In the morning, Mateo realized that the ache of last night hadn't exactly fully gone away. Normally he recovered from workouts pretty quickly. Rolling over onto his back, he sat up, stretching till he heard his back crack. Can't say it was the most pleasant feeling he'd experienced. After getting up fully he walked into the kitchen, seeing Bentley there, cooking just like yesterday morning. Already this was feeling like routine. After greeting one another and sitting for breakfast, Bentley launched into a discussion that immediately peaked Mateo's interest.

"So, I asked a friend yesterday while you were gettin' your clothes made about meditation. And he agreed to teach you a bit about what he knows."

"Really? That's great! But, don't I have work?"

"Oh, we don't exactly have set work times. You merely come to the farm and work, then you're given food in exchange for your labor at the end of the day. Usually one day of work gets 2-4 days of food, so it's not even like most of us need to work that often."

Mateo considered that information. He now realized that he actually had a lot more free time than he initially thought now. but he also considered that working on the farm was one of the best ways to build his endurance. Shaking that off, he instead smiled at the prospect in front of him.

"So, you're saying I can properly learn meditation then?"

"Well, perhaps not as proper. Most Halflings aren't exactly experts on matters not concerning cultivation. Sure, we have a lot of free time, but most of us are fine with simple lives, our cordwainer's an exception. If you want to learn meditation in a more expert sense, your best bet is to speak to an elf."

Ah, so there are elves, thought Mateo.

"Well, learning the basics would still be great. I appreciate you taking the time to do that for me, Bentley."

"Ah, think nothin' of it, I was just askin', not like I went out of my way much."

"I still feel bad, like I've been more a leech off of you than someone who's helped you any."

Bentley seemed almost offended at the notion of that.

"Now, Mateo, I better not hear those words out of your mouth anymore! I know not of the culture of Men, where ambition is higher and life expectancy is lower, but it's just Halfling culture to look after one another. If you have an open bed, you let a friend lay in it if he needs it, no need for any payment. That's just how we are."

Mateo opened his mouth, about to protest that Bentley was doing more for him than just that, but realized that it'd be breath wasted. Bentley was unwaveringly willing to help him out, not out of any obligation or anything else, but simply because he had spare time, spare food, and a spare room. So instead, he simply said with a smile.

"Then I'll continue to thank you. If you won't hear my complaints, at least hear my gratitude."

Bentley smiled back at him.

"Aye. I can do that."

The rest of the meal passed with more affable conversation, before Bentley led Mateo out into town. He was introduced to more halflings that were neighbors to Bentley. About a fifteen minute walk from where Bentley lived was a smaller hole dug into the side of a hill. Bentley gave a firm knock to the door, before waiting. After a ten second pause, the door opened. A slightly rugged and older looking Halfling smiled at them.

"Hello, friends. I'll assume you're Mateo then? Come, come inside."

After squeezing inside and getting to a table, the halfling put on some tea.

"I'm Pendleton. Nice to meet you, Mateo. So, you'd like to learn about meditation?"

"Ah-" Mateo took a moment due to how direct Pendleton was being "yes, I'd like that very much."

"Right. Bentley calls you a friend, and I've got some spare time. I can show you a bit of what I know."

"That'd be wonderful."

He smiled at Bentley, who stood up after finishing his tea.

"Well, I'll be headed out then. Mateo, you know the way home from here?"

"Yeah, I still need to familiarize myself with the area, but it's a pretty straight walk here."

"Then I'll be around town today. Good luck with your learning."

With that, Bentley excused himself. Mateo turned back to Pendleton, who also finished his tea. Mateo had actually finished first, since he was twice their size and the glasses were scaled to them.

"Right Mateo, this is as good a place as any. You feelin' plenty relaxed?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then get in a comfortable position, close those eyes, and start to feel. You got the Energy Sense skill?"

"Yes, Level 1."

"That makes this easier then. As long as you can feel mana and such in the air around you, you've already got the first step for meditation down. Bentley told me you're actually largely unfamiliar with skills due to not having someone to teach you. How'd you get the Energy Sense skill?"

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"It's a little embarrassing to admit, but I kinda tried to brute force learning meditation by sitting still for a while and trying to just feel a Skill Stone in my hand's energy."

"Not embarrassing at all. The fact that you got the Energy Sense skill out of it speaks to your immense talent, and tells me that you were on the right track. Had you continued whatever method you'd tried for about a month, you'd probably have learned what I'm about to teach you on your own."

Well, it was at least relieving to know that he hadn't COMPLETELY wasted his time sitting there instead of working or sleeping. Still, he was glad to have a teacher for this now. Mateo shifted how he sat and closed his eyes like Pendleton had instructed now.

"Alright. So, I can feel the magic in the air... what next."

"Depends on your goal with the meditation. We just need to get you the meditation skill first, to ease the process. So for now, turn your energy sense inward."

"How do I do that?"

"Energy Sense, as a skill, defaults to using your eyes to show you the magic around you. That's why step one is to close your eyes, to cut off that avenue. Shut out your other senses as much as possible and turn your energy sensing onto your own body by effectively training it as a new sense entirely. Once you've done that, we can really get started."

