Free Web NovelChapter 38: Chapter 36: Improving the Meditation Technique, Spiritual Strength Increases
Inside the Divine Statue Model.
A point of light—or rather, a Spiritual Resonance Node—lit up.
In the Spiritual World, using the Divination Visualization Technique to construct a Divine Statue Model follows a very strict sequence.
If the order of any two nodes is reversed, the entire model will be rendered useless.
Even if someone managed to steal a Divination Model by some means, they would never dare to use it rashly without the detailed derivation manuscripts.
The omitted steps, the hidden deductions, the "obvious" leaps in logic—all could hide a fatal trap at a critical node.
And those who had the ability to understand the model wouldn’t need to steal it in the first place.
It was just as Mo Ning had once read in a book, an exclamation from a Wizard: "For those who truly believe in knowledge, the Era of Secret Divination was a perfect age."
Those who truly mastered knowledge could easily rise above the rest.
Those rejected by knowledge, relying on petty and unscrupulous means, could never ascend to a high position.
Knowledge recognized neither bloodline nor wealth.
It recognized only one thing—whether you truly understood it.
The node flickered.
A Divination Formula automatically unfolded in his consciousness, then resolved itself into dozens of Demon Seed Groups.
Each Demon Seed Group then broke down into even smaller units, ultimately forming over two hundred Demon Seeds.
The next task was to use the Divination Visualization Technique to first map these Demon Seeds into his Spiritual World, then solidify them in the form of Demon Seed Groups.
This was, without a doubt, manual labor.
The work required only patience and focus, like building a wall, laying one brick after another.
Mo Ning closed his eyes.
He began to sense the Demon Seeds in the surrounding Ocean of Magical Power.
Thanks to the effects of the [Calming Oil], a task that normally took seven or eight seconds was now completed in just five.
The ubiquitous Demon Seeds, summoned by his Spiritual Power, converged from all directions.
He locked onto the first Demon Seed—the Earth Demon Seed.
This was a name given by the Ancient Wizards, symbolizing the earth’s weight and stability.
Mo Ning’s Spiritual Power oscillated with a wondrous rhythm, forming a tendril that made contact with the Earth Demon Seed.
The next instant.
The Earth Demon Seed was successfully projected into his Spiritual World.
A dim point of light quietly emerged in the boundless Spiritual World.
This was—Demon Seed Mapping.
Mo Ning felt a slight sense of being drained.
Once a Demon Seed Mapping appeared, it would spontaneously draw upon his Spiritual Power to sustain its existence.
The whole process seemed effortless.
But no one knew that behind this seemingly easy feat were tens of thousands of repetitions, as well as constant analysis and improvement.
Every attempt was a test of patience and focus, a search for minuscule room for optimization within the tedious repetition.
Countless late-night practice sessions, countless restarts after failure, all condensed into these five seconds of graceful ease.
To put it bluntly, among the 268 novices—Gavin was dead, so it should be 267 now—Mo Ning’s proficiency with the Divination Visualization Technique was good enough to rank in the top ten.
This achievement was a testament to his diligence!
A prompt appeared as expected:
[Spiritual Power consumed: 0.006%. Current remaining: 75.64%.]
This was the [Eye of Truth]’s real-time monitoring of his status.
Though this function seemed simple, it could play a crucial role at critical moments.
For example, if he were in an unfamiliar place and accidentally came into contact with a harmful Witchcraft Item.
This contact might contaminate his Spiritual Power and cause a slight depletion.
Due to the contamination, Mo Ning himself might not notice anything amiss, but the [Eye of Truth] would detect it in time.
In such a situation, he could leave as quickly as possible, preventing himself from getting in too deep and unluckily losing his life.
He had read about many such cases in the Royal Library.
Every case was a bloody lesson.
Mo Ning didn’t stop.
He continued to command, "Analyze this mapping."
Several lines of information quickly appeared.
[Fastest previous mapping time: 6.87 seconds. Current mapping time: 5.16 seconds. Improvement: 1.71 seconds.]
[Suggested improvements: With the assistance of Calming Oil, the oscillation frequency of the first stage can be increased by 3.5%; the oscillation frequency of the second stage can be increased by 8.5%; the third stage...]
The [Eye of Truth] not only provided detailed suggestions but also ran a visual simulation.
The image unfolded in his consciousness, presenting the improved oscillation frequencies, contact timing, and mapping paths one by one.
Every detail was clearly marked, and every optimization was verified through divination-based deductions.
Mo Ning watched with intense focus.
He was not the least bit satisfied with his current proficiency in the Divination Visualization Technique.
He set a goal for himself: to increase his Demon Seed Mapping speed to under two seconds within a year.
That was why he gave his all in every mapping and tirelessly sought to improve.
Mo Ning exhaled, shifting his focus back to the surrounding Demon Seeds to prepare for the second mapping.
*****
Evening fell.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling window, above the endlessly flowing, surging river, a setting sun slowly sank toward the west.
The afterglow poured down like molten gold foil, dyeing the entire surface of the river a flowing, crimson gold.
The crimson-gold light passed through the window and fell into the room.
Mo Ning noticed the change in light and shadow and subconsciously turned to look outside.
Then, he froze for a moment.
The sight instantly brought a line of ancient poetry from his previous life to mind: *The long river, a perfect circle of setting sun.*
He stared blankly for a while before sighing, his face filled with melancholy.
