After sending Autarch away, Jacob kept observing with his hearing, and he was quite astonished when he saw Autarch appear the same as the dead Fredial.
The way he walks, talks, and even his breathing pattern seemed to be the same. No one would doubt for a moment that it was the Brain Hunter controlling Fredial's body, even his own mother.
Furthermore, Jacob also noticed that his connection with Autarch was still strong despite Autarch moving a few meters away. He can still send him commands through his thoughts or even hold a conversation, and lastly, he can summon Autarch back into his solar plexus directly from Fredial brain.
Now all was left was to know the exact range in which he could perform all these things, as he was pretty sure there was some limit to these abilities.
Nevertheless, Jacob was content with Autarch and all the things that came with it.
After dealing with the Brain Hunter matter and concluding his small experiment, which went extremely well, Jacob was at ease, and now he knew he could move on to the next important matter, the Water Meditation!
Although he was planning on putting it on hold until he was also done with the search for the Plutonium, then he changed his mind and put the Water Meditation at first.
The biggest reason was after hearing about Autarch's abilities. He felt a strange urgency to become more powerful, as his current power was not enough in front of unknown threats like Autarch.
Jacob was 99% sure that if another Brain Hunter like Autarch selected him as its target, he wouldn't even see it coming unless he was in his 20X acceleration, and this was a Rare Rank insect we were talking about. At the same time, he was now considered an Epic Rank.
The illusion of invincibility in the Rare Plains seemed like nothing but a sham put on his mind by none other than himself, and external objects like Plutonium was useless unless he had the ability to use them because death won't wait for him to draw his trump card!
Jacob then snuck out of his tent silently as no one noticed him since those alchemists were busy asking Autarch about how Jacob 'increased' his potential and what could they should expect.
Only Autarch would be able to tell since it could sense Jacob's direction just as Jacob could, but it won't say anything since Jacob had already sent an advance notice about what he was going to do.
Jacob appeared a few hundred meters away from the canyon, in front of the incoming river stream from the same canyon. The reason for Jacob selecting this place so close to the canyon was exactly this river stream.
Jacob clearly remembered just how much water he needed to perform Water Meditation up to just two hours mark and how many preparations he had to do so that he couldn't end up drowning.
At that time, he had no idea why all that oxygen was being sucked dry from the water, and he experienced that strange feeling in his body, but now he does.
The only problem was, even with his current physique, he might not be able to hold under 720-G force for much, and this wasn't the only problem, as he had to do it while holding his breath underwater for 72 hours straight.
Nevertheless, Jacob was going to try first and see how well it went while performing Water Mediation in this River Stream for a few hours, and only then could he decide how to proceed further.
The river stream was 17 meters wide while the water current was around 11 to 12 knots and 8-meter-deep, which was something Jacob could handle.
'I have to do it sooner or later in this kind of environment since I can't perform Water Mediation in a small pool or lake anymore, especially if I want to complete the three days and nights cycle.
'I'll perform Water Mediation for 4 hours and then check the water affinity. If it really increases, I'll continue without holding back. I hope it will work, and I will be able to awake Water type magic and even explore the other four exercises.
'The Art of Nature clearly has no limit emplaced. There were just certain thresholds that needed to be done before one could move toward the second exercise. It might be a rare magic scripture for all I know, but the question still remains, how in the world it ended up in my old world? Is the Zodiac Plains connected with that world in some way…'
Jacob wondered, but then he stopped caring as it would only waste his time to mull over this entire thing as it was simply out of the realm of his thinking capability. He might be able to solve these mysteries once he becomes more powerful.
Jacob then started to take deep breaths and then exhale deeply. He was going to go for four hours straight the moment he jumped into the river stream even higher if he felt like it.
Right now, he should be capable of holding his breath underwater for 10 to 12 hours straight, but matched with continuously increasing G-force, this limit could greatly plummet.
Jacob didn't know just what kind of G-force his current body could handle and if he could last for 72 hours. But he was determined to find out.
After following the same breathing patterns for five minutes, Jacob took a final deep breath before he jumped into the river stream without hesitation. But he kept wearing his clothes as he was afraid of an attack by some water magic beast in that river. This was the core area of the Magic Beast Forest, after all.
With his powerful body, Jacob easily reached the river bed. Then he sat in the lotus position and instantly started to perform the Water Mediation as his breathing started to turn rhythmic.
The hour passed like a breeze, and Jacob was already in 10-G force, which was nothing, and his position became firm.
However, Jacob had no idea just over fifty meters above his head. A figure stood on top of a floating disc while a white projection light was in front of it, and on that projection, ten red dots were moving toward a black dot with terrifying speed!