Chapter 392 – Mage Meditation Techniques

Unlike Mo Lan, Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph had little interest in mage magic.

Seeing this, Mo Lan said: “Setting everything else aside, we should at least learn a bit of the mages’ meditation techniques and get some exposure to psychic power. That’s the only way we can convert our mana into psychic power and simulate the magical fluctuations of a mage.

“We also need to understand the effects of common mage spells, right? Otherwise, how would we disguise ourselves as mages casting spells?”

Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph nodded.

This much, they understood.

“I’ll disguise myself as a fire-element mage then!” Lilith picked out a copy of《Flame Meditation》and a copy of《Basic Fire-Element Magic》.

“I’m probably best suited for wood-element,” Sylph said. “I’ll study this《Giant Tree Meditation》and《Basic Wood-Element Magic》.”

“Then I’ll choose earth-element.” Vasida selected a copy of《Earth Meditation》and a copy of《Basic Earth-Element Magic》.

When it was Mo Lan’s turn, she looked through every meditation technique that Grandmother Dayla had sent before making her decision. “I’ll choose this one.”

“《Sky Meditation》?” Lilith asked, puzzled. “What type of mage is this meditation technique for?”

“It’s oriented toward psychic power itself, suitable for those practicing multiple or even all elements simultaneously,” Mo Lan said.

“All elements?” An astonishing thought surfaced in Vasida’s mind. “Moira, you’re not planning to learn all of the mage magic too, are you?”

Mo Lan nodded. “I have the talent and the ability—why wouldn’t I? My Book of Cards also needs more card-crafting knowledge and materials.”

Lilith, who had also looked into mage magic a little, said with some disapproval:

“Mage magic only has three branches: Elemental Magic, Alchemy Magic, and Psychic Magic. Their Elemental Magic isn’t even as versatile or powerful as ours, their Psychic Magic is roughly the same as our Psychic Magic, and only their Alchemy Magic has anything worth borrowing from.

“With so many races in Valen and so many wondrous types of magic to learn—and even more magical systems to encounter in other worlds—why choose mage magic?”

Mo Lan’s view differed from Lilith’s:

“The fact alone that mage magic is the only system in Valen that uses psychic power to leverage multiple natural energies for spellcasting makes it worth studying.

“Between Psychic Magic and our Psychic Magic, some spells have similar effects, but many more are completely different.

“As for Alchemy Magic, I actually think the application of Alchemy runes by witches is more versatile. It’s just that witches are few in number, and Alchemy Witches even fewer, so the research into rune combinations and alchemical magic items hasn’t been as developed as what human mages have achieved with Alchemy Magic.

“As for what exactly the differences are—I suppose we’ll only know once we’ve actually learned it!”

After all, the books about mage magic currently in the Witch Council’s collection had all been written by witches.

Witches couldn’t actually learn mage magic—they could only summarize based on observation and investigation.

There was still a gap between that and truly learning it firsthand.

“Besides, you all know that I’ve always wanted to find the planet from my previous life and save it.

“The Departed Witch Ensemble gave me this insight: ‘World consciousness is born from the souls and consciousness of intelligent beings. To save intelligent beings is to save the world.’

“How to save intelligent beings? I think the best approach is to help Earth’s humans enhance their individual strength, so they won’t be helpless in the face of natural and man-made disasters. Since they’re both human, perhaps the magic of Valen’s humans can offer some useful reference. So this is something I absolutely must learn.” Mo Lan said, “I’m even planning to sneak into a human mage academy or mage tower later to steal their teachings!”

The world consciousness of Earth had given her the memories of civilization and granted her the ability to remember everything she saw. Not making full use of that by learning as much as possible would be inexcusable.

That familiar sense of pressure washed over them, and Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph simultaneously shared the same thought:

“The grind-queen Sorceress is heading out of the Wilds to out-grind the human mages!”

They silently lit a metaphorical candle for the human mages.

All four Sorceresses were encountering mage meditation techniques for the first time, and with no one to teach them, they began studying together.

Every meditation manual opened with an explanation of the principles of meditation.

Comparing notes, the four of them found that although they held different meditation manuals, the content of the “Meditation Principles” section was nearly identical.

“It seems human mages have already reached a unified conclusion on the principles of meditation,” Mo Lan said. “Regardless of the meditation technique, the underlying principles are the same.”

Mages believed that psychic power was a form of energy related to intelligence and the mind.

The process of meditation was the process of disregarding the body’s existence and conducting pure psychic power training.

Currently, the most common and useful meditation techniques among mages were image-based meditation methods—techniques that trained, enhanced, and restored psychic power by visualizing a specific image in one’s mind.

The meditation manuals Grandmother Dayla had sent were all of this type.

Different image-based meditation methods simply used different visualized images.

Beyond this, Mo Lan’s《Sky Meditation》also mentioned that meditation techniques were further divided into element-oriented elemental meditation methods and non-element-oriented universal meditation methods.

The ones Lilith and the others had chosen were elemental meditation methods. These methods trained psychic power through meditation while simultaneously drawing the practitioner’s psychic power closer to one or more types of elemental force, increasing one’s elemental affinity, making it easier to leverage the corresponding elemental force, and facilitating the casting of spells from the corresponding school.

However, this also caused one’s psychic power to take on elemental characteristics, limiting the practitioner to only casting spells of the corresponding school. Sometimes it could even subtly influence the mage’s personality.

This was why fire-element mages typically had fiery tempers, while water-element mages were usually mild-mannered.

The《Sky Meditation》Mo Lan had chosen, on the other hand, was a universal meditation method. It could only train psychic power itself, with no effect on elemental affinity and no amplification of magic. Regardless of which element’s magic one cast, there would be no affinity bonus.

Currently among mages, elemental meditation methods were more popular, and they came in all varieties, each with its own strengths.

Meanwhile, there was only one universal meditation method:《Sky Meditation》.

It was a meditation technique developed back when humans had first discovered that meditation could give them control over psychic power.

Although it had been developed quite thoroughly, the lack of affinity amplification meant its effects were less pronounced than elemental meditation methods, and it was harder to practice. As a result, it had become the cheapest and most commonly available meditation technique.

It was known as the standard equipment of wild mages.

The《Sky Meditation》manual itself even contained a bold-text warning specifically for mage apprentices: unless one truly had no way of obtaining an elemental meditation method suited to oneself, one should never choose a universal meditation method as one’s first meditation technique.

Once a meditation technique was learned, one could only add other meditation methods on top of the existing foundation—it couldn’t be deleted and started over.

Mages would first use a talent crystal ball to test their elemental affinity and initial psychic power, and only then select the elemental meditation method corresponding to their highest-affinity elemental force.