Time Twister

"T-That"s great! Ehem! However! Remember that now you have officially stepped into the ranks of Master magicians, time is of the essence! The spells you create on your own need enough time to be perfected!" Ms. Lim finished off, acting like senior giving pointers to a junior, to save some face for herself and for the cla.s.s.

Xander, of course, not wanting to make things more awkward for Ms. Lim after her inquiries were diverted, nodded vigorously, taking everything to "heart", hehe. She didn"t even realize that he was already a Master-9 magician! Xander didn"t bother talking in cla.s.s since he already knew the syllabus; he just focused on playing his games on his smart.w.a.tch quietly while Ms. Lim began to teach the rest of the cla.s.s.

Ms. Lim headed to the front of the room and opened up the hologram projector.

"Let"s begin the introduction to Magic meditation. My first question to all of you is what is Magic meditation for you guys? Be honest." Ms. Lim looked around the cla.s.s, looking at different people, and some of the students raised their hands up and directly answered.

"I think it"s a test whether you could stop yourself from falling asleep and gaining benefits from it."

"Hehe, I think it"s just a mystified way of absorbing the elements around us. Isn"t it just deep meditation?"

"I think it"s more than deep meditation. I think it allows you to comprehend the elements more sensitively and accurately."

"Those aren"t wrong answers, but still a bit far from the answer I was looking for. Mr. Cloverfield, for you, what is Magic meditation?" Ms. Lim redirected the question to Xander, who then looked up from his watch and saw the cla.s.s watching him attentively. Xander rolled his eyes inside, before pausing the game and then acting all serious and dignified.

When the girls saw this, they couldn"t help think that Xander was looking cute by acting very seriously. Even Valerie just rolled her eyes when she saw him do this. Maryann and Carly, who at this point were now fans of Xander, listened attentively.

"By textbook definition, Magic meditation involves 3 things: Deep meditation, which upon reaching Mundane-9, one is able to do; Magic energy cycling and production from Elemental energy absorbed, and Comprehension of the Elements. In one sentence, Magic meditation is the use of deep meditation to stimulate one"s magic cycling and improve one"s comprehension of the elements."

"By my definition, I think Magic meditation is really just reaching the most balanced state of your mind, body, and soul, allowing you to be in tune with the ordered system of the universe, which creates a feedback loop, benefiting your body in the process." Xander then added his own thoughts, which he thinks accurately described the purpose of Magic Meditation. He then returned to playing with his smart.w.a.tch, his resuming his game.

Ms. Lim was quite surprised by Xander"s answer. Even the students were also contemplating between the two definitions and felt like they understood more with the second definition than that of the textbook version. Ms. Lim, creating a mental note for later, nodded in response to Xander"s answer, and continued the discussion.

"The two definitions are correct. Magic meditation involves deep meditation, the cycling of magic energy and elements in one"s body, and comprehension of the elements. Specifically, your primary elements. By the continuous absorption of elements, conversion of elements to magic energy, and comprehension of the elements being converted, your body and life essence is refined, as well as your Magic seeds, and self-made Magic Circles." She paused for a while, showing another hologram of how supposedly, Magic meditation works in the human body.

First and foremost, the elements enter through the openings of the body, being sent into the bloodstream, cycling all over the body. As it cycles, its properties transform from elemental particle to elemental energy to that of magic energy, slowly being absorbed and released by the cells, tissues, and organs of the body. Magic energy increases in small amounts, and as time is continuously sped up, the more cycles are done, and the acc.u.mulated Magic energy increases in the human body. After a day of cycling, the volume of Magic energy in the body was 2-3 times it was originally. It was then distributed to the magic seeds of the caster, showing a visible increase of the magic seed"s size, but can be clear to the viewers it has not undergone compression before.

"As you can see in the hologram video, Magic meditation speeds up magic training. If we weren"t doing this, it might be when we are already old and frail can we have a breakthrough or our foundations would be quite pitiful. To understand this, I"ll give an a.n.a.logy: Enzymes function to enhance the reaction and catalyzation of proteins. with enzymes directing the movements of proteins, it would take more than several centuries or even thousands of years to complete a single reaction. The process of magic cultivation is the protein, and the enzyme is the act of Magic Meditation." Ms. Lim continued and saw that the previously confused faces of students were clearing up one by one. She inwardly nodded before she continued discussing the important aspect of Magic cultivation: cultivation skills.

