Meditation

Two days had passed, and my preparations for the climb were finished.

…This ought to be enough.

For one thing, the movement of my Mana Threads had finally turned natural. I could take a thought in my head and draw it out exactly as I pictured it, with control as fine and delicate as my own fingers. Their hardness was too low to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠make them any good for a direct attack, but they looked useful in a dozen other ways. Bind several of them tight enough, and I could even press them into service as a makeshift shield. They had already stopped a falling tree. That would do.

Fwoosh!

A Level 20 Fireball hit harder than I had imagined. At Level 1, even a hard throw had only managed the speed of a tennis ball. Now, hurled from the hand, it vanished from sight entirely. Launching one by will alone, the way I did with Mana Thread, seemed to slow it a little—but even then it was fast enough to leave an afterimage. Watching it go, I couldn't help the thought. Could anything actually dodge that?

Fwoooosh!!

And there was something more important still. I could pour out nine of those Fireballs at once. Nine spheres of fire, perfectly controlled. Lock them all onto a single target, and evasion came very close to impossible.

I could even choose where they formed. The default was above my palm, but if I wanted, I could summon a Fireball a fair distance away from my hand. It might not look like much. To my mind, though, a skill whose attacks traveled in straight lines made the point of origin matter a great deal.

"……"

Even so, there was a problem. Mana.

The farther from my palm I summoned a Fireball, the more vicious the cost became, and size ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was no different. Push the volume even slightly past what the skill itself specified, and a dizziness sharp enough to spin my head came crashing in. Worse, once my mana dropped like that, filling it again took a considerable time—roughly two minutes per Fireball. Far too long. Learning higher-tier skills would only leave me shorter still. This wasn't something I could shrug off and move past.

So, after a long bout of thinking, I settled on a solution.

The lobby, first.

I skipped the shops. One point left meant there was nothing to buy anyway. I headed straight for the gates. The Tower could be entered once every three days, and unlike two days ago, two gates now burned with blue light. Floors 1 and 2 were both open to me.

I raised a hand over the blue glow.

From Floor 2 on, the difficulty climbed in earnest. Floor 1 had held nothing but a single ordinary goblin. Here, three kinds of monster appeared: goblin swordsmen, goblin shieldbearers, and goblin archers. I had to smash two scout parties of three. Balanced little units, offense and defense both accounted for. That was why Floor 2 was called the newbie shredder. A hunter without talent, they said, would spend a lifetime circling Floor 1 and nothing else.

I fixed my eyes on what lay ahead. A cave thick with damp, clammy air. I wasn't particularly tense. My abilities were nothing like what they had been on the first floor.

Fwoosh!

I sent a Fireball forward, and roughly a hundred meters of visibility opened in an instant. At the far edge of that light, three goblins stared at the sphere of fire, faces slack with shock.

A hundred meters is a long way. Can I even reach them?

The risk of setting something alight had kept me from practicing long-range throws. This was as good a time as any to find out. I caught the Fireball in my hand and hurled it as it was.

Fwoooosh!!!!

It cut the air at a speed the eye couldn't follow. No arc at all—just a straight line. For a fraction of a second a crimson streak split the dark, and then it punched clean through the goblin swordsman's chest.

"Kyaaaaaah!!!"

A savage scream filled the passage. The swordsman thrashed in the spreading flames, and it did him no good at all. In moments the burning body crumbled to powder and vanished.

Panicked, the shieldbearer threw himself across the Fireball's path. Beyond him the archer, terror written all over his face, loosed arrows at random.

Thuk! Thud-thud!

They never cleared fifty meters before they pitched into the floor. In that span I launched two Fireballs at once.

Fwoosh!

Fwoooosh!!!

One punched through the shield and into the shieldbearer's chest. The other drilled the exact center of the archer's brow as he drew the string. The result was the same. Bodies burned fast, turned to powder, and scattered.

I had hit Level 40 in a single breath—the highest level Floor 2 would allow. A tremendous surge of elation washed through me, and my whole body took on a faint blue cast. Then came the sensation of every muscle drawing in and compacting, and with it a body grown suddenly light. My balance improved all at once. My mana pool had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠clearly expanded, too. The speed at which mana refilled, though, was still slow.

I really do need to learn Meditation, and soon.

A skill that increased mana recovery. I could buy it with the points from clearing Floor 2. And if the Transcendence trait applied to Meditation as well? I might become the first person in the world to master it. I couldn't say exactly what that would do. At the very least, I ought to be able to use Fireball without strain.

Fwoosh!

I advanced with a Fireball drifting ahead of me. Sure enough, three more goblins were caught in the light from far off. This time I didn't throw. I sent three Fireballs by will alone.

The advantage was obvious. I could launch several at once, each to wherever I wanted. I'd been a little worried all the same. They were slower than a throw, and the distance was considerable. The goblins failed to dodge anyway. They stared blankly at the incoming spheres until holes opened in their chests, and all three turned to ash at the same moment and scattered.

Far more generous than Floor 1.

