Chapter 4: Sub-Legendary Meditation Technique

——The Abyss Era…

The Sea Race was the second generation of protagonists on the Amelia Continent. The reason they were able to defeat the Giant Race was not because they were stronger, but because the heavens helped them… Or perhaps this was the arrangement of the gods all along?

That era was called the “Abyss Era.”

At the end of the Post-Gods Era, the temperature suddenly kept rising, glaciers melted, sea levels rose, and a massive amount of land was flooded. Tall mountains became small islands. Under such circumstances, the Sea Race naturally became the new generation of protagonists on the continent. The other continental races could only gradually retreat to the remaining scattered islands, enduring the rule and enslavement of the Sea Race. Under such extreme geographical conditions, no race was a match for the Sea Race — not even the powerful Giant Race… And so the era of the Sea Race began.

This was an era where “Special Abilities” reigned supreme, and it was also the era with the least recorded history. People found it hard to understand the concept of “Special Abilities.” This unique power could not be obtained through self-cultivation; it was a power of the bloodline. Later figures such as “Apostles,” “Ability Masters,” “Superpowered Warriors,” “Extraordinary Functionaries,” and so on all seemed to be descendants of certain powerful bloodlines from the Sea Race era. Although they seldom appeared openly, they remained a powerful force hidden behind the scenes.

“The Protagonist Ten Thousand Years Later — Strolling Beneath the Wheels of History”

…

Waves of wild joy surged through his heart!!

He had been reborn unexpectedly, and his Mental Strength was still at the level of a one-hundred-and-forty-year-old seventh-rank Magister. Upon discovering this, Luo Yan was immediately overjoyed!!

In his excitement, Luo Yan casually snapped his fingers — this was his favorite casting gesture before his rebirth — and subconsciously used the simplest spell among first-rank Necromancy System spells: “Summon Skeleton.”

And then… naturally, nothing happened! (LOL)

There was no sound or light effect, no surge of Mana, no fluctuation of elements, and certainly no skeleton or several skeletons suddenly appearing. Everything in front of him was quiet, nothing had changed. Only the moonlight shone quietly in through the window.

Luo Yan was suddenly stunned. Only then did he remember that although his Mental Strength was astonishing now, he had no Mana in his body at all. Not even a single Mana Vessel had been opened. Naturally, he couldn’t use any magic at all.

This was like a bucket of cold water being poured over his head. All of Luo Yan’s excitement turned to nothing. He smiled bitterly. Mana could indeed speed up cultivation, but in the end it still had to be accumulated slowly. If he wanted to restore his strength and explore the path of magic more deeply, he still had a long way to go!

He had no choice but to calm his mind. Luo Yan quickly entered a state between sleeping and waking, where his mind was completely empty and serene, and began his first Meditation after rebirth…

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Breathing gently, in this empty and serene state, he carefully felt the movement of every single element. Soon, dots of various colors began to appear in Luo Yan’s perception. Luo Yan knew that these were the Magic Elements he needed.

The red Fire Element was scorching hot and full of passion; the blue Water Element gave one a feeling of being as deep as an abyss; the yellow Earth Element was the least active, like the thick and heavy land; the cyan Wind Element was lively and free-spirited, the most energetic of all; besides these, there was the dazzling Light Element; the violent Thunder Element; and a green element as gentle as a mother’s hands… This was the “Life Element” Wood Element that Luo Yan needed.

[Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Thunder, Light, Wood — these were the seven basic elements of the magic world, and also the most fundamental building blocks of all magical civilization.]

Everyone had their own innate attribute. This didn’t mean that people couldn’t absorb elements that weren’t their innate attribute — it was just that the absorption speed would be much slower. So generally speaking, unless they had hit a bottleneck, Wizards wouldn’t consider switching to practicing other elemental systems.

Luo Yan’s innate attribute was the Necromancy System. However, he didn’t need to worry about his situation. The Amelia Continent was a continent with open-minded customs and progressive ideas. People did not discriminate against Necromancers. Perhaps in a few places in the west of the continent where the power of the Holy Light Inquisition was strong, some extreme behavior might occur, but in the vast majority of places on the continent, people could treat every Wizard with an accepting attitude, whether he was of the Elemental System, Life System, Summoning System, or Necromancy System.

In fact, in most people’s minds, Necromancy magic should actually be considered a branch of Wood-element magic — the so-called “Life Magic”… This seemed like a joke played by the gods. The basic Magic Element used by Necromancers, who were viewed as followers of the God of Death and spent their days alongside death, happened to be the Wood Element, which people regarded as the “Life Element.”

Only with life can there be destruction; precisely because death exists does life become precious; precisely in order to transcend reincarnation and achieve eternal life did Necromancy magic, which specialized in studying death, come into being. In a certain sense, undead creatures were precisely beings that possessed eternal life. With such an understanding, it didn’t seem difficult to understand why Necromancy magic was a branch of Life Magic!

