Meditation

"Ugh…" The sunlight was not blocked by my makeshift shelter. I let out a long sigh as I fumbled my way out of my makeshift bed, a bed of dirt and rags. I stood up and stretched for a moment, I walked outside of my shelter and noticed something. The sun rises from the east, and it appears that the only direction that the wall doesn't cover is the east.

I would be woken up at dawn every single day that I spent at this shelter.

I thought a little bit and decided this would be good for me, waking up at dawn and sleeping when the sun set was how us humans were designed to work after all. The modern society in my previous world simply allowed for another option.

I began walking towards Andreas' shelter as soon as I fully woke up, I needed to collect my smoked meat after all. I strolled, still relying on my cane but not as much as before. God knows how but it looks like my journey towards health has made a little bit of progress. I suppose a good meal goes a long way for a body that hasn't eaten in ages.

I arrived at Andreas' shelter and exchanged pleasantries before asking the question I had come there for.

"Is the meat smoked enough for me to take it from you? If it is, I'd like to do that since I have plans for how I wish to spend this day."

"The meat is smoked, kid, it's been smoking all night so we know for sure that it's good. Here, take it"

He pointed towards a bag of meat and motioned for me to go grab it.

"Thanks, I'll be taking my leave now."

"Of course, I plan to go get more berries in two days, in the afternoon. I'm not going to ask for an answer now but if you want to come and get more berries with me then show up at midday"

I nodded at him and walked away towards my next destination, my own shelter yet again. The only errand I needed to run today was actually just grabbing the smoked meat from Andreas. That didn't mean that I had nothing to do, quite the opposite actually. I needed to reinforce my shelter first and foremost, then I needed to fashion myself a pair of pants and a shirt out of the rags given to me by Andreas. Last but not least in the slightest would be something I planned to spend the most time on. It was something that would make the difference between me and any other random street rat.

I would need to start working on forming a mana core.

Meditation was something that I planned to spend a vast portion of my day on. At the very least six hours a day would be spent on meditation, I needed progress and I needed it fast. Arthur Leywin had likely not spent that much time every day meditating. However he had a loving home to fall back on if he didn't awaken quickly, he had safety nets and a wealth of experience. I needed to brute force my way to catching up to him and then surpass him even.

I didn't know how much time I had left until the war began, but I believe myself to be around the same age as Arthur based on what I've heard from Andreas. I know for certain that other races have not been allowed into Xyrus yet and no one yet knows about the second continent. I also know that the Second Elf-Human War has been concluded. This leads me to believe my aforementioned claim.

I sat down in the lotus position, well tried, I wasn't flexible enough so I simply sat criss-cross-applesauce. I took a deep breath in, a deep breath out. I repeated this and cleared my mind of all thoughts, focusing on forming nothing but black in my vision. Here is where I was left to fumble around until I found what worked for me. I knew that I needed to see a bunch of white fragments and then slowly move them towards my solar plexus until I formed my core.

The only issue I had was how in the world I was meant to spot these fragments in the first place. I think I should just try to focus on seeing the fragments and see if that works.

Alright, here we g-

Beautiful.

A galaxy of stars, tens of millions of them, shining that radiant orange color.

The pitch black darkness surrounding them entranced me with its contrast.

The vibrancy of the stars and the dark harshness clash brilliantly and mesmerize me, almost making me forget what I was trying to do.

Almost.

I needed to start trying to form my mana core, but isn't this a little bit too much? I don't remember there being so many fragments for Arthur, and his fragments were all white.

Why are mine different?

No point in even attempting to figure out for now, I won't get a very good answer. I started trying to will one of the stars to move towards another and merge. After what seemed to be around half an hour, or what felt like it because I had no methods to tell. I finally succeeded in merging two stars, it'll need to get faster soon. At least I hope so.

I continued with this for approximately the next 6 hours, it was grueling but strangely calming work. I found myself getting into a rhythm and simply working on instinct.

I could definitely do this for a day straight.

It was time to begin working on the other items I had planned to do today. I spent another hour making minor improvements to the shelter. There was no major change, simply fixing a few things that already broke in the day and reinforcing the shelter with a few carefully placed knots using some of the cloth that I cut off.

I patched a few of the rags together by cutting the edges of the rags into strips and tying them together. It was a technique used to make blankets in my previous life, but it was very time consuming. By the time that I finished making myself a shirt and patching up my pants, the sun had already fallen. I snuggled under my shelter and fell asleep with ease, my body still craving rest and recovery.

The next month passed in a similar fashion, I began doing routine scavenging with Andreas in order to get a consistent supply of food. We foraged many different types of berries and I no longer needed him to tell me what was and wasn't poisonous. We even found a mana beast corpse once, but no mana core.

An adventurer probably left it there.

Today was a day unlike the monotonous days of the previous hunt. I had fallen into a rhythm, even keeping to the six hours of meditation a day, but it wasn't enough. I needed to work harder if I planned to survive the upcoming war, and to do that, I, an unawakened homeless child who had only two weeks ago become capable of running again, would hunt mana beasts.

I looked at the forest in front of me, with my machete in my hand, and started walking.

[AN: I was pretty busy today so I was thinking of not posting a chapter, but I forced myself to and wound up having a pretty fun time. What did you guys think of this chapter?]