Reader Mage-Stubbing August 10! Chapter 17: 17-Cast A Spell

Read chapter 17 of Reader Mage-Stubbing August 10! by A_Random_Turtle on NovelPedia.

Sunny’s teachings had proven to be of great help, and Merlin’s meditation became a success at last. However, it had had no effect on his Intelligence. Not that Merlin wasn’t glad that another of his Attributes had begun to see some uptick, it was just that what he needed the most, at the end of the day, was his Intelligence, which tied to his ability to deconstruct spells. And he would have been more than glad if simply meditating could help with that, seeing as he had turned the main focus of his exercises onto progressing his Strength. But all hope wasn’t lost. He had one more thing left to try. Since falling into a trance is different from meditating, and Perception is different from Intelligence, then maybe if I focus on falling into a trance instead, I will be able to achieve something related to my Intelligence. It was a reach on his part, but all he had ever been doing since he’d gotten the System was a bunch of trial and error; there was no point in stopping now. Merlin took his blanket and placed it on the floor; it was not as welcoming to his buttocks as Sunny’s mat had been, but it was human nature to improvise. There was no use grumbling about it. He sat cross-legged, placed his hands on his thighs, and inhaled deeply. The problem now was, it was easier for him to fall into a trance when he had no idea what he was doing, because now that he was well aware of how meditation worked, he suddenly found it hard to turn his brain in a different direction. However, it was nothing more than just a hurdle for him to get by. Merlin got to work. Trance, like meditation, involved altering one’s state of consciousness, but from Sunny’s explanation, Merlin understood that, unlike meditation where one focused on the outside, in a state of trance their focus was aimed inwards, towards themselves. If Merlin was to compare it to something, it would be sleepwalking, but with one’s consciousness retained to a considerable degree. Basically, he had to let go of the wheel of his body, as if giving control to someone else, becoming a simple observer. Breathe in. Breathe out. Merlin cleared all his thoughts with every breath he inhaled and exhaled, relaxed all the tension in his shoulders, neck, and face, until his heartbeat slowed to a crawl. He was simply repeating the process he had undertaken while meditating earlier, but in a reversed manner. He kept at it for a few seconds on end, maybe even minutes, he wasn’t sure anymore, and then there were no more sounds—at least from the world around him. What came instead was his heartbeat getting louder and louder. Merlin realized that it was not because he was anxious or tense, since the beats were at a steady rhythm, but because he was slowly finding himself being pulled to the backseat of his body. And that didn’t take too long. Because soon after, a disorientation swarmed his mind as he found himself completely detached from his own body, floating within a darkness where everything both seemed close and far away at the same time. Merlin didn’t allow himself to have any superfluous thoughts, though. He knew that such would only break him from the state he had fallen into. Instead, he focused on what he had fallen into a trance for, and poured his mind into visualizing the flow of his mana. From his experience with his attempts at deconstructing Nora’s spells, Merlin had come to figure out that mana—unlike the rest of the internal components of the body which were warm—was cold. And that made seeking it out a lot easier, because it stuck out like a sore thumb, located within his blood as it flowed throughout his whole body. Merlin wasn’t sure what to do here now that he’d found his mana, and he could not recall if Kieran had done something like this in Singularity Mage, nor could he force himself to recall, lest he ruined everything up until now. So, instead, he did the only sensible thing he could do, which was, make contact. After all, he was here to connect with his mana, become one with