Foster continued to breathe, the air that seemed so incredibly could due to the mana it dragged out with it rubbing past his lips. As he continued to breathe in this pattern, and Foster’s body continued calming down, it seemed like his consciousness just started to fade into nonexistence. Until a few moments ago, he was able to feel the warm, humid air of the room touching his skin. He could hear the breathing of his friends that were meditating with him, and the faint noise of other people training in the adjacent rooms.

But all of that seemed to slowly disappear. The only thing that Foster was able to feel was his own body, and the magic that flowed through it. He could already feel himself become more aware of every part of his body earlier, but now, that was brought to an extreme, as his mind was only filled with that. But soon, things shifted beyond the realm of just his physical body. Rather, he was starting to feel like something else was hidden within him.

The flow of mana that he could so clearly feel disappeared beyond his grasp, but he knew that it was still going on. Instead, the focus points of mana in his body, which he had thought about as stars so that he could concentrate on them better than with such an abstract concept related directly to magic, were now appearing as true stars to him. It was like he could feel them burning inside of him. He could feel them rotating around themselves at the center of their own solar systems, while all the stars seemed to be moving in a circular motion together, focused right around the two largest points in his lungs, which revolved around each other, in constant motion.. But of course, these points never actually moved even a fraction of an inch. It was a sort of illusion, and although Foster was aware of this fact, he couldn’t help himself but feel wondrous at the fact that he started to feel himself become one with a world beyond his own, with the stars that he had always just been able to look at from below.

The more Foster pushed mana out of his lungs while breathing, the more he could feel this extend beyond just his body. As if more stars were forming around him in the air, as if he was the center of an infinitely expanding universe. As he breathed out, he created more of this space around him, and as he breathed in, he took some of it into himself, just to use it to create more a few moments later.

He had never thought that meditation could bring something like this about. A sort of ever-growing peace of mind.

“…oster. Foster!” Octer’s voice cut through this silence, as Foster opened his eyes annoyed, “What?” He asked, grinding his teeth together.

“We’ve got to go, our time in the room is over.” He said, and Foster raised his brow, “What are you talking about, we paid for 12 hours. It’s barely been, what, two or three?”

Octer turned his head, looking at Lynol, who quickly shook his head, “No, the time is over. You spent the rest of the time meditating, filling the room with your mana. That became pretty uncomfortable after a while, by the way.”

“…Excuse me?” Foster said with a wry smile, “The hell are you talking about? I-” In the middle of his sentence, he was interrupted by a message window popping up in front of him out of nowhere. 

— 

[Due to consistent usage of a high-quality Mana Breathing technique, your mana capacity has permanently increased by 1]

[Due to the consistent melding of mind and spirit, your understanding of your own mana has risen]

— 

“Say what now?” Foster muttered as the understanding of what these messages said flowed into his mind before he even finished reading them.

“What? Something wrong?” Lynol asked, and Foster slowly shook his head, “No, it’s fine, I… I’ll explain it on the way. I think I believe that some weird shit happened.” He pointed out, slowly trying to stand up. As he did, his body let out some loud cracks and pops, as if he had stiffened up over the past few hours that he was sitting here. But at the very least… he was sort of well-rested. As if he had slept for the first time in a while.

‘…Did I fall asleep while I was trying to meditate or something..?’ He wondered to himself, grabbing his bag and leaving the training room with Octer on Lynol. On his way out of the Red Riverside Inn’s training rooms, Foster started to explain what his meditation felt like to him, and the content of the two messages that appeared in front of him once he was done.

“So that meditation technique lets you increase your mana over time? That’s… just insane, what the hell?” Octer let out surprised, “Do you think you could… you know…” 

“I’ll make you a copy of my notes, don’t worry. And I’ll make it more readable for you.” Foster replied quickly, “Since it said that my understanding of my mana rose, then it could do the same for you. It’s the perfect thing, really. At the very least, that should be able to stop that skill from getting stuck again. What about you, want to learn it as well?” He asked, looking at Lynol. The swordsman quickly shook his head, however.

“I’ve got no use for mana. I barely even use internal energy.” Lynol pointed out, sitting down on one of the chairs. Foster and Octer looked at him, “What do you mean? You use martial skills, so you must use internal energy.” Octer said with a frown.

“Huh? No, I don’t use martial skills. I used to, of course, but ever since I switched to Swordsmanship, I haven’t used them.” He quickly explained, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, “I’m not at a stage in my swordsmanship where I can rely on them yet.”

Foster raised a brow, “What do you mean? Do you think that we’re weak because we use martial skills?”

Immediately shaking his head, Lynol explained what he meant, “Of course not. You both are strong, with or without martial skills. It is just that my… teacher, he told me not to use martial skills until I reached a certain point in my training. Until I awaken my aura, I’m not allowed to use martial skills at all.”

“Damn… but yeah, I guess I’ve never seen you use a martial skill before.” Foster said, crossing his arms, “But well, not that it matters. You obviously don’t really need them.”

“Not currently, yes. I try to make up for it in technique and physicality. A lot of greatsword wielders simply try to build up their muscles and swing their sword around as if it was a huge metal club. They’re slow and clumsy, so they lose a lot of the potential power of the greatsword. This is why I made my way here, to this town. The ‘Basement’ is the perfect place for me to train.”

Octer grinned lightly, “Then we should make sure to head down there soon, huh?”