, he didn’t intend to tell anyone about it asides from Kane.

The many preparations that Rui was making were all starting to come together. With one project completed and the other project approaching completion, he only had one project that was still a little past midway.

Project Eyespy was definitely the most difficult project, in hindsight. Rui had been carefully forming a blueprint for the technique as he performed research while also working out what esoteric substances he would be using, how much, and where he would be integrating them into their body. Trying to optimize the end outcome such that it reduced the difficulty and burdens of the technique was an extremely difficult process, even for someone like him.