Idle Cultivation

Duke carefully tucked the ten Arcane Cards close to his body and put the other discarded spirit cards in his bag. While there was still time, he took a vehicle to the Spirit Tower.

It wasn't that he wanted to go out and fool around.

He had earned some money and wanted to exchange it for a meditation method.

Back then, so Xiao Yi could help with cultivation, he had chosen the easiest Blank Paper Meditation. It was convenient for Xiao Yi to cultivate in his place without affecting his own movements.

Now, it seemed that Xiao Yi's functions were powerful enough that even a more difficult meditation method would pose no problem for her to cultivate in his place.

This was his second visit to the Spirit Tower, and he already knew the place like the back of his hand.

He went straight to the meditation method administration office. The same Mr. Willgang he had met before was in charge. He still remembered Duke a little. "It's you. What brings you here?"

"Uh, Mr. Willgang, I'd like to exchange for another meditation method."

"Exchange meditation methods?"

"Yes. Blank Paper Meditation is too inefficient."

"Hmph, I warned you long ago that you had to choose a meditation method that suited you..." Mr. Willgang rolled his eyes. "Forget it. Few of you young people have clear heads... Which meditation method do you want? Let me warn you in advance: reproducing a meditation method costs one gold dragon each time. When you meditate, be careful not to mix up the two methods!"

"Alright. I'll choose Field Meditation."

"Hm?" Mr. Willgang frowned as he glanced at Duke's information sheet. "Are you sure? With your below-average talent, I advise you to honestly choose Bedrock Meditation."

"No, I want to challenge myself!" Duke insisted.

In any case, he wasn't the one cultivating. It was Xiao Yi, the Ninth-Ring Arcane Artifact, who would cultivate. As for a meditation method at the Spiritual Apprentice level, just how difficult could it possibly be?

"Heh." Mr. Willgang was laughing in exasperation.

He simply stopped trying to persuade him and said to his assistant, "Swipe his card, then take him to reproduce Field Meditation."

The same room. The same machine.

After he put on the helmet, mysterious energy wrapped around his thoughts. A brand-new meditation method was transmitted through the energy produced by the instrument and continuously reproduced in his spirit sea.

A moment later, the reproduction was complete.

Duke didn't linger and went straight back to the small hotel.

"Xiao Yi, have you finished debugging Field Meditation?"

"Initial debugging is complete. However, the difficulty of meditating with Field Meditation is greater than that of Blank Paper Meditation. When Xiao Yi cultivates in the master's place, she may be easily disturbed by external factors."

"It's fine. Let's try cultivating with it first."

Duke wasn't worried. If it failed, at worst he could switch back to Blank Paper Meditation.

Ever since he had Xiao Yi, a top-level artificial intelligence and Ninth-Ring Arcane Artifact, he felt that his spirit sea was like a computer, while Xiao Yi was its CPU.

The only problem was that, aside from the CPU, all the computer's other hardware was still too weak.

It could run a low-end "program" like Blank Paper Meditation, but it was hard to say whether it could handle a slightly more advanced "program" like Field Meditation.

Immediately.

He began studying the discarded spirit cards he had bought from the Scrap Card Station, while Xiao Yi started cultivating Field Meditation in his spirit sea. A moment later, he felt spirituality being absorbed by his body.

Just as he was about to communicate with Xiao Yi, that feeling of absorbing spirituality rapidly faded away.

"Sorry, Master. An error occurred while cultivating Field Meditation, and it has now crashed. Xiao Yi is summarizing the cause of the failure," Xiao Yi replied.

"Did it fail? It's fine. Summarize the experience and try again next time!"

"Yes, Master."

"Also, while I'm sleeping, you can switch the meditation method to Field Meditation to increase cultivation efficiency."

After a night passed, Duke woke early the next morning and checked the condition of his spirit sea.

He found that after switching to Field Meditation, the speed at which Spirit Liquid condensed had indeed increased, but not by much. There was no obvious difference between the various meditation methods without long-term cultivation.

"I heard that Chen Jiao Grand Hotel in the city center was built directly above the eye of a Spirit Spring, and every room was filled with a spiritual aura that spread like mist... I wonder what cultivating there would feel like. Once I have money, I definitely have to try it!" Carrying beautiful hopes for the future, Duke checked out and left.

The Black Beetle Car sped along the route to Snakehead Town as usual.

With a Great Knight accompanying and escorting the vehicle the entire way, he arrived at the station without a hitch.

"Whew, back safe and sound!"

Duke glanced toward home and felt a little self-mocking inside. It's only ten Arcane Cards. Why would so many people with nothing better to do come after me?

That said, caution never hurt.

The next time Duke went out to purchase spirit cards, he would still remain cautious, ensuring that danger stayed far away from him at all times.

When he returned to the shop, he handed the materials over to Lisa and the others, then hurried to the kitchen to eat. Ever since he had hired Aunt Abby to cook and sweep, he no longer had to waste time on housework.

After lunch.

Duke went straight to the address Rony had left behind, but Rony wasn't at home. After knocking for a long while without receiving a response, Duke had no choice but to return to the shop and come back to knock again in the evening.

This time, the door opened, and he saw Rony.

"Did you buy the Arcane Cards?" Rony's eyes lit up.

"Of course."

"Excellent. Swipe the card!" Rony took out his Spirit Dragon Card and swiped fifty silver dragons to Duke, then accepted the Arcane Cards. "Boss Duke, you do good work. I'll come to you again when I have another need."

"It was my honor to serve you." After receiving the money, Duke politely took his leave.

When he returned to the shop again, he suddenly felt a weight lift from his body. He soon understood that the binding force of that agreement contract was dissipating.

"Remarkable!"

Duke grew increasingly curious about how many extraordinary and incredible powers existed in the field of Spiritual Arcana.

After locking up the shop that night, Duke returned to the residence he had renovated from his warehouse. He began flipping through books while waiting for Xiao Yi's Nth attempt to cultivate Field Meditation.

All day long, Xiao Yi had continuously cultivated, failed, and summarized her experiences.

The light illuminated the small room, leaving only the sound of Duke turning pages.

No one knew how much time had passed. That feeling of absorbing spirituality lingered without fading.

At that moment, Xiao Yi's voice came through. "Master, I have successfully cultivated Field Meditation in 'idle mode.' I have confirmed that all erroneous factors have been completely eliminated."

"Idle mode" was what Duke called Xiao Yi cultivating in his place.

It was currently Xiao Yi's most important function.

"Excellent. By the way, Xiao Yi, how is the improvement of the Sand Eagle coming along?" Duke hadn't forgotten the other task he had assigned Xiao Yi: "installing" a suppressor on the Sand Eagle.

Xiao Yi replied, "After formally cultivating Field Meditation, Xiao Yi cannot free up any additional processing power for improvements. At present, the Sand Eagle improvement project remains at the materials application stage."

The forging of an arcane artifact required more than just a spell model. It also required the application of materials.

Only when suitable materials fused with Spiritual Power could an arcane artifact capable of adapting to the spell model be forged. Otherwise, the spell model would remain difficult to release, and the arcane artifact would become nothing more than a pile of scrap.

Xiao Yi then added, "I recommend that the master purchase more books related to materials. Xiao Yi needs to expand her database to complete the materials application phase of the subsequent Sand Eagle improvement project."

"Don't worry. That's what I'm reading right now." Duke waved the book in his hand.

Its title was Compendium of Spirit Metal Smelting Formulas, and it recorded a large number of publicly released smelting formulas for various spirit metals, most of them formulas whose patents had expired.

The Tower of Erudition announced expired patents every year.