Mateo nodded, following the instructions as best he could. Since his sight was already cut off and he didn't exactly have to worry about taste, he first focused on trying to dull his hearing. Easier said than done, really. There isn't exactly a built in 'turn off' switch in our heads for his ears, though after a bit of effort he managed to cut out the background chatter of the outside and the sound of birds crying. Once he got hearing down as much as he could he tried not to focus on what he was physically feeling by sitting down, though sitting in the cross-legged position as long as he was, he realized his butt was going numb anyways. Normally he'd have shifted to avoid the feeling, but for once he welcomed it. Finally, he completely held his breath, cutting off his sense of smell. With all of that at once, he focused on his Energy Sense skill. And finally, finally he could feel the energy within himself. The moment he did, he got another popup.

[ENERGY SENSE LEVEL INCREASE : 1 > 2]

He stopped holding his breath and dulling his other senses as he gasped for air, falling over after a moment. How long had he not been breathing? As he wondered that, Pendleton nudged his side a few times.

"Well, I see you succeeded. Took you a bit there, kid."

"Wh-What? I didn't think that took that long..."

"Bah, you kidding? It's been around four hours since you closed your eyes. I ate lunch."

Mateo stared back at him in straight up disbelief. That'd barely felt like ten minutes! Had he really lost himself that hard in what he'd been doing? Still, he could feel his own internal magic with only a bit of effort now after leveling Energy Sense and getting a feel for his own mana in the first place. So that was good progress. Pendleton interrupted his train of thoughts by continuing on.

"You have that Skill Stone you were wanting to learn from?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah, I've kept it on me most of the time..."

Mateo dug around his pocket till he pulled out the small red stone.

"Right, now. Close your eyes and focus on the magic within that stone. Focus on moving your own mana to your hand and connecting it to the stone to get a feel for its energy."

Mateo closed his eyes again, focusing. Most of his mana was focused in his stomach, like a small pit of roiling red and blue. He noticed that a small amount of it was being siphoned at all times. With a bit of focus on where it was going, he figured quickly that was the mana being used to power his passive skills. Once he looked back into himself he tried to move his internal magic around, but found it difficult to budge it. He could tug it around a small bit, but it wouldn't go much farther than his stomach. He opened his eyes due to feeling something close to him, and realized Pendleton was looking real close at him, leaning in his personal space to gaze at his stomach.

"Well, lad. You might not have enough mana for this."

"... really?"

"Yeah, your mana is terribly unrefined and you have a very small amount of it. Strange, most people's mana only looks like this when they're a child who just started developing their power. Alright, then I suppose instead of absorbing that stone, our priority should be getting you the Magic Bank skill."

He perked up at that, since Viola had advised him to get that.

"But even if you did get that skill, it wouldn't help with how unrefined your mana is. You have a lot of training ahead of you before you can begin to cast magic for real."

Pausing, Mateo realized a problem. According to Bentley, Pendleton wasn't exactly an expert here with Energy Sense or anything else, so there were probably people who were far more experienced among the kingdoms of Men, or Elves. It didn't exactly take a genius to figure out the reason his Mana was so unrefined and like a child's was because he, in fact, was from a different world and only just started developing his magic a few days ago. He would need some method to hide his internal magic, or someone might figure out he was a Transmigrator from his mana alone. And considering who the enemy was, they might not take too kindly to finding that out about him. Pushing those thoughts aside for now, he instead asked.

"Alright, one thing at a time I guess... how do I get Magic Bank?"

"Ah, well normally it'd be an easy time to just obtain the skill, but you don't have any refinement to your magic to structure your mana in the correct way. So for now, I'll teach you a secret method to temporarily give you more mana to work with."

He stuck up a finger with a smirk.

"Secret method? What do you mean?"

"Well, this method isn't exactly easy to pull off, especially in the moment, and some people don't consider it very useful. Most experts in magic will forego this method entirely, and Elves consider it unrefined. So usually only Halflings who need to close a gap will make use of this ability. But, whenever you gain a skill, you gain more mana in your body to compensate for the constant drain. If you temporarily disable a few of your skills, you free up some of that mana usually reserved for skills for use elsewhere."

Mateo paused. Learning all of that was a bit of a revelation. He'd previously considered that Skills were basically the only way to use magic, but this made him remember. Viola had merely said that Skills were a blueprint to use magic as a simplified example. Freeing up magic for other things... he realized he'd been approaching the magic of this world the wrong way. He'd have to do some testing and hopefully get access to some kind of scholarly papers on magic to truly figure out the best way to gain the strength he'd need for the tasks ahead.

Pendleton knocked his elbow to Mateo's shoulder.

"Come back here tomorrow. I'll spend a few hours a day showing you how to disable your skills. Once you've got that down, we'll focus on getting you Magic Bank."

Mateo smiled.

"Sounds great to me. Then, if you'll excuse me..."

He stood up, having to lean down still due to the low roof.

"Thank you. If you need anything Pendleton, you can ask and I'll be there to help."

Pendleton smiled at him.

"You're a good lad. I'll hold you to that, then. See you tomorrow, Mateo."

"See you tomorrow!"

Mateo dashed on out of there, deciding to spend the rest of his day working out.