Nick wasn't just teaching the stuff that Hogwarts did though but the basics of magic as he knew it so it was far more in depth and comprehensive. This meant that despite learning extremely fast Celebrimbor was still technically in the first year of Hogwarts in terms of magical skill. Had he learned just the stuff that the school taught he would likely already be approaching the fifth year mark but Nick was making sure the fundamentals were set before allowing him to move on. There were pros and cons to this style of teaching but the elf lord only complained a little since he knew that in the long run this would pan out.-
Besides this not much had happened in the world as Zeus was marshalling forces with heavy opposition while he tried to grow his own power. The rest of the world was also starting to stabilize as people and magical beasts reached an treacherous balance. The Americas that Hestia had taken over had been condensed into a series of large cities that survived but were rather crowded in most peoples opinions. The goddess herself had basically just made it clear that if someone didn't like the way things were they were free to leave.-
A few wizards or brave muggles did but nobody knew if they made it or not as no one had heard from them after that. Nick and Hestia did NOT get along however as the moment they met both felt repulsed by the other instinctively. It wasn't hard to figure out why either as by his nature Nick was a chaotic force and Hestia's domains were all about order. Personality wise they were fine if a bit clashing in opinion but both had a tacit understanding to stay away from the other.-
Clashing natures was no laughing matter as it meant they both felt violently aggressive towards the other for no other reason beyond merely existing. Hephaestus accepted that coexistence was possible but being friendly was off the table entirely. Nick himself had been cranking out a great deal of rings while he waited for his progress through tier five to tier six finish so he could stockpile points again. On average his rings netted him between a hundred and a thousand points each so he was making good progress as he had already stored up half a million points again despite him also hemorrhaging points in his constant purchasing of new knowledge from the system as well as refilling his stores of soul reaper energy.-
As it turned out the energy itself wasn't that expensive so much as the jewels it came in. The hollow energy Nick had covered by separating some from himself to store since he made it passively now. One would think that it took a great deal of these two types of energy to create a single Asauchi but that was wrong. It actually took a very small amount but the trick was that the two types of energy needed to be fused and shaped extremely carefully or the final result would fail.-
Interestingly enough Nick discovered something amazing about the style that even it's creator hadn't known. The starting shape of the Zanpakuto before it was imprinted actually created a different result based on what it was. The creator of the style had only ever made blank Zanpakuto that were in weapon shape so most of the time the imprinted ones were also suited for combat to some degree. However by creating ring shaped blank Zanpakuto Nick discovered that not only were the Shikai for them not combat related but they could even allow one to craft via their Zanpakuto alone.-
These types of Shikai were thus labeled support types as they weren't meant for combat but rather to lend aid to those who went into it instead. Healing , crafting , creative and buffing Zanpakuto were all very common in those who got their Shikai from ring blanks. The creative types that could produce resources like metal or plants were classified as treasures in the city as in exchange for some effort by the wielders people could get supplies so the price of those things went down drastically.-
A good example would be a Shikai owned by a potion maker that could create and control slime. this slime allowed the person wielding the Zanpakuto to absorb an organic ingredient and add that ingredients property to the slime without any change in how a potion made with the original ingredient would function. The best part was that the guy could swap the properties at will after he absorbed a sample so he was a walking potion ingredient gold mine. Snape had sent no less than a hundred messages trying to get the guy with that Zanpakuto to work for him.