Chapter 45

Chapter 45 Sleeping Ghost

The academy provides a small villa for second-class wizard apprentices. In addition, the villa is also equipped with an exclusive team of servants, a total of three people.

These servants are a special kind of dwarf elves called gray dwarves.

Locke learned through the Everything Class that the brains of these gray dwarves have changed due to long-term magical enslavement. They are born to worship those with high mental power, so they have extreme worship for wizards and can accept any orders from wizards without any loyalty issues.

But the contrast is their low intelligence, so they cannot be used to do anything too complicated. The most they can do is cleaning or moving things.

Locke gave a few instructions to the three gray dwarves assigned to clean up his villa, then returned to his bedroom, sat cross-legged on the bed, and began to meditate.

Locke put some badam wood chips, about 10 grams, into a copper incense burner, and then used magic flames to ignite the wood chips.

As a wisp of white smoke rose from the incense burner, Locke suddenly lowered his head and inhaled the smoke with a special fragrance.

When practicing basic meditation methods, auxiliary meditation materials are needed, and these meditation materials are often not cheap.

Locke only bought 300 grams of badam wood sawdust, but he actually spent 150 magic stones, using up all the magic stones he had saved.

Fortunately, Teacher Sophia did not charge him any additional magic stones other than the basic tuition of 100 magic stones per year, otherwise he would not have enough to pay for the course.

As Locke inhaled the smoke of the badminton wood, he felt dizzy and his eyes were blurry. Colorful colors appeared, as if he had entered a long dazzling tunnel. After some bumps, he seemed to have entered the heart of an ancient tree.

He sat cross-legged on the heart of the ancient tree. The tree’s annual rings surrounded him, forming circle after circle. He seemed to have turned into the core of the ancient tree, merged with it, and could feel the breath of the ancient tree.

His breathing gradually became completely consistent with the breathing frequency of the ancient tree.

During this process, Locke felt as if his legs had turned into the roots of an ancient tree, absorbing elemental particles from the earth, and his shoulders had turned into the branches and leaves of the ancient tree, gaining energy from the sunlight.

One’s own spiritual power is constantly nourished in this process.

“The meditation was successful. I’ve entered the tree-heart state described in the Root Meridian Synchronization Meditation Method,” Locke thought. “Now, I’m making my spiritual power fluctuations become like the ancient tree of life, drawing energy from the earth and the void to nourish my spiritual power.”

The Root Vein Synchronous Meditation Method was discovered by ancient wizards who referred to the Ancient Tree of Life and studied why the Ancient Tree of Life could grow stronger than other trees.

Of course, the level of the Ancient Tree of Life is actually very high, and the Root Vein Synchronization Meditation Method has only scratched the surface of its research.

Locke was in a meditative state, feeling himself incarnate as the heart of a tree, constantly gathering energy from the soles of his feet and the top of his head and entering his soul.

After taking the moonlight potion, my current meditation speed is more than twice my original speed.

This caused his mental strength to increase from 60 to 61 at an extremely fast speed.

“So that’s how it is. Wizards who master meditation can draw energy from nature and nourish their spiritual power.”

‘Because of this, wizards who use meditation grow much faster than those who don’t.’

“The almond wood used for auxiliary purposes is simply too expensive. The daily consumption alone is a burden. I need to use at least 10 grams of almond wood sawdust every day, which means 150 magic stones, which can only support my daily consumption for less than a month.”

“Even if the academy gives me 30 magic stones every month, it’s still not enough.”

Locke thought to himself, “After a few more months of breeding classes, I can try to sell synthetic plants to the outside world.”

“Otherwise, I’ll be running out of magic stones to continue my studies.”

At the same time, the rose-red gem in Locke’s hand, which had entered a meditative state, also absorbed the natural energy of the strange substance ether element inside, and entered Locke’s soul.

Locke was stunned. “My efficiency in absorbing ether has more than doubled?”

“Meditation can also help me better absorb the etheric elements in the rose-red gem.”

“Great! This way, my mental power’s growth rate could be increased by more than double.”

Locke estimated that his original improvement speed was very close to that of level 6 qualifications.

Now, due to the combined effects of meditation, the Rose-Red Gem, and the Moonlight Elixir, the speed at which his mental power grows is likely to have completely reached that of a wizard seedling at level 6, and may even exceed it.

Locke opened his eyes, took out a meditation ointment from the drawer, and applied it on his temples. The meditation ointment can improve his concentration, and indirectly improve his meditation efficiency and the speed of improving his mental power.

I am now using all the means I can to increase the speed of improving my mental strength as quickly as possible.

The next day, early in the morning, Locke opened his eyes and found that the sun was hanging outside the window, and the sunlight was shining directly into his room.

“It seems feasible to use meditation as a substitute for sleep.”

“My mana and thoughts simulated the heart of the Ancient Tree of Life, entering a special effect similar to deep sleep. Coupled with the fact that the almond wood itself has a calming effect, I meditated all night long, and not only did I not feel tired, but I actually regained my mental strength.”

Locke thought for a moment. “But the meditation method warns me to sleep at least ten nights a month.”

“Meditation doesn’t completely replace the restful effects of sleep. This seems to be because there are some soul and spiritual realms that wizards haven’t fully discovered yet, and they must rely on the body’s original sleep to recover.”

“There are many side effects of prolonged meditation without sleep.”

Locke flipped through the meditation scroll in his hand, and on it was a ‘monster’ with gray skin all over its body, standing like a human, but with a pointed head, a protruding skull, and sunken eye sockets.

This monster is marked as [Sleepy Ghost] on the Meditation Scroll.

There were some wizards who thought that as long as they kept meditating, they would not need to sleep, so that they could use their precious time to fully improve their magic power and increase their wizard level.

They meditated like this for decades, and as a result, some wizards gradually developed health problems. Their bodies began to become alienated and eventually turned into the monsters recorded in the scrolls – sleep ghosts.

Locke looked at the monster on the scroll and thought, “It looks like some kind of degeneration has occurred.”

“It’s probably the result of prolonged meditation without sleep. Ordinary mortals will still sleep a little, but not sleeping for a long time will lead to death. However, wizards can use meditation to stay awake for decades.”

“So, this is a disease that only wizards can develop. It seems that sleep is still very important. It should be a way to recover from some unknown realm of the soul.”

Locke reached out and took out the fast-growing hormone gel that he had been synthesizing recently from the Horadric synthetic cube that was constantly spinning and flashing with silver sparks.

(End of this chapter)