190 Elder Palace (2/2)
The elder looked up and a smile appeared on her pretty face, ”You are back.”, she exclaimed while jumping up and rushing towards Miss. Klein.
Her face looked quite young, not older than eighteen or so. And her behavior could be said to be the same. She didn't behave like an elder but more like a small girl. In fact, the way she started to chat with Miss. Klein made one question the fact that she was the master. Now it appeared more like she was a younger sister.
The two of them were ignored as the two women chatted happily with each other. They even sat down together on the floor, while Ivan and Serge were left standing at the entrance of the room.
Ivan saw no reason to stay standing. Their chat was sure to continue on for a while. So he made some space on the ground and sat down as well. He then closed his eyes and started to meditate. He wanted to get a better feeling for the atmosphere here and how, if it would affect his use of mana. With Miss. Klein's warning fresh in mind he didn't try to absorb energy into his body with his training skill but that didn't stop him from trying to get a feeling of it.
The problem was that whenever he tried to move the energy, similar to he would do back home, where he would then absorb it, it felt as if he was trying to move a mountain. A mountain deeply rooted.
He didn't know if it would be dangerous for him if he absorbed energy but he realized that it was currently impossible to even move it. His mind just wasn't strong enough. Of course, this observation directly led him to another training method he could try.
Since it was necessary to have a strong mind to influence the energy, then wouldn't trying to move this mountainlike energy be a great way to strengthen his mind. Just when he thought this far, he instantly started to put his theories into practice.
First he would try to reduce the amount of energy he was moving even further. Although what he had tried before was already the smallest amount he could grasp, this didn't mean that with training he couldn't decrease it. It was just that he hadn't had to do so before. Back in the realm of Mythelem his goal had always been the opposite. With the thinner energy, it had been his goal to move as much energy as possible at the same time since that would increase his training speed.
So his training now went in the exact opposite way.
It was as if small splitter were shaved off from the mountain. They were negligible in the whole picture but still showed that he had made progress. Each time he managed to shave something off, he got closer to his goal. Maybe sometimes if he had a fine enough control he would be able to even absorb some of it.
The only problem was that doing it required a huge amount of concentration. So it didn't take long until his mental strength was exhausted and he got tired.
Being careful he directly stopped as soon as he felt the slightest sloppiness in his thoughts. What he did could be dangerous if he suddenly messed up and absorbed the energy although he wasn't planning to. Who knew what would happen then. Maybe he would even explode, something he wasn't willing to risk. Exploding fucking hurt and the damage to his body wouldn't be completely fixed even with 'Reincarnation'.
That was something he had found out over time. There were wounds that 'Reincarnation' didn't fix directly. Instead, he would have to wait for them to heal like anyone else. These wounds were mostly connected with cultivating and not battle wounds. All of his battle wounds, which he had experienced until now, would always be gone after going through reincarnation.
When he had first experienced it he realized that the skill wasn't a safety net for every situation, allowing him to do what he wanted. No, he still had to be careful. Of course, dying in a controlled way could greatly help him.
Having exhausted his mental strength he felt sleepy and since the women showed no sign of stopping their chat, he kept his eyes closed and let his thoughts drift away.
Originally he had planned to stay awake and just let his thoughts drift awhile, letting his mental strength regenerate slowly. But who knew that not long after making that decision he fell asleep for real.