"Now, a vital component of Magic meditation that makes it efficient for magic cultivation would be the use of cultivation skills. So, what are cultivation skills? These are basically skills that allow one to reach deep meditation easily and connect into the element particles around them, allowing them to absorb them faster. Although when you were in the Mundane cla.s.s, you could absorb the elements and generate your own magic energy, it isn"t as fast as using a cultivation skill in junction with Magic meditation."

"At the same time, it gives the cultivators better affinity to their respective elements, as long as their cultivation method matches their primary elements improving their comprehension of the elements at all cla.s.ses, and understanding of the representations at the Legendary and Mythic cla.s.s. More functions will be explained at the Advanced Magic Training cla.s.s you will be taking. For now, this is enough for the cla.s.s." Ms. Lim said, stopping herself from describing the remaining benefits of cultivation skills. After all, you need to learn to walk before one can run.

She then continued, "Now, for limitations. First, a person can only use 1 cultivation skill at a time, and second, they can start the use of cultivation skills only at Elite-6 cla.s.s. Why do you think so?" Ms. Lim asked the cla.s.s, and some of the students were frowning before Carly raised her hand to answer.

"Ma"am, I think it"s because of the strain of the cultivation skill to our body. Maybe, by Elite-6 we have sufficient Magic energy that can be channeled by the skill? At the same time, the limitation of 1 cultivation skill, I think it"s to avoid conflict between circulation pathways." Carly said with a pensive face.

"That"s correct, Ms. Bernault. We are limited to 1 cultivation skill at a time, and if you want to change to another one, you need to cycle for at least 1080 cycles to completely remove the traces of the old cultivation skill. This is because cultivation skills are eventually pathways for the elemental particles, energy, and Magic energy to traverse inside the human body. If you cultivated supplementary skills, it is still going to result in the same thing: a conflict between the two types of pathways." Ms. Lim nodded at Carly"s answer, before continuing the discussion.

"Now, cultivation skills are not created equal. There are ranks differentiating their effects and quality. Ranks are divided from Low, Med, High, and Perfect. There is one more known rank, which is called Transcendental, but usually, only people with fortuitous encounters or those that are highly valued by their ancient clans can have a chance of using them."

"The higher the rank, the more complex it is, but the better its effects would be. At the same time, the less specific to an element it is, the better it is in the latter stages.

Low - 0.25x increase in effects (affinity, comprehension, understanding, fusion, and generation)

Med - 0.5x increase in effects (affinity, comprehension, understanding, fusion, and generation)

High - 1x increase in effects (affinity, comprehension, understanding, fusion, and generation)

Perfect - 2x increase in effects (affinity, comprehension, understanding, fusion, and generation)

There are, of course, higher cla.s.sifications, but for now, let"s make do with this, as most cultivation skills available publicly would reach this quality of standard." Ms. Lim then changed the hologram projection, showing ten different virtual bodies, each one undergoing Magic meditation, but there distinct differences in each of them. Each one was on a box with a label of "I, II, III...X".

"Now, another cla.s.sification is done, which is based on the specificity of the cultivation technique, labeled from Cla.s.s I to Cla.s.s X.

Cla.s.s I - Perfectly Broad; around 100%. Focused on attaining the best state for magic meditation, to generally understand everything about the Universe and the Elements, their intricacies, their relationships with one another, not just focused on one element.

Cla.s.s II - Very Broad; around 90%. Focused on attaining the best state for magic meditation, to generally understand everything about the Universe and the Elements, their intricacies, their relationships with one another, but still contains traces of element-focused training and pathways, understanding a specific element/s.

Cla.s.s III - Broad; around 80%. Focused on reaching a good state for magic meditation, to generally understand everything about the Universe and the Elements, their intricacies, their relationships with one another, while including a few element-focused trainings and pathways merged into the state of magic meditation, understanding a specific element/s.

Cla.s.s IV - Quite Broad; around 70%. Trying to reach a good state of magic meditation, to generally understand everything about the Universe and the Elements, their intricacies, their relationships with one another, but contains several element-focused trainings and pathways merged into the state of magic meditation, understanding a specific element/s.

