Nausica’s instinct was correct.
Angor remembered that he agreed to be Sailum’s neighbor not long ago. It was barely a day yet, and he already changed his mind. Now Angor felt a little ashamed.
And Nausica easily realized Angor’s expression.
“So I was right. You’re going to move away? Wait… since you haven’t started living here, you aren’t literally ‘moving’ away.”
Since Nausica revealed his intention, Angor did not try to hide his embarrassment. He could not hide it anyway.
He told them how he rented a house in the apprentice town. His magic crystal income was pretty difficult to explain, so he simply used Sunders as an excuse. Besides, Sunders did give him those merit points. At a price though.
“Miss Abelle said even Level-2 Apprentices usually can’t afford rooms there!” said Sailum. He looked jealous as he said, “Your professor is so nice.”
“A good choice,” said Nausica. She picked up the broken chain before continuing, “This place is unsafe. Considering your problem with Hookdick, if that guy sneaks into your room during the night, you’re in big trouble.”
Sailum agreed, “Miss Nausica is right. I didn’t think about it before but… if a sword can break the door lock, our rooms are not secured at all. And this is not a place full of peaceful townsfolk. The supernaturals and those about to become supernaturals must have their ways of breaking in. Getting your training interrupted by someone is bad. Besides, Toby is a bird and it can’t live without the sun.”
“You’re one step ahead of us then,” said Nausica. She put a hand on Angor’s shoulder and said, “When I get enough magic crystals, I’ll also move away from here as soon as I can.”
“Me too!” said Sailum. He smiled as he added, “Then we can be neighbors!”
Their friendly comment allowed Angor to get rid of his sad feeling.
“I hope that day comes soon,” Angor said to them.
…
Angor carried his luggage to his small villa in the apprentice town on the same day.
The villa was located on the edge of Apprentice Town Eight, with a small river aside. There was a forest behind the villa, and animals would show up from there occasionally and drink from the river casually. When Angor arrived, he saw several dusk pelicans with large, red beaks hunting for fish in the river, and a herd of white deer resting nearby.
“Such a beautiful nature…”
The pleasant scenery made Angor felt really satisfied with his new home.
The villa was protected by a white fence. The fence was pretty short, but there were spell arrays on it which could stall intruders. There were a small garden and a tiny greenhouse. A three-meter tall mistletoe tree was growing near the greenhouse. The mirror world kept a warm atmosphere most of the times, so the tree was lively and lush. There were even some fruit buds growing on it.
Angor entered the villa and saw that his furniture was brought in by the town manager. The furniture was left around in the main hall in a disorganized manner. Angor spent half of the day arranging furniture to their correct positions while getting used to the interior of the villa.
The villa had three floors, with a small triangular attic as the top floor, guest rooms on the second, and the main bedroom, study, and common hall were all on the ground floor. There was also a basement which was designed as a training room.
Angor would be living in the main bedroom. He put Toby into the attic. There was a skylight in the attic, through which the leafy mistletoe tree could be seen, thus giving the attic a comfortable atmosphere. Toby was pretty satisfied with its own room. The bird could fly in and out of the skylight as it liked.
After arranging Toby’s room, Angor returned to his own bedroom.
There was nothing here besides the bed. The walls around were all empty. Angor watched the creepily white walls and decided to take the two oil paintings out.
He hanged Traveler Under Stars onto the wall across to the bed. As for Milking Shepherd, he put it into the study instead and covered it up with a painting curtain. Angor was not sure if the painting had some kind of secret, so he hid it, just in case.
The decoration made his bedroom a lot better. Angor already felt tired after running around during the day, so he fell asleep soon on the bed.
The next day, Angor woke up after the horizon had already turned bright. The boy lifted the curtain and stretched himself on the balcony while inhaling the fresh air. He felt good as he looked at the green mountain in the distance and small animals chasing around along the river.
Angor did not plan to go out today. He wanted to finally start studying the channeling method. He wanted to try out Singularity Dispersive Meditation as soon as he could, hoping that it would deepen his knowledge quickly and allow him to save Jon’s life in five years.
However, before learning the channeling method, he had to get a feel about his spirit power first.
Angor asked Toby to enjoy the outside on his own. He then ate some instant food before he stepped into the basement.
It was wide.
The three basic magic arrays were drawn on the walls, so no matter what Angor did down here, his privacy and safety could be protected. This was also why many apprentices redesigned their basements into personal laboratories. Angor did not intend to do that though. He was going for another side door in the basement which led to a small soundproof room about two or three square meters wide.
One could calm his mind best in such a narrow and tranquil room. This place would help Angor greatly during his first meditation.
It did not go well. Even with the help of Sunders’ advice, Angor still could not manage to completely calm his mind.
The first step of meditation was to imagine the spirit model inside one’s brain. This was different from actually constructing the model but they were related. To imagine the spirit model was to build it better. Angor needed this step to have a basic idea about the model he was going to make.
Also, imagining the spirit model could help Angor feel and channel his spirit power.
Spirit power was an abstract concept. Angor had to feel it first before materializing it. As for how to feel spirit power… He had to imagine a spirit model in his mind and to look for something that was drawn by this model.
Imagined a spiritual model while tracing spirit power…
Angor could not focus entirely on the spiritual model because he needed to catch the other power in his brain—spirit power.
