Nausica's intuition was right.
Angor recalled how he had just agreed to be Sailum's neighbor not long ago. But Sailum changed his mind in less than a day. Angor felt a little embarrassed and showed an awkward expression.
Nausica knew what was going on when she saw Angor's expression.
"So I was right. You're going to move out, right? Well, not really. You've never lived here before, "Nausica guessed.
Angor felt a little embarrassed when Nausica guessed his intention. But he did not plan to hide it. He could not hide it anyway.
So he told her about how he rented a house in the apprentice town. However, it was difficult to explain how he got the magic crystals, so he decided to use Sunders as an excuse. Besides, it was Sunders who gave him the merit points, although he paid for it.
"I heard from Miss Abelle that many level-2 apprentices don't want to spend money to live in the apprentice town!" Sailum showed an envious expression. "It's so nice to have a good teacher."
"It's not a bad idea to live in the apprentice town." Nausica picked up the broken chain on the ground. "It's not safe here. You and Hookdick have a grudge. If he sneaks in at night, the consequences will be unimaginable."
Sailum nodded in agreement. "You're right, Miss Nausica. I didn't realize it at first. Now that I think about it, it's too dangerous to break the chain with a sharp weapon. The people living around us are not kind mortals. They're supernaturals and those who are about to become supernaturals. They must have many ways to break in. If someone were to interrupt him while he was cultivating, it would be a very unpleasant thing. Besides, Toby is a bird. I don't think he's used to living in the dark underground. "
"You're one step ahead of us." Nausica patted Angor's shoulder. "When I earn enough magic crystals, I'll move out as soon as possible."
"Me too!" Sailum chuckled. "Then we'll be neighbors again!"
Angor's awkwardness finally dissipated after hearing their understanding.
"I believe that day won't be too far away," Angor said.
…
On the same day, he moved his luggage into the small villa in the apprentice town.
The villa was located at the edge of Apprentice Town No. 8, close to a small stream. Because the back of the villa was against the forest, animals that were not afraid of the environment could be seen from time to time, leisurely drinking and resting by the stream. As soon as he arrived, he saw several Sunset Pelicans with red beaks fishing in the stream. Several white deers were drinking water by the bank.
"The natural scenery is beautiful." The peaceful and beautiful first impression made him feel even more satisfied with his new home.
The villa was surrounded by a white fence. Although the fence was short, it was engraved with magic patterns, making it very difficult to break through. The small courtyard within the fence was not big. There was only a miniature greenhouse. There was a three-meter-tall mistletoe tree next to the greenhouse. The temperature in the mirror world remained warm most of the time, so the branches and leaves on the tree were luxuriant. Looking closely, one could even see green fruit spores.
When he entered the mansion, he saw that the caretaker had already brought all the furniture into the living room, which looked a little messy. Angor spent half a day arranging the furniture into their proper places. During this process, he gained a better understanding of the interior of the villa.
The villa had three floors. The top floor was a small triangular attic, the second floor was the guest room, and the first floor was the master bedroom, study, and living room. There was also a basement, which was used for training.
Angor's room was the master bedroom on the first floor, while Toby's room was in the attic on the top floor. There was a skylight in the attic, through which he could see the green mistletoe tree outside. It was very pleasing to the eye. Toby was also satisfied with his room. He could fly out of the skylight to get some fresh air whenever he wanted, which made him very happy.
After settling Toby down, Angor returned to his own bedroom.
There was nothing in the bedroom except for a bed. The walls were all empty. Angor looked at the white walls and felt that the room was too lonely. He stood up and took out the two oil paintings from his luggage.
He hung "Traveler Under Stars" on the wall opposite his bed. As for the other one, "Milking Shepherd", he did not hang it up. Instead, he put it in the study and covered it with a canvas. Angor did not know if the painting had any other secrets, so he did not hang it up for safety's sake.
With the oil painting as decoration, the bedroom felt more substantial. Angor was already exhausted from running around all day. He lay down on the bed and quickly fell asleep.
The next day, when Angor woke up, the sky was already bright. He opened the curtains and walked to the balcony to stretch around. He breathed in the fresh air, looked at the green mountains in the distance, and saw small animals playing by the stream nearby. He felt peaceful and comfortable for some reason.
He did not plan to leave the house today. He decided to study the channeling method in earnest. He was looking forward to learning Singularity Dispersive Meditation. He hoped that he could use the channeling method to quickly improve his knowledge so that he could save Jon's life in five years.
But before he could practice the channeling method, he had to feel his spiritual power first.
Angor let Toby do whatever he wanted. He ate some food and hurried to the basement.
The basement was very large and spacious. The three basic magic arrays were all attached to the walls. No matter what you did in there, it could effectively protect your privacy and safety. Therefore, many apprentice adepts transformed the basement into their personal laboratory. Angor did not plan to do that at the moment. He came here because there was a small side door, which led to a quiet room about two or three square meters.
His destination was the soundproof room.
A narrow and quiet room was the best place for him to calm his mind, which would help him a lot since it was his first time meditating.
His first meditation did not go well. Even with the special technique mentioned by Sunders, he still could not calm his mind.
The first step of meditation was to visualize a spirit model in one's mind. Visualization and construction were two different things, but they were deeply connected. Visualizing a spirit model was to better construct a spirit model and to have a basic idea of the model to be constructed.
Although this process seemed like visualization on the surface, it was actually to feel and guide the Spiritual Energy.
Spirit power was an abstract concept. To make it tangible, one had to feel its existence. How to sense spirit power? By visualizing a spirit model in one's mind and searching for the spirit power attracted by the model.