Cla.s.s V - Nearly Broad and Specific; around 60%. Attempting to broach into the generalities, intricacies, and relationships of everything, but the remaining focused on a specific element/s.

Cla.s.s VI - Nearly Specific; around 60% focused on a specific element/s, the rest focused on understanding general principles.

Cla.s.s VII - Quite Specific; around 70% focused on specific element/s.

Cla.s.s VIII - Specific; around 80%.

Cla.s.s IX - Very Specific; around 90%.

Cla.s.s X - Perfectly Specific; around 100%. Focuses on completely comprehending and understanding a specific element/s."

Ms. Lim said, finishing describing everything in under 2 minutes.

Someone asked a question, and a question Xander was also itching to find out: Can you create your own cultivation skill?

Ms. Lim looked a bit unsure and was hesitating for a bit before answering.

"Theoretically, you can create your own cultivation skill. A cultivation skill is basically a collection of different, complementing cycling pathways for every cla.s.s, starting from Elite to Divine cla.s.s. In reality, most of our cultivation skills are actually created by higher cla.s.s magicians, such as Divine, Sage, or even G.o.d cla.s.s. Remember the stories about the group of G.o.d-cla.s.s cultivators that transcended and left our planet 800,000 years ago? Well, before they left, they had scattered a total of 20 cultivation skill books, each was ranked above Perfect rank, hitting the Transcendent quality. If you want to create a cultivation skill, personally based on your abilities, you can only create the first cycling pathway for the Elite cla.s.s; for the next stage, the cycling pathway must not be in conflict with the first cycling pathway; for Legendary, the cyclic pathway must not be in conflict with the previous two, and so on. The risk here is that if the cycling pathway you design is problematic at the start, it would be impossible to create the following cycling pathways, so you would still have to switch to a new one. The biggest benefit, however, is that the cultivation skill you would be designing would have the highest affinity towards your body, meaning it would be out of the cla.s.sification of rank since it might be perfect for you, but for other people, it can be just trash."

The student who asked the question nodded his head, understanding the problem. It would basically require too much calculating power to sequence a cultivation skill perfectly tailored for your body while being compatible for the next cycle.

"Now, I know it might be quite burdening to understand the information, which is why I had allowed voice recording of the cla.s.s since the beginning of the semester. I am teaching this basic information to you all because you will need to either select your own Magic meditation cultivation skill for tomorrow"s cla.s.s. You can already use the one for your respective family"s, or use one of the cultivation skills the university provides for one"s choosing." Ms. Lim said, emphasizing that the first day was only focused on theoretical, and the following days were going to be on the experience of Magic meditation.

Even Xander was excited. Although he had no idea what cultivation skills would work on him, he had a lot of available skills in his personal database, some of which even reaching Immortal rank. He could just select one of the best-fit ones for him and be done with it. However, Xander had an even more absurd idea: Why not create his own cultivation skill tailored for him?

He wasn"t daunted with the task of creating a cultivation skill; not only does he have a surplus of material to refer to, but he also had the ability to accelerate his thought process, making this fast and stable enough to be done. That was going to be his mission tonight after he had returned from campus.

The cla.s.s progressed on, with Ms. Lim emphasizing on the dos and don"ts of cultivation skills. However, it was more of the things you should not do.

1. Never disturb someone undergoing a Magic meditation. That is enough grounds for someone to kill you without being prosecuted.

2. Never attempt to divert the prescribed pathway of the cultivation skill, that is enough to cause a magic psychosis and cause your mind to lose rationality or control over your body. The worst-case scenario is you being crippled or killed, the minimum would be being stuck in a short-term comatose state or severe internal injuries.

3. Never cultivate more than 1 cultivation skill when undergoing Magic meditation.

4. Do not indiscriminately absorb the elements around you; accept only the elements you have a stronger affinity for. The more useless elements you have absorbed, the slower the cycling state, as well as the build-up of elemental particles in your body. Do this only if you have a special cultivation body.

5. Do not break through cla.s.ses while running your cultivation skill; if you sense you are about to breakthrough, stop the cycling properly and complete the breakthrough. breaking through stages is just fine.

