Chapter 27: Meditation

“Feel,” Nermit commanded. The members of the party were all sitting around him with one palm outstretched to touch some part of his body. Dr. Funk was sitting in Riley’s lap and giving him the stink eye every time he ever-so-slightly shifted his position.

When they got back to camp Nermit was emphatic that they needed to try what he had been doing with his spare time during the nights. His taciturn nature didn’t give the group many details, but he was persistent enough that even Scott caved and was pulled away from his target practice.

Riley wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be feeling for, there hadn’t been any further instructions. Nermit’s eyes were closed however, and Riley copied the gesture giving himself to this exercise.

He focused his attention on the palm of his hand. His palm felt warm where it met Nermit’s body. A cool breeze was fighting off the burning rays of sun keeping him at a comfortable temperature. In the calm of the moment Riley realized that before the system he would have been unbearably hot right now. He acknowledged the thought and then released it, calming his mind again and centering his focus back onto the palm of his hand. That was a meditation trick he had learned that helped to keep the mind from wandering during long sessions.

Riley’s mana reacted to something Nermit was doing. It was slight, but it caused him to sharpen his focus. There was something tickling at the edges of what he could sense. He instinctively pushed his palm towards Nermit trying to get just a little bit closer to the feeling. Then it disappeared.

He opened his eyes to see Nermit taking a calming breath.

“Again,” Heather said, echoing Riley’s own thoughts.

Again, and again Nermit continued to do whatever it was he was doing and Riley’s grasp on the feeling grew deeper with it. He could capture more of the moment and with that came a more complete picture of what was happening.

“You’re activating a skill,” Riley said. Nermit nodded. “But you’re not casting anything?” Riley’s voice lilted up as if he had asked a question. Nermit shook his head ‘no.’

“Again,” Heather said. Her eyes were focused now and for a brief moment Riley felt like he could actually physically feel the intensity pouring of of her. But the moment quickly passed, and Heather was back to normal. Riley hadn’t been the only one to notice the power as Nermit’s eyes were locked onto Heather’s as well, a slight chill went down his back and the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up.

After a moments rest Nermit closed his eyes and went through the exercise again. Now that he knew what to look for Riley could feel the motion of Nermit’s mana as it circled his body. The further away from Riley’s palm the fuzzier the feeling got but there was a very distinctive way the mana moved, and it had been consistent across every time they went through the exercise. With a little more depth of vision, Riley felt like he could copy what Nermit was doing. Perhaps he would even able to cast the ability without access to it.

“How are you doing that?” Casey asked, after the exercise was over.

Nermit shrugged, then after a moment, “Activate the skill, without activating the skill.” He nodded at his own words, as if he had just given sage advice. Riley was more confused if anything. How could he activate his abilities without activating them? It didn’t make any sense.

“Why did I need to be here for this?” Scott asked, exasperated. He had been fidgeting during the whole exercise and looked like he was on the cusp of picking up his bow and frolicking off to the far end of the oasis to practice using his bow. He had set up a small agility course using boulders and fallen trees as obstacles so he could practice shooting while on the move.

Casey slapped him lightly on the back of his head. “Because we can practice our abilities without wasting mana, you dolt.”

“Bah, I’ll be fine without it.”

Scott got up to leave but Casey, from a sitting position, dropped into her own shadow appearing behind Scott and pulling him into a headlock. “Oh yeah, you’ll be fine? You’ll be fine? Then attune your ability right now. Do it.”

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“Agh, I can’t do it right now.” Scott said, trying to wriggle his way out of his sister’s grasp. Her superior body score wouldn’t let him.

She released Scott, “that’s what I thought. How about a shot bet? If you can sit here and last as long as the first other person to leave, you win.”

“But this is boooring,” Scott whined. “This isn’t worth a shot.”

“Two shots,” Casey offered.

Scott seemed to consider it for a moment, “five shots,” he countered.

“Five?!” Casey said. She tried to stare him down, but Scott remained firm. “Ugh, fine.”

