Setting a Small Goal

Wayne returned to the villa mansion and sat cross-legged in meditation, strengthening his mind and magic power. He could maintain high-efficiency meditation for half an hour each day. Beyond that limit, excessive mental exertion would plunge him into a state of mental exhaustion and drowsiness. One's mind determined the duration of meditation. Meditation drained mental energy while simultaneously strengthening the mind and magic power. Wayne decided to set a small goal first: maintain long, highly efficient meditation, squeezing every drop of his potential to continuously strengthen his mind, thereby making his meditation sessions even longer and more effective. That small goal was twenty-four hours a day! Once he could guarantee having enough mental energy for meditation each day, he would move on to a second small goal: conditioning his body to meditate automatically, splitting his focus so that his body remained in meditation without requiring his conscious control. *You're already a mature meditation technique; learn to move on your own!* His ordinary talent weighed heavily on Wayne. He had no desire to be a mediocre mage. He had the finest teacher and the finest meditation method; he ought to go farther on this path than anyone else. *So what if they have a bit more talent? What's the big deal? Bring it on! Let's grind—let's see who grinds whom into the dirt first!* Putting his hairline on the line, Wayne vowed to out-grind every single prodigy! *** March 23, afternoon. A delivery from Londan arrived at the villa mansion in Enrold Town. Two maids carried the wooden crate into Wayne's bedroom, and he tore into the package without delay. Inside were nearly sixty books: bound academy volumes on fundamental magical theory, practice guides, and psychological counseling manuals related to magic studies. After sorting through them, Wayne also discovered an assortment of bottles and jars containing medicinal supplements to boost brainpower and small pills meant to clear the mind and sharpen focus for meditation. Even more prevalent were psychiatric medications. Mages were never without their medicine, nor were they ever lacking in psychological counseling courses. Magic was dangerous. The tale of the three little boats had been no joke. Even during the initial stage of igniting the hexagram, an imbalance among the four elements, the Void, and the Self could inflict psychological disorders on a novice mage. Left untreated for too long, one went mad! A note was tucked inside the parcel laying out a curriculum for basic magical theory: what should be studied in first year, what in second year, and a stern warning against rushing to skip grades. Even prodigies had to consult their mentors before skipping ahead, advancing to the next round of studies only with their mentor's approval. Wayne opened the first-year textbooks. They were filled with rote memorization. With his eidetic memory, he could commit them all to heart by pulling an all-nighter. Rather than rushing through the texts, Wayne opened the practice guide for the hexagram to study the technique of igniting it. Xifei had touched upon this subject. Wayne had already mastered the ignition of the four elements; there were no shortcuts, only persistent practice. When a mage captured elemental motes, the four elements entered the body and individually strengthened their corresponding aspects of life essence. The earth element was the foundation of life, fortifying muscle, bone, and internal organs. The fire element was the energy of life, fueling desire. The water element was the fountainhead of life, serving to counterbalance the desires of fire. The wind element was the breath of life, preserving the mage's vigorous physique and even sustaining eternal youth. Together, the four great elements represented a mage's most fundamental life essence. The Self—that is, the mind—strengthened this baseline life essence, elevating it to the extraordinary and granting it the power to reshape reality. The strength of life essence was not uniform. Setting aside the empowerment brought by the mind and looking solely at the foundation, its strength depended entirely on a mage's innate potential. As the saying went, one person's constitution could never be compared to another's! Take Veronica, for example. The constitution of a dragon blood scion was monstrously powerful, so her life essence far surpassed that of an ordinary person. During meditation, she required immense quantities of earth element to temper her muscle, bone, and organs; until her body was fully sated, not a single mote of earth element could be spared to ignite the hexagram. The other three elements functioned on basically the same principle, with fire being somewhat exceptional. The desires within the human body were already exaggerated enough; under normal circumstances, there was no need to absorb massive amounts of natural fire element. Only after the four elements satisfied the life essence could a mage ignite the four points of earth, fire, water, and wind. Igniting the Self was the simplest: everyone was born with it, and diligent meditation would strengthen it until it radiated brilliance on its own. Finally came the