The next morning.
Squatting at the side of his bed, Lynn twisted his neck, stood up, and exhaled softly, setting aside the draft paper filled with notes on the meditation technique.
"This stuff feels harder than advanced mathematics. Without Insight, and with my foundational knowledge still lacking, trying to fully understand it isn't easy."
"Also, I need to get myself a table and chair. Always crouching by the bed to write isn't a solution.
"But once I get a table and chair, practicing the White Crow Sword in this tiny shack will become an issue… It's just too cramped."
Lynn sighed, looking down at the muddy floor, then lifted his deerskin boots so caked with grime that their original look was unrecognizable, and glanced up at the hole in the roof.
"And another thing… the roof needs repairing. Sure, during the day, I can use the sunlight through the hole to read and save on lamp oil.
"But if it rains, it's like heavy rain outside and a drizzle inside.
"And the worst isn't even when it rains, it's when the sun comes out afterward. The heat evaporates all the moisture, turning the air into a steaming, suffocating mess, with the floor reduced to a swamp."
He shook his head, though the faint upward curl of his lips showed he was in a good mood.
Ever since crossing over, he'd been too busy just surviving to care about these small details.
But now, with the White Crow Sword at a proficient level and its mastery soon to reach perfection in the Dual Arm stage, plus the two thugs dealt with yesterday…
With savings of six lesser magic stones and the skill of crafting crystal spell plates, the academy debt was no longer a concern.
Everything was on an upward track.
For the first time, Lynn's heart felt a little lighter, allowing him to notice and care about the details of life.
Still, relaxation didn't mean idleness.
This morning, while his mind was at its sharpest, he sat down to study Hossen's Apprentice Meditation Technique.
The memory of scaling the wooden house yesterday, moving silently across the roof, was still vivid. Even more so was the power he'd felt inside, easily subduing Bartoli's two men with one hand.
The White Crow Sword had already exceeded his expectations.
What kind of change could the Hossen's Meditation Technique, several tiers above it, bring him?
Lynn could hardly wait to find out.
Black Alley Market.
"You don't have anything besides Mind Shock plates?"
Garan stood before Lynn's stall, asking casually.
"No, sir," Lynn shook his head.
Perhaps it was fate once again; the first customer of the day was the same young apprentice wizard who had given him business last time, Garan.
"So you only know how to make this one kind of spell plate?"
Garan picked up a plate, examining it.
"Yes, sir," Lynn replied patiently.
Garan nodded, running his fingers over the well-crafted plate, then asked suddenly:
"With skill like yours, ever thought of joining a faction?"
Lynn shot him a glance and, without showing it, grew wary.
The income from spell plate making alone was proof that this wasn't a low-value craft.
In Emeraldwood City, some powers made their fortune selling crystal spell plates.
He'd heard they kept entire groups of people whose only job was to make plates.
Or rather, slaves.
Those poor souls were bound by harsh contracts, locked away, working their entire lives without ever seeing a fair profit, squeezed dry until they died.
So, upon hearing Garan's words, Lynn couldn't help but worry.
Had this apprentice set his eyes on him?
Just as Lynn was thinking of mentioning his status as a discarded reserve apprentice from the academy, Garan said with some regret:
"Not planning to join anyone, huh?
"That's good. At least you'll stay free."
Lynn eased up a little, realizing he might have overreacted.
After all, the profit from Mind Shock plates wasn't high enough to tempt an apprentice into scheming over him.
It seemed Garan just wanted to vent, his tone half wistful, half bitter:
"In this world, it's hard to be truly free.
"So many things have gates to pass through, circles to join. If you don't get in, you'll never get anything…"
Shaking his head, Garan gathered up all the plates.
"I'll take them all."
As he did, Lynn caught sight of a badge on Garan's sleeve, something he hadn't noticed last time.
Oval-shaped, made of brass, with a gilded humanoid silhouette of mist at its center.
It seemed to be the emblem of the Golden Shadow Society.
Whatever the case, though Garan's visit ended without incident, it left Lynn more certain of his long-term priority
Power first, everything else second.
"One vial of Sweetgrass essential oil for calming the mind, one vial of Sevenflower Sprout nectar for easing physical fatigue, five gold dragons in total."
The shopkeeper beamed, handing over the goods.
In Lynn's hands were two small bottles and a free incense burner.
The Sweetgrass oil came in a thumb-sized round glass vial, the liquid inside a pale purple.
The Sevenflower nectar was in a slightly longer, slender bottle, filled with a faint blue-green liquid.
As for the incense burner, it's just a throw-in, hardly worth mentioning.