In the first few months after he transmigrated, the reason he had spent all his days in the Royal Library was partly to fill the database for his ’cheat’ and partly to force himself to stay busy, lest he always be thinking of home.
The longing that surged in the dead of night, the attachments he thought had already faded—all were suppressed by one tome after another.
He had built a wall of knowledge to keep the past out.
But this casual glance had pierced his mental defenses in an instant.
’I can never go back.’
Mo Ning sighed sorrowfully in his heart.
He quickly composed himself and began to finish the letter on his desk.
"...With my sincerest regards. Mo Ning, at the Black Tower Wizard Academy."
After an afternoon of hard work, he had solidified 14 Spiritual Resonance Nodes in his Spiritual World.
The price was that his Spiritual Power had been consumed below the "50%" warning threshold, and a faint sense of dizziness clouded his mind.
In this state, there was no way he could continue mapping Demon Seeds.
However, based on his progress, he should be able to complete the construction of the spiritual model tomorrow.
Although he couldn’t improve his Meditation Technique, he didn’t remain idle.
Mo Ning began another important task: writing a letter to Sir Rent, the head librarian of the Royal Library.
In the letter, he made a direct request—he hoped to obtain the Phantom Carved Statue on Sir Rent’s desk for his Witchcraft research.
He didn’t specify what kind of research it was for.
But this wasn’t a request for a handout.
Mo Ning clearly stated in the letter that he was willing to trade a bottle of [Life Potion] for it.
On [Dawa’s Grocery List], this Magic Potion was priced at 66 Black Tower Points.
In the Wizard World, the [Life Potion] was a common Magic Potion.
Its effect was simple and crude, equivalent to a "Red Medicine" from the games of his past life—if one suffered a very serious injury, chugging a bottle would instantly restore them to full health on the spot.
An ordinary person like Sir Rent could also use it.
However, he couldn’t drink it directly, as an ordinary person’s body couldn’t withstand its powerful Spiritual Power.
It needed to be consumed in small doses over time, for example, once a month, with a single dose being one-twentieth of the bottle.
This one bottle of [Life Potion] would be enough to keep the now eighty-year-old Sir Rent free from illness and allow him to live to be one hundred and thirty with no problem.
In short, the knight was definitely not getting the short end of the stick in this trade.
But because the Magic Potion was so precious, the risk of sending it via courier was too great.
He would have to wait a year until he had the chance to leave the academy and visit home, at which point he would deliver the Magic Potion into the knight’s hands personally.
Mo Ning carefully folded the letter and placed it in an envelope.
He took out a small piece of sealing wax from a drawer, and a red glow flashed from his right hand.
This was a Sub-zero Level Trick—[Heat Flow].
Magic Power was converted into heat, and the sealing wax melted instantly.
The wax dripped onto the seal of the envelope, the amber liquid slowly spreading across the paper.
Mo Ning nodded in satisfaction. "The precision of my temperature control has improved quite a bit since last month."
Although he was a "late bloomer," he was very confident that in terms of the number of Sub-zero Level Tricks he had mastered, he was good enough to rank in the top twenty.
He picked up a small seal and pressed it down with a THWACK.
When he lifted the seal, a clear impression was left in the wax.
Tomorrow, he would have the academy forward this letter to Lakefront Manor, and then the long wait would begin.
Mo Ning sat in the wooden chair for a moment.
Suddenly, an extremely subtle sensation rose from the depths of his consciousness.
The feeling was hard to describe, as if something had quietly awakened in a corner of his Spiritual World.
He paused, stunned, and subconsciously summoned his status panel.
[Name: Mo Ning.]
[Spiritual Strength: 0.54.]
[Physical Strength: 0.21.]
Mo Ning only needed a single glance before intense joy surged in his heart.
0.54!!
He clearly remembered that the number had been 0.53 just yesterday.
His Spiritual Strength had actually increased by another 0.01 points.
The last increase had been two days ago—after receiving the extra reward [Calming Ointment] from the first group assessment, he had tried applying a small amount and circulating the [High Mountain Breathing Technique], and his Spiritual Strength had unexpectedly risen by 0.01 points.
In just three days, his Spiritual Strength had increased by 0.02 points.
For a novice, this was an absolutely astonishing rate of progress.
Amid his joy, Mo Ning couldn’t help but wonder—why had his Spiritual Strength increased again?
He pondered for a moment, and sentences from the tomes he had read in the Royal Library surfaced in his mind:
"Through long-term experimentation, the Ancient Wizards discovered the eight types of Demon Seeds that constitute Magic Power.
"They failed to find a way to utilize the Demon Seeds, but they unexpectedly discovered that persistently chasing Demon Seeds with Spiritual Power had a certain training effect on one’s Spiritual Power."
A glint appeared in Mo Ning’s eyes as a clue gradually became clear in his mind:
’Back then, I practiced the Divination Visualization Technique diligently in the Royal Library, and today I spent the whole day capturing Demon Seeds.
’Could it be that the long-term accumulation has finally borne fruit today, causing my Spiritual Strength to increase?’
That was the most likely answer.
The corner of Mo Ning’s mouth curved up. "The old saying ’Heaven rewards the diligent’ is really true."
It just went to show that having low Spiritual Talent didn’t matter.
As long as you put in enough effort, a late bloomer could still catch up.
