Starlight Necromancer

Chapter 116 - Inner Constellation

Foster carried the weapons into the training room, and placed them down onto the ground, "Did I seriously already have to buy them? Can't I train the rest first?"

"Of course you can, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't already get these weapons and prepare you for learning those new techniques." Lynol replied immediately. Foster rolled his eyes, watching as Aster slowly climbed out of his hair, "Oh, hey there, bud. You've been sleeping a lot the past few days. You alright?"

The tiny mask spirit set its feet down on the back of Foster's hand, slowly nodding its head. Soon, he dropped onto his butt, and looked around the room, "Hm... by the way, don't you think it would be a good idea to have Aster level up a little bit more? You know... to help him mature a bit more quickly?"

"....I have no idea how those things work, sorry." Lynol replied instantly, as Octer stepped into the room with a wry smile, "But I do. Generally, yes, helping your familiar grow is important. But at the same time, while you grow, so does your familiar. Meaning that by helping you level up, we help him level up." He explained, and Foster lightly smiled at him.

"Awesome, thanks, big guy." He said, before tying his hair up into a ponytail again. He put on his new, heavier boots, and jumped up and down a few times, "Alright, then let's try this out."

Foster entered his basic stance, pushing his feet to other side of his body. He started to shift his weight, and tried to lift his foot off the ground. But before he was able to finish the motion, Lynol held his sword in front of Foster.

"Yo, the fuck're you doing?" Foster asked with a wry smile, and Lynol closed his eyes before letting out a slight sigh, "That's what I was about to ask you. Is your head fine again?"

"Yes, of course it is." He replied, and Lynol locked eyes with him. Foster really wasn't sure what exactly Lynol was so worried about. With a slight sigh, the swordsman pointed at the floor with one of his hands, "Take those shoes off, and sit down. Now." He said with a slight frown. Foster really wasn't sure what was going on, but he didn't want to fight with Lynol when he was like this. Pushing his shoes off his feet again, Foster sat down, looking up at his friend.

"Now what?" He asked, while Lynol was walking over to Foster's bag. He grabbed one of the books and threw it over to Foster, "Do this."

"...You want me to meditate?" 

"Yes, I do." Lynol replied immediately, "Meditation can help you grow calm, and it can bring the energies within your body back into order. It's worth it, trust me."

Foster looked at the book with a wry smile, not sure if that was really worth it, "But it's, like... kinda useless, isn't it? I mean, meditation is just sort of a hoax thing or something, right?"

Octer and Lynol looked at each other for a moment, and then turned back toward Foster, "What do you mean? Meditation is a legitimate method of internal and mental training. If you've got any sort of energy you use in your everyday life, meditation is sort of... a must."

"Say what now?" Foster replied after Octer's statement. He didn't expect it to be all that serious. To him, meditation just seemed like something that weirdos and 'enterpreneurs' did to show off. But then again... internal energy, or stamina, as well as mana weren't a thing on earth. So maybe meditation could really help? He did have to manipulate them mentally, after all.

"Alright. For now, I will help you, since it does not seem like you know what to do." Lynol said, slowly sitting down as well, although he clearly wanted to play around with his new sword. Foster sighed, and saw that even Octer sat down, so that the three of them could meditate together.

"Try to read the explanations of the meditation technique in the book first." Octer suggested, "That way we know what you need to pay attention to."

"Fine." Foster grumbled slightly to himself, before he started to read the text. There was a pretty lengthy introduction based around general knowledge on meditation and breathing techniques that Foster mostly skipped over until he got to the actual descriptions and sketches, "Hm... here it is... first I need the breathing technique apparently. So... 'To learn the mana breathing technique, first calm your heart rate and breathing down to as low as you can get it'. Then some boring stuff, more boring stuff... ah, here, 'Consciously circulate the internal mana through your magic circuits, creating a specific flow of energy.'" Foster read out loud, and flipped through to the next page, soon seeing an illustration of the human body, in quite a lot of detail. It showed a sort of branch-like pattern running through it, with certain points highlighted throughout.

And then, the whole next page was dedicated to describing the exact path that mana had to take in excruciating detail, "Seriously now? No way am I gonna be able to figure this out..." Foster groaned loudly, dropping the book on the ground in front of him as he dropped to his back. Aster climbed onto his face, unsure what was going on, while Octer picked up the book and looked at the descriptions.

"Foster... How about... you think of this as a star map?" Octer suggested, and without a second's hesitation, Foster sat back up. Aster was nearly catapulted off his face, but he managed to grab onto Foster's nostrils before that happened.

"Star map?" He repeated curiously, and Octer quickly nodded, "Yeah... The meditation technique I use is much more simple than this, so to me it looks basically the same anyway. The fact that I can't read any of the text sort of helps with that, weirdly enough..."

Foster raised his brow, and stretched himself to pull his bag over to himself. From there, he grabbed the notebook that he had used to create his own personal star maps and sketches of different constellations and asterisms. Quickly, he flipped to the last page, and pushed the page from Thiodrus' book underneath it, tracing the points into the notebook.

"Huh... you've got a point, I can see this being a bit similar to stars." Foster said with a grin, "This might actually be kind of fun, then."

"...Really? Numbers are what make this fun for you?" Lynol asked perplexed, looking at his friend who, without even looking up from his notebook, replied, "Yup. I mean, sort of. It makes it easier for me to remember, at least."

Once Foster wrote the connections between the different points, or 'stars', within his body down in the same format as he would connections between stars in a constellation, he slowly closed his eyes. This whole thing was a bit more complicated than a constellation, but if he went about it the right way, then he should be able to manage it. And so, he started to concentrate on his mana.