Feeling the sting in his heart, Lynn paid and strode home.
Five gold dragons cost half a lesser magic stone.
Hopefully, these two items will help speed up his source energy recovery.
...
By evening, Lynn was seated quietly inside the shack, letting out a soft sigh.
To his left, the incense burner was gently heating, releasing a slow, steady stream of fragrance.
The Sweetgrass essential oil truly did have a calming effect and a rather good one at that.
At the very least, when he discovered that the oil worth three gold dragons did not affect restoring his source energy, he didn't feel too upset.
His gaze shifted to the Sevenflower Sprout nectar at his right.
An hour earlier, he had already taken a sip.
But, like the Sweetgrass oil, apart from easing his body and washing away much of the fatigue from sword practice, it did nothing to restore his source energy.
Looks like, for now, I can't speed up my source energy recovery, at least not with these things.
A few days later, in the evening.
After dinner, Lynn was chatting idly with Giggs in the open space outside the shack when he heard an odd piece of news.
"You're saying another classmate was robbed by two vicious men?"
Lynn, whose frame had become noticeably taller and sturdier, asked in puzzlement.
"That's right. And this time, it was even worse.
"Remember, Jason? He's the one who suffered this time. I heard he fought back like you did, but in the end, his right arm was broken," Giggs said.
Jason was one of the more hot-tempered boys among their batch of reserve apprentices, a tall figure.
As a child, he'd grown quickly, and at times would trail after a nasty bully, helping pick on other kids.
Of course, that all ended the year Lynn turned ten, when a boy who had been bullied for years advanced to apprentice wizard and brutally killed that bully whose name Lynn could no longer recall. Jason had since become much more subdued and never bullied anyone again.
"Maybe those two thugs learned from their encounter with you, so they were even more brutal this time," Giggs joked.
He had no reason to doubt Lynn's earlier account, especially with Mrs. Carter as a witness.
"Probably just didn't get as lucky as I did, having someone call the steward over," Lynn replied with a faint smile, though his heart grew alert.
Two men again… There was no way Bartoli and Kiddie could have come back from the dead, so these were two new attackers.
Somehow, Lynn thought of Ellison and Dor.
Not because he believed the attackers were them, but because he was certain they were connected in some way.
"Have you seen Steward Ellison recently?" Lynn asked.
"…No," Giggs said after thinking for a moment, shaking his head.
Lynn fell silent for a bit, then relaxed his brow and asked, "By the way, how's your extraordinary transformation coming along? And where's Leona? I haven't seen him today."
"A few more days to wait, the gentleman overseeing it has been busy lately," Giggs replied with a smile. "As for Leona, he's getting ready for the transformation."
"So, in the end, Leona's the one you drew by lot?"
"Yeah."
"…I hope it works out for you."
"Thanks."
Back in the shack, Lynn poured some Sweetgrass essential oil into the incense burner.
Another five days had passed, and it was time to begin Insight.
Moments later, under the candle's flame, a sweet scent filled the air, bringing a sense of clarity and calm.
Lynn looked inward once more.
Points of golden light gathered before his eyes.
Name: Lynn Kent
Age: 16
Realm: White Crow Sword – Dual Arms (100/100) / Dual Legs (35/100)
Skills: Mind Shock crystal plate crafting (Proficient); White Crow Sword – Fragment (Proficient)
Source Energy: 0.1 (Self) / 0 (World)
The five gold dragons spent a few days ago hadn't been entirely wasted.
While the Sevenflower nectar couldn't restore his source energy, Lynn had discovered it was surprisingly useful for training the White Crow Sword.
With its aid, this sword art tailored specifically for him had advanced greatly in just five days.
The Dual Arm stage reached perfection in only three days, a day earlier than expected, and the Dual Leg stage was already more than a third complete.
What pleased Lynn most was
He could faintly sense that his total source energy seemed to have increased along with his physical strength.
It wasn't yet enough to bring about a qualitative change, so it didn't show on the light screen.
But in reality, these changes meant he now possessed physical strength beyond that of ordinary people.
A simple leap was enough for him to touch the shack's roof.
The long sword, weighing about 800 grams, felt like a stalk of straw in his hand.
Whenever he swung it, the blade flashed like bursts of silver sparks, vividly evoking the sword art's description: "a flock of white crows darting through the night."
If he hadn't already made up his mind, he might have chosen to use Insight on the White Crow Sword again this time.
Withdrawing his gaze, Lynn's heart grew calm under the soothing scent of the incense, his restless thoughts gradually fading away.