Life and death, darkness and light — at this moment, they achieved a marvelous unity…

Gently closing his eyes, feeling a gentle energy slowly washing over his body, Luo Yan felt as if he were soaking in hot water. Moreover, this hot water kept seeping into his body, forming a thin stream of heat within him. As the heat gathered more and more and gradually began to boil, Luo Yan hesitated slightly. He did not use the Meditation route he had been most familiar with before his rebirth. Instead, he guided the heat stream onto a different route, then repeatedly circulated it along a mysterious and profound path.

— This was the circulation route of the top-tier Meditation Technique “Multicolored Earth”…

…

[Multicolored Earth Meditation Technique]: A Sub-Legendary skill, ranked twelfth on the Divine Skill Ranking. Its founder could no longer be verified. A legendary Great Magister from earlier generations, Guotuan Rong, had once roamed the continent for four hundred years with it. It was a very famous high-level Meditation Technique on the continent.

Basic attributes: Accelerates the cultivation speed of Mana, and has the marvelous effects of calming the mind and gathering elemental energy.

Special attributes:

— Earth Aura Absorption (can continuously absorb Earth Aura, slowly improving one’s physique)

— Nourishing and Refining (refines one’s own essence, expels foreign substances from the body)

…

Before his rebirth, Luo Yan’s cultivation speed was slow. Besides the two reasons of “mediocre natural aptitude” and “starting magic cultivation too late,” there was another important reason: he had never had the opportunity to obtain a good Meditation Technique.

Before his rebirth, Luo Yan had always been using the “Kill You 3000 Universal Tutorial Low-level Meditation Technique” (Version 2.0) uniformly compiled and distributed by the Mages Guild. The greatest advantage of this Meditation Technique was that it was simple and easy to practice, very easy to get started with, and one didn’t have to worry about going mad or suffering Mana backlash. More importantly, it was cheap — the Mages Guild would provide a free copy to every student who passed the entrance exam for the Junior Magic Technical School. It could be called the “official Meditation Technique,” most suitable for poor Magic Apprentices to learn and use. But as for its shortcomings… naturally, cheap goods weren’t good goods.

As a universal Meditation Technique, even if this “Kill You 3000 Universal Tutorial Low-level Meditation Technique” (Version 2.0) was cultivated to its limit, it could at most open eight Mana Vessels and construct one Mana Wheel. It could be said to be the most basic way of circulating Mana. Precisely because of this, it was easy to learn. Even the most ordinary cultivator could learn it quickly, and the possibility of Mana backlash was reduced to the minimum. Safety was very guaranteed. However, circulating Mana in such a way was undoubtedly not worth expecting much from in terms of either spell-casting effectiveness or cultivation speed. It also had no additional attributes. Everything was just ordinary and standard.

Before his rebirth, because his magic aptitude wasn’t highly regarded and he couldn’t obtain too much support from his clan, Luo Yan, whose pockets were always empty, had always cultivated the “Kill You 3000 Universal Tutorial Low-level Meditation Technique” (Version 2.0). It wasn’t until he was over sixty years old and had advanced to a fifth-rank senior Wizard that he obtained a Sub-Legendary Meditation Technique called “Multicolored Earth” through a stroke of luck. However, by that time, the universal Meditation route he had been practicing for over forty years had become almost like an instinct. Switching to another Meditation Technique at that point would not only require a great deal of effort, but also carry the risk of causing Mana backlash if he wasn’t careful.

At that time, Luo Yan had already felt desperate about advancing to the top-tier profession. He spent most of his time on Alchemy, so naturally he wasn’t going to spend that kind of effort, nor did he want to risk potential Mana backlash by changing his Meditation Technique. So he merely flipped through this top-tier Meditation Technique a few times and set it aside as a collector’s item. He never actually cultivated it. In fact, almost no one even knew that he possessed a priceless Sub-Legendary Meditation Technique.

But now, since he had been given another chance to start over, Luo Yan only hesitated briefly before making up his mind to cultivate this “Multicolored Earth” Meditation Technique… This was actually somewhat risky. If a top-tier Meditation Technique wasn’t cultivated properly, it could easily cause Mana backlash, and it usually required guidance from an expert. However, Luo Yan felt that no matter what, he had already been a Magister before his rebirth. With over a hundred years of experience, he was confident that even if he wasn’t familiar with it, he should still be able to cultivate this top-tier Meditation Technique on his own.

But at this moment, Luo Yan genuinely felt grateful to the god who had arranged his rebirth — whether it was the God of Death or some other deity — grateful that his memories were so clear. Every little detail before his rebirth was as if engraved in his mind. Although it didn’t interfere with his thinking on a daily basis, he could call upon it at any time when needed. It was like having a library placed inside his head.

…This was perhaps also a byproduct of high Mental Strength!

