Astral Projection

If that was the case...

The next moment, with a thought, Richard controlled his entire consciousness body to float down from the bed and drift toward the bedroom door. He passed through the wooden door with ease and appeared in the corridor outside. Then Richard turned around, a long transparent ribbon trailing behind him, and floated down the wooden stairs toward the first-floor hall. Before long, the sight of the hall unfolded before him.

Though it was already night, numerous candles and oil lamps had been lit in the palace hall, making it brightly illuminated and allowing work to proceed unhindered. At that moment, many maids were busy at their respective worktables, preparing different experimental materials according to the prescribed methods. Some were Diluted Hydrochloric Acid, some alcohol, and some Deionized Water...

At the palace entrance, several guards from the personal guard stood ramrod straight, keeping watch vigilantly. Edward, the Guard Captain, was far more relaxed. Leaning against a wall, he squinted at a palm-sized book by the palace light. He was quite cautious as he read, occasionally raising his head to scan the surroundings before lowering it again to continue reading.

Richard guided his consciousness body closer. Edward did not notice a thing. Then Richard saw words written in the palm-sized book that were extraordinarily improper for this world: Countess Elizabeth...

Heh, so it really is that kind of book. Richard glanced at it a few times, shook his head in boredom, and lost all interest in reading along with Edward. He turned and floated toward a maid at work.

She was a girl of about seventeen or eighteen named An Qi. She was fairly pretty, but the several freckles on her face greatly detracted from her appearance. Setting looks aside, however, An Qi was actually the smartest of all the maids in the palace. She could generally learn anything taught to her after seeing it just once.

Richard had sometimes considered training her into a true assistant who could help him manage the other maids. But for various reasons, he had never put the idea into practice.

At the moment, she was meticulously preparing a standard Sodium Hydroxide solution according to the task previously assigned to her.

Her first step was to use a balance to weigh out a fixed amount of solid Sodium Hydroxide. Since Richard had warned her before, she wisely did not place the Sodium Hydroxide on papyrus paper and weigh it on the balance pan. Sodium Hydroxide readily absorbed moisture and would corrode the paper. Instead, she put the Sodium Hydroxide into a beaker, weighed it together with the beaker, then subtracted the beaker's weight to obtain the actual mass of the Sodium Hydroxide.

Then came the second step...

The third step...

Watching An Qi carry out every step properly without making the slightest mistake, Richard nodded with mild satisfaction. Then something occurred to him, and he reached toward her worktable.

As expected, his palm passed easily through the tabletop.

Richard frowned. The next moment, he concentrated his Mental Strength and felt the "hands" of his consciousness body become somewhat more solid. He lightly touched the beaker on the table.

With a clatter, the beaker jolted violently and nearly fell off the table and shattered.

An Qi, who had been working, jumped in fright and hurriedly reached out to steady it. Her brows drew together as she looked suspiciously toward the palace entrance. Finding no wind blowing in, she could not help muttering, "What was that?"

Richard could not answer her, but his action just now had already told him what he could do at present: he could affect the Real World through his consciousness body, though only with great difficulty and very weakly.

After frowning in thought for a while, Richard had another thought. A tremendous pulling force arose at the back of his neck, and his entire body flew rapidly toward the bedroom. In an instant, he passed upward through the second-floor floor and several walls, returning to the bed in his bedroom.

On the soft velvet bed, Richard's body remained seated cross-legged and motionless, his chest rising and falling slowly as he maintained normal breathing.

Richard's consciousness body hovered beside his physical body. The next moment, it floated down from the bed and stopped before the nearest wall. Gathering all his Mental Strength, he carefully scratched a pattern onto the wall with the "fingernails" of his consciousness body.

After examining the pattern and nodding, Richard finally remembered the real purpose of this test—Astral Projection.

The separation of his consciousness body from his physical body was clearly one function of Astral Projection, but it was not the core of it. According to the records in the Chapter of Munro, the reason it was called Astral Projection was mainly because...

Richard looked up. With another thought, his entire body rapidly floated upward, passing through the roof of the room and then through the palace roof before landing atop the palace.

Outside the palace, the night was deep. The dark night hung over the entire world like a vast dome. Everything around him was silent, without the slightest sound. There was not even any wind, as though time had stopped.

But Richard knew it was only an illusion. He did not become uneasy because of the excessive silence. Instead, he controlled his consciousness body and continued floating upward, rising higher and higher until he reached an altitude of one hundred meters.

Looking down from a hundred meters in the air, the entirety of Blue Lion City lay before his eyes.

He saw that this world, which resembled the Middle Ages, was not as prosperous as Modern Earth. Because lighting materials were expensive, aside from the royal palace, most of Blue Lion City was plunged into darkness at night. The occasional lights that shone through all came from noble estates.

Richard watched quietly as all of Blue Lion City lay below him, feeling a little awestruck.

"Is this the power of wizards?"

Just then, a flap flap sound rang out as a black bird flew over from afar. It looked much like a crow, but it was larger than an ordinary crow. Richard recognized it as a Raven.

The Raven flew swiftly past. As it passed Richard, it seemed to sense something. It twisted its neck and looked around warily, but found nothing. In the end, it flapped its wings and flew away.

Then a brief, faint shriek reached him.

"Ah!"

Hmm? Richard looked over and discovered that the Raven had vanished. A huge, indistinct shadow swept rapidly past in the far distance, like a powerful predator.

A giant falcon?

Richard guessed, but did not pay it much attention. He withdrew his gaze, steadied himself, and looked upward.

At that moment, he saw countless densely packed points of light glittering in the dome-like night sky. They were not stars, but the energy transmitted from stars in the form of light—the so-called Astral Projection.

Astral Projection!

Richard spread his arms and followed the method recorded in the Chapter of Munro, using his Mental Strength to try to draw the energy into his body. In an instant, it felt as though sunlight was shining on him. His entire consciousness body suddenly warmed as vast amounts of energy poured in, endlessly flowing through the transparent ribbon behind his neck and into his cross-legged physical body.

But all the energy entering his body was merely a passing guest. It did not remain after entering and quickly drained away. Thus, although energy flowed in continuously, not a single trace was stored. This was precisely because his body lacked the special structure capable of storing energy—the Source. How to construct a Source was the matter of the second Life Reshaping.

The first Life Reshaping allowed the consciousness body to separate from the physical body, practice Astral Projection, and strengthen Mental Strength. The second Life Reshaping allowed cosmic energy to be stored within the body. The third Life Reshaping allowed the stored energy to transform into magical power and be used to cast spells.

As Richard contemplated the contents of the Chapter of Munro, he spread out his consciousness body in the night sky and let energy continuously flow into it. At that moment, it felt as though he were soaking in a hot spring. Though he could not gain any energy, his Mental Strength was steadily strengthening.

And so, a consciousness body floated above Blue Lion City, like a king reveling in the vast energy of Astral Projection within the night, until...