Scott pumped his fist in the air, “I would have settled for three.” He walked back to his spot and sat back down.

“We’re going to need a while distillery by the time we can even do these shots.” Casey lamented. “Is anyone even keeping track of these things? We usually just do them all right away.”

Nermit raised his hand in response.

The party settled back down, getting into their starting positions. Riley was excited to try out this new internal activation method. Currently he could cast his Rock Armor ability seven time over the course of a whole day. With this new ability he could turn that into hundreds of tries. This was an incredible discovery, and when asked about how he discovered it Nermit’s answer was simple, he showed them his status screen.

Status

Nermit

Basic Mask: Level 20

Body: 20

Magic: 31

Spirit: 25 (+4)

Abilities:

Quick Heal (A)

Shield of the Pious

Locked

Locked

Locked

“Spirit,” Nermit said.

Casey whistled. “DAAAQ Nermy,” Casey said, drawing out the ‘a,’ “that Spirit score is sa-weet.”

Riley was feeling his stat imbalance more than ever. It had seemed necessary at the time, but his 10 Spirit was no longer feeling adequate. His focus on his Body score had allowed him to keep up with the level 30+ monsters they had been encountering but that had a cost. A cost Riley was no longer interested in paying.

Riley focused on activating his Lingering Leech skill. There were two reasons. The first was he still hadn’t recovered enough mana to activate his Rock Armor skill again. He was almost there, but not quite. The second reason was that the skill was mostly a passive effect, so there was no risk of him accidentally using the ability and wasting the mana.

The ability was hard to grasp. Unlike with his Rock Armor skill Riley had no idea where to start. He knew the feeling of the ability when it activated, but there was always an attack preceding the activation. Without the attack Riley’s mana was flopping around like a fish on land.

Try as he might Riley couldn’t get the skill to activate. He snuck a peak at the others.

Nermit was a harsh task master. He had picked up a stick at some point and was using it to swat at the others as they attempted to activate their abilities. Every time he felt their mana being to manifest outside of their bodies he swatted them, breaking their concentration on the ability and forcefully halting the activation. Riley was glad he could practice on his own.

Nermit caught Riley looking and arched an eyebrow at him. Riley hastily closed his eyes and returned to practice. He focused on the feeling he got in combat when the ability activated. It was like an elastic band reaching out and grabbing at something before snapping back to his core. The power stretched along his mana channels, through his arm. The mechanism of grabbing was completely foreign to him, but he wasn’t there just yet.

Riley reached into his core and tried to grasp his mana. It was like trying to grab a cloud, the mana slipping through his mental fingers. He remembered his last mid-battle inspiration, when he had evolved his Leech ability into his Lingering Leech. He had somehow commanded the mana to react as he wanted.

Riley focused his mind. He cleared it of all distracting thoughts. The roar of the waterfall drowned out the rest of the noises of the oasis they found themselves in. He put more of himself into his core until the waterfall turned into pure white noise that receded to a dull background into his mind.

Within his core was a roiling ball of mana. Constantly churning and moving in erratic patterns. Riley had never taken the time to view his mana in this manner and he felt himself fascinated by it. He didn’t feel the time pass as he watched his mana in its base form. Watching the ball of mana Riley felt at peace.

Taking a deep breath Riley sent the whole of his being at the mana, calling it to move. Nothing happened. He refocused his will yelling at the mana to move, to do something. The mana continued to churn.

Riley recollected himself. He honed his mind, focused on exactly what he wanted to happen. He imagine the cord of power that extended from his core to his limbs. How the power stretched and retracted. How he wanted, no, needed his mana to do the same. Right now.

MOVE.

For a moment Riley’s whole being was focused entirely on this one task. The ball of mana answered. It moved, all at once it slammed into the walls of his core, causing Riley to almost cry out in pain.

Instead of traveling along a mana channel Riley’s undirected command had caused the power to move in any direction, and as a result it had slammed into the wall of his core. But Riley couldn’t keep the smile off of his face. He had done it. Now, it was only a matter of practice.