As summer turned to autumn, fallen leaves tumbled in the wind, drifting across the schoolyard.
Beside the playground, a dense green foliage blanketed the grounds. The afternoon sun filtered through the leaves, transforming into strands of light, creating a unique post-autumn stage.
For Mo Fan, time flew by. Two months had already passed since his awakening.
During these two months, Mo Fan had done only one thing: sit beneath this tree—meditate!
In the first class of the first day, homeroom teacher Xue Musheng gave all the magic students a crucial lesson: Unleashing Magic!
Unleashing magic consists of three simple steps.
First, meditate.
Second, control.
Third, release!
Meditate, as the name suggests, involves concentrating on thought.
Even when you close your eyes, your mind is constantly conjuring up images.
But when you think of nothing and are undisturbed, your mind becomes completely empty!
After a magician awakens, stardust of the corresponding element will appear within his empty world.
In other words, as long as Mo Fan closes his eyes and completely blocks his thoughts, allowing his mind to reach a void as black as the universe, lightning stardust and fire stardust will emerge within this empty space.
The lightning stardust is purple, resembling a floating speck of cosmic dust, captivatingly beautiful and vibrant.
There are seven star particles within the lightning stardust, each moving erratically within the tiny speck, like seven naughty and disobedient children, running around energetically.
For any awakened magic student, simply making stardust emerge from the void and seeing the childlike, radiant stars within it, signifies the completion of their meditation.
This first step is truly simple, and it's the only homework assigned to all magic students for the next two months.
Meditation began after dinner, continuing until exhausted, then going to sleep.
The next day, after classes, he continued meditating until exhausted, then went to sleep...
Mo Fan didn't slack off. He did this for two full months, including weekends. Many times, he was puzzled by why the teachers had assigned such a simple task for two months.
"How about I try controlling it myself?" Mo Fan felt he had become quite proficient at entering meditation, so he decided to move on to the next step.
The second step in releasing magic was also very simple.
After entering meditation, you will see stardust, and within it, seven lively and energetic stars are moving around erratically.
Control means using your mind to control these stars, making them quiet down and stay in specific positions, forming a star track.
The star tracks connected, channeling magical power into the magician's body, transforming into real magic and unleashing it!
"You're running fast! Let Daddy touch you!" Mo Fan began to communicate with the stars.
Using his mind to control the stars, Mo Fan had already locked onto a playful one, trying to make it stop obediently.
"Swoosh~~~~~~"
That star was incredibly aloof, ignoring Mo Fan like a little kid who had stumbled upon a strange uncle, fleeing at full speed!
"D*mn, so arrogant! Forget it! Let's try another one." Mo Fan began to communicate with another lightning star.
"Little darling, Daddy's here! Come over here and be good..."
"Swoosh~~~~~"
The second star, acting as if it had stumbled upon a fugitive from a mental hospital, ran at full speed.
Mo Fan tried a few other stars, but it was the same. None of them took Mo Fan seriously. Some even ran even faster when they sensed his will instructing them to do something!
While the stars were spinning and speeding, magical energy couldn't be transmitted.
It was like a wire: electricity was trapped within the stardust. To release the electricity, the stars had to be connected into a line, transmitting it to the magician's body...
Unfortunately, none of these lightning stars were obedient. It was fine if you didn't touch them, but once you tried to communicate with them, they would run at full speed, like they'd eaten 500 kilograms of Xuanmai. There was no stopping them!
"How am I supposed to do this? When will I even be able to learn the Thunder Seal skill?" Mo Fan felt a pang of pain in his balls.
The entry-level Thunder skill was precisely that—Thunder Seal.
This skill was arguably the most practical of all entry-level magic. Mastering it effectively granted one exceptional combat power.
Unfortunately, learning these skills isn't so easy.
Thunder-type stars are incredibly active, and stopping them won't be easy in a day or two.
"Right now, I can't even control a single star. Controlling seven simultaneously... that's a long road ahead."
As expected, studying, like learning magic, isn't something you can master in a day or two.
...
The weather's getting colder, and thick down jackets have replaced the girls' short skirts and stockings. Before we knew it, it's freezing cold in the south without heating.
"Ah Qiu~~~~~~ D*mn it! If I'd known I'd flipped the Fire-type Concubine's card first, maybe this winter would have been easier." Mo Fan cursed early in the morning as he practiced his control on the rooftop.
After more than a month of practice, Mo Fan could already control four stars.
This process of controlling the stars... well, it's a bit like playing dominoes with a high level of difficulty.
In other words, you have to carefully place four dominoes in one go, preventing them from shaking even a little bit, and that counts as one small step.
If a star domino is misplaced, the deck will fall, and you'll have to start all over again!
This is how it works with stars. First, you must lock onto one star and command it to stop with your mind. During this process, you must completely concentrate. Even if the star's mental resistance causes a sharp pain in your head, you must grit your teeth and hold still, without even a moment's distraction.
Only by gritting your teeth and intensely concentrating your command, fighting against the star, can you make the somewhat volatile Thunder Star obey and hover obediently.
And once you've made one star obey, you must dedicate another mind to doing the same thing, ensuring the second volatile star is also obedient and firmly under control.
If one accidentally over-focuses on the second star and fails to maintain control over the first, the previously obedient star will immediately fly away, taking the second star with it, undoing all the previous efforts. I've heard from teachers before that controlling the stars is incredibly difficult. Not only is it incredibly challenging, but it also requires the magician to possess a significant amount of mental energy.
Practicing control daily, like Mo Fan did, would feel a wave of fatigue if he failed. After practicing for no more than two hours a day, he would experience a complete mental breakdown, with tinnitus, dizziness, and a chaotic mind.
At this point, meditation or control is no longer possible.
To put it bluntly, practicing "control" consumes a lot of mana, with a single bar of mana lasting no more than two hours.