I went straight to the skill merchant. As before, hunters packed the area around him, every face grave, as if each of them were agonizing over how to spend their points. The merchant's eyes met mine.

Just as I'd heard. Exactly as the community guides had said, the Meditation skill book had risen onto the list.

"Meditation is the foundation of a mage, you could say. A skill book you buy no matter what."

The Hispanic skill merchant muttered it with a smirk. The hunters beside him snorted.

"Are you out of your damn mind? Why would anyone dump a hundred points—blood money—into garbage like that?"

"If you're a mage, you save up and buy Flame Burst. That's the correct build."

"Sink points into Mana Thread or Meditation and you'll be crying tears of blood later. Mana Thread is pure trash, and Meditation's no better. When are you ever short on mana at low level? It's not like you're running the Labyrinth."

Mm. All of it was true. For an ordinary hunter.

My case was different.

Because I was going to run the Labyrinth.

The Tower split into two great branches.

One was the Tower proper, entered through the gates. Once every three days. Each floor cleared raised the highest achievable level by ten. In other words, it was the place that decided a hunter's vessel.

The other was the place they called the Labyrinth. You stacked points there, and you picked up items worth real money. You hunted monsters and leveled, too. So hunters climbed as far as their ability allowed, and when the ascent stalled, they went to the Labyrinth to raise their specs.

The Labyrinth's entrance lay in the exact opposite direction from the Tower. I walked that way slowly, checking the skill as I went.

A skill that recovered mana quickly. Most awakeners were the physical sort, so the poor reputation was only natural. For the average hunter, potions were overwhelmingly more efficient than Meditation besides. It didn't have quite as many detractors as Mana Thread, but it was still a skill with a considerable anti-fanbase.

I checked what mana I had left. Conveniently, killing the goblin scouts had worn it down. I used the skill.

Hwoong!

A light tremor rose around my heart. A pleasant hum. At the same time a refreshing current rode my blood and circled my whole body.

And that was it.

"…No wonder people avoid this skill."

The feeling turned strangely off. My mana had filled—sort of. Not full, and not empty either. The unpleasant sensation of a fat sesame seed stuck between your front teeth. In a word, the efficiency was garbage. Profoundly so.

But the moment those messages finished stacking, everything changed.

Mana flooded the hollow space all at once. The emptiness vanished in an instant, the way oxygen rushes into the lungs. I had exactly one thought.

This is insane.

My mana pool was already full to the brim. I used Fireball. Maybe the pool had grown when I hit Level 40; I barely felt the cost.

At this point… can I try it?

I increased the Fireball's size. The fist-sized sphere swelled until it was as big as a head. Mana drained in a rush—and new mana poured into the vacancy just as fast. The slide from drained weakness to overflowing fullness took no time at all.

…This actually works.

Back at the house, I hadn't even been able to attempt it properly. The moment a flame's size left the value the skill was set to, it used to devour mana without mercy. I had overcome that limit, at least to a degree. With Meditation. The skill everyone called trash.

Trash to everyone else can be something else entirely to me.

Good information.

Skills, gear, items—anything that was good for everyone had no choice but to demand a lot of points. Cost-effectiveness, efficiency, had to suffer for it. But I was different. Even the things other people threw away, for me—

"Huh?"

I stopped. And turned.

Past the Hispanic skill-book merchant lay a district even more packed with people. There stood a knight in heavy plate, the visor of his steel helm lowered so far I couldn't make out a face. I pushed through the crowd toward him. As the distance closed, his gaze fixed on me. I couldn't see inside the visor, but that was the feeling of it. A voice reached me.

"A face I haven't seen before."

The knight was an equipment merchant. More polite than the Hispanic skill merchant, who dropped into casual speech the moment he laid eyes on you. Even so, a damp, unpleasant aura seeped off him in slow curls.

I looked through the goods one by one. With only eighteen points to my name, most of the equipment was grayed out. I couldn't even check what it did.

Everything's too expensive.

A small disappointment. I'd heard the equipment merchant bought goods off hunters and resold them, and that plenty of those goods were junk. So-called cursed items. Plenty of them, in number and in kind—enough that the Hunter Association's official broadcast had spun up a whole channel just for cursed gear. But nothing I could buy for eighteen points seemed to—

Huh?

My eyes lit. There was one. A single item.

Eighteen points. It matched what I held exactly. I bought it at once.

I opened my inventory. With a soft rattle, a 2×2 grid unfolded. I reached in and took hold of the small doll.

A light dizziness rose, and passed just as quickly. The mana Meditation generated and absorbed surged in like a tide and filled the empty space.

And in that instant, a great black board rose in my mind. A moment later it brightened, just a little.

Even at a glance, it was a kind of map. I stood at the center, hunters swarming all around me, and the colors varied. I was white. The hunters were gray. The equipment merchant was green. The lit area was narrow; beyond it, I couldn't see.

That was when it happened.

Ziiing—!!

Out of nowhere, something prickled through my skull. A headache of sorts, though not an unpleasant one—a subtle, peculiar sensation. At the same time, a message rose before my eyes.

© DomHwangcha #1ylk2