Void. Igniting the Void was both simple and difficult. To say it was simple, one needed only to read widely and absorb knowledge; the knowledge taught by the academy was more than enough for any student to ignite it. To say it was difficult, the key lay in self-control. Before the hexagram was ignited and its lines fully connected, one could under no circumstances study advanced knowledge. Otherwise, the hexagram would fall out of balance, leaving one forever unable to join the points. Wayne spent the entire afternoon reading. That evening, he received a phone call from Xifei, who gave him an online lecture to explain the questions he had marked. The call was brief. Xifei was extremely busy, rushing off her feet the moment she returned to Londan. The homework she assigned Wayne was meditation: extend his meditation time as much as possible and capture more elemental motes. These elemental motes would go toward sating Wayne's life essence—in other words, solidifying his foundation. Sating one's life essence was not achieved overnight; it took a long time, and a precise timeframe was hard to predict. Generally speaking, the longer it took, the stronger the life essence. Xifei gave Wayne a rough estimate: three months. "Teacher, why is mine so short?" Wayne sounded quite disappointed. A shorter duration might seem nice since he could ignite the hexagram sooner, but it also meant his potential was ordinary. "That's already very long!" Xifei replied, somewhat exasperated. Her student had no idea how terrifying his elemental affinity was; her estimate of three months was already conservative. A normal academy-trained prodigy who had practiced meditation since childhood would require three to five years of accumulation. Xifei had never underestimated Wayne's talent; she simply could not gauge his life potential. Considering he was merely an ordinary human without any messy bloodline heritages, she categorized his life essence alongside the very best of conventional human prodigies. Adding it all up, three months was about right. After hanging up, Wayne felt somewhat deflated, dealt another blow. If possible, why wouldn't he want to be a supreme genius with limitless potential? Alas, it was not meant to be! Harsh reality battered Wayne's confidence again and again. Fortunately, he could still grind; otherwise, he would be completely helpless. At the thought, Wayne grumbled once more about his cheat. The Book of Greed was useless at everything except devouring whatever was in sight, and its sole skin trait had turned him into something neither human nor ghost. "For better or worse, give me a bit of potential! Boost it! Just a tiny bit!" Wayne closed his eyes, staring at the Book of Greed's giant eye. The eye stared back. Wayne's vision shifted, feeling as though the Book of Greed were him and he were the Book of Greed. That night, the white pigeon emerged from the top hat, hopping over to open the feed bag and begin eating. The carrier bird in Wayne's house had exceptional hands-on initiative. This pigeon in particular understood the virtue of self-reliance. Wait for the master to feed you, and you'd starve nine meals in three days; Feed yourself, and you'd feast one meal after another. After finishing its meal, the white pigeon hopped about on the desk and windowsill for a bit. Once it had relieved itself, it slipped back into the hat without bothering Wayne. Wayne sat cross-legged on the carpet, his tentacles plundering in all directions, reeling in every elemental mote that failed to dodge in time. As of now, he still hadn't touched the bottom of his life essence. *Makes sense. My talent is average and my elemental affinity is poor. I exhaust myself just to net a thousand-odd motes, which isn't even a fraction of what prodigies gather. I'd be dreaming if I thought I could reach the bottom so soon...* Dizzy and lightheaded, Wayne took a deep breath, retrieved a bottle of pills, swallowed one, and re-entered meditation. Some elemental mote must have leaked the news, because the earth, water, and wind elements did not dare approach the mansion. Only the fire element gathered in ever-greater numbers, swarming around Wayne with burning enthusiasm. *The unobtained is forever in turmoil; the favored has nothing to fear.* Wayne kept Xifei's warning firmly in mind: the desires within the human body were already abundant, with no need to draw more from the natural world. He therefore gave the enthusiastic fire element the cold shoulder, responding to every fawning overture with a dry "hehe." *Busy, in the shower.* Meanwhile, the Book of Greed savored the seventy percent of elemental motes it skimmed off. It hungered deeply for the missing fire element, but unable to sway Wayne's will, it could only wait in silence for him to change his mind. Around that giant eye, several smaller eyes opened. The Book of Greed had changed considerably of late. The most prominent change lay at the four corners of its front cover, where three slightly larger eyes were slowly opening: Earth yellow; Deep azure; Verdant green. From tightly shut at first, to grayish-white upon opening, to now gradually taking on a hint of luster, the three eyeballs were steadily being awakened by Wayne.