26: Mind meditation
"Oh right! Who is your mentor?" Sam asked before they could get their plates for lunch.
"Fred, a necromancy and alchemy professor!" Wade replied.
"Alchemy? You're good!" Sam was seemingly startled.
"Is it difficult to learn alchemy?" Wade was a slight anxious now.
"Not only is it hard, the study of alchemy requires a large amount of resources and ingredients.
People who don't come from a good family background will rarely choose this! However, alchemists tend to make a lot of money after they get the hang of the art!" Sam gave Wade an embarrassed look.
"You must have been randomly assigned a mentor during the selection by that greedy old man.!"
"Yeah" Wade rubbed his nose.
"Alright! Let's bygone be bygone, we're here at the dining hall now, take whatever you want to eat!"
The dining hall was extremely extravagant with the food which was more delicious than anything he had ever had in the past.
Everyone who sat here was also an apprentice, and there were no signs of a Sage.
After dinner, Wade bid farewell to Sam and then returned to his room. He sat on his bed, with the crystal ball clasped in his hands.
"I can finally start my path of Sage!"
Wade followed the instructions given by his mentor and placed the crystal ball at his forehead, slowly his eyes started to get blurry.
[A data interface has been discovered, start transmitting or not?] Abby's voice sounded.
"Begin!" At Wade's command, an acute pain entered his brain, as if someone started putting water in it.
"This is... " Wade grabbed his head, and discovered that many images and words appeared in his brain like a video had started to play in his mind and then he went into a half-conscious state as he entered his memory.
"Today, I'm going to teach you about the Mind meditation technique, which is bestowed by the academy on you to create the Apprentice ruins in your mind.
To create an apprentice runes you have to combine the basic nodes that you create through the meditation but first of all, I will teach you why you have to create this Apprentice runes in your mind.
When you meditate the magic energy in the environment is slowly filtered and then absorbed in your body.
But as your body cannot sustain too much of this magic energy otherwise it will cause your body to explode you create basic nodes to store this energy.
These basic nodes can be considered as a small water pipe that not only holds some of the energy but can also be used to transfer the energy but, to really use them to leverage your spells you need a greater quantity of energy.
For this purpose, you need to build Apprentice runes. If the basic nodes can be considered as a pipe then the Apprentice rune can be considered a small pond but creating Apprentice runes is way harder than it seems.
The first rune needs five basic nodes to be connected together to create the Rank 1 apprentice ruin.
From here on the higher level Apprentice rune twice the number of basic nodes are required, meaning for you to become a Rank 2 Apprentice, 10 basic nodes are required to be created and then connected together.
Similarly, for third-rank, you need 20 basic nodes. For fourth you need 40 and for fifth, you need 80 basic nodes.
Meaning in total you need to create 155 basic nodes and 5 apprentice runes to reach the peak of the apprentice stage.
Once you enter the fifth rank of apprentice stage you have reached the starting point of your journey to become a Sage, but that matter will be considered in the future if any of you can reach the fifth rank.
For now, I am going to teach you on how to start the meditation." said an old man in his blurry memory field. Slowly, the man started to give instructions on meditation.
After some time Wade came out of his stupor, he first checked his surrounding to confirm what he had seen was a memory and not an illusion trap by the Academy.
"Abby, reproduce the state I was in earlier!" he commanded in his mind.
[...An unknown interference has caused the host to enter a state of Comatose!]
"As expected!" Wade's face darkened, and then he exhaled helplessly, "Thankfully, the Academy does not have any bad intentions, if not harming me or any other apprentice is very easy." Deep in his heart, his thirst for power only grew more intense.
After clearing his thoughts he commanded, "Abby, defragment the data for the Mind meditation technique!"
[Beep! Task established, beginning defragmentation!]
A watery interface started to flicker in front of Wade's eyes.
[Beep! The data has been defragmented. 36.3% of miscellaneous information has been removed, begin to transmit?]
"Transmit!" Wade ordered.
With the continuous transmission from the Abby, Wade began to gain an easier understanding of the meditation technique for Apprentice.
Mind meditation techniques are, as their name implies, unique meditation techniques given to apprentice, and are the most basic of techniques.
After many years of modification, they have already reached a near-perfect stage, and the content of the meditation techniques from the various academies did not differ by much.
An apprentice draws apprentice runes inside their mind to increase their Mental force limit so as to increase their magic power, and as they draw more apprentice runes, their mental force grows stronger.
As for the meditation progress, it is closely related to an apprentice's aptitude.
"In regards to meditation practice, the superiority of a fifth-grade apprentice is extremely obvious; they can become a Rank 1 apprentice in only a week or two.
As for a fourth-grade apprentice, the time needed to become a Rank 1 apprentice is approximately three to four weeks.
Third-grade apprentice will need a month or two's time; second-grade apprentice will need half a year, and first-grade apprentice will need several years!
This difficulty in progressing will only increase when ascending to Level 3 apprentice and Level 4 apprentice, hence is it understandable for professors to favour students with high aptitudes.
After all, one can receive the contribution of teaching a proper Sage in a decade, with just a little more effort put in now!"