6. If you already sense that your magic energy is destabilized, immediately stop the Magic meditation, and undergo deep meditation to calm it down. You may undergo deviatory magic psychosis.

These 6 rules were quite easy to understand, and the students and Xander didn"t have any more questions. Ms. Lim then just summarized the cla.s.s for the next 10 minutes, before ending it, allowing the students to leave or eat lunch in the canteen.

Xander used this opportunity to go to the Elemental Control cla.s.s building, where he felt had better food, to be honest. He waved goodbye to his cla.s.smates and Ms. Lim, before heading to the building behind it. After a few minutes, he reached the entrance and scanned his I.D. before going in, and headed to the second floor to eat. The meal this time cost him 10 SCPs, but Xander felt it was worth it. He was planning to do some of the missions available for students to earn some SCPs through the School bounty Board. The school even had an internal app that can check the contents of the board, as well as accept missions from it.

While eating, he began to browse some missions available. He first removed the ones that paid very low or the ones that were repeatable. He began looking for high-valued one-time missions.

[Calling for experimental test subjects]

[Complete my term requirement]

[Help me understand Advanced Theory Magic....]

[Need a sparring partner!]

[Collect some ingredients]

[Collect some metals]

[I need this ....metal]

[I need this ....plant material]

....

There were around 150,000 different one-time, high-valued requests, all coming from Grand Hyatt and the different universities that Grand Hyatt is in partnership with; roughly 15,000 missions came from his university. He began to limit the options to [collection missions], [teaching lessons], and [sparring missions]. He didn"t want to be an experimental test subject for a thesis or research of the university.

What was left were around a thousand missions, and from there Xander arranged it from highest to lowest.

[I need a magic artifact of these specifications]

[Looking for a sparring partner, physical trainer]

[Collect 20 b.l.o.o.d.y Drop Berries!]

[Looking for a branch of a 10,000-year old tree sprite]

[Help me understand Homer Simpson"s papers!]

[Looking for a sparring partner, magic trainer]

[Get me an Adamantium and Vallarium ore!]

...

After a few minutes of scrolling and viewing the missions, Xander had selected to do 2 missions: [Collect 20 b.l.o.o.d.y Drop Berries] and [Get me an Adamantium and Vallarium ore!]. The latter he could easily replicate through [Material Transformation] while the former was quite easy to do: Get a regular Drop Berry shrub and advance the time of the area around the plant. After he had finished eating and confirming his acceptance of the two missions, there were 10 more minutes before cla.s.s began.

He headed downstairs and Faykes was still absent. Xander decided to send a message to Faykes, asking if when he will go back to school. After a few seconds being sent, a reply returned, Faykes replying to Xander that he was returning in 2-3 days. He just had to take care of some private things. Xander rolled his eyes at the pathetic excuse and then used his s.p.a.ce power to instantly have a 3rd-person view of where Faykes was.

Immediately, he was in a windowless room. He could see 3 figures present, one of which he was familiar with: Faykes. There were 2 other people who he was talking with, to the point of arguing and shouting at one another.

Xander continued to observe, but he couldn"t hear any sound since he was technically "seeing" the place; he wasn"t really there. There were stacks of doc.u.ments, as well as the desk terminal open, showing several files and doc.u.ments open.

Xander briefly looked at the contents before his eyes squeezed to tiny slits. It seems the Valentine clan"s control truly runs deep. They even had information from the Galactic Empire; could it be from one of their ancestors who were at a high, stable position? Xander thought to himself. He checked the current database for any names that had the last name of Valentine. Huh, no match. At this Xander pondered; could it be the ancestor was using an alias? That makes it hard to track then, oh well.

Seeing nothing much was happening to Faykes, he canceled his viewing mode, opening his eyes. He began to talk to the other students in the cla.s.s, socializing and even giving them tips.

After a few more minutes, Ms. Amelia entered the building, and everyone settled down as she headed to the podium in front of the training mats. All the students were sitting upright and relaxed, waiting for the lesson to begin.

"Good afternoon cla.s.s. As you know, since last week we already finished our coverage of the Elemental control theory. For this week, we will focus on Elemental control outside of the body."