Closing his eyes, he took a lesser magic stone in his hand and began Insight on the Hossens Apprentice Meditation Technique.
For knowledge already engraved in his mind, no physical medium was needed; he could conduct Insight entirely within his thoughts.
The gift of Insight is activated.
Lynn once again entered a state of complete absorption, feeling himself lifted infinitely high, then plummeting without end, as all his consciousness drifted in a vast ocean of mysteries.
...
"The core of a wizard lies in the mind."
"The mind is the only thing that can control the world's source energy and the key to a wizard's extraordinary power!"
"The mind of a mortal is like a spark blown on it, and it goes out. If you want to become a wizard, the first thing you must do is strengthen your mind."
Over the past nine years, the instructors had repeated these words to them countless times.
But strengthening the mind as a mortal was far from simple.
Surrounding a mortal's consciousness was a natural shroud of mental mist.
While this protected mortals from easily being polluted by the true world, avoiding mutation or death, it also meant that most external means of strengthening the mind became useless to them.
What remained was extremely rare… except for one thing
Mana.
If the mind could influence mana, then mana could, in turn, influence and even strengthen the mind.
Meditation techniques, in essence, used mana to grow the mind, and then used the strengthened mind to control mana.
In practice, using mana to enhance the body was relatively easy and quick to reach its limits, such as the White Crow Sword technique, for instance. At its core, it combined movements and breathing with the mind to crudely channel mana to strengthen the body. Its ceiling was only about the level of an ordinary second-tier apprentice, and it came with many limitations.
But using mana to strengthen the mind was another matter entirely.
Compared to enhancing the body, the complexity increased by at least a hundredfold.
This led to a serious problem.
"Weak mental power can't precisely guide mana; without precisely guiding mana, you can't strengthen the mind.
"And without strengthening the mind, you still can't precisely guide mana…"
A vicious cycle known among wizards as:
The Transcendence Barrier.
This was why, in ancient times, only a few with extraordinary talent or those who had obtained some rare heaven-and-earth treasure could master supernatural power.
But later, the invention of meditation techniques successfully broke the deadlock.
Through them, mortals could construct intricate meditation sigils in their minds, allowing their otherwise weak mental power to achieve a "leveraging effect," moving mana far beyond their natural limits.
Thus, the cycle was broken, and they could step onto the path of the wizard.
It sounded simple in theory, but creating a meditation sigil capable of such leverage was anything but easy.
After a long while, Lynn opened his eyes, his face pale with the telltale look of someone who had just used Insight.
Perhaps from growing accustomed to it, he was in much better shape than the first time when he'd collapsed on the bed. Now, at least, sitting steadily wasn't difficult.
He summoned the light screen.
As expected, there were no new entries under his Skills.
Still, this Insight wasn't for nothing. At least I now have a general idea of what the Hossens Apprentice Meditation Technique's sigil looks like.
Just as the instructor said, it's a sigil focused on 'recovery' and 'stability.'
If I were to advance with it, my future growth in both mind and mana would carry those same traits.
In more concrete terms, my mind and mana would recover faster after being depleted, and my mental growth would be steadier.
His gaze dropped to his source energy, now back to zero, and he sighed lightly.
Overall, the results were just as he had expected, not as pleasantly surprising as with the White Crow Sword.
He guessed it would take at least seven or eight more Insight sessions, maybe over a dozen, before he could fully form the meditation sigil.
If only I could use Insight without pause…
Or better yet, if I could make each Insight more effective…
Thinking this, Lynn's eyes flickered toward the White Crow Sword.
A few days later, in the early morning, before dawn
Lynn was still in bed when Leona and the other two had already packed and gathered outside Giggs's shack, ready to head to the Black Ring Assembly for their transformation.
In the thin morning mist, the three boys stayed silent, but their eyes brimmed with tension and anticipation.
Leona, in particular, was visibly on edge, clenching and unclenching his fists, stomping lightly, exhaling slow breaths.
"Hey, look at me, Leona," Giggs said, tapping his chest. "Don't be nervous, all right? Try to relax."
"If you're scared, I'm happy to take your place," Ant said suddenly from the side.
"Not a chance," Leona replied after a deep breath. "Let's go."
As the sun rose and its first light touched the earth, the three boys' figures vanished at the end of the alley.
In another shack, Lynn got up.
After a quick wash, he didn't study meditation as usual, but instead began practicing the White Crow Sword.
After several days, his White Crow Sword – Dual Legs had reached 92/100.
If all went as expected, he would reach perfection today.
Lynn had a strong feeling when that happened; his source energy would undergo a qualitative transformation.