In other words, visualizing a spirit model and searching for the spirit power at the same time.
However, when visualizing a spirit model, one could not focus on the model. Instead, one had to focus on another power in one's mind — spirit power.
This was a great test of one's concentration. When visualizing a pattern, one would inevitably lose focus. It was very difficult to put all of one's attention on something else.
The process was similar to a famous psychological test from Earth called "The Pink Elephant".
A psychologist would tell the subject that there was a pink elephant in the house. Then he would tell the subject, "Don't think about the pink elephant."
But the result was that after the test subjects learned about the "pink elephant", no matter how much they cleared their thoughts, they couldn't help but think of the pink elephant in their mind.
The test was similar to a wizard's meditation. The more one tried to distract oneself, the harder it was to do so. This was a classic case of mind interference. To forget the subject of the interference, one had to keep one's body, mind, and spirit still, and then slowly shift one's attention away from the "empty" state.
This was a difficult process. Ordinary people's minds were complicated. To completely understand one's mind, one had to persevere.
Because of the absolute silence required to enter the state of emptiness, most Wizards were solitary Wise Men.
Of course, when one's cultivation level was high and the dust in one's soul was less, "absolute silence" could be replaced with "relative silence". This realm required one to be at least an official Magus. Once one reached this realm, even if they were meditating in the middle of a busy city, they would not be affected by the noise and could quickly enter the state. This was the state of "body silence", which meant that one had to transcend one's body, mind, and spirit to reach the state of "heart silence".
As for the higher level of "soul silence", the condition to achieve it was even harsher.
…
For a whole week, he did not meditate at all. He had absolute silence now, but his mind was still filled with too many thoughts. Every time he closed his eyes and tried to meditate, all kinds of demons, ghosts, and inner demons would come to his mind as if they were having a party. When he tried to suppress one side of his mind, another side of his mind would appear. It was impossible to guard against.
Not to mention visualizing spirit models, even controlling his mind to stop running took a lot of Angor's effort.
He finally realized how messed up his mind was.
Angor was not the only one who was stuck at the first level. All the talents in this year's batch received channeling methods from their respective mentors. However, they were all ordinary channeling methods like Triangle Channeling. Just like Angor, they were all stuck at the first level. Especially those who were already adults. They had gotten used to the life of sensual pleasures, so they needed more energy to calm their minds.
Sailum, on the other hand, was only one year younger than Angor, but his mind was much purer. When he was told to meditate, he just closed his eyes and did so. There were fewer distracting thoughts in his mind, and he managed to separate his visualization and focus in a short time.
Sailum's success inspired Angor. For the next half a month, Angor decided to stay at home and meditate. He believed he could succeed.
Sunders did not contact him during this time, so he must know how difficult it was for beginners.
Several days later, Angor gained a deeper understanding of the meditation method. Meditation was a gradual process, and Angor did not want to succeed in one go. Now, he needed to solve the most important task first: getting rid of distracting thoughts.
It took him a week to achieve this.
The next step was to visualize a spirit model and trace spirit power.
Another three days later, Angor had a basic idea of how to separate his visualization and focus. The spirit model of Singularity Scatter Technique he was visualizing needed to be slowly projected into his mind and turn it into an instinct. This way, he would no longer be distracted, and it would be easier for him to sense spirit power.
However, it wasn't easy to turn the mental power model into an instinctive one.
Another week passed, and Angor's meditation was still bumpy. He could not completely separate his visualization and focus, but when visualizing the spirit model in his mind, he would occasionally divert his attention to search for spirit power.
This phenomenon only happened once in a while, but it still boosted Angor's confidence.
Once in a while, once in a while, always in a while, always in a while. However, this was a painstaking effort that required unrelenting persistence.
During this half month, Angor's progress gradually caught up, and he was now one of the top talents in this year's batch. For one thing, he was quite talented, and for another, he had the magic array to help him focus his mind.
Sailum also tried to search for spirit power, but just like Angor, he could not find it no matter how hard he tried. It was as if the spirit power did not exist at all.
Angor and Sailum discussed this in private, but they still did not find anything.
As for Nausica, Angor had not seen her outside for a long time. According to Sailum, Nausica was still fighting against the complicated thoughts in her mind. She even stopped smoking.
Angor mumbled to himself, "I think her success rate is higher when she smokes." Angor noticed that whenever Nausica smoked, she was very quiet with a peaceful expression. Based on his experience in the past half month, this was the best way to get rid of complicated thoughts.
…
Angor finally pulled his attention away from his visualization, but he still could not find any trace of spirit power. This made him a little anxious.
Another half month passed. It was the Month of Looming Frost. One more month, and he would have been away from home for a whole year.
One-fifth of the five-year agreement between him and Master Jon had passed, and he hadn't even become an apprentice yet. This made him very anxious.
One day, after meditating, Angor still could not find any trace of spirit power. He thought about it and decided to go to Phantom Island to ask Sunders about it.
He reached Phantom Island without any problems and met with Sunders.
However, Sunders' answer troubled him a little. Sunders praised Angor's progress. As for how to track spirit power, Sunders only said one thing: "Take it slow."
More haste, less speed.
Angor knew this, but he was still anxious.
When leaving Phantom Island, he ran into Flora. Angor's eyes brightened up. He decided to ask Flora if she had any better ideas.
Flora gave the same answer as Sunders.
However, Flora looked at Angor's anxious face and said, "I don't know why you're in such a hurry, but I don't have any other ideas. However, there is one person who might know, but it won't be easy to get something substantial out of him. "
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