This step called for greater concentration. It was extremely difficult for someone to imagine something while focusing on another completely different object.
Angor recalled reading about a famous psychological test from Earth called “The Pink Elephant”.
A psychologist told the subjects that there was a pink elephant in the room, but then he told them not to think about the elephant.
But in the end, once the subjects heard about the “pink elephant”, they could no longer get rid of the idea. No matter how hard they tried to forget it, their brains would always remind them of the particularly-colored creature in the room.
Wizard meditation was a similar process. When one wanted to divert one’s focus to something else, one could not do it. This was called “thought interference”.
If one wished to forget the subject which caused the interference, he or she had to clear the body and mind of everything before slowly shifting their focus into a state of blankness.
This was a difficult task. People were usually troubled by a lot of different thoughts. To make the mind blank required a constant and long-term effort.
Since this called for an absolutely silent environment, most wizards were wise people who lived in solitude.
When wizards attained a higher level and had less random thoughts in their minds, they could use “relatively quiet” places in place of “absolutely silent” ones. However, only wizards could do that. Wizards were able to meditate even if they stayed among bustling crowds. Being able to empty their minds quickly allowed them to enter such a state easily. That was something beyond achieving calmness in their bodies and minds.
They could “calm their spirits”.
As for an even higher state called “calming the soul”… it required some harsher conditions.
…
Angor spent a whole week without successfully going into a meditation state. He had a quiet place now, but he always thought about various stuff. Each time he closed his eyes in a meditation attempt, all sorts of distracting thoughts and evildoers rose up inside his mind as if they were holding a party. Pressing something down meant allowing something else to come up.
Angor already had enough difficulty trying to suppress his own thoughts, let alone imagining the spiritual model.
And he just realized how chaotic his mind was.
Angor was not the only talent who was stuck at the first step. All talents had received channeling method books from their respective professors. The difference was that their methods were only common ones, something like Triangle Channeling. Yet, they too were stopped by the first challenge… Especially the adults who had witnessed too many things in their lives to completely calm their minds.
Sailum, however, was a lot purer than Angor despite being only one year younger. The book asked him to close his eyes to meditate, and Sailum simply did so. The boy had way fewer random ideas, and he managed to separate his imagination and focus in a short time.
Sailum’s success stimulated Angor much. In the next two weeks, Angor decided to stay indoors to meditate. He believed the hard effort would pay off in the end.
Sunders did not contact Angor during his training. Maybe the man also knew what kind of trouble first-timers had to face.
Several days later, Angor gained a deeper insight into his meditation method. It asked for regular progress, instead of something that could be achieved in one go. So his only task now was to get rid of distracting ideas.
One week later, Angor succeeded.
The second step was to imagine his spiritual model and track down spirit power.
Another three days passed. Angor more or less knew how to separate his imagination from his focus. He had to slowly project the spiritual model instructed by Singularity Dispersive Meditation into his mind and turn it into his natural instinct. Such an instinct would prevent him from losing focus, and it would also make it easier for him to sense spirit power.
Yet, to develop something into instinct was not easy.
Another week went by, Angor was still stuttering during his meditation. He could not completely separate his imagination from his focus yet, but he managed to direct his focus away occasionally to look for his spirit power.
He could only do this every now and then, but it gave him a lot of confidence.
Occasional would slowly become constant, and it would then turn into forever. He did not know how long it would take him, but Angor knew how to persist.
Angor slowly caught up with Sailum after half a month and came out in front of all the other talents. For one, he already had a decent talent. Besides, the concentration magic array helped him a lot.
Just like Angor, Sailum was also on the step of finding his spirit power but he could not do it. He felt as if something like that did not exist at all.
They had also discussed their training in private but they could not find anything helpful.
As for Nausica…
She had shut herself in her room for a long time now. According to Sailum, Nausica was still fighting with her own mind. She even smoked less.
Angor muttered to himself upon hearing Nausica’s condition, “Maybe she can do better while smoking?”
This was because Angor already noticed that Nausica appeared to be more serene and calm when she smoked her pipe. Telling from his training during the half month, this meant it was easier for Nausica to remove her distractions when smoking.
…
After making some progress by directing his focus away from his imagination, Angor felt a little bit irritated when he got stuck trying to find spirit power.
An entire month went by.
The Month of Looming Frost had come. This meant that after another month, Angor would reach his first year of being away from home.
That would be one out of the five-year period from his promise of saving Jon. A year had passed and he was not even an apprentice yet. Of course, he would feel irritated.
One day, after he still found no trace of his spirit power, Angor decided to go to Phantom Island and ask Sunders for help.
The way to the island was smooth and peaceful, and Sunders happened to be inside his study room.
However, Sunders’ answer was a little unsatisfactory to Angor. The man positively praised Angor’s progression. As for how to find spirit power, Sunders only told him to “take it slow”.
“Haste makes waste.”
Angor knew this, but he could not take it slow now!
Before leaving the Phantom Island, Angor ran into Flora and got an idea. Maybe Flora could tell him something helpful.
However, Flora said exactly the same thing – that he should be patient.
Though looking at how Angor was on his edge, Flora added something in the end:
“I dunno why you’re being all edgy, and I don’t have anything to help you. But someone might. It’s no easy task to pry useful information from that guy though.”