Of course, Luo Yan was even more grateful that before his rebirth, he had casually flipped through the top-tier Meditation Technique “Multicolored Earth” a few times and hadn’t simply refused to look at it because he had given up hope of advancing. Otherwise, if he knew he had “once” owned such a top-tier Meditation Technique but didn’t know its contents and couldn’t learn it — and it would have been entirely his own fault — Luo Yan would probably have been so angry that he’d spit out three pints of blood, and he wouldn’t even have anyone to vent his anger on!!

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…

Although he had only casually flipped through it a few times, his current nearly abnormal memory allowed him to recall the entire scene completely. That Sub-Legendary Meditation Technique “Multicolored Earth” seemed to have been replicated by a magic image, unfolding clearly before his eyes. Every character, every punctuation mark, and even every magic rune was perfectly clear. Luo Yan began cultivating according to the blueprint, and soon felt his entire body growing hot. The Mana flowed through his body along a very mysterious route, from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, from the front of his chest to his back.

The heat stream first circulated nine times along the surface of his body, then gradually began to penetrate inward from his tailbone. Luo Yan’s nerves immediately became tense. The circulation on the body’s surface had only been the initial resonance between the Magic Elements and his body. Now, opening the Mana Vessels was the critical part. The number of Mana Vessels opened during the first Meditation would directly affect his future cultivation progress. This was also the reason why Wizards usually needed an expert to guide them when they first began Meditation cultivation.

Of course, Luo Yan could naturally skip the “expert guidance” step now — no kidding, before his rebirth he had been a seventh-rank Magister who had practiced Meditation for a full one hundred and thirty years. Both in experience and knowledge, he was already an old hand. Among ordinary Wizards, who could possibly have such an advantage when building their foundation, except for the top geniuses from a few millennium-old clans?

…The heat stream continued to gather at his tailbone. More Magic Elements kept flowing in, and gradually it began to swirl, like a small vortex…

Luo Yan’s concentration grew even more intense. His face flushed red, and his teeth were clenched tightly. The heat stream spun faster and faster at his tailbone, faster and faster, until suddenly it seemed that a soft bang sounded in his brain, and Luo Yan’s body trembled involuntarily!!

That heat stream seemed to have broken through some kind of barrier, surging violently upward along his spine, instantly reaching the Jade Pillow point at the back of his head. At the same time, an invisible Mana Vessel seemed to form in Luo Yan’s body. At first it flickered and was faintly visible, but after the heat stream traveled back and forth, swirling around several times, the vessel became exceptionally clear. With his Mental Strength, Luo Yan could clearly sense that the vessel wall was crystal clear and translucent, shining with a bright silver color and emitting a soft glow. Magic Elements circulated back and forth within it, and during the circulation, Magic Elements were constantly absorbed and broken down by the vessel wall, gradually seeping into every inch of Luo Yan’s body.

The first Mana Vessel… successfully opened!!

At this moment, Luo Yan finally let out a slow breath of relief. Although he had been full of confidence earlier thanks to his rich experience, when it actually came down to it, Luo Yan still felt nervous. After all, this was a matter that concerned his lifelong achievements. But now that the vessel had been opened and stabilized, there was nothing to worry about. From now on, this vessel would continuously absorb Magic Elements on its own, converting them into usable Mana for Luo Yan, slowly accumulating over time.

Taking a deep breath, having smoothly opened the first Mana Vessel, Luo Yan became calmer. As the saying goes, the hardest part of any endeavor is the beginning. With the successful experience of the first one, everything after became much simpler.

Soon, Luo Yan clearly felt the first Mana Vessel quickly being filled by the heat stream. Although the absorption speed of the vessel wall wasn’t slow, quite a few Magic Elements still slowly overflowed from it. At the same time, the heat stream on his body’s surface began to gather slowly at his lower abdomen, shoulders, and other places, forming small vortices again.

There was another burst of stinging pain, followed by that overflowing feeling again. The second Mana Vessel was successfully opened, then the third, the fourth, the fifth Mana Vessel… Fortunately, the impact Wizards suffered when opening Mana Vessels wasn’t as painful as when Martial Artists opened their Battle Aura meridians. Otherwise, Luo Yan would really have been in for a rough time this time.

[The Sub-Legendary Meditation Technique was truly extraordinary. Even the initial opening produced as many as seven Mana Vessels — more than a third more than the initial stage of the universal Meditation Technique.]

— Luo Yan clearly remembered that when he first started cultivating the “Kill You 3000 Universal Tutorial Low-level Meditation Technique” (Version 2.0), he only had four Mana Vessels at the beginning. It wasn’t until he had cultivated for three years that he opened the fifth Mana Vessel.

His Mental Strength gradually sank into a state of emptiness and serenity. Luo Yan, while feeling the thin heat stream continuously flowing through his body, slowly entered a state of deep Meditation…